Dear Young People,
Greetings to you from New Zealand. These greetings come to you in the name of our Father Who is in heaven.
We have been in New Zealand for almost six weeks now, although it does not seem as if that much time has gone by already. Much of our time thus far has been taken up with settling into the New Zealand culture and the Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Christchurch.
The Lord willing, I hope to keep up this correspondence with you by also writing in the Standard Bearer. Thus, I hope to be able to tell you a little of what it is like in New Zealand and what it is like in the Orthodox Presbyterian Churches in New Zealand.
If you have any questions concerning what I write, please feel free to write me, and I will try my best to answer you. You may also write, of course, even if you do not have any questions.
In this first letter to you, I want to tell you a little about New Zealand. There are two reasons for my doing this.
I know that you are more interested in my work in the Orthodox Presbyterian Churches. So am I. But, you see, I have only been here among these Churches for a little over a month. That is not a very long time to get to know a church well. When one of our ministers goes to a new charge in a different congregation, he may have learned a lot about that congregation in a month’s time; but it would have been very hard for him to get a complete picture of that congregation in that short a time. I have learned much in the time I have been here, but I want to get a more complete picture of the situation before I will feel capable of telling you what it is like here. So, first, we turn to the country. This gives me more time to learn the ecclesiastical situation.
The second reason why I want to tell you of the country first is because it is important to know about the land and customs in which one is working. It might not seem so important. It is though. This is because the members of the church are also people of this country. When a minister preaches, he must know his people in order that the preaching might fill the needs of his portion of the flock of Christ. It is true that sin is universal. And the same sins are performed in New Zealand and in Jamaica as are committed in the congregation of Hope. But still the people are different, and these differences you must know in order to preach and be a good pastor to them. I believe that this is what the apostle Paul meant in I Corinthians 9:19-22. “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under that law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.”
That is why it is important to know about New Zealand culture and about New Zealanders in general.
One of the big things that strikes you very quickly after getting off the airplane is that New Zealand is influenced by England. You can see this in some of the architecture, in the large amount of Anglican and Presbyterian churches, and in some of the words which are used. New Zealand is a member of the Commonwealth, having as their figurehead Queen Elizabeth II. But New Zealand governs itself with its own Parliament and Prime Minister. Also eighty percent of the people in New Zealand can trace their family lines back to England. The vast majority of the people in the Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Christchurch are of third or fourth generation extraction from England.
There are some other differences which strike you as you leave the airport. The average size car is smaller than that in the States. The average size here is the Ford Cortina or the Plymouth Valient. Also you see many bikes and motorcycles on the streets. Many women and businessmen ride a bike to work or to the store.
As in Jamaica, they drive on the left side of the road and the driver sits on the right side of the car. When I first started to drive here, I really had to keep this in mind at all times. When you turn out of a driveway or onto a different road, you have to be very careful that you are on the right, I mean correct, side of the road. The most difficult time to remember this is when you back out of a driveway onto the road. By now it is becoming a habit for me, but at first I had someone riding with me. It was a good thing too.
Also, I have had some embarrassing moments when I have gone to the wrong side of the car. Suddenly realizing that I am on the wrong side, I quickly shut the door and as I walk around the car to the correct (left) side, I look around to see if anyone saw my mistake.
As far as dress is concerned, the New Zealand way of life does not place as much emphasis on fashion and hair as do Americans. Dresses are much more common. Many men, whether working manually or in a business, will wear what they call walking shorts and knee socks. This we are told, is a Kiwi (nickname for a New Zealander) tradition.
The metric system is in full use here. You buy meat by the kilogram (their equivalent to hamburg is 95 cents a kilogram). Milk comes by the milliliter (600 ml is 9 cents). You drive by kilometers (average speed in the city is 50 km).
There is no central heating, no insulation in the homes and the large windows they have are only a single pane in width. Because the city of Christchurch (population of almost 300,000) is on the Pacific Ocean, the people say that they do not have a climate, just weather. They mean that the weather is so variable it is difficult to say what its climate might be. Further inland and on the west coast there is a climate. To show you how variable the weather is, let me give you the high temperatures for the last two days. The high for Sunday was 31C, and the high for Monday was 21C. This is in the middle of summer. The primary sports in New Zealand are cricket, rugby, and football. By football they mean soccer. When they refer to the kind of football we know of in the States, they speak of “gridiron”. Today is the first day of school for our children. Yesterday we obtained the last articles of their uniforms. Yes, uniforms. All school children, whether public or private (there are no parental schools here), wear uniforms.
Although there are differences, there are also many similarities. The most important of these is language. The only thing about that is that they have an accent (and they say we do).
But the greatest similarity is the unity of faith and belief that we have found in the small congregation in which we are laboring. But of them we will tell you more in our next letter.
Often we wish that you could be here to see and experience what we see and are experiencing. But while we are apart, remember us even as we remember all of you. Pray for us as we labor in the Gospel.
In His service.