FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON, A TIME FOR EVERY ACTIVITY UNDER HEAVEN

Some seasons are a bit naff. I had a job working on a project that I was pretty excited about - and pretty passionately working with. It would seem that financial times dictated that they weren’t exactly passionate about me continuing to be passionate about their project... and sent me home to have an awkward conversation with my wife. This was a great season.

What was an incredibly horrible experience to endure has developed into one of the best seasons of my life. 2 weeks to the day after being made redundant, I was sitting at a seat in a Tauranga classroom for my first day at Bethlehem Tertiary Institute on their Secondary School teaching course. The journey to Tauranga each time would ALWAYS include a stop at these stunning falls in the Karangahake Gorge. The journey to becoming a teacher provides ample opportunity to engage the wider world of education in Aotearoa and the role that we have in engaging students of different cultures. My previous experiences had enabled me to approach this with a renewed appreciation for the complex and ever-growing story of Bi-cultural New Zealand. I had some fantastic and intimate experiences being privately welcomed onto one of my classmate’s Marae and meeting his “Nan”. I loved so much about my year at BTI - It grew me in all the ways that I needed to grow - aware, alive and inspired to be a teacher that teaches out of my genuine passion for living.