“Investing in our children’s future,” it says on the front cover of the magazine called “NEWBORN 2 FIVE”.

“Give your child a great start,” encourages a Kindergarten advertisement parents on page three in the same magazine.

“Investing in our children’s future”

The BIBLE says in Proverbs 22:6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

Parents are told not only to fix the words of the Lord in their hearts, but also in their minds. They are also told to teach them to their children. Not only to teach them, but to impress them on their children. Parents are told to talk about them all the time, at home, when walking on the street, when lying down and when getting up. The Bible speaks also of tying them as symbols on our hands and binding them on our foreheads. We are reading about writing the commandments not only on the door frames of our houses, but also on the gates.

When we are doing all that we are not only investing in our children’s future for this life, but also for the life to come, for eternal life.

MANGONUI ON THE EAST COAST IN THE FAR NORTH OF AOTEAROA.

“The first European to visit Doubtless Bay was the Frenchman Jean de Surville on the St Jean Baptiste in 1769. Within the same week an Englishman, James Cook, sailed past the entrance to the bay. A chance remark ‘doubtless a bay’ by one of his crewman resulted in the name Doubtless Bay.”

Mangonui

“By the mid 1800s Mangonui had become a bustling centre for whalers and traders. The sawmilling, flax and gum industries were flourishing.”

Mangonui

“In 1881 the first regular passenger steamship service began between Mangonui and Auckland. It lasted until 1931 when new roads became the main transport link. With the development of roading throughout the north the centre of population moved away from Mangonui, leaving the village a much quieter place.”

Mangonui

Mangonui

Mangonui on a beautiful day