We made it!
I sit here writing the first blog of our adventure from Pirongia, the base for MMM NZ; sitting in our mobile home, windows all open, fly screens all down and fan on. We already feel a world away from our cool relatively insect free home in Dunedin, which we left just over two weeks ago! Getting to this point has had its ups and downs but we are so glad to finally be here with the MMM team, completing training prior to starting on our first project later this week.
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| Our current set up in Pirongia complete with pool! |
Given this is our first blog and not all of you who read it will be familiar with the story of how or why we are doing what we are doing over this coming year, we thought it would be best to start with a bit of background...
Chris is a self employed builder who has been running his own business, Spot on Building, in Dunedin for the last three+ years. I (Jen) was a junior doctor who was about to start my GP training. We both know and love Jesus and want to serve him, whether that is living a more ‘normal’ way in Dunedin or doing something a bit different from the norm. We have three kids, Hudson (8), Thea (5), and Abbey (3). We were well established in Dunedin, Chris’ business was going well and he employed three full-time staff with other casual employees. I was finishing up my final rotations in Dunedin hospital preparing to start GP training in 2023. The older kids were settled in a fantastic school a short walk from our house, we were well established in a great Dunedin church and we had plans to start to build a home in Dunedin in the near future. A lot of people who hear that we have now put that all aside for a year to volunteer with this organisation MMM ask us ‘why’?
Our interest in this kind of work was first sparked over nine years ago when I was a trainee intern (final year medical student) doing a placement in Zambia. Chris was about to start his building training and was trying to help out with odd jobs around the mission hospital as best he could while I was working at the hospital. It was here that he met a guy who was volunteering with an UK organisation called Brass Tacks, which is very similar in its purpose as MMM, and aims to serve Christian organisations and workers, helping them with some of the building and maintenance work. He came away from that trip thinking, one day I’d like to do that , but thinking it would be when we retire!
Fast forward to last year, three kids, a building apprenticeship and a business later, Chris was stirred following the Tonga eruption, feeling helpless here in NZ, wanting to find some way to help. All his leads were dead ends and he started to turn to other organisations to try to serve, even if it meant doing so here in New Zealand. The one organisation that got back to him was MMM. He had heard of MMM before and even had some friends who had volunteered with them. The project was painting and some general mainatainence on a church in Mosgiel. Chris had committed to two days off his business to help on the project, but on the day he arrived the father of the team leader ,Howard (who is the director of MMM NZ), died and he had to leave for Auckland so Chris was asked to run the project. After making sure his employees were all happy with the projects they were working on Chris said yes and two days became a week and a half. During this time he was able to talk to other volunteers on the project and hear of the need there was for a qualified builder within MMM at the time. One such conversation Chris had was with Ave, the MMM directors wife. When Chris said that would be something he’d like to do but didn’t think he’d be able to do it with three kids she replied ‘we did it with three kids.’ Feeling there was no real excuse to not think about it now, Chris brought it up to me that evening and to his surprise I said I was open to the idea.
After much prayer, meeting with Howard and Ave, thinking through logistics of how it was all to work we decided to commit to volunteering with MMM for 2023.
The last month has been a real whirlwind. Chris wanted to make sure he had done all he could to finish or get his building projects to a good stage prior to leaving and, due to delays with contractors and materials during the year, this meant working up to fourteen hours days in the month leading into Christmas, working Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and his birthday (the 27th) before we left on the 28th. He was up until 4am in the morning the day we were to leave, finally having a chance to pack his own gear for the year. We were so thankful for our friends and family who helped us with getting the projects on the house finshed, packing up and the house cleaning and getting everything ready for the tenants as it wouldn’t have happened without them (Especially the Sims, Grays and Pettigrews!) It was wonderful to have our pastor , Ben Hudson, and his family come and pray for us and farewell as we left our home.
We were able to spend a week and a half in Christchurch with Chris’ family on our journey north. It was wonderful to catch up with his family, meet a new niece and nephew, celebrate with Chris’ sister and her new husband following their recent marriage, catching up with some old friends and finally seeing Chris get to take his tool belt off and put his (injured) feet up. After 5 days half of the family left but we stayed on, Chris catching up on office work and also helping his brother out with a small project before we departed.
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| It wouldn’t be a McLean family gathering without a competitive game of Farmers Bridge |
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| Sorting and cleaning up tools in Christchurch in preparation to travel |
Monday the 9th was appointed by Chris as ‘caravan day’. This was the first time we would be all sleeping in the caravan as a family. We travelled up to Hamner Springs, freedom camping by the river. It took a while to get three excited kids to sleep the first night but since then it has been getting easier. We went to the thermal pools the next day and the kids had a blast. There were permanent smiles plastered over their faces all day.
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| The river we stayed by in hammer springs had two tributaries that meet, one with warm thermally fed water and the other with cold mountain stream water. It was a weird to stand where they meet with one warm leg and one cold one! |
Then it was on to Picton for our evening ferry. Over an hour into our drive to the east coast we got an alert on our phones saying the road from Blenheim to Picton was closed due to flooding and the 'not-very-caravan-friendly' detour would add over an hour to our trip! We had enough leeway in our travel times but it was going to make it tight and it was stressful driving through some wild weather not knowing what would happen. Chris was much more calm through the whole thing saying, "we should just pray that the waters would reside, we could get through the normal route," and our prayers were answered. We had an uneventful crossing although the kids were too excited to sleep (they were all awake until 12.30am!)
The next day we got to visit my family in Otaki before continuing the journey North, with a stop at a great playground in Levin. The day after we finally made it to Pirongia. It was great to see Howard and Ave (MMM Directors) again and to finally stop somewhere for more than 1-2 nights!
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| Thea and Abigail with a dog carving in Hammer |
| Hudson doing a ‘time trial’ on a playground loop at Levin adventure playground and Chris taking the girls for a spin |
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Finding swinging vines on the bush walk off Armadale reserve where we had camped for the night |
The last couple of days have been filled with orientation, figuring out how to set up our caravan awning, meeting some more members of the MMM team, attending church in Te Awamutu and just trying to settle into what life is going to look like for the next year. We have a couple more days of the same coming before we set off to our first project with MMM in Ngāruawāhia, at Hope Rising Farm.
Thank you so much to everyone who is journeying with us, supporting us with words of encouragement, prayer and financially.
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| A cool card one of our supporters made for us before we left Dunedin |
Praise points
- Safe arrival in Pirongia
- A wonderful few days of holiday and rest after a full on stressful end to the year
Prayer points
- Chris is still recovering from (seperate) injuries on both feet, both wrists, and his tendon on his middle finger. They have improved somewhat with some time off his feet but are still not 100% so prayer that he would fully recover and be able to give his best to the projects wold be appreciated
- Chris still has a few projects that are being finished off in Dunedin by one of his employees. Please pray these go smoothly and get completed within a good timeframe as Chris tries to manage this from afar.
- Please pray for our first project at Hope Rising Farm that it will be productive and Chris will be able to fit in well with the team and be able to cope working in the North Island heat! (you’ll hear more about Hope Rising in the next blog)
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