letter
Mr Malcolm James Baker FREE #8 107mm
42-44 Spencer Avenue
Maketu 3189
Monday 28th May 2018
For Sunday 1st July www.rainierbank.net
To the congregation at Te Puke
Today a mighty tree has fallen. No, I'm not talking about Dick Quax, who died today at 70 years old, but literally a mighty tree.
I'm personally very sad about the death of Dick, who I didn't know, but it says a lot about him as a person that we all feel the loss.
The tree I'm talking about is one which grew on the old mission station on Spencer Avenue.
You can now do a google search for Spencer Avenue Mission Station Maketu (Ivy Isle), with a picture of Rev. Seymour M. Spencer, 1812-1898.
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As I look at the map with the article it shows the Mission Station as being at the north-east end of Spencer Avenue, so perhaps somebody knows the history and whether the property with the trees was a private residence of the Spencer family or a church owned property.
One thing I do recall, but do not know the year without counting the growth rings on the fallen pine trees, is that six pine trees were planted to mark the boundary between the urban area of Maketu and the rural land. Three were planted running north-south, and three at right angles forming a T, the chinese word for balance.
Those who are interested in looking at my web site should be be careful when clicking on any links which direct to my old domain www.rainierbank.biz . The .biz domain expired and is now owned by the domain registra.
Most of my web site www.rainierbank.net is concerned with computing, especially web browsers and JavaScript, and I've written a free tutorial which is on the first page, highlighted in blue.
There is a lot of information about the hexidecimal code, called assembly code, because this is the language used to write most if not all of the first Operating Systems (C was used also), especially the Microsoft DOS 5 Operating System, which made it possible to access much more memory on the intel 80386 chip called Virtual Memory.
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He only knew what he thought at the time and had faith that God would give him the words when he needed them. This is because he had been trained by God and knew the power of God. He knew for instance, that without God it is not even possible to lift your arm to feed yourself, yet most people do not know this or if they did they would refuse to believe it.
My painting is also one, the final painting I have yet to paint, in the series of 100 paintings of Mt Maunganui. Maunganui or 'New Mountain' according to Maori myth, actually literally was not there one day and was there the next. The legend says it was caught by the dawn light and froze in place.
It is said that faith can move mountains, but as Pilate found out, faith is not just believing something is true. He said he believed Jesus was the Messiah, but he crucified him anyway. Perhaps he did not know the story of Jesus and the woman of Samaria, the woman at the well when he said to her "if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you 'Give me a drink?' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
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Most people should know that clicking on a link can have unforeseen consequences, mostly more annoying than harmful. For example the www.rainierbank.biz takes you to a porn site, which I would not want a child visiting my site to see. I have not yet removed all the old www.rainierbank.biz links on the site.
Another example is that many years ago I put a link on the Ngati Porou web site which when clicked on turned their computer off. On the other hand, when it was switched on again, it rebooted and ran as usual, but I could have have made it turn off for an hour, a day or a year or even permanently.
That link has since been removed by Ngati Porou.
My painting this week is one of three or four (versions of the same thing).
The title is 'The Temple Tax' (Matthew 17: 24-27) and says in full; 26"The children are exempt." Jesus said to him. 27 "But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch, open its mouth and you will find a four drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."
How did Jesus know this? Well he had been that fish and found that coin in a previous life. It is a true story. I don't however know whether he remembered doing that.