Well, here we are with the last E Newsletter for 2020!!
It’s hard to comprehend the year we have just had. Who could have imagined this time last year what was about to unfold. I suspect, thinking back, that this time last year, we had probably heard about some weird virus that was affecting Wuhan, a mid-sized city in China, but the thought of a global pandemic bringing sickness and death, economic disruption and the cessation of world-wide travel to most of the planet certainly wasn’t on our radar.
We have had to learn a whole new language – ‘lock-down,’ ‘QR codes,’ ‘social-distancing,’ ‘pivoting,’ ‘Zoom,’ {I thought that is what you did in your dad’s car when he wasn’t watching!} and a dozen other new terms, along with some older re-hashed ones that I am completely sick of – try ‘unprecedented!!!’
We have had to learn to be flexible in ways that we never anticipated – church on-line, Pastoral care without seeing the people we were trying to care for, trying to create community without being able to commune!
As always, when life disrupts our carefully laid plans, there are always positives to be had if you look carefully for them.
Most people we have talked to actually loved lockdown – the slower pace of life, the really important things that emerged out of the ‘Covid mist,’ the precious family times, time for walks, prayer, reading etc, etc.
We loved getting together again after the lockdown ended and I think most of us gained a new appreciation for our community life.
We hope that this year has also made us a much more grateful people.
We are so grateful to be living in NZ – there’s something to be said for a small Island at the bottom of the world with a very big ‘moat!’
Above all, we are learning God is over all and above all and that a global pandemic ‘Tsunami’ doesn’t even wet, let along shake His Eternal Throne.
We want to take this opportunity to say thank you for your continued support of our Gateway family and to wish you Merry Christmas and God’s very best for 2021.
Don and Karen
