Old Friends and New Friends
Yep, we are no longer on our own! We picked up our friend from Canada, Tim Lyon, at the airport yesterday. He arrived from Japan, where he just spent 5 weeks catching up with old friends there. He will be travelling with us for our last 4 weeks in New Zealand, and then continue on by himself for a bit.

After a stop in Hamilton to meet up with some other old friends of Tim's, we headed to Matamata to meet Daryl and Julie Bay. We didn't actually know Daryl, but he attended Dallas Theological Seminary with my brother, Philip, and so we wanted to connect with them while we were in New Zealand. It has been amazing so far - great to meet one of my brother's friends and his new wife. We went to church with them this morning, where Daryl is a part-time pastor. Since it is Mother's Day here (Happy Mother's Day to our moms!!!!), we had lunch with Daryl's parents, who live on a dairy farm nearby. I am not sure what the plans are for tomorrow, but maybe exploring Matamata a bit. We are in close proximity to "Hobbiton" for the Lord of the Ring fanatics, but we can strongly attest that hobbits do not live here - at least we haven't seen any.

We will be travelling around with Tim to the top of New Zealand over the next few weeks, before we arrive back in Auckland for a week on June 2nd. We will be staying there for a week, and then fly out on June 9th - crazy! We appreciate your prayers for safety as we travel, as well as for selling our car before we leave. We will try to update again soon - and there are more pictures in Our Photo Album, so have a look if you want.