On to Samoa

Perry and the rest of the CCSP folks are headed to American Samoa for three weeks in the sunny tropics. Friend and Messiah prof Dr. Rich Stevick is teaching a class there. Hope he remembers to hand over the Nalgene bottle filled with chocolates we sent along for Perry. I'm glad to see the CCSP blog has been updated a few times since the earthquake, because we have only heard from Perry when he has trouble connecting to the internet and needs to order another SIM card.

Perry's in New Zealand

Yes, he left on the 23rd from the Philly airport, and after many many hours in the air and at airports, he's in New Zealand for the semester, with Messiah College's Creation Care Study Program. He'll be with 21 other students from around the US and Canada until they leave on Dec. 10th. BUT he'll be staying a little longer, as I am flying to visit his down under for about 10 days first. I'll fly down on Dec 3 to Sydney Australia and stay with old friends (Dick and Rhonda Sampson) in Port MacQuarie, NS for a few days before flying over to Christchurch on the 9th. We're planning to rent a campervan and travel around and see some of the amazing natural beauty of the Islands before flying home on the 20th. His new girlfriend Katie Lesher is also planning to fly into NZ and travel with us, so it will be quite an adventure.

Perry had one week of orientation in and around Kaikoura, where they're all staying in an old convent that had been a B&B for a few years. They need to ride bikes into town a few miles to an internet cafe, where internet access costs $4 per hour, so we're not hearing from him very often.
The most exciting part of his time there so far was definitely being in Christchurch for a weekend of exploring when the massive 7.1 earthquake hit just a few miles from them very early Saturday morning. He said they were awakened by the shaking and heard alarms, so they all rushed down to the street. Perry fled with no coat, no shoes, and no camera. Their building suffered only cosmetic minor damage, so they were allowed back in after only 2 hours.
There was no power, water, etc. most of the time after that, so he wasn't able to get online and contact us for a while. He finally borrowed a friend's cell phone and texted us a short message "I'm OK."
Later on Saturday the campus staff drove down and picked them all up, bringing their weekend to a sudden end. Classes began Monday (Labor day here).
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Perry is using Flickr to post photos. If you want to follow his entries (500+ so far!) you don't need to have a flickr account, but if you do sign in, you can post questions and he'll answer you maybe next time he logs in. ON the main flickr.com web site click on the Explore button, select "people" in the drop down menu, and then in the search window type "Fictioncompany" (note the capital F)