It's a rainy Sunday afternoon over here and I'm sitting here in sweatpants and a hoodie doing everything in my power to fight off what feels like an impending cold. This last week, over 65 staff members from work made the long journey to Parihaka (including this sweet family, the Rukas). Parihaka is a small settlement in the Taranaki region of New Zealand's South Island. It was a six-hour drive from Auckland and it was two and a half very rich days spent there, and the photos are coming, naturally.
I threw together a quick video of the trip. Watch it on my IGTV channel here! It does absolutely nothing to capture the depth of conversation that I got to be part of - which I hope to write about in the days to come. We dissected the topics of race, history, and the church, and spent a lot of time listening. Listening to the stories of injustice that Parihaka has experienced since the invasion of their home in 1881, listening to what forgiveness and hope look like for this community, listening to people's process.
(Photos shot for Parenting Place).
