An Update from Pukekohe, New Zealand

All of us here are doing very well and keeping quite busy. Here is an account of a couple recent events that have happened last week.

We will start out by saying Happy Thirteenth Birthday to Matthew! Last Thursday, August 6th, was Matthew's birthday, so we had a party for him that afternoon. Then dad went to Hire N Haul and hired a twelve passenger mini-van. First we did some quick errands around town, like getting ten 10kg bags of potatoes from Fresh n Save, as it would take quit a few trips on the bikes to bring back that many potatoes. We had to go to Auckland to pick up an item Dad had bought on Trade Me. Then after we arrived home from doing errands around Pukekohe we emptied the van, everyone else got in and we headed for Auckland. It was the first time the whole family had gone anywhere together except for walking around Pukekohe!!! While we were in the city we went over the Auckland bridge to North Shore as Mom and some of the kids had not been up there yet. And for supper Dad bought us Dominoes Pizza, which was a big treat as it had been two months since we had had pizza. We all enjoyed the day a lot.

Friday, August 7th, at about 6:30am we all left the house in the van again and headed for Hamilton to see the Jehovah Witnesses. They, the JWs, had invited us to their conference at the fair grounds south of Hamilton, so Dad had decided to go. The JWs had guys guiding the traffic at the bottom of the hill but they did not have anyone at the top of the hill by the entrance. So Matthew stood on one side of the entrance holding a banner while Dad stood on the other and tried to pass out some fliers he had printed entitled "Is The Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society Christian?" He was able to pass out about 25 which was surprising, of course the devout JWs did not touch them. (For those of you who do not know Jehovah Witnesses are not allowed to take or read any thing, except what their Society gives them to read.) We knew it would only be a matter of time before they asked us to leave and after a little while word reached the Elders and they sent two men up, who were not happy at all, and asked us to leave and said they had called the police. So we left as the Lord told Dad it was time to leave. After we left we had to turn around down the road and as we passed by we saw ten to fifteen men now standing at the entrance. Praise the Lord for the fliers and the word that went out.

After we left the Jehovah Witnesses convention we went down to Te Awamutu and picked up a cot for Linda and this nice lady also gave us a bunch of clothes and a walker for Linda too. What a blessing! On our way home we went to Cambridge which was a neat town that had some nice sights to see and while we were there Dad tried to locate the grave of H. A. Ironside, but was not able to. It was a beautiful drive back through the countryside!!! After we got back in town Mom went to one more store and Dad then returned the van. We all enjoyed the time together as a family and the trip out of town.