Tuesday Jan 22nd

Dusty and the Dog

We arrived in Auckland about an hour late all feeling quite exhausted from the night’s epic travels. Everything went smoothly through the immigration but when we were collecting our bags a Police sniffer dog took a liking to Dusty’s hand luggage, fortunately he wasn’t smuggling any illegal substances it was just the smell from the fruit that had been in the bag that the dog sensed, and that the dog wanted some of the M & M’s in it.

The next hurdle was now before us, loading the bus, which wasn’t the largest of sizes with only two compartments for storage. This could have been a real problem but in the capable hands of our two stowage masters, Erick and Issac, this was taken care of quickly and efficiently, not one bag was left behind.

Worms a glow glow

We were now on our way to the first adventure for the day (by the way, it’s now Tuesday), the caves in Matoma. This turned out to be a little bit further than expected, but after two and a bit hours we got to these magnificent caves. We had a guided tour around and when we got to the Cathedral cave the tour guide asked if anyone would like to sing as it has excellent acoustics, so we all did, (not individually, that would have taken far too long!) we sang “Where You Belong” which was applauded as we finished, and I’m sure gave quite a few ‘goose bumps’. When we were leaving the Cathedral cave we were asked to sing again and we obliged with ‘Who Can Satisfy?’. The two moments were a great experience for us all, and a reminder why we are here, to lift up the name of Jesus Christ. The next part of the tour was the boat trip so we could see the glow worms which were spectacular.

Late lunch

Not too far from the caves was our venue for lunch, The Big Apple café. The food was good but quite a few had to wait a while for their meal to be served. This laid back approach could be a sign of things to come from the New Zealanders, we’ll see. Eventually all the meals came and we could eventually make our way to Waikato University which would be our home for the next few days.

Thou dost smelleth, which way to the bath house?

The university campus is bigger than most of us imagined, and excitement was in the air. One thing needed to be taken care of more than anything else, SHOWERS! After spending 15 hours on a plane then 4 hours on a non-air conditioned bus in 80% humidity, we were fragrant to put it nicely. We got registered and then got our keys and we ran for our showers, thankfully there were no fisty cuffs over who got in the shower first!

After we all ‘cleaned up our act’ we headed for the main venue in the University gym for a quick sound and staging check. With a little bit of jiggery pokery we managed to fit on the stage. With the stage being used for the Praise and Worship team we had to work around the drums which are center stage, so we look a little bit like “James Allen” supported by the TYC but it works and sounds great!

A great meal was enjoyed before the first meeting that we were to be involved in; Excitement filled the air as the venue filled up with 700 excited youths ready and eager to praise Jesus Christ. After Dusty and Barbara had an interview ‘on the couch’ we sang two numbers, ‘Reign’ and ‘He Made the Difference’ which really tied in nicely to the youth congress’ theme of ‘Make Change’. I don’t think the crowd really knew what to expect but you could see in their eyes that they were enjoying our offering of worship to the Lord. The second song brought the house down well done ‘Dreamgirls’!

Today has been an exciting day and I praise God for his goodness to us and his loving care for us all.