More Fun

Andrew had a sick day at home this week. He had me make him soup because he said Nana said soup makes you feel better. It worked!

Anna enjoyed all her packages from you guys. She is modeling the new jammies.

Andrew enjoyed the presents too.

We made sushi one night this week. we used some fish Phillip caught on the dock.

The kids enjoyed rolling up the rolls.

They were really tasty!!

OK you guys better start leaving comments or at least your name because I am starting to feel like no one is out there. Where is Debra??? We love to see that who has been on line with us.

Thank you to both Mimi/Pop-pop and nana/Papa who sent birthday packages and clothes to us. They come right to our door and provide much excitement when we drive up, see them, and open them. Thank you.

The Silver Lining

American College Students Visiting for Summer

Birthday Bash- Anna turns six, Brooke sitting next to her
Andrew blowing out candles

5 friends from school and their siblings come to the party

Opening presents...Andrew loved the scooter, Anna a babydoll bed

First Tennis Match: Lynn and I try artificial grass (split sets 7-5, 4-6)

Claire tries Riparugby (like flag football) at a regional field day

She did great!

Don't get me wrong. There is no need for Prozac. I am not manic either. Lest everyone think we are on a year long Holiday, there are challenges here. Like anything else in life, this experience is a mixed blessing, a two-sided coin, a mixed bag, etc. I am not ready to throw this baby out with the bathwater. I am just saying nothing is perfect here or anywhere else for that matter. With that said let me tell you some of the great things we have been doing recently. Lynn still is seeing a lot of patients and spreading his kind heart, earnest prayers, and special medical knowledge to the patients at the hospital. I am making in roads with the histopathology folks and learning a lot about lab management through the hospital. We have made some ever dearer friends in the Abascal family (pastor who was Lynn's first patient). I have enjoyed Claudia (his wife), Anna's friend Brooke's mom (named Rene), and my coworker, mentor, and friend Viv especially a lot. We recently had 4 college students from Oklahoma, Ohio, and Massachusetts spend a few weekend nights with us. They are in New Zealand for 6 weeks with a mission through the Nazarene church. They did some programs at elementary schools, some afterschool programs with at risk teens, and some service projects like painting while they were here. The kids loved to play Cluedo with them and just hang out. They were such a blessing to our family as we got to know them. Lynn and I got some tennis in on a sunny day. We were rusty but the view was great. Claire and Phillip made Whangarei Heads school proud playing Riparugby at a regional field day last week. The twins birthday party was a great opportunity for us to meet other families including a german family and an Irish family who live close by. We are so excited about our little international rural community that the school is hosting a potluck and culture share for the school families to be held right on our street. I am thinking about bringing southern fried chicken but will take other suggestions in the comment section or via e-mail.

Going Deeper-Remembering the Dream

Ok for you bloggers consider this fair warning. The entries titled "Going Deeper" may be sappy, soulful, and spiritual with reflection and intraspection. You may want to quickly scroll down to the pics and read no further!

The past week has been a bit of a challenge. Well in reality the past 2 months have been a lot of a challenge. We tried to come up with an acronym today for the instances (frequent as they are) where we encounter things just not working out as expected, as planned, as wanted. You know the times requiring trouble shooting, patience, and extra effort. We started with PITA but decided pain in the backside maybe wasn't clean enough. We are thinking of using....oh I forgot but it had something to do with GO and growth opportunity. I am saying that with my "whatever" voice.
I think this week I just reached a low with all the "growth opportunities". Many of you know that I am not the most emotional female on the planet but there were some blue moments this week and yes tears too! I miss everyone and the things about my corner of Tennessee where there weren't so many "growth opportunites". I get frustrated as some things aren't easy here and not everything in New Zealand is working out as expected, as planned, as wanted. Many times here we have had to rework, try again, fix, wait, accept less, move on, etc and it is so exhausting and frustrating to us because we are use to running fast, effective, and efficient and pretty much "gettin her done". To add to the the cog in the wheel, I miss my family and tennis and church and even looking at slides under the microscope. Making a transcontinental move requires adjusting and I am about adjusted to contorsion. To make it more of a "growth opportunity" not everyone we know is loving THEIR "growth opportunity" as our move has disrupted their lives and brought sadness and heartache. For you guys we are very sorry to bring this on you and it pains us daily (more tears, more blue feelings).
We have made an effort to put the highlights on the blog (the above was not one of them!) and the highlight has been how God is working in the midst of it all. (If you have gotten this far for heaven's sake don't scroll down to the pics now!) I am reminded how one of my church friends said we should write down what all God did to get us here. Of course I meant to do that! In a way God reminded me tonight. We were playing Cluedo (the local name for Clue board game) and I noticed that I was bearing down on a book randomly grabbed from the shelf. We brought a few books with us and this was one that somebody had given Lynn (Thanks Robert). The book is reminding me that God made Lynn and I to enjoy foreign lands (all be it that they are contorting and frustrating) and he had planted this love as far back as our teen age years. We love to explore and it brings great joy and life to us deep in our soul as we experience people (Lynn and Phillip fished with a woman from Russia before dinner and Cluedo. How this woman made it to Whangarei I don't know. I am sure she was wondering the same thing about us!)Anyway, We are at our best when we feel like we have a purpose and there is so much of a need for respiratory medicine here and people have such misconceptions about Christianity (you may not know that it is a loving and dynamic relationship with a real and personal God who forgives and cares and just wants you to do the same). We had to sacrifice to come here with the hope it would be worth it. The dream started in a corner of our heart and just grew and grew into a thrilling beating in our chest that couldn't be ignored. Many of you understand but some can't understand. It's our unique dream and even though it was hard to leave the comfort zone it would have been harder to let that dream whither. God in his unique way has reminded me deep in my spirit that he is the dream giver. His plan is an exciting ride (to quote Cory-'life giving"). He is with me and will help me. I feel ordinary, afraid, and doubtful but he is extraordinary, faithful, and encouraging. Some how in a truely amazing way I see how God uses difficulties (book calls it wasteland times of our lives) to bring out the doubt and fear in our hearts and replace it with a new faith in him, new hope in him, new strength in reliance on him. I feel a deeper resolve coming as we get beat up a little in the circumstances. It's crazy but you realize you are weak, really weak and some how you sense He is strong in a new way. Have you ever felt that way? I recommend the "I'm falling here. Can you lend some help?" type prayer. Contorted but feeling better, Dawn

The Cabin By The Bay

Upstairs Lounge aka living room in Kiwi lingo

Andrew's makeshift room from an entryway downstairs

Phillip's room (picture was from his sliding glass door to the deck)

Groovy downstairs lounge

Kitchen/dining room is upstairs

Claire's room doubles as guest room with a private patio

Lynn picked the "room with a view"

Anna's room...of course she wanted pink!

The house is starting to feel a little more comfortable to us but still not like home. Things are older here especially in the rental market. It is taking getting use to. We don't have central heat and air which gives the house more of a camping feel with wet cool temperatures, lots of spiders/mosquitos, and cabin like interior. The fall weather has been very sunny this week which raises the temperatures for the afternoons. I sat out on the deck today and started one of those books I got for Christmas. The kids fished with Lynn. Claire opened the windows (no screens here) and had a fastfood coffee shop going out the window with deck waitress service too. Anna said she thought it was the best day we have had yet. The boys got up early and went to an annual road race in downtown Whangarei and then on to Phillip's Rugby game. The girls slept in, called my mom, and walked to the cafe for a late breakfast. We grilled out the very common kiwi meal of "lamb sausages with onions and peppers" for dinner. They serve them every where here including for breakfast at the Rugby fields. They remind me of the sausages my dad and I use to get at the fair when I was a kid. Someone should introduce the Kiwis to funnel cakes and they would have "fair food" down! I included some pics of the kids at what we have termed "the cabin by the bay".
The work week last week was interesting for Lynn with 2 plane trips on a prop plane without climate control last Tuesday and Thursday. The trips were all day affairs to do clinics in the extreme northern community of Kaitia. He said he saw a lot of severe sleep apnea patients who can't be seen in Auckland for months even if they could drive the 5 to 8 hours for a sleep study. He started formulating some ideas and meeting with folks about how to set up testing and c-pap to serve this 150,000 person area on a budget that might get approved by controled healthcare. Seeing such severe sleep apnea, advanced lung cancer, and limited resources (no EEG in Northlands, no pet scan in all of New Zealand) has struck a compassion in him to see what can be done in the system we are in. He has termed it 2nd world medicine because it is much better than 3rd world countries and resembles modern medicine but simplified and scaled down. The gardener that takes care of our yard told me he has prostate cancer and is waiting on surgery for the past 3 months. He looks like he is 50 years old. I am not a Urologist but it doesn't sound good. There is no radiation Oncologist here. Our next door neighbor moved here with seizures and finally got a CT scan that showed a mass. She is going to Auckland for 3 weeks of work up, etc. We don't have neurosurgery or neurologists in the Northland. Radiology is limited to a few cat scans/MRI's a day so you just have to wait until you can get in. The pathology lab appears very similar to US labs and I am finding some opportunities to teach medical students, interns, and residents about lab testing, blood products, etc to try to decrease pre analytical lab errors and inappropriate use of blood products. I am working on some administrative projects like revising requisition sheets, updating lab manuals, and initiating some lab tests the clinicians want. Fascinating "A?" We have gotten a kick out of lingo here. Some of the common phrases are: cool and awesome, being keen on something if you like it, something good is said to be "sweet as" but they never say as what (side note until today Phillip thought people were saying 'sweet ass' all the time, there is common cursing here at all ages), instead of loads of something it is "heaps of", making a statement then saying "A?" as if your asking Do you agree (Claire is really picking this one up). It would go something like this....
We are keen on New Zealand and having heaps of fun because things are sweet as but it would be awesome and cool if you would visit. A?

Lynn at the top from another panoramic viewpoint
Claire at the top with Ocean Beach behind her
View from the top shows more mountains down the coast
The crew at the bottom after 3 fun hours climbing

Hike To Top of Manaia (Whangarei Heads)

Me looking at the Heads last week from Mnt Aubrey
Lynn took this evening shot from our porch
The view from the top of Heads ( see oil refinery at Harbor's mouth)
Wind blown cold kids at the top

Let's Go Surfing Now, Everybody's Learning How

We had a great 3 day weekend for the Queen's Birthday. Our pastor friend Miguel gave surf lessons to those willing to brave the water after church Sunday. We took a picnic and enjoyed Waipu beach about 30 minutes south of town and on the otherside of the bay from us. We had 2 invites to dinner over the weekend and enjoyed the food and conversation of a Christian family from the UK and then the next night some incredible pizza, homegrown olives, and fun with a fellow physician Kiwi couple from the hospital and their 2 boys who are in the same class at school with our kids. On my brother's advice we started inviting some of these folks over to our rental house and grilled out today with Miguel, Claudia, and their 6 kids. We did a muddy but fun 3 hour round trip trek up to the Whangarei Heads we show so much in the photos. We will show photos of the muddy crew and panaramic views soon. Phillip "got a try" aka touchdown in Rugby lingo. He also landed the merit award from his coach for the second week. He has his eye on MVP but seems to be knocking the block out of Rugby to me. Andrew said he hopes everyone is proud of him too so bring on the commens about him catching the first fish! We heard of some karate down the street from us at a little community center so we may check that out for Andrew. He seems to love to sword fight and wrestle and punch at things.