I’m now in Venezuela, MUCH has happened.
Let me take you back to Addington, a district of Christchurch. We arrived there on March 14th. The people who live there went above and beyond in looking after us for the following two months, we made some great friends and it was the most impacting time of our whole trip. The following blog cannot do justice to the people there, but to give you some idea I’ve written a bit about them…They have this mission statement:
“We strive to be a redemptive community of faith, sharing the gospel in word, sign and deed. So we move into the same neighbourhood and go on the journey of learning to love God, Each Other and Our Neighbours (locally and globally).”
So they live in close proximity or in the same house in different “hubs” in Addington, which is an area with a mixture of mid-range, low-cost and council housing. Our hub was at Ants and Sandy and Bruce’s house. Ants and Sandy have 2 girls, Hanna aged 7 and Olivia aged 5. They own the house with Bruce and also live with Harmony, Tai (in a pop-top – a caravan with a canvas top) and Josh (in a shipping container in the back garden). Next door live the boys, Matt (Belly), Matt (Barus), Mike and Jared. Also met Barus’ girlfriend Anna and Jared’s fiancé Cally, both lovely. This eclectic mix of wonderful and very normal people have dinner together every night, devotions (prayers) every other morning, Thursday is “hub” night and this is a time of sharing honestly about the good and bad of the past weeks in trying to love God, each other and neighbour. Every two weeks they meet as a whole community to learn from each other or an outside speaker about different aspects of community and how to love people better, and to share the struggles or the joys of the past weeks. Wednesday evenings it’s Life Groups which include netball (which I LOVED), cooking club, crafts, movie/doco night, bible study, and a few others. The aim of these was for them to be open to people (often those on the margins) to get involved in stuff they would enjoy and that there would be people there who they could connect with on a regular basis and form meaningful friendships with.
In another hub is Kathy and Ian and their kids Laura (14) and Richard (20ish), who live with Catherine and Caleb and their baby Ari, and Tess and Shauna, and Andy and Pauline (who live around the corner and let us house sit for a week – kindness!), in another is Age(Adrian) and Ally (Catherine’s sister) who live with Alice, and Linda and Joan who live in small flats behind their house, Ruth and Matt (who also live around the corner) and their kids Mia, aged 4, Alex, aged 2 and Gabrielle aged a few weeks. Another hub who all live on the same street are Adam (a wonderful man) who lives with Canadian sisters Steph (lovely baking) and Heather, Nicola (Kathy and Ian’s daughter) and her husband Simon, Brendan and Lin and their kids Chloe (2 years) and Finn (a few months), Stefan and Marion and their two kids, and Tim, Erin and Christy. There are also others who don’t live in Addington but are still very much involved with the community there.
Ants and Sandy were an absolute answer to our prayers, they took us under their wing, we had dinner with their hub every night, they hung out with us, and sorted out places to stay for the entirety of our time there. It went as follows:
Caravan in Ants & Sandy & Bruce’s garden
House in Parlane Street with Jolyon (?spelling) who works as the Justice Community person
House sitting at Andy & Paulines (lovely warm couple who also let us stay in their family’s bach – holiday home in Queenstown!)
Di Sargeant’s (Di is brilliant, she is sooo funny, and also such a great encourager, you talk to her and it feels like she’s seen into your soul. She works with Ants at the local church. Special lady, in the best possible sense.)
House-sitting at Joan’s house (next door to the wonderful Linda)
Adam R’s house with Steph & Heather for our last week , these guys are great, really fun and sparky, Adam entertained us with his amazing dancing (seriously good) and they make tasty puddings!
Various members of the community had a vision to create a space for people to hang out, hold meetings, and raise awareness on global issues, and also to create a business to provide work for those struggling to find any, and to donate much of their profits to places that needed it. So they bought a building on the high street in Addington and literally transformed it from an old mechanic shop into Addington Coffee Co-op (see www.addingtoncoffee.org.nz). The cafe is bustling and has a timeless look (the brainchild of Belly and Barus) with old lanterns and bicycles hanging from the beams, beautiful photography from Stefan covering the walls, old wooden tables and chairs, sofas, and a great atmosphere that’s relaxed but still remains professional. They recently won an award at the Breast-feeding friendly cafe awards. That’s what’s great about the place, it’s a place where locals come for great, reasonably priced coffee, business men can hold meetings(in the boardroom), students can study, mums can bring their kiddies, and people from everywhere can hang out and enjoy the yummy breakfasts and light lunches or meet for tea, coffee and cake. They bring in the global community by buying their coffee beans from growers who give their workers a fair wage and good working conditions, and by selling t-shirts and bags made by Freeset, a business run by Josh’s parents in Kolkata in India. This was set up to “free women who were trapped in prostitution (forced into this by poverty), by teaching them new skills, giving them fair wages, health benefits, pension funds, literacy classes and daycare for their children”. Jared and Jeff are in charge of the promotion, distribution and selling here in Christchurch and further afield.
Thanks to Belly, who manages the place, I had the opportunity to help out on a few shifts and saw a little of the ins and outs of what it is to run a cafe, and met more lovely lovely people as a result – Christy, Eva, Hannah (Jeff’s wife) and Paul the highly skilled baristas(along with Belly), Lisa (v talented in all things catering/crafty/arty), sisters Lis (who thoughtfully lent me some warm clothes, she’s Josh’s girlfriend) and Alanna, Rachel, Sally (v sweet), Robin, and the chefs Elma, Dan and Tim. Good times and much patience shown towards me the newbie, thanks guys!
Things we did and highlights of our time there:
Daily life with everyone – good chats, games with Sandy and Harms, ukulele playing from Hanna, Pictureka! with Liv, movies at the boys’ house (and Mike’s amazing baking), frugal Friday at Pak’n’Save, Josh’s “have a holly, jolly Christmas!” hat and fart machine, walks in the park with Ants, Bruce’s after dinner mystery give-away sessions, sleepy devotions (and Ants’ morning hair), Skip Bo with Harms, Livvy the make-up artist.
Helping Adam R finish off the shipping container he’d transformed into a small flat, learning to prime metal, chisel a door and fit a door handle and assemble a shower.
Netball – with captain Jared ¨J-Dog¨ Gardiner, we got thrashed almost every week but you’ve got to be in it to win it!
Fun times hanging out and working at Addington Coffee Co-op, great coffee, amazing food, even better company.
Easter Camp 2010 – a camp for 4000 youth from across the South Island, organized by Arnika and Age amongst others, shared a chalet with Dave and Justin and enjoyed their shameless mocking of us “Brits”, helped supervise activities (slippery soccer, hand sanitization and “Pash Patrol”), got gunged, met the awesome Hannah Dunlop (she is a very fun lady), hung out in the fair trade café and listened to Si’s brilliant jazz guitar and heard some v good worship music courtesy of band Satellite (Ally, Catherine and Anna all play/sing/write the songs).
Recreate Camp – helped at a camp for about 20 young people with intellectual disabilities, sooo much fun and uninhibited joy in that place! Organised by Mark, a lovely guy married to Diana.
Staying with Di – little pressies, Skype party, late night chats, lizard jam, The Life Aquatic and good morning notes.
Good times at Adam R’s house – The Mighty Ducks, New Moon, Nicola and Adam R’s dancing and Si’s and Steph’s amazing baking.
Picnic at Rapaki beach on Sunday afternoon with Sandy and the girls – finding strange amoebic creatures and crabs in the rock pools.
Dinners at the Gardiners’ – Maurice and Nola (and Lisa and Luke), awesome family, very creatively gifted and generous.
Scrabble with Ally and Joan – discovery of all possible two letter words – enlightening!
Cups of chai with Linda – great lady, also a great encourager
Cleaning out the warehouse behind the café – Water blasting!
DVDs at the boys’ house and Mike’s afghans (a biscuit name)
Day out with Bruce and Belly showing us some unknown Christchurch gems – tiny hidden bays, great coffee, old railways, big icecreams.
Josh’s birthday at KFC. My effort was shameful, I think little Hanna ate more chicken than me!
ANZAC Dawn Parade – (Remembrance Day for us Brits) the last post gets me every time. Followed by porridge at Jeff & Hannah’s. Something really fun about everyone getting up while it’s still dark!
Le Bons Bay – puke inducing windy hilly driving, stunning deserted beach, hunting for mussels, Josh’s near drowning, Harms’ fully clothed swim, warm fires, eeling at night with sharpened sticks for spears.
School – Helping out with Lisa’s breakfast for mums and dads, Ally and Nicola’s choir, playing parent helpers at events.
Craft group – Ally’s origami, Catherine’s crocheting, Sandy’s boxes, Tess’s baking.
Surfing at Sumner – Cold surf, piddly waves, still fun tho.
Dinner at the Memphis Belle with Hannah D and Johnny (who’s now in England, coming to Soton v soon!) – great people, amazing pizza, Nazi memorabilia on the wall.
Sumner with the Watts – sunshine, fun water filled cave, wet clothes, Hanna the street urchin.
West Coast with Sandy and Ants – classic NZ bach, warm fire, stunning sunny walks, mushrooms, fish and chips on the beach and a rainy drive home.
Last night with the hub – Chinese at North & South, drinks, cigars, Anna’s “cake” cocktail and table football at Goodbye Blue Monday, karaoke courtesy of the losers Josh and Belly, ice creams from Pak ‘n’ Save, late night Role Models, getting locked out of Adam’s house and waking him up in his underpants.
Goodbye puddings – great to be able to see everyone before we left, amazing puddings thanks guys!!
After our many goodbyes, Josh took us to the airport in Christchurch and we flew to Auckland feeling sad to be leaving everyone, not knowing when we’d ever see them again. Strange. We stayed with Lisa and her family again before we left, really precious time as we don’t know when we’ll see her again, sadly Tom was still away working in Europe. Ruby, who’d been a small kitten last time we saw her, had doubled in size! They took us to see some beautiful parts of Auckland, namely Devonport where Tom and Lisa had had their wedding reception, stunning houses right on the beach, very nice. Also went up Mount Eden (an extinct volcano with a cool crater) and met (very randomly) my former colleague Hattie! Small world!! We got to go to Lisa’s church (where her dad, Bruce is the pastor and where she, her mum, Maude, sister, Krysta and bro Dan all sing/play in the worship band) and it was a joy to be there and listen to Bruce speak. We were treated to lunch after church then went to the airport to fly to Santiago, Chile, for our next adventure!
