Many days passed

Hi everybody!!! a month flies by really fast when you are in an alternate universe....more on that later.  but here is a blog that seth started about a month and a half ago.  he didn't really finish it, but i told him that i am learning we just have to give out of where we are and what we got.  i don't think God asks us to be more than we are.  It's He who is greater and bigger in us that makes the difference.  so, here are some seth words....

So it has been nearly a month since our departure and i write to you from a small beach town on the west coast called Raglan.  On my previous journey to New Zealand my sister and I spent 8 days touring the north island and Raglan was by far favorite stop.  Off New Zealand's central Highway 1, Raglan sits just 45 minutes to the west.  The drive out to the coast is like a time warp to old Laguna Canyon Road at time when it was two lanes, there were cattle, and most importantly Irvine Company hadn't made its mark.  This is one of those roads you might find up in Mendocino County or along the central coast.  Where images and emotional stirrings force you to contemplate God's hand and at times my thoughts drifted to our beloved California and the open space we once knew.   I can remember my mom with the video camera recording the pastures of Newport Coast and telling us to take a good look, because it is all going to be houses some day.  So many times I tried to catalogue our experience as if it would be our last, yet there were no bulldozers or hungry developers waiting to make a buck.  The beauty kept unfolding, and I gave up my visual feeding frenzy,  trusting that New Zealand would continue to expose itself anew.  

This country is roughly the size of Oregon and California put together and it has only 4 million residents.  The New Zealander's know they live in a special place and they are quite keen to experience it all.  The country is set up to exposed and experienced.  With plentiful road signs, amazing camping facilities, and a solid effort at preservation 

Just a side note on Raglan...I stopped at the local garage to see about getting our power steering belt tightened (its got the squeeks) and I was greeted by another happy go lucky auto repair mechanic. (second side note...Dionna and I have discovered that all the auto mechanics in this country, who spend their lives in the dirt and grease, are enjoying life to its fullest, while all the health food stores who claim to change you life through organic food and eco-friendly cleaning supplies, have been nothing but stuffy and unwelcoming. Go figure)  After the mechanic wrote my name down I asked him what time i should bring the car.  He replied with, "what ever works for you no one ever sticks to the appointment times...this is Raglan"  Works for me...I knew i liked Raglan... "see you tomorrow."

For those of you contemplating marriage or if you have been at it for a while it is something I highly recomend.  My time with (Dionna sidenote: i wonder what he was going to say here!!!)

South is our current direction and we plan to board a 3hr car ferry come February 6th.   Dionna and I have enrolled in a Permaculture course on the south island starting the 7th.  The course runs 3 weeks and ends with a Permaculture certification and loads of hands on experience.  In case you are wondering what permaculture is I will try and give you a basic definition. Sustainable living whereby the land and the human can mutually benefit by working together. (Dionna sidenote:  essentially, it is a holistic approach to farming/gardening/taking care of the land.  it it is the kind of "farming" that came long before what we know in the middle states of the US.  It is what native peoples did.  we learned about assisting nature, doing what it does best.  permaculture is also about community.  it's about making space for people to connect and work together...that is permaculture in a very brief form).  The course will give us a great introduction into this (Dionna sidenote: now that i have completed the course i can tell you that it gave us a great introduction into permaculture certainly, but in a much bigger sense it gave us an introduction to how Seth and Dionna do life together and create boundaries in a place that is very very different from what we know.  more on this later...)

Hey guys, i have been in the computer lab for 4 hours and i am at the end of my rope.  the images are being a pain in my backside to download, so please forgive me if this blog has only one picture. but we have plenty, so we are going to try to start a flikr account or something.  please stay tuned.  

ps. we love you and miss you community

love dionna and seth