Today we are grieving as a nation as we view the loss of life, trauma experienced and buildings devastated in Christchurch by the earthquake which struck yesterday. Our love and prayers go out to our churches and their members and families. What can we say? It seems just so hard for them after what seemed to be normality returning after the last one. Not all church members or their families are accounted for. John Glass our National Leader in the United Kingdom, Dr. Joseph Serwadda from Uganda, Jeff & Kay Lucas from the USA, Bishop James Isaquirre from the Philippines and others have made contact expressing their sympathy and prayers. Thank you for that. It gives strength to have that support. What a tremendous responsibility our church leaders Clinton Kelleher, Andrew Garrett and Stewart McLellan and other church leaders carry at this time. Keep them in your prayers. We are taking a special offering across our congregations this Sunday. If you will not be present but wish to contribute you may do so online here. Add Comment We woke on Saturday to the terrible news of the massive earthquake in Christchurch City. The devastation is huge and the repair bill predicted to top $NZ4 Billion. Amazingly no lives were lost. If it had happened several hours either side of when it did there would have been many deaths and serious injuries. Our three churches in Christchurch and the homes of the pastors and staff appear to have suffered very little damage, but some other churches were not so fortunate. The beautiful historic buildings have suffered because of their older building methods and materials. After shocks are still continuing; another five already this morning. Our South Island people are a pretty tough lot; they keep beating our Auckland boys at Rugby. I am sure they will rebuild and come out of this stronger. Elim Cathedral of Hope has a fund to help folk; contact number 03 365 5674. We had a lot of fun at our staff meeting this week as Policeman David Fox made the draw for the two iPads for Father’s day. Two winners were from the East congregation and they were Joseph Tekai and Arron Te Haara. Congratulations guys. The 25th Anniversary team have put together a great weekend of celebration. The highlight will be the Saturday night. Make sure you don’t miss this. Some of our guys could make a living as comedians so it will be a night of laughter, reminiscing and food along with the release of a free copy of our 25th Anniversary book. |  Pastor Luke is Senior Minister at Elim Christian Centre over our four locations.
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