Monday, July 29, 2013

Ten days with Vijay

Nick arrived home on Friday night after his week in Palmerston North, bringing Vijay Chandra home with him to spend the next ten days with us.  Vijay is a pastor in Fiji, and we've struck up a partnership with his church in support and prayer.  We had a good number of invites from church folk for Vijay for teas and things, some of which included the whole family:
Saturday night we were at Graham and Liz for bacon butties...
 ...and ate lots of chocolate.  The Gregories were just recently returned from Auckland and neither was feeling very well, so we kept it an early night.
Sunday lunch was a great gathering at the de Beers' home.  I had already prepared a goat curry on Saturday, so we took that along and joined it with meals from the Phillipses, Niewoudts, Danielle (Andreas was away in SA) and de Beers.
Matt showed us their two new pets - giant Flemish rabbits. 
Monday night we had a delicious meal and wonderful fellowship with Cynthia...

...and the boys found an alternative use for Jenga blocks.
On Wednesday afternoon we were treated to lunch at the Phillipses and a few rounds of table tennis.  Good to spend a relaxed afternoon in the "greenhouse"!
On Friday we had planned to spend the day in Tekapo and hopefully see some snow, but shortly after turning off Highway 1 onto Point Highway, our van's engine came to its end with a frighteningly large cloud of smoke and a lot of noise.  Thank the Lord that we weren't far out of town at all, and could easily have walked to the Gregory's house.  As it was, we phoned Graham and he quickly came and collected us and took us home.  The van was towed back to our house later in the afternoon, so instead of Tekapo we providentally spent a more profitable afternoon at the Moore's home.
And then, finally, Sunday lunch was at the Kempf's home.  Vijay commented that he brought the sunshine with him from Fiji; we thanked the Lord for the great weather which meant that our guest didn't spend all week shivering! 
Vijay was collected by shuttle bus early on Monday morning, coinciding with the boys and I leaving for our first day of Term 3 - thus ends our winter holiday, and our time with Vijay. Until next time!

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