Kia ora koutou katoa,
It’s just a few more sleeps to go now until we arrive at Christmas Eve and the celebrations for the birth of Jesus. I hope that the sense of anticipation of the Nativity which we recall on this forthcoming last Sunday in Advent brings more hope than anxiety, more peace than despair, more love than fear, more joy than discouragement in all aspects of your lives. View my Christmas Message here.
At our Synod we agreed to extend a message of support to the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem assuring him of our love and prayerful support in his work to bring about peace and reconciliation. I have chosen to prepare the letter to be sent now at a time not only when the message of God’s love in Christ is brought near in the celebration of Christmas, but also as we may well expect this time to be one of heightened challenges in Jerusalem. You can read the letter here.
This past week we held our final board meetings for WBDT and Standing Committee with an end of year dinner with board members including WASSTB to recognise their dedication to the governance functions in the life of our Diocese. I’m very grateful for the work and commitment of each member of these boards to our life as a church in assisting and supporting me to lead the Diocese in this part of our life. My thanks also to the dedicated teams of our staff who support each board, led by our Diocesan Registrar, Colleen Kaye, and our Kaihautū for ACW, Rawhia Te Hau Grant.
This week in the office there has been a lot of work going into the final preparations for having the office closed over the next few weeks for the Christmas/New Year and summer break. It’s a busy time meeting deadlines that creep up on us at this stage of the year and I know that the teams across our offices will be looking forward to a well-deserved break over the summer.
The Bishop’s Leadership Team met yesterday to review some of the implementation work on the Diocesan vision and priorities. You’ll find a report on Koru Ministry on my behalf written by the Rev’d Alan Burnett. In the report Alan provides a summary of the key findings of the research which was done on Koru Ministry earlier this year and a summary of the recommendations. In the report Alan describes one outcome on the action front regarding the advertising of two roles to support Koru Ministry across Waiapu. Check it out here to read more about this work.
Over last weekend I had the absolute pleasure with Raewyn and the rest of our family of being present as our daughter Jessica was married in Wellington. The day was a wonderful celebration and was full of love, laughter and joy. Our hearts were full to overflowing to see Jessica and Alexander married and to wish them years of joy and life together. I don’t have photos of the couple to share at this stage so that the first to be shared can be from the newlyweds. However I can report that the cars were in pristine shape and order for the day, and the cake was a baking triumph of deliciousness!!
I’ll be on annual leave following Christmas Day services through until late January. I hope you all have a safe and blessed summer break and I look forward to sharing more news across the Diocese when we return in 2025.
Nga mihi,
+Andrew
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