4 April, 2010 in Church, Personal by Aonghas

Easter Baptism

We had a combined service today with the other Chinese churches so we were expecting the carpark to be packed when we arrived at church. Sure enough, when we got there, the cars were backed up nearly all the way to the Bible College. Luckily we weren’t the only ones who were late; as we were walking back to church, the Chin family arrived as well. There were hardly any seats left in the gym either so Calum and I created a couple of extra rows of chairs at the back. The highlight of today’s service (for our Sunday School class anyway) was Jennifer’s baptism. When she was being baptised, I went up front to join the entourage of photographers all crowded around the stage to film her.

From left: Sherman, Aunty Stephanie, Nadine, Jennifer, Calum, Hamish, Claire and Aonghas

There wasn’t any Sunday School after service today, we just went straight to lunch. I always like special occasions like today because we get free lunch in a box with a variety of different treats. In today’s box we had a tea egg, a piece of chocolate cake, this Asian sweet thing (I don’t know what it’s made out of) and a nice sandwich.

I always look forward to these free lunches

Primary light colour shoes

While I was sitting with Carmen and Claire, we realised our shoes were similar (except for the fact that mine are from Cotton On while theirs are actually real Converse Chucks) but different in colour. Cleo decided to join in with her white shoe as well. I thought it was a pretty cool photo actually, especially since in terms of light colour, the coloured shoes around the outside (red, green, blue) combine to make the white coloured shoe in the centre. Coincidence?

This afternoon I went to the Waikumete Cemetery with my parents to visit my grandparents’ headstone. It had been a long time since I last visited, and I think it was quite fitting to go back to remember them on Easter Sunday. The engraving on the headstone had become dull and despite my dad’s efforts, we couldn’t clean off all the dirt with a piece of tissue. Nevertheless I took a photo.

My grandparents' headstone at the Waikumete Cemetery

I really like the quote at the bottom of their headstone:

Unseen, unheard but always near.

Mt Erebus Air Disaster Memorial

It’s a reassuring reminder that the ones you love who have passed away are always closer than you think. We also had a brief walk around the cemetery to look at some of the other graves, notably the Mt Erebus Air Disaster memorial that was set up after the plane crash on my birthday in 1979. The cemetery is such a peaceful place. Next time we visit I want to polish my grandparents’ headstone and make it shiny again!

2 April, 2010 in Church, Youth Group by Aonghas

Odd Time for Oddfellows

Today was Good Friday – the day remembered for Jesus’ death on the cross. As was customary, we attended church this morning for the special Good Friday service. Pastor Chan invited us to play accompaniment music on our accordions for the prelude as well as the Holy Communion. The song was called “Old Rugged Cross” and we played together with Tim on piano and Jenny on violin. The chairs in the auditorium were arranged to face the centre where there was the table for Holy Communion. We sat through the sermon before having refreshments afterwards.

We had pizza for lunch after the Good Friday church service

Because of the morning service, our youth group “Oddfellows” was shifted to earlier in the day instead of tonight. We all had pizza together for lunch before going into the church library for the youth group programme. Today Karvin led the programme by showing us a video about Jesus’ death on the cross. It looked like quite an old video and it was a bit cheesy in parts but on the whole I think it delivered quite a strong message and there were parts of the video I never realised about Jesus’ death before. When we were having supper after the programme, Cleo and I decided to swap jackets to see how they looked on us…

Apparently I looked like a Mexican gangster, or a cholo. After looking online, I found this article about how to become a cholo. I didn’t realise there were so many steps to consider in order to be one. I wonder if anyone actually takes them seriously.