The Ostrom Family Adventures

I woke up Sunday morning for sunrise as I do – not nearly often enough – but enjoyed a quiet moment watching the sun rise behind the thick, fluffy and scattered clouds in the east and a rainbow showing off before the dark water-laden clouds in the west.

Rain is coming in from the west now as I write this looking out over Oriental bay and enjoying a strong coffee and the sounds of many different languages and accents being spoken around me.

Happy Easter is heard occasionally here in NZ, but it is celebrated more for a long weekend than a gratefulness for Jesus Christ dying and then rising from the grave, conquering death and evil in this world so that we have a chance to live with him in peace and paradise for eternity. Perhaps, and please forgive my contemplative musings, that is because sometimes, when you look around in the right places, watch or listen to the news or spend too much time on social media, it still feels like evil is ruling in this world.

When you look around deeper and when outside in your city or town however, you see so many people striving to be good, do good, fight for good and to share love, care and kindness with others and this world we’ve been born into. I’m blessed to be surrounded by those people often, it’s impossible for me to lose hope that love and goodness will exceed any balance of evil in this world. Jesus is my hope and I see so many shining with his Spirit in this beautiful world.

We spent Saturday and Sunday morning in beautiful Wellington. Saturday we walked to Te Papa Museum and went through the Nature section which was really really well done and shows again how unique NZ is to anywhere else in the world with its flora and fauna.

We then went through the Gallipoli exhibition and Wow!!! The gigantic size displays of soldiers in pensive, fighting or dying poses was incredibly moving and beautifully done. So much so that we didn’t feel like it was a time for photos, but reading their stories and reflection on the impact of this stoic but failed battle in WWI. ANZAC day is coming up this Friday so the timing is even more impactful.

From here, we went over the the Weta Workshop where the gigantic figures and exhibition was created – in addition to all of the Lord of the Rings, Black Panther, Avatar and so many other movie masks, armour, props and many sets! Also a super cool coinkydink! (not a NZ term;)

Sunday late morning, we went riding in Mt Victoria park – where we could see several places that Peter Jackson used as settings in different parts of LOTR movies! These just pop up on Apple Maps! ☺️

We also had a little show by a lovely little Tui bird! They make crazy cool sounds! And this video doesn’t show off their colors as well, but they are beautiful.

On our 6-hour drive back to Hamilton we found a quick bathroom break at the base of Mt. Ruapehu in Waiouru at the Army basic training base and found ourselves in the Army National Museum and took a 2 hour driving break to walk through the different exhibits, which was amazing and a huge history lesson as well.

We are only starting to understand more about the incredibly complex history of New Zealand after being at the festival celebrating te Tiriti o Waitangi and now learning so much more about the history of conflict and war in the country/for the land/and then those fought proudly by the people here – both Maori and European.

We looked forward to ANZAC day to learn more.