Congratulations to our College Principal Murray Burton on being awarded by the New Zealand Government “A Member of the NZ Order of Merit.” The reason they gave was for “the way he guided the college through the aftermath of the tragedy in a way that was an example to all.” The tragedy was when we lost six students and a teacher in a drowning on a school camp in 2008. Murray showed incredible leadership at the time and over the following year. A well deserved award for what happened in a very sad time in our church and college history.

On Thursday we shared with the college community our plans for the college future across our three blocks of land. The initial stage plan is to grow the role from the current 580 to 1000 students over a 3-5 year period, starting with an administration block and classrooms for 350 in Golflands. Stage two will be the building of the Secondary College on our Cascades/Botany corner site and then we will return to complete the Golflands campus. 

This is a project which is projected to cost over $25 million and does mean an increase in contributions from parents. We have kept this to the very minimum as we are aware that it is a sacrifice already for parents to give their children Christian education.

On Saturday we celebrated the marriage of our oldest son Lance to Virginia. It was a perfect day, the wedding was outside under a large Oak tree, and Neena our Young Adults pastor did a fantastic job as Celebrant in her first wedding. Neena and Chris had only themselves got engaged the week before.

Yesterday we took our grandson Hunter to Motat museum. He is a great little guy and we had a lot of fun.