New Zealand (30 Dec 2019 – 31 Mar 2020)

One morning at the beginning of March, a couple from Germany visited the museum at the Matthew Cowley Pacific Church History Centre. They had come to New Zealand to further the woman’s research for a book she was writing on Maori history and culture. As she explained to the volunteer...

We have made twenty-two new friends while working at the Matthew Cowley Pacific Church History Centre—except that we’ve never talked with them. They don’t know our names. They don’t know we are on a mission in New Zealand. They don’t know a thing about us. And we know very little...

Late in the afternoon during our Monday excursion on 23 March, as we were an hour into our hike across the sand dunes at Port Waikato in company with Elder and Sister G, Barry’s phone buzzed. We were surprised that he was still getting a mobile signal so far from...

As Elder and Sister G (Barry and Eva) were planning a weekend trip to take care of some church history business near Napier, a town on the east coast of the North Island, they proposed that we head out after church on Sunday 15 March and meet them that afternoon...

The first thing visitors to the Matthew Cowley Pacific Church History Centre see when they enter the museum is a bronze bust of the Centre’s namesake. So we often ask, “Do you know who Matthew Cowley was? Do you know why the Centre is named for him?” Some older visitors...

Our trips to Kawhia to visit the museum and then to dig for pipis took us through the foothills around Mount Pirongia, the highest peak in the Waikato region at 959 meters (3146 feet). Only 30 kilometres southwest of Hamilton, the mountain is clearly visible from many vantage points in...

One morning during our daily devotional and staff coordination meeting, a question arose about whether some Church branches around the country contributed money instead of commodities to support the Labour Missionaries who were building the Church of College of New Zealand and the temple here in Hamilton during the 1950s....

“Let’s go see the Pink and White Terraces,” Eva had said when we began planning our next Monday excursion. We hadn’t heard of the Pink and White Terraces, so we asked for a description. “They’re an amazing crystal formation on a lake near Rotorua. They’re very famous,” Eva had assured...

One of New Zealand’s top tourist destinations since the early twentieth century is Waitomo, a district of the Waikato Region known for its system of karst caves (caves formed in soluble limestone). Waitomo (a combination of the Maori words for water and sinkhole) is located about 75 kilometres directly south...

With another summer Sunday afternoon stretching before us after church, we decided to drive to Kawhia (pronounced KAH-fee-ah), about 80 kilometres southwest of Hamilton. The village is located on the southernmost of the Waikato Region’s three major inlets on the Tasman Sea. Freshwater enters Kawhia Harbour by means of the...