Play Date

Anna had a playdate with her classmate, Brooke, who lives nearby. They met at a park across the bay. The view is across McLeod Bay back toward our house with Mount Aubrey in the background.

Climbing Mount Aubrey

Behold the mountain!
McCleod Bay Village from Mount Aubrey
(our house close to the bottom left hand corner)

Great views from high up!
Mount Manaia on the left with Whangarei heads atop. Blue in the middle is the Pacific Ocean at Ocean Beach (what an imaginative name!

Some pics from the week

(Lynn)

We've had some good weather this week for fishing and hiking in the afternoons after school and work. In the first picture look for the kids at the base of the "Tree of the circle of life". Next is a sunset walk down to the fishing dock and ,finally, the first fish caught by a Nichols in New Zealand goes to Andrew who caught this beauty on a homemade bamboo pole using white bread for bait. No, we did not eat this unidentified type of fish but have him in the freezer to use for bait to catch some snapper.

Communication

Happy Memorial Day Everyone! Well sorry we have not been blogging much. We had a busy week last week with me starting work and Lynn finishing up a 10 day "hot week" at work. We managed somehow to buy a car (Old Honda Odyssey), move to the bay, buy a dryer, get a phone line, get a satellite connection and get the ground work for internet at the new place. We have made great strides at settling in finally. Lynn established the internet connection tonight which makes us already feel more connected to the rest of the world. Our new address is 51 Stuart Street, McLeods Bay RD #4, Whangarei NZ 0174. The land line phone number is (09) 434-0087. We have cell phones but they are for hospital use and are very expensive to use otherwise. You can cheaply call our land line through skype for a few cents a minute (see tab at tool bar on skype, just scroll down to NZ and enter the number we gave you) or buy an international calling card at gas stations, walmart, etc for 5-15 cents a minute (directions on the card with NZ's country code). Our skype name is Lynnanddawn and we hope to videoconference with those who have a computer camera. We are ahead of you in time so reaching us after 2:00 in your afternoon through your evening is usually a good option especially on your Fridays and Saturdays because we are already in the weekend days here.

We are continuing to enjoy meeting people at work and visiting churches. We had Lynn's team (medical student and intern doctor) over for dinner last week and that was fun and informative. We may host a couple of college students from Auckland for a few days next week. They are coming up to work at Miguel's church. I think they are probably helping with setting up a Calvary Chapel Christian radio station that is going to be broadcast from the church. We attended another church that has the local Christian school last Sunday. We enjoyed meeting people there. The pastor didn't speak because they have been doing a video series from a Florida church! We had met one of their elders at a park the first week we were here. It is a small town and a small world. I am gaining an appreciation for the world wide nature of followers of Christ and the commonality among various denominations. As my Johnson City pastor Tom Oyler use to say, "The content is the same but the format may be different." We are seeing that here as the churches range from Anglican to Catholic to Baptist to Presbyterian to Pentacostal/Charismatic. Many don't seem to attend a church (94% Lynn heard) at all while some Christians have chosen to not attend because of mistrust in church leadership. People here don't seem as nominal about their Christianity or casual about their faith. Those who believe are hard core and those who don't just say they don't believe at all. Lynn had to give a terminal diagnosis to a patient and when Lynn asked if he could pray with him, the guy just said, "Well, I don't believe in that stuff but if it makes you feel better go ahead." Lynn said that was a first for him. He has a new nurse who is a christian and that was encouraging to him. They together will be working to develop a system to streamline workup and treatment for lung cancer which may have the highest incidence of anywhere in the world. 60-70% of the Maori smoke and the incidence of lung cancer in the woman especially is astronomical. The sleep medicine issues have taken a backseat for now as this area of lung cancer is more pressing. He had 10 new diagnosis last week (his first full week). It is overwhelming at moments but you just try to do the best you can do in the system your in. The need is high but you just get up and pray, work at it, and ask God to move. You know? Sound familiar or applicable to you? We miss everyone and love "y'all". Dawn

First Rugby Match, First Night in Our House

(Lynn)


Good Sunday afternoon. We just attended our first church service in New Zealand and were very refreshed to be back in fellowship after many weeks on our own. The verse for the day is from Thessalonians-"God did not give us a spirit of fear- but a spirit of power, love and self control." As the husband/dad in a family of 6 moving to the other side of the world there are plenty of things to fear- so I find great encouragement in these words. Please pray for our new friends, our patients, and our family. May God bless us all.
Phillip's first rugby match was a smashing success! Literally. His nose got smashed and gushed blood near the end of the first half. As usual, Phillip threw his body full-tilt into the sport and received the "merit" award from his coach and an ovation from his teammates. His club, Manaia, lost a close one (7-5) in a defensive struggle with one of the best clubs around, Hora Hora. He's psyched about the rest of the season. He described the first experience as football without any breaks (and without a facemask!) He was fairly relaxed the rest of the day. He was amazed by the seagulls flying around their heads as they played.

We also spent the night last night in what we hope will be our home for the year. We'll post our new phone number and address once we're sure what they are. The pics above show the view from our porch. The house overlooks McCleod's Bay- the Pacific Ocean is about 5-10 miles to the left. I saw a pod of dolphins in the bay the other dayand Phillip and I saw a large sting ray swimming along. Look closely at the sunset picture and you'll see a little fishing dock which is about 100 yards from the house- fish for dinner, guys!We'll put pics of the house once we get all of our moving garbage out of the way.

Dawn joins me at the hospital tomorrow and the kids return to school. Thanks for the cool messages, everyone. That helps us feel in touch!

Phillip's Field Trip

Hi, I went on a field trip today,and it was to the farm. We walked there.We went there because the art teacher at our school made us draw sketches of Urquharts Bay and the Heads.When I finished my sketch I went over and tried to climb a big rock.And I fell off and my foot landed in cow manure.Then the art teacher told me to come over where they were. I miss you guys. I have rugby practice tomorrow.






Phillip

The kids started at Whangarei Heads School today and seemed to really like it. The community is old but trendy and artsy. The pictures were given to me by the principal. Apparently orcas visited the harbor where our rental house is last week. The school has views of the Pacific ocean from the beach girl Anna's classroom. In the photos our new rental house is just to the right of the houses seen sitting on the water. The school is at the base of the large rocks (look like "heads") on top of the mountain. We are a bit fond of the guy who is renting the house and his mum who lives down the street. He lives in town but is coming out to help us get the furniture out of Mum's garage Wednesday. The pastor and his wife we met are helping me do some shopping for bedding, mattresses, etc tomorrow. People here are very friendly. The kids can walk to school (uphill on the way) but a beautiful 3/4 mile downhill trek back down after school. There is a side walk until you get to our little dead end street running along the waters edge where it is shallow and clear for swimming. Lynn is working hard this week and I am practicing driving the kids the 30 minutes outside of town twice a day until we can get into the house. Much love to you all, I am starting to really wish you were here.

Dawn-Monday May 12-Happy Mother's Day to all. We had a great weekend. We were invited on Saturday to have lunch with some of my co-workers at Dr.Wei's "lifestyle block" which is a 14 acre farm with fruit trees (limes, lemons,apples, pears,peach, etc), macedemia nut orchard, vegetable garden, olive grove etc. After having an authentic Asian lunch (he is from Hong Kong and his wife is from the Phillipines and they have 5 kids pictured with our children at the farm; other co-workers are from the UK and South Africa), We walked the property and ate fresh tangerines, passion fruit, freijoa, figs, nuts we picked from the trees. The weather is cool at night and in the morning but has glorious warming sunshine as the day goes on and occasional quick periodic misting rain then back to glorious sunshine. Sunday morning we dressed for church and went to view a rental house at 8:00 am. We think this is the one and need to contact the school today. We ended up spending the whole morning in this small beachside community. The mountains and beach pictures are there. The house is on the bay and within walking distance from a charming 100 person school with great ratings. The school sits at the base of the "heads" of rock pictured on top of the mountain. Many have asked for our address and we will post it as soon as we move in. Kiwis say "no worries" but what they mean is "no hurries".

Yesterday afternoon we were invited to a pastor named Miguel's house to have dinner with his beautiful wife and 6 kids. Miguel was Lynn's very first patient in the hospital. He has a lung problem and had been told it would take a year to see a pulmonologist. He had his church praying for us and stayed in the hospital extra days so he could see Lynn. His family is beautiful with his wife being from El Salvador and his Cuban background (parents are Cuban refugees with an incredible story). She also has an incredible life story which shows God's love, emotional healing, and restoration of broken families. The food was a wonderful mix of rice, meat, and black beans. They were both raised in California and are American missionary churchplanters who lived in Costa Rica and have been here 2 years. We had a wonderful time of fellowship just talking about how we became followers of Christ and where he has lead us and taught us through difficult circumstances. It was very encouraging to us. You can see our kids enjoying time with them too.

Whangarei Heads and the Beach

School and House Hunting

Many of you have asked for pics of the luggage so I included a photo of my dad's truck just before leaving for the airport. The kids are pictured around the temporary house here across from the hospital. Unfortunately the house is not zoned for the school we thought so we have spent the last few days looking about in the various suburbs. Yes Whangarei is a small city with a little downtown district next to the yacht basin with more residential areas surrounding. There are 3 grocery stores and one is like Kroger or Harris Teeter or Publix, etc. The downtown has a small mall with teenagers hanging out after school just like West Town. The 3 elementary schools and communities we have looked at are each about 15 minutes outside of town. We have had trouble finding adequate rental housing in 2 of the 3. The third called Onerahi however is on the way to the beach and has beautiful ocean and bay views and rolling mountain tops that are the prettiest we have seen. The school there has a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds with 1/3 Maori. The facilities are great and the school houses around 400 kids 1-6th grade. The kids are excited about this area and there seems to be more to rent there. Lynn starts work today (Friday). They have residents and medical students at the hospital so he will be seeing inpatients has an attending/consultant within the team. He is eager to get going.

A Day in Auckland and our first evening in Whangarei

(Dawn-Whangarei) Sunday after we arrived in their early morning was a day of jet lag and lots of rainy weather. We forced ourselves to stay up all day passing the time in our 3 bedroom downtown hotel suite, swimming in the indoor pool, and venturing out in the rain to local shopping and a neat museum/aquarium with New Zealand and antarctic wildlife. We are pictured with the penguins there. We got back to the hotel around 6:30 at night and by the time Lynn returned with his Anthony Bourdain like authentic chinese takeout from around the corner, all the kids were alseep except...guess who?...Andrew. The 3 of us made it to 7:30 or so and crashed. Yesterday (Monday) was a great day in Auckland. Refreshed from a good nights sleep, we met with the medical council member in her Auckland suburbian home office for review of our credentials. She like everyone in New Zealand was very nice and we enjoyed seeing a bit of New Zealand suburban life. All seemed to go well as we poured over our various documents for approval. We hope to start work by the end of the week. We had a wonderful cab driver named Peter from Western Samoa. After the council meeting he took us to a fish market. The girls are pictured holding their noses there but we all got use to the smell. You can see Peter holding up a large octopus in the pictures. He tried to tell me how one goes about cooking Octopus with ink included! We grabbed some lunch at the market (fresh cheese, smoked fish, seafood chowder, and crackers) and then rode a free city bus back to the area of our hotel. We started to go up in the observatory (space needle building called Sky City seen in pictures) but ran out of time. We walked amid the busy shopping business district to meet our private chartered shuttle at the hotel. After packing all the luggage in a pull behind trailor we headed the 100 miles north through beautiful rural New Zealand to Whangarei. We went by the hospital to pick up the key and across the street we found our temporary house. The children were very excited to unpack their things and settle into "their own rooms". The girls used some cute sleeping bags Nana gave them to cover their twin beds in the room they share. Andrew surprisingly opted to have his own room which he displayed his neopets, cars, and jets sleeping bag. Phillip of course claimed the largest bedroom as the oldest kid. We are sharing a single bathroom which the kids hope means fewer baths! The best thing about the house is the yard which can be viewed from the many windows and contains a flat grassy area for play as well as beautiful plants such as a huge habiscus, lime trees, some other citrus tree, red gardenia, fall colored Maple tree, and a climbing rose bush. Today holds an exciting list of things to arrange so we better get at it.

Safe and sound in Auckland

(Lynn and Claire, Internet Cafe, Auckland, NZ)
After 26 hours of travel and about 7,ooo miles we arrived to a rainy Sunday morning in Auckland. We made the best of the day despite some pretty significant jet-lag. We visited "The Antarctic Experience", a really cool aquarium/penguin habitat with great examples of the different marine life we'll experience here. They had a giant squid on display about 10 feet long. There are killer asian restaurants from China, India, Malaysia and Thailand. Phillip will get his fill of sushi here! Phillip, Claire, and Anna couldn't fight it anymore and fell asleep around 6pm local time- while the rest of us could only make it until 8 before passing out. We all popped up around 5am feeling great and ready for an exciting day! The sun is out this morning, too.(Yeah!)

This morning we present our credentials to a medical council representative to get our work permits finalized, then we are taking a taxi-van the 100 miles to Whangarei (pronounced 'funguray') and our new house for the next 6 weeks.

For those of you planning to visit- Air New Zealand is great with video screens at every seat with hundreds of movies on demand, video games, music, etc.- comfortable seats, good food, and very nice flight attendants.

We'll add some Auckland pics once we get on our computer.
Cheers!