Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

Mirror Tarn/Moria Gate Arch Walk–Part 1

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When we were in Karamea for our family holiday, we spent one day exploring the Oparara Basin. First, we checked out Box Canyon Cave, as I described last week, and then we went back along the road a few kilometers to another carpark. After we ate our lunch, we went on a loop walk that took us to Mirror Tarn and the Moria Gate Arch. This track was supposed to take about an hour and a half to walk, but I think it took us more like two hours. We took our time and enjoyed the walk. It was so peaceful and beautiful, there in the rainforest!

This is the Oparara River, from the bridge we crossed on the way from the carpark to the beginning of the track. Some of the boys walked through it!

Rainforest!

This little bush robin came very close to us. They are totally unafraid of humans. Such a cute little thing!

I took this picture of a spider web to show Mom–and then forgot to show her. Well, Mom, you can see it now! I just thought it was quite interesting.

Mirror Tarn–a beautiful place!

Another bush robin showed up here.

Can you see two bush robins checking James out? He sat quite still for longer than I’ve seen him very many times.

As I approached this bridge, James laid down on the rail where you see him and said, “They ought to put the rails closer together so people can’t fall through and get hurt!”

I’ll share pictures of the rest of this walk next time. It was so beautiful! We took a lot of pictures.

Box Canyon Cave

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Though we didn’t want to go exploring every day, we decided to do some walking our first day in Karamea. We drove to the Opararo Basin, about a half hour’s drive north and then east of Karamea, and went all the way to the end of the one-lane dirt road. What a beautiful drive! I didn’t get many pictures of it because the road was rough enough that I was being bounced up and down so much that most of the ones I tried for ended up being blurry. Trust me, the terrain and the plant life were both amazing! The first two pictures give you just a tiny glimpse of what we were enjoying.

These fruits were ripe everywhere, and Simon was curious to know what they were, so he wanted me to take a picture. We’re still not quite sure what they are!

This was the entrance to the two caves. We were very disappointed not to be able to go into Crazy Paving Cave, since the entrance was locked up by DOC, but we walked on through here to Box Canyon Cave.

This is the entrance to Box Canyon Cave. No tour guides–just go in by yourself!

Yes, that’s Simon, with one usable arm, exploring the cave!

Miss Joy “read” the sign about the cave’s closure to her daddy, after I explained it to her.

On the Way to Karamea

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We had a short holiday this year! We went to Karamea, the town nearly at the end of the road going north along the West Coast, and camped there for four nights. It’s a lot of work to get away like that, but it was sure nice to have a break. Most of our holidays have been road trips, sleeping a different place nearly every night, so this time was different and we all very much enjoyed staying in one place for the whole time.

This is a view of the mountains as we drove along the Buller River, towards the Lower Buller Gorge.

This piece of sculpture is in front of one of the few buildings along the road that parallels the Buller. Can you see what the mosquito is holding?

I’m always amazed at the engineering that went into this bit of the road. It’s one lane there, for obvious reasons!

We had a bicycle rack on the back of the ute we were traveling in, and it hadn’t been fastened on quite right (inexperienced person putting it on!). We stopped a couple of times to tighten it down, and during one of those stops Little Miss posed for me on top of this rock, near the end of the Lower Buller Gorge.

A view down the river at the same point.

The Karamea Bluff was astounding! We had never been up there before, so even though we were warned that there was quite a hill to get over before reaching our destination, it still took us somewhat by surprise. We stopped near the top to admire the view. This is looking south-southwest from the road.

Of course, the young people in our vehicle had to walk on the guard rail! James drove us; Mom, Esther, Mr. Sweetie, Little Miss and I were the passengers. Elijah drove his vehicle, too, with the rest of the family in it, and pulling the camper we borrowed.

See the cut in the hill? That’s where the road goes next, from where I took the two pictures above.

This was the scenery we found as we neared Karamea. It is in a flat area, surrounded on three sides by mountains and the fourth side by the sea.

I had looked online to find accommodation for us, and found the Karamea Memorial Domain Campground. The rates were actually affordable for us, and they gave us this nice, private corner between some of their gardens. We parked the camper in front, and pitched three tents back near the flax, and had ourselves a very nice place to stay.

This building was nearby. It housed everything else we needed–kitchen, lounge, toilets and showers.

The boys found the pool table first thing. Simon was overjoyed to find something he could do, after laying on the couch for two weeks! He used the rest to steady his cue stick, and was the undisputed champion of the family, with his legendary hand-eye coordination. They spent a lot of time playing there.

They even roped me into playing one evening!

We had the use of this lovely lounge whenever we wanted to relax and read or play games together.

They had a large, clean, well-equipped kitchen.

The dining room was perfect, too. We spent several afternoons playing a long, continuous game of dominoes here.

We took a portable grill with us, and cooked meals over it at least twice.

Book Review–A Life Set Free

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About the Book:

Book: A Life Set Free

Author: Rena Groot

Genre: Non-Fiction

Release date: 2019

A Life Set Free was carried in my heart for years before I finally had the courage to write it. It was written under a mosquito net in China. The final editing took place at a guest house in Israel. It is filled with stories from God sparing my life to leading me on incredible adventures as an ambassador with “The Department of Eternal Affairs” to so many cool places ~ Haiti, a jungle village in Belize, the Ghetto in NYC, behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and Romania, Israel, China, Thailand, Mexico, Canada, Africa, and Greece. It is a story of God’s love and faithfulness.

My Thoughts:

I always enjoy reading the story of a person’s life. This book was no exception. Rena Groot has had quite an interesting life and tells of it well. I appreciated that she did not go into details about the abuse she suffered, but just let her readers know it was there. Many of her experiences as a follower of Jesus are quite encouraging to read. I especially liked the way she described her turning to Jesus. I did wonder about the way she and her husband seemed to go their separate ways much of the time; that did not seem wise. 

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

My name is Rena Groot and I am honored you have chosen to take a moment of your life to read this. I am an artist, author, have a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta and a Masters of Religious Education from the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary in Cochrane, Alberta. I have been a teacher in Canada and China, a tour manager from the Rockies to the Pacific, a missionary to the ends of the Earth, a mom of four ~ and best of all, a child of God.

More from Rena:

Why did I write this book? Because I had to. I wrote it for me…but God wanted me to share it with the world…with you…so you could be encouraged and know that God loves you…more than you can possibly imagine.

To purchase your copy, click here.

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To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

January/Early February 2023 Photos

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We’ve had a wonderful summer! My mom was here for three months (December, January and February). She left a couple of days ago, just as the weather is turning cooler and feeling like fall. We’ve been very busy canning food from the garden and going on trips, so we’re hoping life slows down a little now. I’ll soon start writing posts and sharing pictures from our week of vacation a couple of weeks ago, but today I’ll share a few other pictures that have been waiting.

We washed Miss Joy’s blankie one afternoon, and she watched it spinning around in the washer! She can hardly function without that blankie, although we’re working on weaning her from it except in bed. Slow process, that.

We haven’t seen that many rainbows this summer, because it’s been a very dry year, but this double was gorgeous.

We played a lot of games with Grandma while she was here. This is TransAmerica; we also played a lot of Wingspan.

Even with a broken collarbone, Simon can play a game with his little sister!

The inside of the strip canoe finally got a coat of fibreglass and epoxy! Now it sits in the garage and waits for the gunwales and seats.

I took the picture above and then headed for the house. On the way, I noticed Gayle chopping wood, so got his picture, too.

All those tiny green plants are baby beets! I let six Chiogga (candy-striped) beets go to seed, and these came up from the seeds that dropped.

James and his crew are building a house at the far west side of our village, about a five-minute walk from our house. We went to visit him and see what they were doing. They had built the forms for the concrete, and were lining everything with polystyrene before pouring the floor.

The girls often went on a walk with Grandma, and this one frequently campaigned for a stop at the playground. I love how her ponytails are flying up in this picture!

Book Review–A Ransomed Grete

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About the Book:

Book: A Ransomed Grete

Author: Chautona Havig

Genre: Christian Historical Mystery, Fairytale

Release date: December 28, 2022

October 1939—What happens when you run from danger… and into a trap?

After the Anschluss, Austria becomes a place its citizens don’t recognize—especially its Jewish citizens. Whispers ripple through Jewish communities—whispers about a chalet where a woman protects Jewish children from discovery. She’ll keep them safe, fed, and far away from Nazis.

Parents are forced to make horrific decisions. Send their children away to safety, possibly never seeing them again, or keep their families together and risk their children’s lives?

Hans Hartmann arrives at the chalet with a chip on his shoulder and a little girl in tow. He found Grete waiting at the train station. Alone. But life at Chalet Versteck feels more ominous than the streets of Vienna. Children sometimes vanish, and before Hans can figure out what’s happening, a high-ranking officer appears—and is killed.

It’s a race to find out who killed the man and get himself (and probably that pesky Grete) out!

A Ransomed Grete is the bridge book between the 1920s and 1940s Ever After Mysteries, combining fairy tales with mysteries.

My Thoughts:

Because I will read anything that Chautona Havig writes, I signed up for a review copy of A Ransomed Grete as soon as I could. I knew that it was a fairytale-inspired mystery set in the 1930s in Nazi controlled Europe. That means that parts of it are not very nice to read.

To tell the truth, I was quite confused through a lot of this book. I believe that was intentional on the part of the author, and there were definitely some red herrings thrown in to confuse the mystery.  Because I knew that the story is based on the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, I figured that the woman in the chalet must be on the “wrong” side, but it took a long time to figure out how and why.

While A Ransomed Grete will not likely ever be one of my favorites of Chautona Havig’s books, I like the way she ended it. Her note to the readers at the end is most of what made the book have value to me.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

USA Today Bestselling author of Aggie and Past Forward series, Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona:

Picture it. Ventura, California,1982. Why I went to the lock-in, I still don’t know. It wasn’t my church, I didn’t actually like the girl I went with, and I knew no one else. In hindsight, I think God put me there, because that was the night I was introduced to Corrie Ten Boom.

Yes, they showed The Hiding Place, and a near obsession with all things Holocaust followed.

I don’t remember when my brain connected The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to that same war and helped me realize that the people bombing London and making the need to protect those children were the same ones ripping fathers, mothers, and children from homes in other countries and sending them “out into the country” too. But it happened. A sickening, nauseating understanding that still infuriates me today.

I railed against the evil soldiers. How could they do such a thing? My ever-patient father said, “Like our airmen should have refused to drop the bombs that ensured we’d end the war with Japan? When do soldiers get to decide which orders they will obey and which they will not?”

In my self-righteous, ever-black-and-white mind, I remember saying something to the effect of, “If they’d all refused, then the generals would have to listen. You can’t kill all your soldiers for insubordination.”

Dad’s quiet voice (it wasn’t always, but it was when he was deadly serious) answered that with a… “Considering the millions of Jews they slaughtered, I think they might have. Live soldiers can make a small difference.”

Look, Dad wasn’t defending the Nazi regime. He wasn’t defending sending innocent people to their deaths because some madman said they must. He did, however, point out that sometimes what seems to be acquiescence is really a front for helping people under the radar. Without proof of someone’s guilt, we could hope there was more to it than fear for self.

And that taught me another lesson—to assume the best of people until they gave me a reason to know otherwise. It also sparked ideas. How many men, women, and children pretended to be in league with the Nazis when they weren’t? How many people cowed to Nazi ideals out of self-preservation? How many others didn’t really see the evil until it was shoved down their throats?

It took forty years to do it, but those questions became the basis for A Ransomed Grete (pronounced Gret-uh, if it matters to you). What happens when the horrific occurs and self-preservation becomes a means of evil? I hope I offered enough hope amid the horror of Jewish genocide.

To purchase your copy, click here.

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To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Hangi

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We decided to spend Waitangi Day this year with friends on the other side of the island. Waitangi Day is a celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the English and the Maori, and is on February 6 each year. When we first talked about visiting these friends that weekend, I mentioned that Esther wanted to come home in time to go to the hangi in Greymouth. This is a big community picnic; a hangi is a traditional Maori way of cooking food by digging a hole and lighting a fire in it to heat up rocks (or large pieces of metal). The food is placed on the hot rocks, the hole is filled in with dirt and left for several hours, and then the food is dug up to be eaten. Our friends decided to have a hangi themselves, so that we could all experience it together, and as it turned out, the one in Greymouth was canceled due to heavy rain, so it worked out very well to stay there.

The children went swimming, and then warmed up by the fire. Notice James’s seat?

They tossed some old freezer baskets into the fire and burned off the plastic coating, and then we lined them with foil.

We put the meat in the foil-lined baskets, topped with pumpkin chunks and potatoes.

When the fire had burned down enough, the big embers were raked out. James was still supervising from his wheelbarrow!

After covering the baskets with cabbage leaves, they were lowered into the hole on top of the coals.

Next, wet sheets and wool blankets were put on top of the baskets.

After covering the blankets with wet burlap bags, the dirt was shoveled over everything, and we left it for about three hours.

Is it ready? Only one way to find out! They started digging the dirt out again.

All that wet cloth kept the food baskets clean.

We opened the baskets to check. What a delicious smell! The meat was cooked, but the vegetables weren’t quite done. We should have left it another half an hour and it would have been perfect. We finished the cooking in the house.

Everyone enjoyed the feast! Notice that Simon’s arm is in a sling. He came off his bicycle in January and broke his collar bone. This picture was taken two weeks after the accident.

We finished the evening with a round of singing children’s Sunday school songs. Everyone enjoyed that very much!

Waiuta

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I have already written about Waiuta in at least two other posts, so I won’t go into a lot of detail. We took my mom there on New Year’s Day. We went to a small Baptist church that day in Reefton, and then had a picnic at the old mining village and walked around for awhile. It was a beautiful day! One interesting thing from the day was figuring out what area of the village our house came from. We ate lunch in the lawn of one of the few remaining houses, and Esther noticed that the original paint color was the same as ours, and the roof is the same color. Then, I saw a photo of the entire village, and that section of houses are the only ones near the size of ours. Fun!

We got Grandma to take a picture of our family. It wasn’t as good as the one we had gotten the week before, at Punakaiki, though, so we’ll get that other one printed.

The little girls wanted their picture taken. They are rather photogenic!

My love and I!

Little Miss on top of an old wine cellar.

Simon, James, Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination off on an adventure.

While Mom and Gayle checked out the foundations of an old building, Esther found a patch of self heal and harvested the flowers.

We went up to the Prohibition mine, at the top of the mountain. What a view!

One would think that James was tired that day!

On the way down the mountain, we had to move over to let another vehicle past on the narrow road. We got a little too far over, and the wheels got sucked into the soft ground at the edge. We were very thankful to be on this side and not the other, where the cliff drops away sharply! It didn’t take the men long to get the van out, once everyone was out of it. Those of us who were not helping with the rescue walked down the road just a bit and stood at a bend, so we could stop anyone who happened to come along up the road–thankfully no one did. That’s an old watering trough from the horse-and-wagon days beside us where we were waiting.

Photos–November/December 2022

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Somehow, I missed sharing these photos! This first one was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and obviously Simon and James were tired.

Mom was sending a birthday card to one of my brothers in the States, and several of the younger children wrote letters to their cousins to include with it. Mr. Sweetie took several pictures to add to his letter. This one was taken from the hill across the road, and shows our house and garage, and, to the right, the small guest house Mom is staying in.

A thistle on the hill across the road.

Foxgloves–a major weed in the pastures.

A view of our back yard from the roof of the tiny house.

Next, he climbed the garage roof to take some pictures. This is Esther tying up the tomatoes to the posts on the other side of the greenhouse. It sure looks different now–the tomatoes are taller than I am!

Another view of the garden from the garage roof.

Looking down from a tall tree at part of the back yard and a corner of the garage.

The corner of the back yard by the garage, with the boys’ collection of bicycles and their workshop.

A photographer has come several times to take pictures of our family. Here, one of the children got a picture of him!

Little Miss learned to make hollyhock dolls this year. She loved them!

After she took a picture of her doll, I suggested she take a picture of the incredible hollyhock plant! I’ve never seen one so tall. It no longer looks so nice; it’s about done, and falling over.

She also took a picture of a potato blossom.

Esther spent several days staining the woodwork around the deck of the tiny house. It now has a roof, too!

Book Review–The Winnowing Fork

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About the Book:

Book: The Winnowing Fork

Author: Betty Ruth Weatherby

Genre: Biblical Fiction

Release date: September, 2022

NEW CHRISTIAN NOVEL FILLED WITH ADVENTURE

ZACCHAEUS EXPERIENCES ROMAN OCCUPATION AND THE FAMILY SHAME OF LEPROSY AS HE SURVIVES IN THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF 2000 YEARS AGO.

Betty Ruth Weatherby travels the world and uses her experiences to create the Biblical Fiction of “The Winnowing Fork” to convey the message of God’s sustaining, eternal love.

The tax collector’s mother is banned with a skin disease when his father is conscripted by the occupying Roman army.

Follow Zacchaeus as he grows to love the sound and glitter of gold coins while his greed consumes him, overcoming even his love of family.

Zacchaeus in his lonely, self-isolation discovers that the real author of peace and serenity is in a man called Jesus whose father is God himself. Jesus passes through Jericho on his way to Passover in Jerusalem.

Zacchaeus tries to see through the crowd as the entourage passes: “He yanked the leaves back again, and found the Rabbi looking at him, His eyes fastened on Zacchaeus.”

My Thoughts:

When I read the description of this book, it sounded quite interesting. I found myself disappointed with it, though. The basic storyline is all right; I found this a very interesting “what-if” story that explored thoroughly the way a boy fascinated with money became a man obsessed with himself and his accumulation of wealth. However, I was disappointed with the poor editing; the grammar, sentence structure and punctuation needed a lot of work and I found myself puzzled with the meaning of some sentences. I also found myself jerked out of the story a few times by anachronisms such as a character exclaiming, “Yikes!” (in Bible times?!). Also, the description of a wedding was not accurate for the times, and the timeline didn’t make sense to me. I was quite disappointed with these things.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

Betty Ruth Weatherby is a graduate of California State University, Stanislaus. She earned her teacher’s credential from Chapman University as well as a cross-cultural language and academic development certificate from Sacramento State University. Weatherby has sold her books across America. She is the author of the Lanover Adventure Series, Pepper’s children’s series and excels in Women’s Adventures. Women can travel the world as part of God’s Plan to enjoy life at its fullest and step out in faith.

Weatherby was born in the shipbuilding community of Sausalito, California and writes from a world of experience in fulfilling the Christian walk. Her most recent novel “The Girl on the Tombstone” is a nostalgic historical piece based in San Andreas, California where she grew up and attended Calaveras High School.

More from Betty Ruth:

Zacchaeus was always a puzzle to me. How did he become a hated tax collector and only one meeting with Jesus turned his life around. So, I imagined a story, gave him a family and neighbors to create a life around him as he accumulated his “taxes.”

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.