Whangarei Central
The “Top 20 Baptist Hits” evening by the Whangarei Youth Community Trust, incorporating Cityouth and 24/7 youth work, was a hit. Hymns were interspersed with testimonies from the youth workers. The youth work continues to grow.

This year more Northland churches were represented at the two-day Global Leadership Summit facilitated by Margaret Spicer from Willow Creek Association. A new ministry, The Well, for 18- to 35-year-olds has been successfully started. We continue to benefit from the two-monthly garage sales; $3000 was distributed last time, mainly to the youth ministries.

Albany
We had two special weddings and a memorable baptismal service. Graham Read took the Wallace-Stevenson wedding and Kerry Hilton presided over the Dickson-Wright wedding, then preached at our service the following day when he also baptised his two teenagers Rachel and Toby. It was so great having Kerry and Annie and all the family back with us again. The following Sunday we welcomed Peter Wright from Edmonton to the pulpit. We are much in prayer with our search committee as they seek out a pastor and are indebted to Cherie Wallace for holding the reins in the meantime. Many of our men attended Promise Keepers in October. We look forward to helping financially with a World Vision Project and for our “Gift for You” concept.

Manukau City
Senior Pastor Alastair Hall
Highlight has been the 80^th celebrations in October with a ball followed the next day by a celebration service. We are grateful for God’s faithfulness and are excited about the future he has for us. Pastor Alastair and Aly spent two weeks in Thailand visiting our tranzsend workers and some mission workers. The Light Party, our annual alternative to Halloween, was held the last Sunday afternoon in October followed by an evening service. New Christians Against Poverty (CAP) manager, Daniel Palmer, has been appointed to a two-day per week staff position.

Northcote Baptist Church
Senior Pastor Peter Eaton
Celebrations were held on the 20^th anniversary of the Mandarin-speaking congregation, which started from an English language ministry to immigrants and now has more than 160 weekly attenders. The many conversions and baptisms over the years are an inspiration to us. We are exploring how to increase integration of Chinese youth whose first language is English. Nathan Gilchrist and Linda Qin have been appointed as pastoral interns and both will attend Carey Baptist College. We sent three parties to work on the new Freeset building and more are preparing to go. Grateful to Trudi Batchelder for her founding leadership in our CAP ministry; she recently resigned. We seek a replacement Centre Manager. A barn dance, complete with spit roast meal, was held as a community outreach.

River Valley
We continue to extend what used to be a house. As we have expanded, so has the congregation. The day our new kitchen was opened we ran out of chairs in the extended auditorium. Mainly music has been running for two terms, almost exclusively non-church folk. A Light Party is planned for local families. Mike Hadwin was appointed Chaplain of Parakai Primary school. We look forward to the arrival of a Pastoral Leadership student from Carey Baptist College.