​It's the second day of winter and its warm in te Whare Karakia. We've been worshipping here for a month now and Anglican life during the week is happening here. Feedback for those coming is they enjoy the warmth, the decor, the fellowship and the life that is emerging at te whare.
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May has been a busy month for us as we kept it as a month to celebrate as we adjusted to our new Church environment. Ascension Day and Pentecost Sunday themes have kept us God-focused and the Thy Kingdom Come eleven days (18-28 May) has kept us prayerful. On Sunday 21 May we had a Day of Prayer beginning and ending with group worship times, with folk coming by the half hour inbetween to pray assisted by our eight Prayer Stations that helped people focus on different aspects of prayer.

Now we're in June and looking forward to two specials:
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• Sunday worship (10am) on 11 May will feature a testimony from Charles Nikora who has come to join us from Auckland. Charles, a former Apostolic Pastor, will reflect on some of his encounters with God and what these have taught him.
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• The following Sunday morning (18 May, 10am) is our monthly Guest Service where we have a simple gathering (no communion) where we can sing and pray for one another, and focus on a theme - our June focus is: Jesus is Looking for Disciples. Afterwards we have an enhanced morning tea at 11am. This service is suitable for children and young people and we will have a special slot for them, as well as an activity pack.

Since the Parish acquired this property renovations have proceeded:

• ceilings and some walls have been re-gibed over new insulation;
• the power meter has been relocated and new wiring installed;
• there have been kitchen and wall alterations;
• a roofed deck has been added at the back;
• replacement doors and windows have been ordered and should be available in a month.

Project manager David Parmenter from Pauatahanui Parish is overseeing this work as a volunteer and is confident that building can be occupied for a range of Porirua Anglican activities sometime in November.

Sunday (21 October) was celebrated as St Luke's day in St Anne's. We reflected that St Luke was both a physician and an evangelist. His writings - Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are full of references to both: accounts of prayerful healing and proclamation of the Good News about Jesus. After recounting various stories about Jesus, the Apostles and the earliest Christians, Luke focuses on St Paul in the second half of Acts portraying him as the model for evangelism and proclaimer of the word of God. We noted that Paul (2Timothy 4:11) reported to Timothy that, "Only Luke has stayed with me." Luke championed Paul as the pre-eminently early evangelist whose story it was important to record for posterity. Thank God for that.

We also noted that Luke records in his Gospel (chapters 9 & 10) that first the 12 Apostles and then 72 of the earliest followers of Jesus were sent by Him to heal and to tell the Good news about the kingdom of God. We noted that those sent were instructed to accept hospitality offered and not to sweat by carrying anything more than what they stood up in. They were to venture out with faith believing that God would provide not only for their personal needs, but also do what they were commissioned to do - tell the Good News, heal anyone with need and, in the case of the Apostles, exorcise demons.
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To their amazement they discovered that God worked through their faithful obedience just as God had been doing through Jesus' ministry. Our lesson: just do it, focusing on the mission and not sweating the small stuff, believing that God is with us. We left thinking about this challenge in terms of the power point slide we viewed which asks, "What do we need to do and be?"

We concluded our reflection time by viewing this image from a secular context which indicates that a healing context is created when we, "Care." The meaningfully rich te reo Maori word, "Manaakitanga"  offers insight into the kind of healing presence the Gospels refer to.