Well today was our rest day – which may seem a bit odd considering it’s Monday. However, our mission program (which we’ll talk a bit more about tomorrow) is heavily based upon the church members’ timetable. So since most of them will be free on Friday and Saturday, we’ll be busy then and instead, have a day off today. So what did we get up to?
We visited Hobbiton – the location where they filmed scenes in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’.
We saw lots of doors.
Some of us were really excited.
We had really, really cheap ice-cream.
And we watched the smash hit New Zealand film ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ (some call it the Kiwi version of ‘the Castle’).
All in all, it was a good day of team bonding for a mission where we won’t see each other much as the week progresses.
However, something that stood out was a comment the tour guide made when walking us around Hobbiton. She mentioned that the director Peter Jackson was a perfectionist. He would often film shots multiple times and redesign whole sets just to get one thing right. For one scene, he needed the sun to set just right and in order to find the perfect sunset, he filmed seven different versions just to find the best one. The tourist guide made a remark: ‘even Peter Jackson can’t control the sunset’.
We’re not sure if she was a person who followed Jesus or not, but even she recognised there’s a great difference between man and God. Tomorrow we’ll be heading out to tell New Zealanders about God who does control the sun. It’s a great comfort to know our God is a powerful God indeed.
Please pray that we have many opportunities to share the gospel with non-Christians, who may never have thanked or even acknowledged God.
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