Nikki and Scott Wheeler and their family are NZCMS mission partners who have, after a long wait, arrived in Kapuna, Papua New Guinea. Read Nikki’s update here about how they are settling into life in Kapuna, and navigating the challenges they are facing.

In December, as part of the Big Hearts campaign, our diocese wrote over 300 messages to ministers and Members of Parliament asking them to boost our funding for overseas aid. On Friday, Bishop Eleanor and others hand-delivered those messages to Minister of Finance Grant Robertson, one of the key decision-makers setting the government's budget.

Tertiary student Anna Smart, a member of our Movement, is currently serving as a short-term intern for the New Zealand Church Missionary Society. She writes her reflections on visiting Te Tii marae on Waitangi Day.

Margaret Poynton, a member of the Wellington Cathedral whānau, has been stationed as a Women and Children’s Worker in Papua New Guinea for a number of years, providing support to the Bishop and their wider community in the Diocese of Dogura, in Milne Bay. She has shared recently on the way things around her are quietly chugging on after the lockdown lifted for them, “some things however remain the same: the roosters continue their daily ritual of waking all and sundry, the sunrises and sunsets continue, the frogs and geckos still visit, and creation tells me that all will be well and that I am part of something much bigger than myself.”

The Feilding whānau gathered recently for a high tea event that served up more than just petit delicacies.  The parish would normally have held a fundraiser around this time of year, but instead chose to use it as an opportunity to give to others.  “This event was all about blessing others – so it ticked all our boxes!” said Rev. Sarah McMenamin, the Priest in Charge of the Oroua Parish.

For the past five years, a collection of young adults from Blueprint Church in Central Wellington have been hosting handball (foursquare) on the corner of Cuba and Manners Streets. Every Wednesday night from 9.30-11pm, anyone and everyone is welcome…