The West Coast of New Zealand has a rugged coastline but it is quite stunning. Some of you may remember the film "The Piano" which was filmed near Auckland at Karekare beach. Just beautiful! This past weekend we had a camp for people who are preparing to head off overseas and those who are currently home. We stayed at a campsite here at Piha Beach, the one next door to Karekare.

This was the first camp of this sort that we have had in a long time, in fact since we began in the office over a year ago. There were about 60 people in total, including kids. The weather played ball and even though it rained at times it was only during session times.

To be honest we wondered how this weekend was going to go. We had had a couple of extremely busy weeks leading up to it and at times we felt quite unprepared. We have been dealing with many a difficult situation including working with a long time missio who has been recently diagnosed with cancer and has weeks to live. It has been emotionally draining to say the least! We were very tired, even more so after the weekend but it was all worth it.

This morning my team debriefed from the camp. We were able to identify many a good thing that happened. God moved in the lives of those who participated and we had some really good feedback. One long time missio told us that it was the first time he had felt such a freedom to share and talk about the struggles of ministry. That was fabulous for us to hear. People really connected on a deep level and many email addresses were swapped for further contact.

The theme was "jars of clay". In one session there was a quote from Carl Jung. It challenged me. It was about recognising that Jesus calls us to "love the least of these" but what if the person that needed our love and care was ourselves? It spoke to me about how I often put others way ahead of myself and am not very good at looking after me. I learnt that it's ok to have time off, it's ok to rest, it's ok to say no. Guess it's time to practise it. I'm so not good at this stuff but I am committed to trying.

So, I began today. I left work on time, even though my list of things to do seemed to be getting bigger and not smaller. For me it was a major step to actually walk away. It will take me a while to work out what caring for me actually looks like but I have high hopes that I will eventually get it.