Our Trip to Windy Wellington

  
Bon voyage! On Sunday, September 22, we boarded the Interislander ferry and sailed across the Cook Strait to Wellington. Courtnay, Allie, Adam, Emma, the terrific ten, and I (Kristen) spent the week in the Wellington area as part of the Sustainable Community Development course. We made our trip to the North Island to see how sustainable community development is being lived out in this urban area of the North Island.

One of our field trips took us to Naenae Boxing Academy.

After we arrived in Wellington, we had a powhiri and were welcomed to the Te Kakano o Te Aroha marae in Lower Hutt. This marae is unique in that it is also a church. While staying there, we had speakers come to the marae and also traveled into the city of Lower Hutt and Wellington.

We started off with a TED lecture featuring James Howard Kunstler. In it he talked about how public spaces should inspire members of the community to care about and identify with the place in which they live. Leah (Dordt) also took away from this lecture the importance of considering ourselves citizens, not consumers.

The next morning, we visited Te Papa, New Zealand's national museum, toured parliament, and explored the city. Fun fact: The parliament building, commonly referred to as "The Beehive", was voted the 3rd ugliest building in the world in 2009.

The following day, we started out the day with some exercise. We visited Naenae Boxing Academy, a place dedicated to turning young boys into healthy young men through coaching and mentoring from founder Billy Graham. After telling us his story, he had us skipping rope and tossing medicine balls to each other. From there, we explored Lower Hutt a bit and met with Hutt City council Urban Planner Paki Maaka. He explained what his role is and the projects he is working on to improve the city in the future.

Image showing areas of improvement for Lower Hutt's Central Business District. Image from Hutt City Council.

Back in Wellington city, we visited Innermost Gardens, an urban garden where, as their mission states, people are brought together through a love of gardening, which provides a vehicle for them to share their knowledge and learn from one another. We were accompanied by Richard Self and Nancy King, both core members of the garden. A message I'll echo from Nancy is to save our heirloom seeds! Richard brought us through the gardens and helped us learn about the purpose of each plant in the larger ecological picture, resulting in a pleasantly aromatic cup of tea. We ended the day with a lecture from JustSpeak, an organization that encourages young people to speak up for change in the criminal justice system. They shared with us ideas of restorative justice and explained the prevalence of over-representation of Maori in the prison system. It was a full day with many questions to digest in the time to come.

On Wednesday, we braved the rainy weather and visited Zealandia, a mammal-proof sanctuary in the heart of Wellington. Despite the rain, a number of us were able to see rare birds otherwise isolated to offshore islands like the saddleback, takahe, and hihi. The indoor exhibition was an informative sanctuary for the wet and weary. I learned that weta are the only insect known to consume fleshy fruits and distribute their seeds! Bekah (Dordt) said that "Zealandia was a great place to see species unique to New Zealand. The sanctuary did a great job of representing what New Zealand may have looked like before humans arrived." Then, it was off to Wainuiomata to take a walk through a wetland being restored by a man named Russell Bell. Despite the importance of wetlands, fewer than 10% remain in New Zealand with the rest being wiped out in the last 200 years. Russell explained why we should care for our wetlands and showed us what he's doing to protect them. As Jacob (Messiah) remembers Russell putting it, "If you're going to save the world, sometimes you need to be audacious."

We visited the home of Adi Leeson and heard his story of caring for "the least of these".

The following morning, we left for Ngatiawa, a retreat area for Urban Vision workers. Ngatiawa has also been referred to as a "contemporary monastery". We were able to take part in their daily rhythms as well as share meals together, join in on their weekly tea party, and help with work being done on their yurt. We visited activist Adi Leeson, part of the Ploughshares Aotearoa movement. Known most notably for dismantling the domes at the Waihopai spy base in the aims of protecting Iraqi civilians from becoming victims of war and torture. He encouraged us to live radically, take risks, and to listen to the little voice inside us rather than ignore it. Our final speaker was Jenny Duckworth, co-author of Against the Tide, Towards the Kingdom. She also told us her story and encouraged everyone to use whatever skills, privileges, and talents possible to help others. We were left with some encouraging words from Jenny Duckworth:

"The call is to align our hearts with the heart of God...Let's live our lives with open hearts to the fact that the world is dying and suffering, and the excitement that we can do something about it...There's no person and no skill set that isn't useful for helping the world...It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as you do something."

Now we're back in Kaikoura and ready for our second week of Sustainable Community Development with Mick Duncan. More to come soon!

Our crew helping to move the old yurt to a new location at Ngatiawa.

Reading Week

You know it's Reading Week when the Old Convent falls quiet and you find a student cosied up with a book and a warm mug around every corner. A lot of reading has taken place in the past few days, but we've been busy with much more than just that!

On Tuesday, I (Kristen, SLC) led a homemaking session on papermaking. Using laundry lint and office paper as our pulp, we created a handful of homemade sheets. Maybe you can expect a handwritten letter home from one of these fine new paper-makers!

Emma (Left, Berry), Jenna (Center, Wheaton), and Becca (Right, Dordt) each did a great job making their first ever sheet of paper.

Later in the week, we went out to the peninsula for an afternoon of volunteering with the Department of Conservation (DOC). They were in need of some gravel paths within the Hutton's shearwater enclosure, and we were the right bunch for the job. Hutton's shearwaters are an endangered bird special to Kaikoura; the Kaikoura mountains are the only place in the world where these birds breed! The mammal-proof enclosure on the peninsula keeps them safe from invasive threats they face today and provides them with a more secure future. Since the adults are all on their way back from Australia, we were just in time to get the project done.

CCSP's volunteer day with DOC

Something new and exciting to Reading Week was the Te Reo Maori course. Two students, Rob and Diane, and four staff members were able to participate in this course as an introduction to the Maori language. By the end of the week, we were all able to count to 100, tell time, greet one another, sing a few songs, give a mihimihi, and, everyone's favorite, perform a haka! It was great to be able to learn about the Maori culture through their beautiful language.

Rob (Messiah), Diane (Westmont), Adam (SLC), and Kristen (SLC) performing a haka

Next week, we'll be away in the Wellington area to see how members of these communities are making strides in sustainable living and community-building. We look forward to telling you all about it!

The First Week of Class Is Under The Belts!

Greeting from beautiful Kaikoura!

This past week, September 9th -13th, the students had their first week in the classroom!

The upstairs classroom at The Old Convent
was used by the nuns & the priest
 to hold services.

Here at CCSP, classes are taught in one week or two week long blocks. Students have 3 hours of class in the morning and 2 hours of class in the evening, Monday through Friday. This is a new format for most students, but it invites them to jump into the material straight away and become active in their class environment.

The first class is called Sustainable Community Development. This week long class was taught by the incredible Michael Duncan aka Mick. Currently, Mick is the pastor at Manurewa Baptist Church in South Auckland. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at a number of colleges in NZ and Australia. His particular passion continues to be as a speaker, calling people and groups to be all that which they were created to be and do.  

Mick is truly a gifted speaker and he has a unique way of engaging people through the art of storytelling. The students were immediately drawn into the stories about him and his family having lived and served in the slums of Manilla, Philippines for 10 years.

Some of the student's reactions to the class were:

"Eye-opening!" - Jacob Pelkey 

"Great integration between students and professor." - Leah Werkhoven

"Thought provoking and challenging. A blessing to have a teacher with great wisdom for our first week of classes." - Diane Rodriguez

"I found Mick's class to be challenging and insightful, and a good start to our semester." - Rebekah Benson

"Mick was great because he shared all sorts of opinions and values/ideas that he holds, and it was really evident that he had years of experience and reflection backing them." - Rob Wheatley

*If you want to learn more about the experiences of Mick Duncan, check out one of his books Costly Mission: Following Christ into The Slums.


Into the future!
This coming week is called appropriately named, "Reading Week." Students are responsible for reading the texts in preparation for ALL of their courses. In addition to the HEAPS of reading and preparing that the students will be doing, an enriching course about the indigenous Maori language will be taught in the evenings by a local Maori resident, Brett Cowan. The course "Te Reo Maori" is sure to be a great way for students to interact with and learn from the Maori language!

*If you want more info about CCSP or you are interested in studying abroad, check out our website: http://www.creationcsp.org/


Cheers,


Student Life Coordinator (SLC) - Adam

Haere mai

Haere mai! Welcome to Kaikoura!

The CCSP staff is pleased to welcome 10 new students to the Old Convent for the Fall of 2013 semester!

It's been a great 2 weeks of getting to know the new friends we will be sharing our home with here in Kaikoura, NZ. We welcome Diane from Westmont College, Monica, Rob, Steve, Jacob, and Kelsey from Messiah College, Leah and Bekah from Dordt College, Jenna from Wheaton College, and, our first ever student from Berry College, Emma!

So, what have we been up to? Students have been introduced to CCSP, the local community, Maori and kiwi culture, and the area in which they'll be living for the next few months.  We've been able to do some hiking around the Kaikoura area, including the beautiful coastal Peninsula Walk with Brett Cowan.  He also introduced us to Maori culture, teaching everyone a haka and welcoming us onto the local marae. During our iconic kiwi tea, students were able to taste some kiwi favorites, like L&P, lamb with mint sauce, and Hokey Pokey ice cream. We also had a BBQ, and invited the community to come and meet our new students. Little by little, they are learning new names of places, friends, birds, plants, lollies, and more!

We had beautiful weather for our day out on the Peninsula Walk!

What was the highlight of Orientation Week? The 2-day-old lambs at the Topp farm definitely stole the show! Spring has sprung!

We all had the chance to hold a lamb from the Topp farm that was only 2 days old! Top Left: Rob (Messiah) Top Right: Emma (Berry)