View the Conference Seminar Topics
Professor Ian Bissett, Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon (Auckland)
Topics:
Success and Surrender, Struggles and Acceptance, Brokenness and New Beginnings
Ian will be reflecting on the way life has turned out for him and his family. It will cover three phases of his life. The first, entitled ‘Success and Surrender,’ describes the time of training in medicine and surgery as well as in church life including the deep sense of call to mission. The second session, ‘Struggles and Acceptance,’ will cover the experience of living and working in Nepal over a ten year period, including work, family life, church and training of others. The final session, ‘Brokenness and New Beginnings,’ traces the last twenty years adapting back to living in Auckland and practising in New Zealand. The themes running through all of these will be facing hardship, allowing God to speak, and gratitude.
Ian married his wife, Jo, in 1977 and graduated from the University of Auckland in 1979. They subsequently spent four years living in Taranaki and four years in Wellington where they were also involved in leading house churches. He completed his Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) in 1987 and then moved to Pokhara, Nepal, where he worked with the International Nepal Fellowship as a General Surgeon until 1997. Upon returning to Auckland with his family, Ian undertook his doctorate research in the anatomy and radiology of rectal cancer. In 2001 he and his family spent a year in Sydney while he worked in the colorectal unit at Concord Hospital. They then returned to Auckland and Ian to his present position as an academic at the University of Auckland and Consultant Surgeon at Auckland City Hospital. He has been the Academic Head of the University Department of Surgery since 2011.
Dr Rosemary Dewerse, Kiwi theologian, educator, creative, wife and mother (Auckland)
Topics:
What is hope? Where is hope? Why hope?
Dr Rosemary will be guiding us through reflections on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her story arcs over the books of Luke, John and Acts, weaving hope through challenge and struggle. This series of Bible studies will focus in on her story as we ask ‘What is hope?,’ ‘Where is hope?,’ and ‘Why hope?’
Dr Rosemary (not the medical kind!) has lived and worked in several countries. She loves learning, telling, facilitating and reflecting upon stories and is particularly passionate about those that come from and intersect with the grand narrative of scripture. Books she has published with storytelling at their heart include: Breaking Calabashes, Nga Kai-Rui i Te Rongopai, Adventures with the Spirit, We are Pilgrims (co-edited), a manuscript currently with publishers titled “Living True: An auto/bio/graphical adventure,” and Yarta Wandatha (ghost written with Aboriginal theologian Denise Champion).
In her spare time she enjoys creativity and hanging out with her husband and children, wider family and friends, playing piano, writing songs and reading novels.