Matamata's biggest claim to fame as far as we are concerned is not that the Hobbiton set (where much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed) is nearby, rather this has been home for Kim for the last 16 months or so. Her Youth With a Mission base is located about 15 minutes outside of Matamata at a place called Crystal Springs. It is in a beautiful rural setting several acres in size which runs down to a small river along one side and farmer's fields on the other.
Before the YWAM organization acquired the property it had been a hot springs resort with a giant outdoor pool filled by the thermal waters. However, disaster struck when the river flooded its banks one year contaminating the pool which ended up causing serious illness and a few deaths. It's not hard to figure out what happened to the spa resort. I digress. This is supposed to be a happy story, but as we all know, we cannot experience happy without knowing about sad. Speaking of happy, I just paused momentarily to indulge in a TimTam Slam. A TimTam is a chocolate covered biscuit, rectangular in shape.
To do a slam you need a mug of tea and it has to be pretty much full. Step one is to take a very small bite on diagonal corners. Step two is to use it like straw and suck the tea into you mouth. With the tea being hot, and the TimTam being chocolaty with a very fragile wafer in the interior, it begins to collapse what with the heat and wetness of the tea. As a result you need to shove the entire biscuit, which is heavy with tea, melting chocolate and wafer into your mouth immediately (the slam). If you don't, you have a gooey mess in your fingers and in your tea. Once you get it right it is heaven in a biscuit. But I digress. This blog entry is supposed to be about Matamata and so I will try to restrict these comments accordingly. Julie and I spent three nights there and it was great to do so as in the past 14 days we had stayed in the same place for more than one night only once, so we were really ready for this change of pace. We knew that Kim would be immediately pulled into her duties and so I have to say that our emotions were high that day. We had had a wonderful time, just the three of us and our arrival at the base was an ending to this joyous time. This was, in retrospect, OK because we immediately saw how happy she was to be there and we saw how warmly she was greeted by all the staff. I think we already knew she was in a good space and a good place, but to see the physical space and to meet and greet the people that up until then were only characters in her narrative really brought it home. But we were right - from the moment we arrived she was off 'doing her thing' and we were left largely to our own devices. This was OK and was in fact a good transition (or weaning) period as we would still enjoy a few Kim encounters each day. We also had the chance to get to know many of the people Kim is working with which was great and it was really interesting to hear the stories of how these people from so many walks of life heard and answered a calling to serve. But again I digress. We still didn't have to do a final goodbye as we will be back in Matamata for our last night in New Zealand and so our departure from the camp was really not that tough - at least nobody cried.
Before the YWAM organization acquired the property it had been a hot springs resort with a giant outdoor pool filled by the thermal waters. However, disaster struck when the river flooded its banks one year contaminating the pool which ended up causing serious illness and a few deaths. It's not hard to figure out what happened to the spa resort. I digress. This is supposed to be a happy story, but as we all know, we cannot experience happy without knowing about sad. Speaking of happy, I just paused momentarily to indulge in a TimTam Slam. A TimTam is a chocolate covered biscuit, rectangular in shape. 
To do a slam you need a mug of tea and it has to be pretty much full. Step one is to take a very small bite on diagonal corners. Step two is to use it like straw and suck the tea into you mouth. With the tea being hot, and the TimTam being chocolaty with a very fragile wafer in the interior, it begins to collapse what with the heat and wetness of the tea. As a result you need to shove the entire biscuit, which is heavy with tea, melting chocolate and wafer into your mouth immediately (the slam). If you don't, you have a gooey mess in your fingers and in your tea. Once you get it right it is heaven in a biscuit. But I digress. This blog entry is supposed to be about Matamata and so I will try to restrict these comments accordingly. Julie and I spent three nights there and it was great to do so as in the past 14 days we had stayed in the same place for more than one night only once, so we were really ready for this change of pace. We knew that Kim would be immediately pulled into her duties and so I have to say that our emotions were high that day. We had had a wonderful time, just the three of us and our arrival at the base was an ending to this joyous time. This was, in retrospect, OK because we immediately saw how happy she was to be there and we saw how warmly she was greeted by all the staff. I think we already knew she was in a good space and a good place, but to see the physical space and to meet and greet the people that up until then were only characters in her narrative really brought it home. But we were right - from the moment we arrived she was off 'doing her thing' and we were left largely to our own devices. This was OK and was in fact a good transition (or weaning) period as we would still enjoy a few Kim encounters each day. We also had the chance to get to know many of the people Kim is working with which was great and it was really interesting to hear the stories of how these people from so many walks of life heard and answered a calling to serve. But again I digress. We still didn't have to do a final goodbye as we will be back in Matamata for our last night in New Zealand and so our departure from the camp was really not that tough - at least nobody cried.
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