Nichols in New Zealand: The Auckland Church Visit!

Conference center where the NZ wide denominational service was held with some 20 nations represented, 3 choirs (Korean, Samoan, and Indian), and lots of cultural variety. My favorite part was a parade of national flags represented at the service where we saw Old Glory wave. Also a variety of bible verses relating to "the nations" were read in some 15 or so languages with Naomi (below) reading in Spanish. It was a beautiful thing to hear God's word in so many different native tongues reminding me that His word goes out to all the nations and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord.

Naomi, the oldest Abascal child did a beautiful job reading Malachi 1:11

Miguel and 3 other pastors were ordained in The Church of The Nazarene as pastors to NZ. Only one was from NZ. The other 3 were USA, South Africa, and Australia I think.

We have gotten to know Neville Barton (above) who is the Overseer for the denomination within NZ. He served in Papua New Guinea for 30 some years as well as Fiji. His wife of 40 plus years was also in PNG as a missionary from Scotland.

With 10 kids among our 2 families the Nichols and Abascals were a sight at the Pizza place (above) and the after service luncheon (below).

We enjoyed the variety of music styles present within the service. The above is a Samoan choir and below is a Cook Island choir who got up and sang at the luncheon. We thought about getting up and singing a traditional song like Sweet Home Alabama from our native country.

The Key Note speaker, Dr.Jesse Middendorf (below) had flown over from the denomination headcourters in Kansas to speak at the Centennial Service and perform the ordination. The most curious thing was that he went to Lynn's mom's High School in Valley, Alabama when his father was the pastor at Fairfax Church of The Nazarene during the late 50's. I told him that my thanks goes out to Shawmut Baptist Church who I am told prays for our time here in New Zealand. It is a small world.

The Nazarene church in NZ has a large percentage of Pacific Islanders who apparently have a custom of honoring people with a Lei of flowers. Miguel gave his to Lynn since he has allergic bronchopulmonary problems. Remember Miguel was Lynn's first patient in NZ and had waited in the hospital to see Lynn. Anyway, Anna ended up with the Lei and I thought Aurora looked like a Pacific Island princess (below) with it on.