And the search continues

Sunday I went to worship with the Elys. We went over to North Shore, there is an established congregation there, that has been there for some time. One of the things I was looking forward to about this trip was getting to worship with the people here. Churches here are not nearly as established as in the states, especially in comparison with the bible belt. It's a bit more like Europe in that respect I suppose. It is a passion of mine, participating in different ways of worship, in a realization that we all worship the same God; He is always the same, the difference is us, and in this case our cultural context. It is my opinion that gaining more perspective, or experiencing things though other's perspectives, only yields a more complete understanding of the world we live in, and therefore a more complete individual, not just in terms of religion, but in all aspects of life. I truly enjoied the time I spent in worship with the people here.

After worship I had a conversation with a lady, about American politics and the election. That is a popular topic here. Even with their own elections coming up on Saturday, many Kiwis would rather talk about the American election. It is neat to see the way that other people participate in government. Though, I must admit the election system here is a bit perplexing to the outside observer. Through my observations thus far, here is what I have gathered. Voters do not vote for individual politicians, but instead make a party vote, to elect what party should be in power. The party leadership then determines who should be in the particular positions. There are a multitude of parties, the labour (labor in American-ese) and national parties being the largest; but there are multiple small parties as well. These include the Maori party (Maori's are native New Zealanders), the New Zealand Pacific party, the green party, and surprisingly enough the legalize cannabis party among others. If you don't know what cannabis is, google it, I didn't know until I saw one of their commercials.

After politics, we talked about her son who is almost college age. She asked me about Lubbock Christian. She said she wasn't sure he could do with being so far away form the ocean. She recounted her own memories of going to the interior of England, and feeling "trapped". I told her that LCU is a great place, but it is indeed quite far from the ocean, much further than one would be when in the interior of England.

Not much going on right now, the search for a job continues. I'm getting leads, but it may be a few more days possibly a week before anything pans out. I spent a couple of hours at the BUNAC office yesterday polishing up on my CV (a Kiwi resume). Then I drove around the bay a bit. I got a little outside of Auckland, where the road skirts the bay, and the drive is breathtaking. I stopped at the Michael Joseph Savage monument, which is a monument to the first Labour prime minister of NZ. It is on a hill, overlooking the harbor, and boasts a fantastic view.

About my phone, I discovered that when dialing form the states, you need to drop the first zero. So then, if you are calling or text-ing from the states, the number you would dial is (64) 21-0227-9014. My apologies if you have tried to contact me. My parents had a hard time I know; this earned a scolding for not having checked in, or being acessable every hour on the hour. Sorry mom. The trek to cast the ring into Mt. Doom was taking up too much time to blog yesterday.

Things continue to go great. Love it here. Just looking out for a job up north.