Tuesday, March 10, 2009 – Auckland, New Zealand – Laidlaw College….and headed to LA today!

Slept early and rose late….trying to build up sleep for the long flight today from Auckland to LA. I’ll leave at 6:40pm and arrive 8 hours before I left! The joys of the International Date Line. I’m GMT+12 which is EST+17 which is PST+20 which means I’m only 4 time zones from CA……BUT it’ll be a long flight…9 hours or more.

Enjoyed chapel here at Laidlaw this morning….Mark Strom (President) spoke after praise and worship choruses. He did a super job….beginning with three examples of atheists. One who wrote in TIME magazine that “Africa needs God!” because the story transforms people and nations! Another, Antony Flew who’s new book “There IS a God” includes admission that while he cannot say there is a God with whom he can have a personal relationship, he cannot after years of anti-apology maintain those arguments any longer. It’s just simpler to believe there IS a God…and in introducing an appendix which testifies to personal faith, says I am almost persuaded…and if I were it would be because of this “story.” Finally, Mark spoke of his talk with bankers in Brussels in December in which they recognize the failure of western culture to acknowledge the long known themes of power, ego, and greed….and by that neglect have allowed us to slip into the current financial meltdown. They WANT to hear the story of Jesus….and as Mark puts it, it’s OUR job to be the articulate Christians who can TELL that story. It was an inspiring way for these couple hundred students to begin their new term at Laidlaw.

Enjoyed a chat with faculty and lunch with Martin Sutherland…Vice Principal Academic. Soon I’ll catch the shuttle to the airport (3:40pm) and the flight leaves at 6:40. I dread the long flight, but look forward to seeing friends and family in California. Also looking forward to being reunited with friends in Virginia Beach…and just plain getting home. I expect to work on notes on the flight…..haven’t really kept up as well as I should have on typing up my 45 pages of handwritten meeting notes. Probably have half of them still to do! And I suspect the urgencies of “catching up” on everything else will make it harder to do that when I get home….so I’d best buckle down, and capture my overall thoughts before I forget them. I do want to finish a list of the suggestions I’ve been building for Paul….

………..for fun…notice that NZ men don’t like to wear white shirts and especially don’t like ties….feels a bit like CA! They like “pointy” shoes, and students don’t stand up for the Hallelujah Chorus….I guess it has something to do with the fact it was the British Queen who did it first….and these more recent colonies don’t like to acknowledge the crown! J