Mullins Mission

Blog Reboot

2010-08-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

I haven’t done a great job this past year with keeping the blog updated so I’ve decided to reboot by blogging. I’ve also decided to retire this blog (this will be my last post) and create some new ones. I’m going to have separate family and "random thoughts" blogs. This will allow our readers to pick the content they’re interested in. My goal is to update the family blog once a week. Sometimes it may just be a short paragraph or a picture, but hopefully it will help our supporters, friends, and family back home to feel more connected to us. The random thoughts blog will be updated, um, randomly.

So if you want to follow our family blog go to:

coreyemilyenoch.blogspot.com

If you want to follow my random thoughts blog go to:

mentalcourse.blogspot.com

If you want to follow both, you’re probably my mother. There’s already new posts up if you want to check them out.

Enoch at 5 Months

2010-08-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well it's hard to believe, but Enoch will be five months old tomorrow. He can "talk" in his own unique baby language, roll over, and reach for toys. He smiles a lot and is starting to get a sense of humor. Last night I was making tooting noises with my mouth and he thought that was hilarious (from my experience this is a type of humor that he will never out grow - it's a universal male trait).

We often see Emily's dad in Enoch's features, but there is something about this last picture that really reminds me of my dad.

PKMG

2010-08-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

Jason and I have spent a good bit of time in the Port Kembla neighborhood lately (shortened to "Port" by most locals). It is a very interesting area. It's a place of contrast. It has some of the best views in the city if you look West towards the mountain escarpment, South towards Lake Illawarra, or East over the ocean. It also has the worst view in the city if you look North towards the steel works (a massive complex that looks like something out of a Mad Max movie). In many ways it's a vibrant community - there is always something going on there - but in other ways it is dead (the main strip looks like it has more boarded up shops and businesses than open ones). The most interesting thing about Port is the people - of all the people I've met in the Wollongong area, Port residents are the most proud of where they live. If you ask people around other parts of the Gong what they think of Port, they usually say it's all drugs, crime, and smog - but Port residents will tell you a different story; Port's the best place in the Gong, who wouldn't want to live here?

Jason and I are both member's of the Port Kembla Men's Group. The Men's Group is a place for local men to come hang out, work on projects, and mentor one another. We meet at the Port Kembla Community Centre every Wednesday. We work on projects (we're in the process of setting up a shop), do a little gardening and yard work, drink heaps of coffee, and make lunch together. Our favourite lunch is homemade pizza cooked in our wood fire oven - mmm! Here's a few pics:

Fourth of July

2010-07-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Even though it is the middle of winter in Australia, we decided to celebrate the fourth of July. Thanks to the Allens for the kids' shirts!

First Bible Class

2010-06-28T02:02:00.000-07:00

Enoch had his first Bible class with the big kids yesterday. He has surprisingly good alertness and attention span for a three month old. Nicole did a lesson on the days of creation and he really enjoyed it (she uses lots of props). And I finally got that big open mouthed grin that he does on camera! I had a video, but unfortunately Blogger once again did not work when I tried to load it...I may have to switch blog formats. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

2010-06-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Enoch has really taken off the last couple of weeks with some new skills. He now sucks his thumb to comfort himself when he goes down for a nap. He's been able to do that for a while, but before it was more a matter of his mouth and hands accidentally coming together - now it is actually a coordinated effort. He's also become really smiley and "talkative." He's got this great big open-mouth grin that he does that is so cute - unfortunately, I have had no luck catching it on camera. The best I've been able to get is kind of a half smile (below). He also has been "talking" to us a good bit lately. He only knows one "word," which sounds like "ugh" - but he says it over and over again. I've tried to get it on film, but like his smiles, no luck. Here's a couple of new pictures (I tried to load a video, but it is not working for some reason):

2010-06-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

Enoch is twelve weeks old today. Last night he slept through the night for the first time ever!

Here's a video from this morning of Emily singing to him. He really likes it when she sings to him - as you can see from his happy face. (sorry - the video/sound quality isn't the best):

Enoch at 9 weeks

2010-05-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

More pictures of Enoch...what did you expect?

Enoch sure has a good mama.

She loves on him when he first wakes up in the morning...

She sings to him...

She even reads to him...

Even Grandmama Mullins has flown in to get some loving (she just couldn't stay away)

Here are a couple of recent videos of Enoch "playing" (he doesn't really do much yet)

Family Pictures from April

2010-04-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken at the beginning of the month when Enoch still had the full head of golden blond hair that he was born with - most of it has fallen out now...so sad.

In the next two Enoch is practicing his body-building poses...future Mr. Olympia?

Sleeping next to me on the couch:

Hanging out with some friends:

Pics from a couple of recent sunrise fishing expeditions:

I caught this eel on a piece of bacon rind. Boy was he hard to clean; his skin was slimy and tough as shoe leather - but he tasted pretty good.

During a picnic, this Kangaroo wondered up and helped himself to some of our lunch. Right after this picture was taken he really startled Emily when, all of the sudden, he tried to crawl up on her lap to get to her food...apparently kangaroos like left-over pizza.

My Birthday and Fish

2010-04-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

With everything else that happened in March, I forgot to mention one thing - my thirtieth birthday. This birthday was a little different than usual as it was in the middle of the chaos that you go through the first few days after you bring a baby home - so Emily didn't really have time to make my usual birthday meal and dessert. But my teammate Nicole was sweet enough to fill in for her this year and provide dinner and dessert (chocolate slice - mmm) - and even made me a celebratory hat! Thanks Nicole.

Birthday Sugar

On a completely unrelated note - I caught my first Australian Salmon yesterday. Since I've never lived close to the ocean before I've always been a freshwater fisherman - I feel totally out of my element with ocean fishing, being neither familiar with the fish nor how to catch them. But my mate Greg (member of our church and real life Crocodile Dundee) has been showing me the ropes.

Greg

Boy did these taste good over the fire!

My Little Buddy

2010-04-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

Grannie Annie

2010-03-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

Not even being on the other side of the world could keep Emily’s mom from visiting her first grandchild. She arrived on Saturday after about 24 hours of traveling and then amazingly stayed up for another 12 hours! We’re so happy to have her and she’s happy to be here with her grandson. She has also been a big help around the house (she is a cleaning machine), by the time she leaves next Saturday we’ll probably have the cleanest house in Australia.

The first thing we did when we got her home was have some nap time…for us! You know you’re tired when you ask a jet-lagged weary traveler to watch your kid so you can take a nap. She assured us she was up for the challenge, but when we got up we found that she had over estimated her ability to fight off sleep. She and Enoch were asleep on the sofa together.

When I woke her up she said, “We both fell asleep didn’t we Arthur?” Arthur is her family cat back home. I said, “Boy you really are acting like a Granny – falling asleep sitting up and calling the grandson by the cat’s name!” Then she realized what she had said and had a good laugh at herself. Getting senile already… ;-)

She also came bearing gifts! She had a suitcase full of stuff from friends and family back home from Tennessee to Texas. Thanks so much everyone! And a special thanks to the Legacy ladies for the beautiful quilt!

Bath in the Kitchen Sink

2010-03-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

He won't be this little for long.

Enoch Video 2

2010-03-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

Here's another one. In this one he's sleeping in his rocker.

Enoch Video

2010-03-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a short video of Enoch sitting on a pillow on my lap. He is now a week old.

We're Home

2010-03-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

Emily and Enoch got to come home from the hospital yesterday. It's so good to have them home.

I was gone this morning, but my afternoon appointment got canceled so I was able to stay home with the family. Enoch and I took a nap on the sofa.

Enoch asleep in his bassinet.

My New Favorite Photo

2010-03-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

We had our first visitors today and someone took a picture of the three of us. I just realized it's our first photo as a family of three. Here it is:

Emily, Corey, and Enoch

He's Here!

2010-03-15T02:58:00.001-07:00

Well, the last 24 hours have been quite eventful. Last night around bedtime Emily started feeling some mild contractions. The contractions increased in frequency and intensity throughout the night. Between the discomfort of the contractions and the nervousness about the impending birth Emily hardly slept a wink (I managed to get about 3 hours – so I was tired, but well rested in comparison). The contractions really started getting pretty strong by early in the morning, so we left for the hospital about 7:30. We were in an examining room by 8:00. The midwife examined Emily and she was 4 cm dilated. She told us it usually takes about 1 hour to dilate one cm, so we could probably expect about six more hours of labor. What she didn’t realize was this kid was ready to come out! We got a birthing room after that and by 10:00 the pain was excruciating and she asked for an epidural. The midwife said it was no problem she just needed to examine Emily first. No go – she was already at 8 cm. Thirty minutes later we had a kid. When Emily got to the pushing stage, all it took was three pushes and he was out. It was so quick that Emily’s obstetrician didn’t even have time to get to the hospital (he had an operation that morning at a neighboring hospital). Luckily we had an awesome midwife who did an amazing job. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I was really impressed with the level of care.

(Sidenote – wow did I underestimate how painful this was. Emily did fantastic, but boy was it tough. Note for future moms – get the epidural and get it early!)

But all’s well that ends well. And we were so happy to see our boy come into the world. We named him Enoch Elian. Enoch is derived from Hebrew and means “dedicated,” and Elian is derived from Latin and means “light.” Enoch is also a character from the Bible – “Enoch walked with God.”

He’s a little guy – 6 lbs, 2.5 ounces, and 18.5 inches long. We can see features of several people from both sides of the family. Sometimes when we look at him and we see my brother Michael and sometimes my brother Eric – but the most striking resemblance is to Grandpa Greg – in fact, he looks so much like him we might have to give him the nickname of “Little Greg.”

As of 8:00 tonight when I left the hospital he had already nursed twice and pooed twice – so he is wasting no time in getting started with life. I’m proud to say that I changed his dirty diapers – it was disgusting but I thought it was the least I could do under the circumstances ;-) Anyway, he and his mom were just laying down for some sleep when I left - both exhausted.

Here are some pictures from the day (Don’t worry, we don’t go for the gory stuff):

Emily pacing the house all night with contractions.

A just born Enoch with his proud Mama

They even let his Pop have a turn

Hello world!

Enoch Elian Mullins

From Newlyweds to Mama and Papa

2010-03-13T00:49:00.000-08:00

OK, so our blog has basically fallen by the way side. Sorry about that - when things get busy, something has got to give. We'll try to give some good updates this month (I have a feeling we're going to have something to blog about).

We really have no idea when this little guy is going to decide to make his grand entrance into the world, but the official day is Tuesday. But before that happens (or perhaps at the same time), Monday will mark seven years of marriage for me and my beautiful bride. Wow, has it flown by! Seems like just yesterday that we tied the knot at that little country church and went for our honeymoon in the Smokey Mountains. I can remember so clearly driving away from the church, looking at each other and saying, "Did that really just happen?" When I looked at our wedding pictures today I thought, "wow that's weird, we look different somehow..." It took a few seconds to realize what it was (those readers who know how young and good looking we are might be surprised at this, but I think we have actually aged a little over these past seven years). How did that happen?! Will it stop?! I have this sinking feeling this is just the beginning...Oh well.

Actually it's mostly just me. Emily pretty much looks the same - or at least she looks the same as she would have if on our wedding day she had swallowed a basketball.

Here's my bride with her basketball:

And here she is doing a pregnant version of the La Vida Loca dance:

The final step is complete. We've mastered our ability to embarass our kids. We're now ready for parenthood.

Summer Fun

2010-01-30T17:02:00.000-08:00

.....January is in the middle of summer here in Wollongong. Our leisure time has been spent taking long walks, going to the beach, and eating on the back porch. We put our porch to good use a couple of weeks ago by having a sausage sizzle with some friends.

Kari, a friend from the U.S., visited with Nicole for a week. Ella and Noah enjoyed her visit as well.

Boris and Greg helping themselves to sausages at the sausage sizzle.

Jason and Shawn taking a break from the guitar to eat and chat.

Australia Day in downtown Wollongong marked our 1 year anniversary in this city.

Wollongong Harbour on Australia Day.

North Wollongong Beach

Sailboats in the distance - some bearing Australian flags.

The Holidays in Pictures

2010-01-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

I was sporting a mustache for Thanksgiving this year. I grew it for "Movember" which promotes awareness of cancers that commonly effect men and raises money for research. Emily sure was glad when December 1 rolled around!

I planted my summer garden at the end of November.

Here is the progress as of January 5. I can't wait until my corn and okra are ready - yum, yum!

For Christmas we made ginger bread men.

Brenna showing off her artwork.

Of course, we put up a Christmas tree.

Nicole, Jason, and Noah got to play Mary, Joseph, and Jesus for a nativity scene.

We got to watch Ella while the rest of the family was in the nativity scene (unfortunately there was no role for Jesus' big sister)

This year we gave the Griffith kids Christmas stockings on the beach.

Grilling at the beach with our friend Greg on Christmas day.

Shawn chowing down on some prawns.

We got about a million Christmas cards this year. Thanks to all our friends and family who thought of us over the holidays. A special thanks to the Legacy church who supplied so many!

We also got a couple of packages. Thanks again to Legacy folks and also to Emily's parents.

We even got Hershey Chocolate! There is just no substitute.

After Christmas, we went to church camp. Here is Jason and Ella entertaining the fellow campers.

Some camp friends, the Jennings, from Canberra.

Emily is almost 30 weeks pregnant and boy is she getting fat! (in a beautiful way)

Food

2009-12-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

I have had several people ask me about the food here and whether there are some things that we cannot get that we were used to in the States. For the most part, the food is very similar and we can get most things that we were used to. However, we have experienced a few new foods and I have had to make quite a few adjustments to my cooking.
When we first arrived back in January, I was surprised by some of the things I did find in the grocery store. There was a whole selection of Campbell's soups available and several Tex-Mex items such as flour tortillas and cans of refried beans. There were also some things that I considered staples and assumed I would be able to find anywhere that were not there, such as cornmeal. (I later found it in a specialty food store.)
I have had to make many adjustments to my cooking and figure out how to do things here. The oven is in Celsius instead of Farenheit and the butter label has grams marked out on it. (Which sometimes totally throws me off.) It took me three months to realize the self-raising flour had no added salt (and I wondered why everything I made tasted flat) and nine months to figure out that tomato puree was the same thing as tomato sauce.
There are also many things that just taste different. It's amazing how the same foods can taste totally different when produced in a different place. The first time we ate grapes here, we thought something was wrong with them and were afraid to eat them, but later found out that was the normal taste. There are some foods that I like better here and some foods that I don't like as well. I like the dairy products A LOT. They are so much fresher and more tasty. The bananas and certain other fruits seem to have more flavor. I haven't found a peanut butter I like, however, and the pasta sauce tastes like vinegar. Ugh!
Despite how different most things taste here, McDonald's tastes exactly the same - a little scary.
Two foods that we have experienced for the first time that we really like are pumpkin soup and Arnott's. Pumpkin soup is a popular food here and we ate it often last winter. It is simple to make, except that cutting up the pumpkin can be hard. Basically, you cut up two small pumpkins and saute them in butter and one chopped onion until they are soft. Then you add a box of chicken stock and let it simmer 20-30 minutes. When it looks cooked, blend it with a little cream and you are done. It is delicious with a side of French bread.
Arnott's is a company that makes biscuits (cookies) and crackers. Corey spent the first several months here trying a new kind of Arnott's every week. He is now the expert on the various kinds.

Late Spring

2009-11-13T01:21:00.000-08:00

Spring is almost over, and we are heading into summer here in Wollongong. Since it was summer when we arrived back in January, the warmer weather brings back memories of our first few weeks in Australia. It has also brought back the parrots – they were never really gone, but for some reason I didn’t see them as much during the winter. Now they are in my back yard just about every day (and the fact that the plums on our plum trees are ripening up probably has a little something to do with it). It’s so nice to be renting a house with fruit trees in the back yard. We have two plum trees that have the most delicious little plums on them. They remind me of the plums that I used to get from my grandmother’s backyard. They have so much more flavor than those big ones you get at the supermarket. Here’s what they look like:

Here are a couple of rainbow lorikeets that were on our back porch a few days ago:

Other types of parrots that we see at our house are cockatoos, galahs, crimson rosellas, and king parrots. Speaking of parrots…I have heard people say that human beings are the only creatures on earth that waste their resources – well those people have never seen parrots in a fruit tree. I don’t mind them eating the fruit, it’s the way they eat it. They’ll take two or three little bites and then jump to the next one on the branch, so to eat one plum worth of fruit they usually ruin about four or five plumbs! It’s really aggravating but thankfully I’m not a fruit farmer (otherwise I’d be looking for some recipes for parrot stew).

In other news, Emily’s aunt requested a closer picture of one of our blue tongue lizards. Here you go Tara:

And last but not least, Emily and the baby are still doing well. She is now at 22 weeks, so she is a little more than halfway through the pregnancy.

October Update

2009-10-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

I didn’t realize it had been so long since I updated the blog! October has been a busy month.

We had visitors most of this month. First Alan and Donna Phillips came to visit our team for a few days (Alan works with Missions Resource Network); and then my folks came for a couple of weeks. It was good to see some people from back home.

Mom and Dad and the Phillips

Emily is now 20 weeks pregnant. We found out from our ultrasound this past week that we are going to have a boy! The interesting thing is that he is due sometime between the 16th and 19th of March (we’ve been told both days, so apparently it’s not an exact science), which is exactly when I was due (March 17) – thirty years to the day. How’s that for a thirtieth birthday gift?

Speaking of babies, our teammate Nicole had her second one in the past 15 months! When it rains it pours. Noah Kai Whaley joined us on the 27th of this month.

The day before the birth – a little bump and a big bump

Noah

In other news, my garden I planted in midwinter is still going strong, so I guess it is a spring garden now. I don’t have a scientific measurement, but I have picked 45 plastic bags so far (those kind you get at Kmart…don’t worry we reuse them) out of my little 8x1 meter garden – so I’m extremely pleased with the results. I’m going to let it go until the end of November, then it’s coming up so I can plant some summer vegetables.

I’m pleased to report that two blue tongues have taken up residence at our house. A blue tongue is an Australian Lizard that grows to about a foot and a half long and looks like a short fat snake…with a long blue tongue. They’re really cool, although if you just see their head sticking out of the leaves it can give you a bit of a fright, since it looks like the head of six foot long python. Emily is not as pleased as I am.

Other Aussie critters that we encounter at our house are skinks and huntsmen. The skinks here look similar the skinks back home (small shiny lizards). A huntsman is a large furry brown spider. They can get pretty big (I’ve seen a couple almost as big as my hand), but they are not poisonous or aggressive. They sometimes get in the house. Emily usually discovers them. She lets me know that she has found one by screaming. Usually with spiders I kill first and ask questions later, but for some reason I’ve kind of taken a liking to huntsmen…there’s just something about them. So when I find one, I just scoop him up on a newspaper and release him into our backyard. Emily’s not extremely pleased with that either.

Isn’t he cute? …I just hope he didn’t use my toothbrush.

Update

2009-09-27T22:33:00.001-07:00

We had a dust storm last week that started in the desert center of Australia and swept all the way across the east coast. I had been in a few dust storms when I lived in Arizona, but never anything like this. For one thing, it was huge - a storm this large only happens about once every fifty years, so it was quite a sight. Also, it was wet - which added an element of weirdness to it. When we woke up early Wednesday morning, there was a strange neon orange glow over everything (the dirt at the center of Australia is redish-orange). We hadn’t heard about the storm, so we had no idea what was going on. Then it began to rain rust colored mud. It was very eerie. It’s kind of what I would imagine it would look like if you were on the outskirts of an area that had been hit with a nuclear bomb (I probably watch too many movies). Thankfully though, it didn’t really do any damage. It just left everything covered in mud – the cars, the houses, the trees. I’ve really never seen anything like it. Let’s hope we don’t have one for another fifty years, because the clean up was a real headache.

I didn’t think to get any pictures, but here are some pictures a friend posted on Facebook:

Emily is doing well with her pregnancy. She sleeps a lot (she’s sitting across from me in the living room right now…asleep). And she eats all of the time. She gets these immediate hunger pains that if she doesn’t satisfy almost immediately will turn into nausea. So she’s been keeping food stashed around the house for emergency snacks. The other night I got up to use the toilet and found a loaf of bread on the towel rack in the bathroom. Are all pregnant women this weird? (BTW – she doesn’t know that I am writing this, so don’t tell her ok?)

Next March

2009-09-08T01:51:00.000-07:00

Next March is going to be a big month for us for three reasons:

1. Emily and I celebrate 7 years of marriage (7 is a lucky number right?)
2. I’m turning 30 (It’s always a big deal when that first digit changes)
3. To celebrate, Emily is giving me a kid! (a baby, not a goat) Happy birthday to me!

My long standing denial that I’m actually an adult now is becoming harder and harder to maintain.

Canberra

2009-09-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took a little three day vacation to Canberra, the nation’s capitol. Canberra is about a two hour and 45 minute drive inland from Wollongong. Unlike all of Australia’s other major cities which naturally developed along the coast of the continent, Canberra was planned as an inland city.

So what did we think of it? Well, it was very different from any other Australian city we’ve been to. Besides being so far from the ocean, it was very spread out like an American city. Also, it has a very structured feel to it - the streets are nice and straight, buildings are spaced evenly, etc., which actually gives the city a bit of bland feeling. That’s not to say that the city is ugly or anything like that, it just doesn’t fit the free spirited, fun loving personality of Australia.

So what did we do? Mostly we did typical tourist stuff – museums, buildings, etc. We also just relaxed at our hotel, swam in the indoor pool, and watched the free movies on the movie channel. It was a nice relaxing weekend.

You can’t go to Canberra without visiting the two most famous buildings at the heart of the city - Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial. I was surprised at how different they are from one another. In fact, they are as opposite as two buildings could be. The Parliament house looks like a giant modern art sculpture – it’s all squares and rectangles and sharp corners. The War Memorial, on the other hand, looks like an Eastern Orthodox cathedral with towering rock walls, stained-glass windows, and a huge dome ceiling. Both were interesting, but of the two, I found the War Memorial far more impressive. But I put some pictures below, so you can judge for yourself.

Parliament House

Senate Chamber

Foyer (which reminded me of a really nice hotel lobby)

War Memorial (from the courtyard entryway)

Stained-glass windows and mosaics (the pictures really don't do it justice)

The dome

Other Pics:

Taken from the National Museum of Australia with the Parliament house in the background across the lake

Emily posing with a statue of Queen Elizabeth (I don't think she realized her hand was on the royal rump)

Everyday Life

2009-08-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

.....We have settled into somewhat of a daily and weekly routine here. For me (Emily) this includes the usual round of daily housework and frequent walks down to the shops for groceries.

.....On most Saturdays I do volunteer ESL tutoring through an organization called The Smith Family. I am currently helping a Liberian immigrant with reading and writing. We read the book Go, Dog, Go the other day and she laughed at the pictures as we turned the pages. It was fun.

....On Mondays I work in a little shop that sells secondhand clothing and linens. The money raised from this shop helps to provide a free telephone counselling service to the area. Some Mondays are quiet with very few customers, but other days are busier with people coming in and out of the shop, many coming in to look for bargains and to "have a chat". Most of the time when people hear my accent they ask me if I'm from Canada. (not quite sure why this is - never thought I sounded Canadian) I tell them that I am from the U.S. state of Tennessee. This reply usually leads to a conversation about Elvis or country music. I have also learned a lot about Wollongong from talking to people who come in the shop. They like to tell me interesting facts about the city and the ways it has changed over the years.

.....I had my first shoplifter the other day. (First that I know of, anyway.) As I was straightening the store one day, I noticed a woman bend down to look at a pair of shoes that were on display underneath the mannikin in the window. I turned my back for a minute, and when I turned back around I noticed that she was leaving the store very quickly. I watched her hurry into a car parked out front, but didn't think anything else about it until a few minutes later I came back to the place where the shoes had been and realized they were gone. I knew I hadn't sold those shoes. Then I remembered the lady who had looked at them and then later hurried away to her car. I've often thought since then that if she ever came back into the shop, I would ask her if she was enjoying her shoes.

Update: August 18, 2009

2009-08-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

What’s been happening with us you say? I’m glad you asked, because I have random bits of information to share with you.

My first random bit of information to share with you is a progress report on my winter garden I planted a few weeks ago. It is now full of an assortment of greens. I had read in a book on organic gardening that if you plant a variety of greens in random order it actually prevents pests from devouring your plants. Since certain bugs like certain plants, they’ll find the one they like, but won’t spread because it is surrounded by other kinds of plants. Doesn’t sound like it would work does it? Well, I tried it and now I’m a believer. I haven’t put anything on my plants, but I have had only a couple of plants eaten by bugs. In both cases, the bugs completely ate the plant but didn’t touch the plants around it.

Mixed greens: Mizuna, red mustard, wong bok, rosette pak choi, sum choi, and silver beet (with a row of beans coming up behind it)

Red mustard, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, beet root, silver beet, wong bok, and arugula

First harvest - we cooked these up and had them with ham and biscuits (American biscuits, not cookies) – deeelicious.

Other news:

About an hour and a half south of here, there is a beautiful little bay filled with marine wildlife. The bay is formed by outcroppings of rock that jut out into the sea on either side, making it the perfect sanctuary for seals, dolphins, penguins and such. Not only that, but because the rock juts out so far, humpback whales that are migrating up the coast of Australia have no choice but to pass by the mouth of the bay. Sound like a perfect place to go sight seeing? Well we thought so too, so a couple of weeks ago we drove down with the Griffith family to take a little boat tour. It was actually a three hour tour…a three hour tour… complete with a captain, and a skipper. We even met a professor (of computer technology). I’m not sure if there were any millionaires on board (aside from us of course). We saw seals, dolphins, several varieties of water fowl, and even a couple of humpbacks. And, as usual, I was unable to get a single picture of any of them (they jump out of the water faster than I can point and click). I did get a few pictures of the passengers which you can see below.

There was one casualty of the boat ride…my dear wife. Once you get out on open water those boats start rolling pretty hard. At one point, I was on the top deck with Shawn and Darian, and I went and looked down to the bottom deck to see how Emily was doing just in time to see her leaning over the side of the boat tossing her cookies (literally…we had just had tea and biscuits (cookies) a few minutes before). Unfortunately, she spent the rest of the tour curled up in the corner of the boat looking less than enthusiastic. But all in all it was fun (I know, I know – easy for me to say).

A couple of you have asked to hear from Emily - I told her so, and she plans to write you all an update sometime this week (I’m sure it will say something about how great life with me is… ;-)

Very Random Bits

2009-07-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Not really much to report lately. Here are some random bits:

Our youngest team member turned 1 this past week. We threw a party for her and she really seemed to enjoy herself. We gave her a teddy bear and she hugged and kissed it several times.

Ella Whaley with her new bear

Here’s a picture of Emily meeting with her fellow ESL tutors for tea:

I have a lemon tree in my backyard that looked almost dead when we moved in six months ago (it was completely covered with a thick canopy of invasive vines). I rescued it from the vines, and now just a few months later it is covered with huge lemons (they look like yellow Nerf footballs). I guess it’s just grateful to be alive.

Six Months in Oz!

2009-07-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

Last week marked six months in Australia for our family. To mark the occasion, I thought I would share a more personal blog entry with our readers. A few of you may wonder what is going on inside our heads as we experience this little adventure. Well here is my best attempt…

In some ways it seems like we just got here. On the other hand, it feels like we’ve been here forever. It’s strange to me that I can feel both of those at the same time, but I do. It is amazing how much this mission has already changed our lives. There is not an hour in the day that goes by without me thinking about what it is we are doing here. It is the constant all-consuming thought of my life these days. All other thoughts just seem like temporary digressions from “the thought.”

So what have these first six months been like? It is really hard to explain. Unless you have moved to another country to plant a church yourself, I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It is truly a unique experience. I had experienced church planters try to explain it to me before I came, but I didn’t understand. I thought I did, but I didn’t. They would tell me things like, “The first year is extremely difficult. If you can help it, don’t come back within the first year, otherwise you won’t return.” I would think, “Yea ok, whatever.” Now those words echo in my head, and I think, “Aha! I get it now.”

That’s not to say that this is a bad experience. I have had just as many good experiences as bad experiences. It’s just that it’s every experience you can think of all at once. I think that I have experienced a broader range of emotions in the last six months than I have ever experienced in my life. I have felt happiness, sadness, joy, sorrow, peace, frustration, laughter, anger, faith, and doubt. I have been energized, weary, confident, unconfident, empowered, helpless, content, discontent, in control, and overwhelmed…sometimes all on the same day. There is definitely not a week that goes by that I don’t feel all of those emotions and more. It’s kind of crazy to be honest.

Why’s it like that? I don’t know that I can really give all the reasons. There are probably some that I’m not aware of. The first and most obvious is that we have made an international move. There is always a bit of transition and culture shock, homesickness, etc., when you move to a new place. Having moved around a few times in the last decade, I can say that it is pretty much always that way. But the difference for me in this case is the isolation. I think that is where church planters really struggle. As Christians we really take it for granted how much the local church helps us transition when we move to a new place. In the past, the first thing we did when we moved to a new place was find the local church. We would usually have at least one dinner invitation the first Sunday. Instant friends. It’s amazing how much we took that for granted. When you arrive in a place to start from scratch, you just don’t have that. You have to start the hard work of making friends with people that you may not have much of anything in common with. That’s a slow process. Just to illustrate the point, in the six months we were with Legacy, our sponsoring church, we must have received at least 500 dinner invitations – no kidding. In the six months we’ve been here, we’ve had one. That’s not to say that the people in our community are unfriendly, we just don’t have the immediate bond with them that we do with our church friends.

The other thing that church planters struggle with is the fear of failure. There is probably not a day that goes by that I don’t think about all the people who helped us get here. We have been blessed with more support (spiritual, emotional, and material) from friends and family than we would have ever thought possible. People have loved us, believed in us, and invested in us. I can’t help but have a fear of letting all of those people down. Now I know, and I feel sure our supporters know, that this is not about us, it is about God’s mission in the world. But connecting that knowledge from my head to my heart is difficult sometimes. It is really challenging to banish those fears.

Another “interesting” aspect of church planting is being part of a team. We have spent years planning this mission together. You can’t help but become close to one another. At the same time, when you’re close to someone you can’t help but get on each other’s nerves sometimes. It is sort of like being married…to five other people. Most of the time we are thankful to have each other’s support, but then there are other times when we want to strangle one another. Sometimes I think, “Well this is an interesting social experiment, let’s put three families through culture shock at the same time and see if they can keep from killing each other.” (Don’t worry, I promise my teammates will laugh at that last line.) Thankfully, we really do love each other.

I hope this doesn’t sound like me feeling sorry for myself, or anything like that; I’m just trying to give our readers a glimpse into the less glamorous side of church planting (if there is a glamorous side). Like I said, this experience isn’t bad – it’s bad, good, and everything in between. We’ve had a lot of fun, but we’ve shed some tears as well. It is an amazing, daunting, exciting, scary adventure.

Do we regret coming here? Yes, everyday. And we also rejoice at coming here everyday. It is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to us. If that doesn’t make sense…well, like I said, I don’t think I can really explain it.

Winter in Wollongong

2009-06-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

I love maps and atlases. I love to just look at all the different places in the world. It’s so amazing to see how human beings have covered the globe. I was recently looking at my world atlas and saw a section on the various climates of the world. I noticed that our city was at the beginning of a dark green band that stretches along the south east coast of Australia all the way down to Tasmania. According to the atlas, dark green represents “marine climates.” A marine climate is characterized by a warm summer and a cool, wet winter. It is one of the less common climate regions, with just spots here and there on the globe. Other cities in the world that are in marine climates include Auckland, New Zealand, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Dublin, Ireland, and in North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington.

Basically what that means for us is that it rains…constantly. I thought back in the summer, "wow it rains a lot here." Then the winter hit. We still get sunny days, but rarely will you have two in a row. There are good things and bad things about living in a marine climate.

The good thing is that everything is lush and green. I think you can grow just about anything here. Emily and I have been participating in some community gardens in the area and what we have found out is that it is just cool enough that you can grow cool weather plants like you have in Europe and North America, and just warm enough that you can grow tropical plants from Africa, the Caribbean, etc. Then you add all of the beautiful native Australian plants, and well…it’s pretty spectacular. Here are a few pictures from this past month (keep in mind that this is the middle of winter):

The view from our back porch (the plastic bags hanging in the trees are my neighbors version of scare crows to keep the birds off his fruits and veggies).

Our front yard (not much yard really) is full of native Australian trees and shrubs.

Laneway community garden (an inner-city garden project)

Dapto community garden

North Wollongong community garden – this is actually an 11 year old “food forest.” This little picture doesn’t even do it justice. Basically, just about everything in the forest is something edible or something that helps the edible plants. In this picture you can see papaya trees, banana trees, sugar cane, a sage bush, and a couple of other plants.

Needless to say, for a plant lovers like us, it is pretty awesome here.

But there is a downside to our marine paradise. In a culture that typically dries their clothes by hanging them outside, all this rain can make for a real laundry headache. We have had as many as ten days in a row of rain here. So we often have scenes like this in our house:

Bulging dirty laundry bag

Usually the best we can do is about half a load of laundry that we then hang on this little rack:

I’ve noticed our neighbors, who have a couple of small children, have several of these on their back porch along with close lines running across the porch. I guess you do what you have to. But for the most part, it’s a small price to pay.

On Sunday I planted my own little winter vegetable garden:

Growing vegetables in winter…how fun is that?

We're Just Supposed to be Disciples

2009-06-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

I just finished the book, The Great Omission, an excellent collection of essays on discipleship by Dallas Willard. I was convicted on numerous levels as I read through the different essays. He even got me in his parting words at the end of the book, when he references those who want to take the entire Mission of God onto their shoulders...guilty as charged.

I wouldn't say that I am your stereotypical "Type A" personality, but I definitely have those tendencies. I often want to "make things happen" and I want them to happen immediately. This is very frustrating when starting a new work from scratch in another country, which I can tell you, is anything but a fast process. You don't know anyone, you don't know how to do anything, etc. Needless to say, learning about your new culture, meeting new people, and finding ways to minister in your community is a very slow process (even in places where you know the local language...and if you don't, then you can add the slow process of language learning to the list!) So if you plan on church planting, especially in another country, you might want to start praying for patience well in advance!

But for me, it's not just impatience, it's also my own anxiety driven leadership style. I often feel that everything is going to fall apart if I don't rush in and save the day. Or that God's mission is somehow dependent on me to "make things happen." I realize how ridiculous that probably sounds, but that is my tendency. Some might call it a Messiah complex. Of course, one of the problems with that, and I think that this is something most people in ministry struggle with, is that you become so focused on what's happening out there with everyone else, that you neglect yourself, your own spiritual health (or sometimes even physical health). Which is why I found the closing words of The Great Omission both convicting and comforting at the same time. Here is the quote (portions have been omitted for space - if you want to read more, click the link above to order from Amazon):

Parting Word:

What do we do now?! Convert the world? No. Convert the church? No. Your first move “as you go” is, in a manner of speaking: convert me. If we wish to convert the church and the world, we begin with ourselves. Our maestro never told us to convert the world or to reform any religious organizations. Instead, the Master said to his disciples, “make disciples.” We have no other God-appointed business but this, and we must allow all else to fall away if it will.

So as now “we go,” we go as disciples. Never forget that the tiny group to whom Jesus gave his Great Commission were very ordinary people indeed, but people who for about three years had chosen to be with him in the most intimate of fellowships. Perfect they were not, but in his fellowship that was simply not an issue. Everything turned upon what they were learning and who was “master”-ing them.

My first step then, “as I go,” is to be his disciple, and constantly to be learning from him how to live my life in the Kingdom of God now—my real life, the one I am actually living. Not just in church or on “religious” occasions. Once we are disciples with some substance of the Christ-life, the person of Jesus himself, then we are in position to bear “witness,” to bring others to know, to bring them to awareness of reality. Then they can learn who they are and what God intends for them.

Well, but, someone says, what about the church and the world? Don’t these need to be straightened out? No doubt about that! But it’s not your job or mine. And if we undertake on our own to straighten out the church and the world, we will hurt a lot of people and make ourselves miserable. It is God’s job, and he will do it, and in the way it should be done—of which we probably have little or no idea at all.

But must we not do something about our situation in this world? No doubt we must, and many good opportunities will certainly present themselves to us. Do them the best you can. Just don’t take it upon yourself to carry the load, to make it happen. Always keep in mind who is really in charge of the greater scene—it isn’t you or me. Be humble before others as well as before God—especially before those who are sure we are wrong.

Most important, don’t allow your thoughts and efforts to change things to come before or take the place of your practice of discipleship, walking with Jesus. This is to be your constant preoccupation, and what comes of it will witness to and powerfully influence others around you. This is the sure path to changing things, in the church or in the world.

Australian Slavery

2009-06-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

When we think of human trafficking, we usually think of past systems of oppression, such as the slave trade that provided much of the work force of the antebellum South. But in truth, human trafficking is alive and well all over the globe. There are still plenty of weak and powerless people in this world who are forced into sub-human roles by their more powerful oppressors.

But that stuff only happens in lawless third world countries right? Those of us who belong to “civilized” Western societies would never allow such things to happen in our midst, right? If only that were true...

Unfortunately, hedonism has become one of the hallmarks of rich Western societies. And one of the great injustices that our culture fuels is a multi-billion dollar sex industry. From porn to prostitution, we just can’t get enough…we’re addicted. But what is the human cost involved? The conventional wisdom of today says that any action is permissible so long as no one is hurt by it. As someone who believes in a holy God I strongly question this “wisdom.” But even if we were to take God out of the equation and, for the sake of argument, accept this line of thinking, would the sex industry measure up to those standards?

The short answer…no.

Fourteen years ago, the Australian government decided to legalize prostitution. It was argued that legalization would provide regulation and oversight and ensure that the (mostly) women involved would have a safe and healthy “work” environment. It hasn’t. Instead, it has simply increased the number of women who are trafficked into prostitution. Not only are there now legal brothels all over Australia, but there are still plenty of illegal ones that don’t want to go through the hassle of registering with the government.

So how does one become a prostitute in Australia? Step one: become desperate. There are two main sources of women for pimps to draw from, drug addicts and illegal aliens. In the case of illegal aliens, they often pay every penny they have to be smuggled into a rich country hoping they will be able find better lives for themselves. The problem is that the little bit of money they have isn’t anywhere close enough to pay for their journey. But that’s ok they’re told, they can “work off” their debt. The truth is that these smugglers are usually directly contracting with the pimps. They’re modern day slave traders. Once the women arrive, they are given over to the brothels.

The conditions are usually atrocious (one brothel in Melbourne was found to keep the women in cages), and the women are usually raped (I’ll just call it what it is) hundreds or even thousands of times before they have paid off their debt and are set free. Some women probably don’t make it out alive, but when you’re nameless and undocumented who’s to know? But even if they are allowed to leave, they are likely to be physically and psychologically scarred for life. It’s almost impossible to escape before your debts are paid. Besides the threats and beatings, who do you go to when you are illegal and don’t speak the local language? They are completely powerless. Some women found in illegal brothels don’t even know what country they are in.

If you would like to read a report on the trafficking of women on Australia, you can do so here:
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/catwaust/files/austtraffic.htm

There is so much money involved in the prostitution industry, that anyone who dares oppose it (or even criticize it) gets shouted down. The behind the scenes powers have even formed a sex workers union to act as a front for their interest. If anyone speaks out against the sex trade, this union quickly takes action against them. This is what happened to the Salvation Army in Australia. You can read about that here: http://blog.sojo.net/2009/06/01/should-we-tolerate-legalized-prostitution/ The union appeals to the ideals of Western society by (hypocritically) asserting that they are standing up for women’s rights and women’s liberation. Only the father of lies could twist oppression into liberation.

What does this have to do with Christians? We serve a holy God. God’s holiness is never strictly defined in scripture, but it is consistently characterized by two dual aspects of God’s nature – love and justice. Not only this, but God calls on us to imitate his holy character. I don’t have the space go into detail on this, but even a cursory overview of scripture reveals that more often than not God uses his people to show his love and justice. That’s right – he works through us. God calls us to be his agents of love and justice in the world. But how?

I confess I feel powerless in the face of something that is seemingly so powerful. I sense that the sex industry, both here and globally, is a dark and demonic presence on the earth…and that scares me. But at the same time, I know that our God hasn’t given us a spirit of timidity, but rather a spirit of power, love, and self discipline. And I also know that the gates of hell cannot stand up to the coming of God’s kingdom.

There are several brothels in our city (as well as street prostitutes, etc.). In fact, there is a brothel just a couple of blocks from our teammates’ house. How can we faithfully serve our God as agents of love and justice in our community? How can we shine the light of Christ into this situation? I’m not just asking rhetorical questions – I’d like some ideas. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? What would you do?

Even if you don’t have any ideas, one thing that you can do is to join us in prayer. Pray not only for the women here who are in this abusive situation, but pray also for the oppressed that may be in your own city or nation. Pray that God would reveal to you ways you can serve them. And never stop praying that God’s kingdom will come and that his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Three Models of Outreach

2009-05-31T04:42:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure how many of my readers will be interested in this discussion, but a couple of my fellow church planters have asked me how I’m processing different models of outreach…so here’s an attempt to analyze a few different approaches. (SNOOZE ALERT: If methodological discussions bore you to tears, you may want to stop reading now.)

CPM model: CPM stands for “Church Planting Movements.” It is called such because in some areas of Asia and Africa this model has produced “movements” where thousands of churches have been planted in a relatively short period of time. In this model, a Christian acts as a catalyst in an existing social unit. The basic method for finding these units is to locate a “person of peace” who will facilitate a Bible study within their social network (whether that is their family, tribe, village, etc.) In this scenario, the Christian is in the minority, the non-Christians are the majority. The Christian seeks to impose his/her own leadership and teaching as little as possible in order to empower existing leaders and self discovery. An inductive approach (giving people scriptures to read and allowing them to find the answer for themselves) is chosen over a deductive approach (telling them the answers based on the knowledge of the teacher).

Positives: People come to Christ in groups, thereby giving them a built in support and accountability network. Because a member of the group is leading, this removes the barrier of the teaching being “alien” (the Christian is still leading on a certain level, but it is a behind-the-scenes coaching style of leadership). The new group has an effective and easily reproducible model for starting new groups. Negative: Those who work in more individualistic contexts (e.g. secular Western societies) may have a difficult time locating existing social units that have enough cohesion for a person of peace to call them together into a Bible study. In individualistic societies, a group tends to be a group in name only - on closer examination, most groups turn out to be collections of individuals who have come together for one specific purpose, but the totality of their lives remain untouched by the other members of the group (e.g. a cooking class comes together to share recipes and maybe some small talk, but not necessarily anything else). This is also true of families and even of most western churches (to our shame).

For a very thorough analysis and discussion on a recent CPM workshop see:
http://inthestoryline.com/2009/05/18/david-watson-and-church-planting-movements/#comments

Attractional model: In this model a group of Christians establishes a presence in a particular locality and seeks to draw people into the Christian group. This is how the majority of churches in the world are organized, so I don’t think I need to explain to my readers how it works.

Positives: This model obviously has a long and successful track record (countless millions have come to Christ through such churches). Such congregations have very long life cycles, it is not unusual to find churches that have been serving a particular community for 50 or 60 years (and a good many have even had 100th birthdays). Negatives: Slow, slow, slow. This model of outreach tends to move at a glacial pace, and like people, the older the church gets the slower it moves. (This is of course a generalization…so if you’re part of an older congregation that’s still moving and shaking with the best of them, please don’t take offense). Another major disadvantage is that it can be incredibly intimidating for the unchurched to come into such gatherings. And finally, every decision about how church “works” has already been made, thereby limiting the ways new believers can appropriate the gospel for their particular contexts.

I don’t feel like either of these options completely fits our context in Wollongong. And I don’t think they’re the only options that exist. So here’s an idea for church planters in individualistic contexts (I’ll try to think of a snazzy name for it – CSU sounds too much like CSI):

Created Social Unit: In this model, a Christian gathers people into a group and then acts as a catalyst in this created group. The difference between this approach and the CPM approach is that this creates a new structure rather than working through existing structures. The difference between this approach and the attractional approach is that the created structure is non-Christian. Once this new group is formed, the Christian acts essentially in the same way as he/she would in a CPM model, coaching and empowering as much as possible rather than teaching and leading directly.

But why would you do it this way? In short – to take advantage of CPM practices in an individualistic context. The reason you may have to create a group is because a group of people willing to explore Christianity together may only exist in a very small percentage of the population (or not at all). This is due to the lack of social cohesion in individualistic societies. To give an example, in Australia, you might have a family in which the mother is catholic, the father is atheist, and their teenage son is experimenting with Buddhism (believe me, this is not a far-out scenario here). Just because one family member has an interest in something doesn’t mean that anyone else in the family is going to feel compelled to have the same interest – especially in something like religion, which is considered a personal preference. Of course, when speaking of societies, we always speak in generalizations – and therefore there will always be exceptions. But even if you could find one family (or other social unit) that had the kind of group-minded social cohesion for the CPM approach to work on, what then? In our context, if such families exist at all, my guess would be that they would be a very small percentage…as in less than one (just a guess). How do you reach the other 99 families in their neighborhood? How do you replicate the approach? You might spend years of work just to find a few people.

So the solution I’m proposing is to create a group that makes a common interest out of what is normally a personal preference – religion/spirituality. (BTW – I’m not claiming to have invented this approach – I’m just expounding on it a little. I believe this is the idea behind the Alpha Course approach). (BTW #2 – You don’t have to give up on the CPM approach of looking for existing social units that are receptive to Bible study. This is not an either/or situation, but a both/and situation. Keep looking for those people of peace, but in the mean time, try creating some new groups. Same goes for the attractional approach. We don't necessarily need to choose one model over the other, we just need to diversify.)

What might this look like? To use an example, you might start some sort of spiritual discussion group or a book club that looks at “spiritual” writings. In a pluralistic society you may even want to look at the writings of different religions and build up to a study of Christianity (context is the guide here). You might advertise, or you might spread the idea word of mouth. Whether you begin with Christianity or you lead up to it, the point is, at some point you begin to facilitate an inductive study of scripture (and pass on that facilitation role as quickly as possible to one of the members of the group).

Positives: It could be that this is the “natural” way that “spiritual interest” groups form in a fractured and individualistic society. Negatives: This group, like any other group, will still be a collection of individuals, so there is always the possibility that some will be interested in taking the discussion further while others will not. But if the group is coming together for a spiritual purpose to begin with, this would probably lessen the chance of that happening.

That’s my thinking as of today. We are going to be experimenting with this third idea in the next few months…so I may feel differently a few months from now. We’ll see how it goes.

Brief Update

2009-05-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry we haven't updated in a couple of weeks. This past week, Emily, Nicole, and Kendra went to a conference for women in ministry called "Come Before Winter." They had a good time and were encouraged through their time there. Other than that, we haven't had anything terribly exciting happen here in the last couple of weeks. We continue to spend time volunteering in the community and participating in hobby groups. These activities function as access ministries for us (they bring into contact with people in the community). We are continuing to learn the culture and are always looking for opportunities to share our faith. We have several new ideas about ways we can share our lives/faith with people in our community that we will be initiating in the coming months (I'll share more in future posts). Thanks to everyone who is keeping us in your prayers.

Autumn in Wollongong

2009-05-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to my mother and grandmothers, who are interested in plants.

Camelia bush in our yard

It is autumn in Wollongong. The native trees in this part of the world do not turn, but many trees from the northern hemisphere have been imported, so one can see bits of color throughout the city. There are also many flowering bushes this time of year which add a lot of beauty to the landscape.

Eucalyptus, tea tree, and camelia bush in our front yard

Imported trees from the northern hemisphere add color to the cities

Native gum forest

Banksia, a native plant

Not sure what this is, but it is everywhere here and adds a lot of color

Griffiths arrive!

2009-05-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Brenna, Kendra, Shawn, Darian Griffith

.... Just wanted everyone to know that our teammates, the Griffith family, arrived in Sydney the morning of May 9th. We had a happy reunion with them at the airport and then drove to Wollongong. Our first stop was the lookout that overlooks the city. (pictured above) We are very excited to have them in Wollongong.

Stuff!

2009-04-29T03:14:00.000-07:00

After 10 months of separation (6 months storage, 4 months shipping and quarantine) we are finally reunited with our stuff! It was like Christmas as we were unpacking the boxes (I had forgotten half of it). Our kitchen is now fully equipped. Not only do we now have an assortment of pots and pans, we even have such luxury items as mixing bowls, a butter dish and a set of matching silverware! It might sound funny, but after living off of a few borrowed odds and ends for almost a year that kind of stuff makes you feel rich. The best part for me is my books - I have really missed them.

We also had a few things arrive that were…less than thrilling. I could have probably titled this blog “What were we thinking?” We probably gave away about a fourth of our stuff prior to packing up, but we still had things arrive that were completely pointless. It’s obvious on a few things that we weren’t really thinking about what we were packing. The very first box we opened we were practically dancing around wondering what kind of wonderful long lost items we were going to pull out. I produced a little drum roll, Emily reached into the box and pulled out…an old syrup bottle?! What is that doing in there?

A couple of boxes later, she opened up a box clearly labeled (by me) “kitchen items” to find that it was filled with nothing but plastic hangers. In my defense, I packed up the entire apartment in a couple of days. Somehow the box of hangers that was supposed to be put outside for the neighbors is now in Australia. At about $40 a box those are some very expensive plastic hangers!

This wasn’t so much a mistake as it was a jolt of culture shock. After three months in Australia, our American glasses look huge! I read not too long ago that Americans get 1 out of 4 of their calories from beverages – the highest in the world. Now we know why. (If you’re trying to lose weight, you might want to think twice about that sweet ice tea at McAlister’s). Here’s one of our glasses next to one of our borrowed Australian glasses:

Emily shipped most of her teaching stuff over because she knew she would be tutoring. Of course one of the things that an elementary school teacher teaches is money counting so her money lessons went in right along with everything else and…oh yeah, we're not in the US anymore are we?

Perhaps the funniest thing was finding two travel mugs that belong to Matt and Erin Steidl. We (accidentally!) took them home with us to Memphis the first time we visited Legacy back in May. They should have come back with us when we came back in June but instead they are now in Wollongong…oops. One of them is from the ACU study abroad program (didn't you guys go to Lipscomb?) and the other is for giving blood. Sorry Matt and Erin (especially whichever one of you had to give blood to get this mug!)

Kangaroos!

2009-04-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

Emily was complaining that we had been in Australia for over three months and she still had not gotten to see any of the iconic Australian animals. So yesterday, we went to the local zoo for a couple of hours and saw koalas, emus, crocodiles, Tasmanian devils, bearded dragons, lace monitors, echidnas, dingoes and, of course, kangaroos. The roos were the best. They were so tame you could go in their enclosures and pet them. They would approach you very timidly and gently eat grain out of your hands (you could purchase a little paper sack of grain at the ticket counter for a dollar). I was really surprised by how soft they were. It was really fun to pet them and feed them.

Just across from the kangaroos, there was a pen full of barnyard animals. When one of the billy goats saw I had some grain he ran over put his front legs on the top of his fence and started shaking his head up and down as if to say “get over here and give me some of that!” I walked over, “ok, ok, here you go little fella.” Just as I was reaching into my bag to get him some grain that little scoundrel leaned over the fence and snatched the bag right out of my hand, and before I could snatch it back he ran over to the other side of his pen and ate the whole thing - bag and all! You could tell by the way he did it that he had done that little trick many times before. Sneaky little devil. I was so mad I wanted get in there and give him a spankin with a switch. I couldn’t believe I’d been outsmarted by a goat! Emily just thought it was funny. Oh well, that’s life I guess.

Here are some pictures of us with the kangaroos (no goat pictures though!)

Passover, Part 2

2009-04-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, we reflected on the story of the Passover. Emily shared with us a summary and reflection on the story of deliverance that she had written for the occasion. Here’s what she wrote:

Tonight we are going to retell the greatest story ever told. This is the story of God’s salvation coming to man.

There once was a people. These people looked like you and me. They slept, ate, worked, and lived in families. But all was not well with their lives. They lived under a dark cloud of slavery. They were oppressed by an evil empire, and lived under the yoke of fear and hatred - without hope and without God in the world. Oh, they had heard of God. Way back in a distant memory they had heard that there was a creator god. But they had never seen him. In this dark world of theirs, the only gods they knew were the evil gods of the Egyptians, who they toiled for night and day, building temples and palaces for them. The Egyptian gods had control of their lives and there was no way to be freed. It was a very bitter life.

One day a messenger named Moses appeared. He told the people that they were children of the Supreme God. This Supreme God of the universe was near to them and was planning to save them. Some of them believed and some did not. But to those who believed, hope began to pour into their heart. This hope began to assuage the bitterness and taste sweet like honey.

The Supreme God began to fight the evil forces of the gods of Egypt. He sent plagues to confront each god and show that he was the true ruler of the universe. After many days, Moses told the people that the supreme God’s judgment would come at last.

Exodus 12:12 – “In the night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn – both men and animals – and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.”

The people were told to kill a lamb and put the lamb’s blood on the door frames of their houses. If they obeyed God by doing this, they would be saved from the death angel, and would be liberated from their slavery. They believed and trusted God, and did as they were told. Each family killed a lamb and painted the doorframe of their houses with the lamb’s blood. Then they sat down and ate their last meal in Egypt together. When the death angel came, the firstborn in Egypt died. But the people of God were saved from death and liberated at last!

The sacrifice of a lamb became so intertwined with salvation in the consciousness of the people of God that many years later when John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The people of God never forgot how they had escaped slavery. They never forgot how God had saved them from death through the blood of the Lamb. Long afterwards, every year they celebrated the Passover feast with bread and wine and told the story of their liberation. 1500 years later, Jesus himself celebrated the Passover with his disciples.

The new freedom that came to the people of God long ago isn’t just something that died off with that generation. Freedom and liberation have come for the people of God of every generation. The old way of bondage is gone, the new time of liberation has come into the world!

Passover, Part 1

2009-04-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

All children in the United States learn about the founding fathers - their beliefs, their ideas, their accomplishments. If they were in Australia, they would learn about the great characters of Australian history and the values that Australia was founded on. And it would be the same for just about any country that had a few generations of history behind them - France, Greece, Ireland, etc. - they would all teach their “story.”

These courses aren’t optional – the government requires them. The reason is not just because of the importance of knowing history (as important as that may be), but rather, the stories of a nation’s history function as a paradigmatic narrative – a story that gives people a shared sense of identity. It tells them what it means to be an American, or a Frenchman, or whatever it may be. And the government cares about that because a shared identity makes for a more cohesive society.

The paradigmatic narrative for Israel was the Exodus. The telling and retelling of the story of God’s actions in freeing his people from Egyptian slavery gave the Israelites a shared sense of identity as God’s people. It helped them to remember the kind of God they served and how he had cared for them, and how they in turn should act towards this wonderful God. Elements of this story were retold every year at a special holiday known as Passover.

Jesus and his followers, being Jewish, being descendents of Israel, likewise, gathered together to celebrate Passover and remember this great story, this story of God’s deliverance of Israel. The last Passover that Jesus celebrated with his disciples, he did something unexpected - he gave them a new story to remember.

Luke 22:14-20
14When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 17After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. 18For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." 19And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." 20In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Here they are gathered together, they have the elements of the Passover meal - the Passover wine, the unleavened bread - and Jesus takes them and says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In other words, the story you’ll now tell and retell about God’s love and deliverance of his people is my story. So the story of Jesus becomes, in effect, his follower’s paradigmatic narrative – the story that tells them who they are as God’s people. And we continue that tradition every Sunday when we gather together for the communion meal to remember Jesus. In doing so, we are reminded of our shared identity as his followers. So that his story becomes our story…

Quiz answers

2009-04-01T19:55:00.001-07:00

My wife has pointed out to me that this is my third or fourth “wordy” post and that all of our readers may not find differences in Australian and American English as funny or interesting as I do! So I promise this will be my last “wordy” blog post…for the time being. I’ll try to have something deep and philosophical for you next time.

The correct answers to the quiz from the last post: 1. Footy = Football (here that means either rugby or Aussie rules) 2. Kindy = Kindergarten 3. Brickie = Brick layer 4. Sickie = Sick day 5. Postie = Postman 6. Compo = Workers compensation 7. Smoko = Smoke break (or just work breaks in general) 8. Gastro = Stomach sickness 9. Journo = Journalist 10. Arvo = Afternoon

Here’s a few more for you:
Mozzie = Mosquito
Chrissie Pressies = Christmas presents
Bickie = Biscuit (American Eng. - cookie)
Barbie = Barbeque grill
Pokie = Poker machine
Salvos = Salvation Army
Muso = Musician
Rego = Registration
Ute = Utility vehicle (American Eng. - Pickup truck)
Uni = University
Hols = Holidays

If you are wondering, no, I did not make any of these up. They come from Emily’s textbook on teaching English to foreigners. I knew I was a foreigner, but I never realized I would have to learn English!

But don’t think Australians are the only ones that do this kind of stuff. I was surprised to see how many of the words listed are also used in North America: undies, veggies, wheelie (as in “do a wheelie”), nightie, deli, etc.

Vocabulary Quiz

2009-03-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before Australia’s penchant for shortening words. Just for fun, here’s an Australian vocabulary quiz for you. See how many you can get right (no cheating). If you want, you can post your answers in the comments section. I’ll give the right answers with my next post. If you have ever lived in OZ you are disqualified from taking the quiz (probably Kiwis too, just for good measure) – sorry, Yanks only.

1. Footy 2. Kindy 3. Brickie 4. Sickie 5. Postie 6. Compo 7. Smoko 8. Gastro 9. Journo 10. Arvo

ESL Class

2009-03-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

I (Emily) am going through a training class to become a volunteer English tutor to immigrants coming into Wollongong from various non English speaking countries.

I really enjoyed my first ESL training class last week. I think I learned more about Australians and how they see themselves and cultural transition than I did tutoring English, but it was very interesting and I thought it would be good to share with you all.

During the class, we talked about culture and the various aspects of culture, including the fact that some aspects of culture are seen and some are unseen. The instructor had a picture of an iceberg and the part of the iceberg that was above water had the words “Language, Food, and Clothing” on it, depicting the aspects of “seen” culture. The part of the iceberg that was under the water had the words “Communication, Beliefs, Attitudes, Values, and Perceptions,” depicting the unseen aspects of culture. We then broke into groups to discuss the question, “What do you think are important aspects of Australian culture?” (We were supposed to emphasize the unseen things such as values.)

We later came back together as a large group to share what we had talked about. The instructor first wanted to hear from those of us who had lived in Australia for less than a year. (It had come out earlier in class that I and two other women were newcomers to Australia – one from South Africa and the other from the U.S.) I told the class that it seemed to me that conservation was a higher value in Australia than in the U.S. The woman from South Africa said that people were taken care of more because slums were rare, and the other woman from the U.S.A. said that Australians placed a high value on clubs and groups.

After we newcomers had shared our perceptions of Australian values, the instructor opened up the discussion to others. It was interesting to hear people from Wollongong discuss what they perceived as Australian values. One person said “ANZAC values” (I think she said loyalty and courage were the values of ANZAC soldiers) and another said fairness – her exact words were, “Everyone gets a fair go.”

Later we talked about cultural taboos. The instructor read some scenarios of foreign people making cultural faux pas in Australia. One was a little story about a man from South America who asked an Australian man how much money he made and the Australian man walked off because he was offended. Our instructor asked, “What are some other things that would be taboo to ask someone in Australia?” The answers the Australians in the class gave were “religion” and “political views”.

We then talked about culture transition and the settlement process, as well as problems and frustrations people deal with when they migrate to a new place/culture. We had an interesting discussion because several in the class were immigrants from other English speaking countries. Several talked about how hard the transition was for them to move to Australia and how different it was from their country of origin, despite the fact they spoke English. The other lady from the U.S. spoke up and said that in the past 9 months she has lived in Australia, she had gone through a hard time of transition – a lot harder than she expected. She had visited Australia several times for a month or two at a time before she came over on a permanent visa, but found it a lot harder to live permanently in Australia than visit for a month or two at a time. She had gone through a time where she had felt quite miserable and regretted coming over, but found a friend who helped her through it.

Our instructor told the class that she had migrated to Australia from England twenty years ago and had found Australia a lot different from England and the adjustment challenging (This surprised me because I always think of Australia as being much more British). She also said that she still didn’t feel Australian even though she moved 20 years ago. Another woman who emigrated from South Africa 25 years ago admitted that she still did not feel Australian. The general consensus of the class was that it was rare for someone to emigrate as an adult to Australia (or another place) and ever feel fully from there.

The point of all these discussions, of course, was to broaden people’s understanding of culture and how hard it is for people to transition to a new place and culture, so that as English tutors we would have more understanding of what our learners are experiencing. What I got out of it though, was more of an understanding of how people in Wollongong think about Australian culture (and also more understanding about my own transition here in this place). I really see now that it is going to take awhile to become adjusted and that it is normal to feel cultural stress, even though I come from a somewhat similar English speaking country. I see that it is possible for the cultural aspects that are “at the top of the iceberg” such as language, food, and clothing to be similar, but at the same time, the less seen aspects of culture at the “bottom of the iceberg” such as communication style, values, and perceptions to be different. My guess is the further that we go in this process of getting to know people in Wollongong, the more we will realize the differences in those aspects of culture that are less seen.

Conservation Volunteering

2009-03-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

Ready to brave the intense sun of the Australian bush

For a couple of days each week, I volunteer with Conservation Volunteers of Australia. Each week, we drive to a different location in or around Wollongong and do things like pull invasive weeds, plant trees, etc. It’s hard work but it’s a lot of fun. The best part is being able to hang out with a bunch of Australians all day. It’s a great way to learn more about this culture. I ask a lot of questions because they are constantly using words I’ve never heard or talking about subjects I know nothing about. For example, a couple of the guys were talking about the Dragons, Wollongong’s professional rugby team, so I asked,

“Do they have sports seasons here?”
“Sure, cricket in the spring and summer, rugby in autumn and winter.”
“When does rugby season actually start?”
“This Friday. Except for Super Fourteen. It started a couple of weeks ago.” (Side-note: Fourteen is pronounced four-deen here).
“What’s that?”
“Rugby union - it’s a different version of the sport. Most Australians prefer rugby league. That’s what the Dragons are. But the Kiwis and South Africans prefer rugby union so we have a few union teams that play them.”
“Why is it called Super Fourteen?”
“Because that’s how many teams there are - five from New Zealand, five from South Africa, and four from Oz.”
“Oh, I see.”

I try not to ask too many questions because I don’t want to annoy them. But they generally seem to like that I ask questions. I think this is because when foreigners ask questions it signals that they care about the culture and want to learn more about it. In fact, a couple of the guys I volunteer with have really picked up on the fact that I am very curious about Australia and they will periodically call me over to show me some native plant or bird and explain its significance.

I don’t want to look too much like I am studying them, but I confess that I really find them fascinating. I am amazed at how they can work all morning long in sweltering heat without touching a drop of water or hardly breaking a sweat (while I’m pouring sweat and sucking on my water bottle like my life depends on it). And their conversations are always interesting to me, whether it is a discussion of the biggest wave they have ever seen or the best techniques for brewing a great tasting beer. (Another side-note: Home brewing is a major pastime here. All the grocery stores here sell home brewing equipment and supplies!) But the best thing is just the back and forth banter I hear throughout the day. Some of the stuff they say is really funny to me, even though they really aren’t trying to be funny. They just have so many colorful expressions. It’s like a back and forth word game. It rarely makes sense, but that seems to be part of the game. For example, one bloke says to another, “Nice sunny day today – not a cloud in the sky.” And his mate points off at some little clouds on the distant horizon and says, “What are them? Goldfish?”

I hear stuff like that all day. My favorite quote from last week came during a discussion of the likelihood of getting attacked by a shark (which the Australians assure me is very unlikely, even though there is something in the news almost every week about someone getting attacked). At one point, one of the guys says, as if to settle the matter, “The only way one of them sharks is going to get me is if it swims up the beer tap into me schooner.” Classic.

On another note, I had my first encounter with one of Australia’s more notorious residents, the bull ant. The bull ant is about an inch long, with mouth pincers (I don’t know what they’re really called) about a half centimeter long, and a stinger which they use to inject acid into their victims. Nice little fellows. Well, I saw one for the first time while we were working in a subtropical rainforest about an hours drive south of Wollongong. He came walking right in front of me and I looked down at him and thought, “Boy, I bet he could give a nasty sting.” Just that instant, I felt like someone stuck a hot syringe into my ankle. I yelped with pain, looked down and his twin brother was firmly attached to my sock giving me a good injection. I flicked him off, and then his mate turned around, looked up at me, and then charged at me (no kidding). I guess that is why they call them bull ants. Well, we’re not really supposed to kill anything in the rain forest…and I probably shouldn’t have…but I couldn’t help myself.

Anyway, the pleasure of taking revenge on the obnoxious ant didn’t take away the burning in my ankle which continued for about ten minutes. But I didn’t get any sympathy from the guys I worked with. They thought it was funny.

“What happened?” The guy next to me asked.
“I just got stung by a bull ant.”
“Oh you did huh?” He said with a big grin on his face.
“Yeah.”
“What happened?” One of the other guys yelled across at us.
“He got stung by a bull ant.” Almost laughing now.
“He did? Haven’t got those in America do you?” Now they were laughing.
“Welcome to Australia.” Someone else yelled across. The laughter got louder.
“Consider yourself a naturalized citizen.” said another one. At that, they roared with laughter. Pretty much everyone thought it was funny.

Don’t worry though; they weren’t being mean to me. They do that to each other as well. It’s a cultural thing. My friend David Nelson who is from the similar culture of New Zealand (but superior - he would always remind me) once told me that teasing was a sign of acceptance. I guess if they didn’t like me they would have just ignored me. So it’s a good thing – sort of.

New Dictionary

2009-03-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

We just got an Australian Oxford Dictionary a couple of days ago. We are so excited because we are now able to look up all of these words we don’t know. Yea! For example, Emily just came across this sentence in a book she is reading: “The man was humping a bluey across the ranch.”

Bluey: 1) a swag (so called because the outer covering was a blue blanket). 1b) Luggage. 1c) A swagman’s blanket. 1d) Heavy grey-blue woolen outer garment or coat. 2) Nickname for a red haired person.

Swag: 1) collection of possessions and daily necessaries carried by a person traveling, usually on foot, in the bush; especially the blanket-wrapped roll carried, usually on the back or across the shoulders, by an itinerant worker; syn: matilda; bluey.

Swagman: 1) person who carries a swag, especially an itinerant. 2) tramp.

Hump (v.): 1) lift or carry with difficulty. 2) make hump-shaped. 3) travel on foot carrying one’s possessions - as in, “hump one’s swag” (or bluey or matilda).

So a bluey is basically combination knapsack/bedroll usually carried by a drifter/hobo type person. Hump is roughly the equivalent to hike. So my American translation:

“The man was hiking across the ranch with his bedroll, which he was also using as a knapsack (which should conjure up images of a hobo for you).”

It takes a lot more words to express it in American English for some reason.

Cultural Values

2009-03-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

Do you ever think critically about your culture? My guess is that the majority of people do not. Thinking about culture is difficult. The main problem is that culture can be such a subtle thing – it’s made up of thousands of little everyday aspects of life that we take for granted. These little details of life collectively form the lens that we see the world through. It’s kind of difficult to look at your contact lenses when they’re on your eyeballs isn’t it? That’s what trying to examine culture can be like. Probably the best way to examine your culture is to go and live in another culture. This isn’t to say that this removes all of your cultural biases (we tend to take our contacts with us), but it certainly helps (your lenses at least start to peel off around the edges).

One very important aspect of culture is its underlying values. Every culture has values, but values are often implicit rather than explicit, assumed but not necessarily stated. Not only that, but some values have greater significance than others. When moving from one culture to another you might find that both cultures have some of the same values, say for example, hospitality, gratitude, and hard work, but it is likely that these values will have differing levels of significance in each culture, so that in one, hospitality might be the supreme value, and in the other, hard work. The problem with moving to a new culture is that no one is going to tell you what their values are or in what order they place them. In fact, it is likely that they themselves have never really thought about it - they just know what they are intuitively. Values are in the cultural air we breathe. And like air, you don’t so much see them as feel them.

I once read an article about a sociological study that found that the top two American values were safety and convenience. I don’t know what the researchers’ evaluating criteria were, so I can’t really say how much weight their conclusions hold, but my guess is that they were on to something. (When you get a chance sometime, sit down and think about how much of your daily life is dictated by those two things).

After a couple of months in Australia, I certainly will not pretend to be an expert on Australian culture – we are just starting to scratch the surface of this culture. But one thing that I can tell you for sure is that convenience is not one of the top values in Australian culture. Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely one of their values, it’s just not as high on the value list as it is in America. Allow me to give you just a few examples,

Parking
In the US, virtually every public building, whether it is a store or a church or a government office, or anything else you can think of, has a large parking lot near it. Not only this, but the majority of Americans will drive up and down every lane of the parking lot until they have found the absolute closest space available. Right? Well not in Australia. Here, you better know how to parallel park in a tight spot, and you may even have to walk a couple of blocks sometimes (yes I said blocks). Apparently, Australians don’t feel the need to put large parking lots everywhere just to make it more convenient for people.

Laundry
I had no idea how big our washers and dryers were until I came here. We got the biggest washer in the store (our American values coming out) but it is still relatively small compared to the ones in the US. The dryers are even smaller, but the majority of people don’t own dryers anyway. They hang their clothes out on the clothes line (yes, just like grandma used to do). Apparently, Australians don’t feel the need to have their clothes dry in 45 minutes, come rain or shine.

Heating and Air
This one may fall more under the value of comfort than convenience, but I think those are closely related (and I find this aspect of Australia both uncomfortable and inconvenient!). In the US, unless you live in a house that was built before 1950 you probably have central heating and air. Well, as far as I know, no one has that here. Central heating and air is typically only in large public buildings like shopping malls. If someone does have a heater or an air conditioner in their house, it is usually a wall unit in one room. But our house is pretty typical in that it has neither. Even those that do have such units, typically don’t turn them on until it’s at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside (they would say this in Celsius, but I haven’t really got that down yet), where as most Americans crank that baby up as soon as it gets three or four degrees above room temperature (myself included). Here, for the most part you just dress light in the summer, open all your windows, and hope for a breeze. In the winter, you just put on some extra layers of clothes. And everyone is okay with that. As my teammate, Nicole, says, "They're just tougher than we are."

I could come up with many more examples, but this post would be too long. My point is that in being here in another culture I am able to see how much I have imbibed the values of my own culture. So every time I get mad about having to park away from the building I’m trying to get to, or I am exasperated that I have been hot all day, or I get impatient waiting for my clothes to dry on the line, I know that it is my culture telling me what is or is not normal, acceptable, etc. But it is still hard to see isn’t it? When I was telling a relative about some of these cultural differences (we’ll just call him Dad), he said, “What’s wrong with those people?” And that’s the funny thing, there is nothing wrong with them, they’re just a different culture with different values. And I am looking forward to going deeper into this culture and learning more and more about it. Because as I learn about this culture, I’m finding that I’m learning a lot about myself as well.

English?

2009-02-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

“Well at least we don’t have to learn another language.” That’s what I thought. After a couple of months in Australia, I’ve come to see it’s not so simple. We are definitely at an advantage to those church planters who have to learn a new language from scratch. We certainly don’t have to do that. But what people (perhaps especially Americans) often don’t realize is that the English spoken in other parts of the world isn’t just the same language with a different accent - it’s usually an altogether different dialect. If you go from Tennessee to California, you’ll hear a different accent. If you go from Tennessee to Australia, you’ll hear a different dialect. And different dialects can sometimes be very…well, different.

Consider the following sentence:

“I’m sorry I’m late, I had a prang on the way here.”

Now what do you think that means?

What is a prang?
A. A quick bite to eat.
B. A pressing errand.
C. A car accident.

If you don’t know the answer, welcome to my daily life. Since we speak the same language I understand that the person is apologizing for not arriving on time, but I may not necessarily understand why. (By the way, if you answered c then you got it right).

There are several categories of differences in dialect:

Pronunciation/accent
This is the least troublesome category, but it definitely can be tricky at times. This may be obvious to everyone, but there is much more difference between an Australian accent and an American accent than there is between any regional accents of the U.S.A. As different as an Alabama accent and a New York accent can be (to use two extremes), they are still both clearly identifiable as American accents. I’m sure this will change with time, but I frequently have to ask people to repeat themselves because their accent makes certain words unintelligible to me. For example, a few days ago when I was interviewing to be a volunteer with an Australian conservation organization, the girl interviewing me said (or so I thought) that they sometimes work in the “junes.” I said, “What’s a june?” She said, “It’s a large mound of sand.” She had actually said “dunes” but Australians sometimes pronounce d’s like j’s. There are probably hundreds of little differences in pronunciation of words, which to the untrained ear (i.e. mine) can be confusing.

Spelling
Australians use British spelling. I was already acquainted with some of these spelling differences, but there are more than I realized. And sometimes they are spelled differently enough to confuse me. For example, would you know what this word was? GAOL. If you’re stumped, so was I. It’s jail. Most of the time the spelling differences don’t make a difference in the pronunciation (e.g. jail/gaol sound the same); but sometimes they do. For example, aluminum is spelled aluminium; the extra “i” adds an extra syllable so that the word is pronounced al-oo-min-ee-um.

Slang
There is so much I don’t even know where to start. There are several different publishers that have entire dictionaries of Australian slang (you can get American slang dictionaries as well – who knew?). I’ll eventually figure it all out. No worries mate, she’s apples. (translation – it will be ok, it is a relatively easy task).

Abbreviations
Closely related to slang is abbreviations. Australians love to abbreviate things. As in every other word. From my American point of view it borders on the insane. Everything, and I mean everything, can by abbreviated by dropping the last syllable (or two) and adding an O or a Y to the end. Not only this, once a word is abbreviated by enough people it becomes, more or less, the official word. So that when I bought my car they told me I needed to go the RTA (DMV) and get my “rego” (registration), and when a well known musician is coming to town, the headline on my paper reads “Muso coming to Wollongong,” and the sign on the Hungry Jack’s (Burger King) down the road from my house says, “Breaky starts at 6.”

Speaking of breaky, how many meals are there in a day? Three you say. No, there are five. Instead of three big meals, you have five small meals. Between breakfast and lunch there is morning tea, and between lunch and supper there is afternoon tea. Not that you have to actually have the beverage known as tea at tea. That’s just what it is called. A ham sandwich and a coke are perfectly acceptable at tea. Did I mention that supper is also known as tea? No I’m not kidding. So the meals of the day are: breaky, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and tea. Got all that straight? Good, cause I’m usually confused about it.

Word order and selection
How you phrase something is an essential part of language that we don’t usually even think about. Often you could phrase something several different ways and all of them could be grammatically correct, but only one “sounds right.” Here, someone is not “in the hospital” they are “in hospital.” Here, you don’t rent a car, you hire a car. Or to use another example, the most common greeting here is, “How you going?” (Not “G’day”, contrary to the popular image), while I totally understand what is being said here (sort of a cross between “How’s it going?” and “How are you doing?” - only shortened of course), it still sounds weird to me.

Same words, different meaning
Perhaps the most confusing aspects of a different dialect are words that are exactly the same in pronunciation, but have totally different meanings. For example, if you asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich here, you would get some strange looks; because, “jelly” here is the equivalent to “jello” or “gelatin” in the States. What we call jelly, Australians call jam (and what we call jam, they call “conserve”). So the proper thing to ask for would be a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Not that they wouldn’t still give you a strange look. A peanut butter and jam sandwich? Weird.

Different words
Many items are just altogether different. For example a stroller here is called a pram, a pacifier is a dummy, and diapers are known as nappies (since our teammates have a six month old baby, I have learned many baby words). For another example, when we were touring our house, I had this conversation with the real estate agent,
“If you rent this house you are responsible for lawn care.”
“No problem, I’ll just buy a mower and weed eater.”
“What’s a weed eater?”
“Uh…you know…it cuts weeds.”
Blank stare.
“It’s a mechanical device with a spinning cord on the end that cuts the edge of the lawn.”
“Oh, you mean a whipper snipper.”
“I guess so.”
“Yes, you do this with it.” She made a weed eater like back and forth motion.
“Yes, that’s it. I’ll get a whipper snipper.”
“Well actually, most people call it a whipy snipy.”

And that my friends is my life in Australia. There are probably hundreds of differences in each one of these categories. Which means there are thousands of ways for Australians to confuse the heck out of me! Well I have to go now, it’s time for tea.

Picture Walk Around Crown St. Market

2009-02-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

These are some photos from a day spent in the Crown Street Mall, which is a central shopping area in Wollongong. Every Friday in the outdoor area of the mall there is an open air market where local vendors come to sell items that they grew or made. We have spent several Fridays out there enjoying the unique personality and culture of the city of Wollongong.

Outdoor area at Crown Street Mall

Men gather for a game of chess using this giant chess board.

Men also like to sit at outdoor tables and play cards or other games.

Fruit and Vegetable Market

Seafood Market - The seafood is VERY fresh - most is still completely intact, eyes and all.

Aussie souvenier shop

Many varieties of food are available - this shop sells fresh Turkish cuisine.

These ladies are making Turkish gozlemas.

Musicians are often seen performing at the Crown St. market

This lady proudly displays aprons that she made to sell.

Fresh olives of many varieties

This man sells meat pies and fruit tarts.

Landmarks

2009-02-16T18:24:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the famous landmarks around Wollongong:

The North side of Wollongong is in the shadow of Mount Keira. (Picture from our neighborhood)

The South side of Wollongong is in the shadow of Mount Kembla. (picture from the Whaley's neighborhood)

Lake Illawarra is a large coastal lagoon south of Wollongong.

The Wollongong harbor is known for its lighthouses.

The major industry in Wollongong is the Steel Works located on the North side of Lake Illawarra.

The Crown Street mall is a popular shopping destination in the center of town.

The Nan Tien Buddhist temple is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern hemisphere.

The University of Wollongong is the major educational institution in the region, with students from all over the world.

In our next post we'll share pictures of some of the many different kinds of people who live in Wollongong.

Beggining in Wollongong

2009-02-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

We have finally moved into our house! We are very happy with it. It is a two bedroom one bathroom house with a large living room that is ideal for groups. There are two porches – a front porch and huge back porch. There is an orange tree, fig tree, lime tree, and mango tree in the back yard, as well as a variety of flowering bushes. Corey is very excited about the fruit trees and yard because he likes to garden. We moved in on Wednesday and our furniture was delivered on Saturday. Here's the tour:

A typical Aussie home

Putting together the furniture

Fully furnished living room

Kitchen

Spare room (currently used as the clutter room)

Bedroom

Bathroom

porch

Mango tree

Fig tree

Orange tree

Worship the past two Sundays
The past two Sundays that we have been in Wollongong, we worshipped with our teammates. This has been a wonderful experience. We sang, read scripture, and took the Lord’s Supper together. We also discussed ways to get involved in the community here, and helped each other set personal outreach goals for the week.
The first week we worshipped together at the Whaley’s house, we had no furniture and sat on the floor or laundry baskets. This past Sunday, however, we worshiped at our house and were blessed to have newly delivered couches to sit on! We also have a coffee table with storage (perfect to store song books) and a take out tray (perfect for the Lord’s supper). We have also enjoyed meals together at our new table.

The best part about house church – worshipping barefoot! Actually, it is more of a necessity, most Australians do not have air conditioning in their homes, and ours is no exception. You can’t really tell from the picture, but we are pretty hot and sweaty here. Sweating is just sort of accepted as a way of life here (and this spoiled American is not used to it!) So we just try to stay as cool as possible. They also don’t have heat in their homes, so in the winter we will be worshipping with coats and hats!

It’s hard to believe, but we have been here a month today. We are very thankful that we have been able to have a fairly smooth transition. And we are excited that we can now really begin to get to know our community.

Happenings

2009-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

Housing
We won’t be able to move into our rental house until February 4th. Thankfully, the Whaleys were able to move into their home on Monday, so we are staying with them until we move into our place. There isn’t any furniture yet, so we are sleeping on air mattresses and sitting on the floor.

Having dinner on the Whaleys floor

We found out from the shipping company that our stuff is going to be late. It won’t arrive in port until March 23rd, which means we won’t get our stuff until April. So it looks like we will be living out of suitcases and eating off paper plates for a bit longer. By the time our stuff arrives, it will have been 10 months since we have seen it. It will probably feel like Christmas since we will have forgotten what all we own!

One of the things we have been doing is shopping for furniture and household appliances. Australia is on a different electrical grid than the states so we couldn’t bring our appliances, and the cost of shipping furniture is about 3 times what it cost to buy furniture so we couldn’t really bring furniture either. So far we have found a refrigerator, washer, bed, dinner table, and living room furniture (it will all be delivered to our house the day we move in). We still need to get a few small appliances.

Measuring the Whaley’s kitchen for a refrigerator (For some reason I couldn't rotate this

picture)

The Whaleys testing mattresses at the bed store

Car
We found a car! It’s a 2001 Toyota Camry. It has low mileage and has been well taken care of - so hopefully it will put in many years of service for the lord!

Corey with our new car

Our first Australia Day
January 26th was Australia Day (the Australian equivalent of the 4th of July). Australia Day is basically a huge nationwide party. They celebrate in similar fashion to Americans celebrating the 4th of July (barbecues, fireworks, etc.), but instead of doing this just with family or close friends, Australians congregate in huge groups (Imagine having a fair in every town and city in the country on the same day). This was our first experience of Australian culture in mass. There are a few general observations that a person could make about the culture by participating in an event like this. One is that Australia is a very diverse place – we saw people of every race, nationality, and religion celebrating. Another is that Australians (in general) are friendly fun loving people who enjoy sharing with their mates. I don’t think it is going to be hard to make friends here. The one negative observation you could make is that there is a strong element of hedonism in Australian culture. We saw many drunk people and people engaged in lewd behavior. Not that everyone was engaged in that kind of celebrating, but it is definitely a part of the culture. On one level, it is discouraging to see this sort of thing, but it also reminds us why we are here – because there are many people here who do not know their creator and the joy of living in relationship with him. I don’t say that in a judgmental way - we all need to experience the redemptive love of Jesus. Our prayer is that we will be able to share this love with the new friends that we will be making and that God will transform their lives and remake them into the people they were created to be. Here are some pictures from Australia day:

Australia Day crowds

Muslim women watching their kids play by the water

Wollongong teenagers painted green and gold (the sports colors of Australia)

Prayer contact
One cool thing that happened while we are at the Australia Day celebration was Emily and Nicole ran into a woman we had met at one of the appliance stores we had shopped at a couple of days before. She remembered them and remembered that I had told them we were church planters. She went to them and told them that she was going through some rough times and asked them to pray for her. So Emily and Nicole prayed with her right then and there. What are the chances that out of the thousands of people gathered in Wollongong that day we would run into someone we had actually met before, who was hurting and needed prayers? Not very likely - but that’s the way our God works. Please pray for this woman…pray that God would begin to heal her wounds. And please pray for future contacts and ministry opportunities for our team. Below is a picture I took of the light houses overlooking the harbor in Wollongong. Our prayer is that we can shine the light of Jesus in this city so that many lost and weary travelers can find their way home.

Update

2009-01-19T22:02:00.000-08:00

...This is just a little update to let everyone know how our settling-in process is going. We are gradually getting settled...very gradually. Everything seems to take a little longer here. We have found a house to rent, but will not be able to move in until the very end of the month. So it looks like we will be living out of our suitcases a little bit longer (sigh). We are anxious to get into our home so we can start meeting people, but I guess we just have to be patient.

...We also found a car. It's a 2001 Toyota Camry. The test drive was interesting. It was my first time behind the wheel of an Australian car (the wheel is on the right side down here). And the blinker is on the right side of the steering wheel so, of course, every time I went to turn I flipped on the windshield wipers. The sales lady in the back was looking at me like I was crazy. Then at one point the left side of the car ran up on the curve at a pretty good rate of speed which made both Emily and the sales lady let out a little scream (I'm just not used to having that much car on my left side). At least I remembered to stay on the left side of the road. After we got back to the dealership the sales lady said that she needed a Bourbon. I guess it is going to take a little time to adjust to this new driving experience...in the mean time we will definitely need full coverage on the car :)

...On Sunday we participated in the Warringah Youth Day, a youth event that brings together churches from all over New South Wales. The church in Warringah (an area North of Sydney) has a barbecue and devotional, then everyone walks down to the beach for some volleyball. It was a great chance to meet some Christians from other churches in the state. Here are some pictures from the event:

Adventures In Moving

2009-01-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

..... A lot has happened over the past week! Here are the highlights from the week:

.....We enjoyed time with family and friends the afternoon before we flew out. Emily's parent's house was full of people. It was a neat afternoon, but a bit surreal at times knowing that we were about to leave.

.....It was very hard to say good-bye to family. This picture is of us and Emily's parents at the airport.

.....We also had to say good-bye to our teammates, the Griffiths. The Griffiths are still waiting for their visas and plan to join us in a few months.

.....Our plane ride was long but uneventful. (Which is a good thing when you are flying.) We managed to get a little sleep thanks to neck pillows, sleep masks, and sleep aid pills. (We came prepared as you can see in the photo above.)

.....We arrived in Sydney, Australia around 9 in the morning on January 9th. The view from the plane as we landed was beautiful. After exiting the plane, picking up luggage, and going through customs, we walked out of the airport security and were greeted by Frank Cunningham. Frank is the minister for the Southwest Church of Christ, which is located in Campbelltown, a suburb of Sydney. Frank is giving us a place to stay while we are looking for housing in Wollongong.

..... Saturday was our first day in Wollongong. We spent most of our time in the city center. We toured the central shopping district and the downtown area. This photo was taken near the harbor. (See the lighthouse in the background.) We have since made a couple of trips to the city (we are staying 45 minutes away), touring the various neighborhoods and looking at rental property. There are several steps in securing a place to rent here, so we are not sure how long it will take before we get into our own place.

.....We worshipped with the Southwest church on Sunday. Corey spoke during the Bible class hour about our plans in Wollongong, and Jason preached that morning. We enjoyed a dinner on the grounds with the congregation afterwards. The Southwest church has been very welcoming to us and given us places to stay while we are looking for housing in Wollongong.

.....We are very excited to be here. There is so much to do now before we can get settled - set up a bank account, find a place to live, buy a car, get phones- and that is just the beginning. But in the meantime, we are enjoying new sights.

Mountain overlooking Wollongong

Time with Family, Friends, and Teammates

2009-01-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

.....We have had a wonderful time with family, friends, and teammates over the last two weeks. Here are a few pictures:

Time with Family:

We spent Christmas week with Corey's family in northeast Texas.

Corey's dad and mom wrote a sweet poem for us for Christmas and gave us some things to "remember them by" when we are overseas.

Corey and his dad and brother Michael had way too much fun with the Wii.

Emily's dad entertained the family.

Time with Friends:

.....We visited Western Hills in Nashville and enjoyed lunch with our small group there.

.....We also went to Mayfield, Kentucky to visit Emily's mentor and her family.

Emily and her mentor, Diane Savage.

Tessa Savage and her pet llamas.

Time with Teammates:

.....We went to Savannah, Tennessee for a retreat with our team.

Brenna made a heart for our team and divided it into three parts.

Leaving for Australia:

...We have a great time with friends and family, but tomorrow we have to say good-bye. We are a little sad about this but we trust God to take care of all those loved ones that we parting from. Our family and the Whaley family will leave from Nashville on Wednesday. Our other teammates the Griffiths are still waiting on visas and will be coming later this year. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin this new adventure.

Australia or bust!

Legacy Send Off

2008-12-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

We got our visas!

We packed up the weekend of Dec. 20th.

Our Send-Off from Legacy was Dec. 21st. The elders comissioned us and prayed over us.

Monday morning we had breakfast with Legacy to spend time with and say good-bye to our friends there.

Carol Brownlow

Debbie Dashner

Jim and Pat Collins

Falling Into Place

2008-12-18T11:08:00.000-08:00

.....This week everything has "fallen into place." On Monday we drove to Memphis, shipped our boxes on Tuesday, and on Wednesday returned to Texas. Wednesday afternoon Corey received an email from our case worker at the Australian embassy in Washington, D.C., telling him that she was issuing our visa that day! We were very glad and a bit relieved, since our send-off is only a few days away. The visa will be sent by mail to the home of my parents in Lebanon, Tennessee. Thank you to everyone who has been praying about this matter on our behalf. We appreciate those prayers and the encouragement that we have received over the past few months from our friends at Legacy.

Visiting

2008-12-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

.....It is beginning to feel like our time with Legacy is short. If everything goes as planned, our last Sunday with Legacy will be December 21. Because of this, we have been doing a lot of visiting. During the last week, we have had dinner with several families from the church. We also had a liason team brunch last Sunday in the home of Scott and Marsha Brown.

Liason Team brunch at the Brown's house

Emily with Sophia and Natalia, some of our cutest friends from Legacy

Thanksgiving Photos

2008-12-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving in Lebanon, Tennessee with our family. Here are a few photos:

Emily's mom and dad, brother Nathan, and foster sister Necole

The whole clan

Emily's aunt and uncle- Becky and F.H. Gates

We have a lot to be thankful for!

Update 11\28\08

2008-11-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

.....We have good news! We have reached our fundraising goal for our living expenses! We are at 100%! The Lord has blessed us richly the last couple of weeks and our funding has all come together. We still are waiting for our visas. However, our medical exams went well and we are supposed to receive our visas within the next two weeks.
.....We are in Lebanon, TN right now and had a good Thanksgiving with family yesterday. We will spend a couple more days here before returning to Texas.

Team Weekend

2008-11-18T08:46:00.000-08:00

.....We had a wonderful weekend with our teammates. It was a time of reconnecting and refreshing. We also were able to spend time with our team coach and fellowship with the Skyline congregation.

Here are some photos from our recent team weekend:

.....We got our visa paperwork sent off (hopefully second time's the charm) the day before we left for Tennessee. The next day, we travelled to Jackson, Tennessee, to be with our teammates.

It was good to be together!

.....We had a team meeting and were later joined by Amos and Anne Allen. Amos works for an organization called Kairos and is helping to coach our team.

Amos and Anne

Corey and Amos

.....This is our new team picture. We had quite a bit of fun in the park after taking it!

.....We enjoyed a visit with the Skyline congregation in Jackson, as well as with representatives from the congregation in Round Rock, Texas. (Skyline sponsors the Griffiths and Round Rock sponsors the Whaleys.)

.....On Sunday evening, we gave a presentation at Skyline. Shawn told about how our team formed and our plans for ministry in Wollongong.

Brenna with a map of Australia

Visa Update

2008-11-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

We received the go-ahead from the embassy to get our medical examinations yesterday. This is the final step in processing our visa. So as soon as we can get our medical examinations completed and sent off, we should receive our visa within a few weeks. Please pray that we don't have any more problems or delays so that we can have our visa by the end of the year.

Visa Update and this Week's Travel Plans

2008-11-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Our latest visa update......
We received an email from the immigration office in Sydney, and they sent our visa packet out by mail on October 20th, which means that it should be on its way back to us. It has some original documents in it that we need in order to re-apply. As soon as we receive our visa packet, we can begin the process of re-applying for our visa.
This week we are traveling to Jackson, TN to meet with our teammates. We are looking forward to spending time with them and re-connecting. We will also be meeting with Amos Allen, who is a coach and mentor to our team. On Sunday we plan to worship with the Skyline Church in Jackson and then have lunch with some folks from our sponsoring churches. Shortly after that, we will go to Alabama for a couple of days to visit grandparents before heading back to TX.

Visa Update 10\27\08

2008-10-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

.....Just wanted to let everyone know the latest news on our Australian visas. Corey received an email from the Australian government telling us that our visa application was invalid because it was sent to the wrong office. We were supposed to send our visa application to the Australian embassy in Washington, D.C., but we sent them to the office in Sydney that processed our sponsorship form. The frustrating thing about this is the fact that Corey called the embassy in D.C., and they are the ones who told him to send the visa application to Sydney. So it seems that the right hand of the Australian gov't doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or something like that. The frustrating news is that we must re-apply for our visa, but the promising news is that we already have our sponsorship approved and do not have to re-do that step in the process. The office in Sydney told us that they were sending our paperwork back to us (we had some original documents that we needed and it would be a long process to re-do them). At this point in time we are waiting for our original paperwork to arrive in the mail, so that we can send it to the correct office. Hopefully we will receive it soon so that we can resume our visa process.

In the meantime...

2008-10-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

We are still waiting for our visas. In the meantime.....

.....We enjoyed a visit with the Whaleys.

.....On Wednesday, October 15, David and Olivia Nelson began their mission journey to the Ukraine. Legacy held a breakfast that morning in their honor, the elders prayed over them, and we saw them leave to begin their journey. Very exciting!
.

.....I (Emily) made scones and Corey danced around the kitchen with delight. (He is easy to please - just make him something sweet!)

Give-Away Day 2008

2008-10-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Give-Away Day 2008

.....On October 11 Legacy Church of Christ held their annual Give-Away Day. Clothes, shoes, household items, toys, and food were given away to the community. 2, 832 people (men, women, and children) were served. Many of these people had recently lost jobs or homes and many more had just moved into the area and were starting over. After picking up their household items and groceries, each family was prayed over and invited to come back for worship the next morning.

Preparing for the big event - Two weeks before the appointed day, the gymnasium at the chuch building was turned into a store. Every day volunteers came and helped to set up and prepare for the give-away.

Morning of the Give-Away- People from the community lined up around the building. Many had come before daylight. Here are their beautiful faces:

Shopping - Legacy members helped people shop throughout the day.

Children's pillows were given away that had been made by ladies of the congregation.

Each family was prayed over before they left to go home.

Whew! What a tiring day!

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)

Dinner with the Calderons

2008-10-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Emily and I had a great time the other night having the Calderon family over to our house for dinner. They are one of the wonderful families we have had the chance to get to know during our time at Legacy. Manuel runs the Spanish speaking ministry at Legacy. He teaches classes, leads singing, preaches, and hosts a group in his home every week. In addition to this, he is involved in home Bible studies and evangelism. Did I mention that he also has a full-time job in banking software? Or I should say another full-time job. Manuel has a passion for his ministry that is contagious. It is always so good to be around people who are passionate about ministry; they remind me what a joy it is to be able to serve in God's kingdom.

And the Calderon family's ministry reminds us of just how many opportunities there are to get involved in God's mission. Did you know there are 1.5 million Hispanics in the Metroplex ? (That's the Dallas-Fort Worth area for you non-Texans.) Isn't that amazing? With those kind of numbers every church in this community should have Spanish speaking ministries, and yet...the unfortunate truth of the matter is that is far from reality. Why? I think part of it is due to the rapid rate of migration has made it hard to keep up. But I also know that fear of those that are different is often an obstacle in many of our churches. I have heard on numerous occasions, with my own ears, Christians say something like, "what are we goin to do bout these Mexicans?" To which I usually reply "Love them I guess. Isn't that what Jesus would do?" Awkward silence. "Well yeah, of course..." Our words are the overflow of our hearts, and I'm afraid our words often give us away. What defines a Christian? The color of our skin? The language we speak? What passport we carry? I hope not. Those things are simply part of a temporary context. They are of NO eternal value. Not that those things are bad, but I don't think on the day of judgment that God is going to be asking anyone for birth certificates or social security numbers. But he will ask us (according to Matthew 25) if we reached out to those in need. I can't think of greater need than to reach out to the immigrants at our door step with the love of Christ.

How the Irish Saved Civilization - very good book

2008-09-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

.....Corey and I just finished reading a book called How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. I saw it in the library one day when I was waiting for Corey, picked it up, read the first page, and it was so good that I checked it out. I began reading it at home,and Corey picked it up to look at it and couldn't put it down. So we both ended up reading it (It was hard sharing!) It was one of those books that makes you think and we had some good conversations about it.

The book chronicled Ireland from the end of the Roman Empire to the middle ages. It told the story of St. Patrick, his mission to Ireland, and the spread of Christianity there. By the time the Roman Empire and its way of life collapsed, Irish monastaries had become the center, not only of Christian teaching, but of literacy and education in general. As the continent of Europe was moving into the "dark ages", Ireland was becoming literate and furiously copying manuscripts of the Bible and classic literature and learning from Greece and Rome. People from other countries came to Ireland to get an education, and Irish missionaries went out all over Europe, thus "saving civilization", as the author puts it. (This is not a Christian book - it is written from a completely historical point of view, but that makes the insights in it even more interesting.)

Some thoughts after reading this book:

The Roman Empire, greatest empire the world had known up to that point, eventually fell. Earthly nations rise and fall, and our nation is no different.

The author talks about the later Romans to whom Christianity was just cultural, they were only concerned with the status quo, and they didn't care about the masses outside of their borders. Little did they know that a people little known to them and probably despised by them would be so important to the world and to future generations of their children. Ironic.

The people that had the most influence on this time in history were not politicians, the rich, or the famous. They were the little known people who copied the Bible, set up schools, and went on mission trips.

I have many other thoughts, but these were the main ideas that I took from this book. The last page is so powerful and thought- provoking that I read it twice. I recommend How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill to anyone interested in history and missions.

Bringing People Together

2008-09-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

Family Time at the Workshop with Mom and Dad Mullins

.....One of the wonderful things about the last few months has been watching God bring so many people together. This was especially apparent last weekend at the Family and Sponsoring Church Workshop. Corey's parents came and enjoyed getting to know other parents and members from the Legacy congregation. Corey and I enjoyed meeting friends and family of the Kharkiv, Ukraine team, and the folks from Missions Resource Network were able to share insights and materials with the families and churches of both teams. God truly uses his mission in our lives to bring his people together.

Sharing our individual and team stories

Interesting people

2008-09-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

One of the fun things we have been able to do while spending time with our sponsoring congregation is visit many of their small group Bible studies. We have visited a different group just about every week we have been here. The highlight of our visits to these groups is meeting so many different and interesting people. The last group we visited was hosted by Alvin and Ellen Jennings. The Jennings have been hosting this particular small group for something like 20 years. The night we visited, the small group was studying Romans 10. The meeting began with a man named Wes quoting the entire chapter from memory. Emily and I were very impressed. After the Bible study I learned that Wes had not only committed Romans 10 to memory, he knew the entire book! (Not to mention the book of Philippians, the Sermon on the Mount, and many other Biblical texts.) Wes also likes to memorize historic American documents and speeches (In fact, he has a website called "Patriotic American Memory Training"). That alone is impressive enough, but Wes also has a hearing impairment to overcome, yet he still does speeches and memory classes, etc. We love meeting people like Wes; they remind us that we all have unique God given talents and abilities. One of the things that we most look forward to when we get to Wollongong are all the interesting people we will meet. But even more than that, we look forward to helping those people learn how to use their uniqueness in the service of God's Kingdom.

Emily, Corey and Wes

Update on Visa 9-8-08

2008-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

.....We received word last night that our sponsorship form (the first step of our visa process) was approved by the Australian government. This was a huge step and the first hurdle to overcome to get into the country. We now can submit our actual visa paperwork. We thank everyone who lifted up this matter in prayer on our behalf. We still have quite a bit of waiting to do and other hurdles to overcome, but it was encouraging to get this approval.

Small Acts of Kindness

2008-09-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast from the book of Matthew. The descriptions that Jesus uses are interesting. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but becomes the largest of trees." He goes on to say, "The kingdom of Heaven is like a little yeast that a woman mixed through a whole batch of dough." I had an experience on my recent trip to Pittsburgh that reminds me of these parables.

I flew standby to and from Pittsburgh. Of course, that meant that if the plane was full, I would have to wait for the next available flight. I had no problems going, but on returning, the flight from Pittsburgh was full. I was supposed to fly from Pittsburgh to Houston and then catch a final flight into Dallas. Since I missed my first flight into Houston, the girl at the desk gave me tickets for the next flight, which took me to Houston three hours later than planned and gave me very little time to make my final flight into Dallas.

I was a bit worried about this delay on my flight to Houston because I knew that if I missed the flight to Dallas I would probably have to spend the night in the airport. It was late in the day and I doubted that there would be another flight until morning.

When the wheels of the plane touched the ground in Houston, I had ten minutes to catch my flight to Dallas. The man in the seat next to mine knew of my predicament, and since he was sitting in the aisle seat, he said, "Okay, when the pilot releases the fasten seatbelt sign I will grab your bag for you and let you out." Then he told the middle aged woman in the seat across from him that I had ten minutes to catch my flight and I needed to go out first. The middle aged woman told the young cowboy (yes, I was headed to Texas) in the seat in front of hers and he spread the message to the folks in his row. By the time the plane stopped and the pilot turned off the fasten seat belt sign, the word had spread that I needed to quickly be off. The man in the aisle seat grabbed my bag and handed it to me, and the people in the other seats let me pass first. I made it to the front of the plane so quickly that the door was not even open yet. The stewardess looked surprised to see me and said, "How did you get here so fast?"

I made my flight to Dallas by the skin of my teeth. After running through the airport, I arrived at the gate just as the clerk was closing the door. After calling to the plane to ask if there were any available seats, she let me on. I had made it.

I don't remember the name of the man who sat next to me on the plane, but I do remember his small act of kindness in getting my bag for me and letting me out. His kindness spread to the other passengers on the plane, and they in turn spread it to others, so that they were willing to let me go first. "The kingdom of heaven is like a woman with a little yeast, that spreads throughout a whole batch of dough." If one person makes a choice to say a kind word, show a positive attitude, or help someone in need, these little acts can inspire and motivate others to do the same. Jesus says that God uses these little things that we do and makes them grow. With God, things that seem small can make a big impact and spread the kingdom of heaven.

Stomach flu

2008-08-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

(Warning: the following post is kind of gross...you may not want to read any further) How many times can a human being vomit in one day? According to the latest research done by myself on Saturday - 36 times. Yup, 36. Add a bad case of diarrhea to the mix and you wind up with a trip to the emergency room for dehydration. After the morphine to relax my cramping muscles, a really painful shot to stop the vomiting, and two liters of fluid through an I.V., I was feeling somewhat more human. I'm taking medicine and now seem to be in full recovery. Emily was also sick on Saturday, but thankfully didn't have as bad a case as I did. So Saturday was one of the worst days I've had in a long time.

As bad as Saturday was, I am so thankful that I had access to doctors, medical facilities, and medicine. Those are blessings that most of us Americans take for granted. There are many places in the world where the stomach flu is at best several weeks of bed rest and at worst death. That's why I think it is so important for those of us who are blessed with the ability to get modern medical treatment (if you have a computer on which you are reading this blog then this means you) to support medical missions and humanitarian organizations. One of our favorite organizations to support is a Christian humanitarian organization called Healing Hands International. Check out their website at www.hhi.org
BTW - Thanks to all of you who called to check on Emily and I while we were sick. And thanks for all your prayers.

Visit to Pittsburgh

2008-08-18T06:07:00.001-07:00

Nathan and I on top of Mt. Washington, overlooking Pittsburgh

I spent a few days in Pittsburgh with my brother Nathan. I also enjoyed time with my cousin Lucas and his wife Ana. We spent our time doing many things. Besides doing the everyday things like going to the market and cooking, we enjoyed an afternoon of sightseeing in Pittsburgh and celebrated Nathan's 28th birthday on Sunday evening.

Lucas and Ana in downtown Pittsburgh

Nathan opening birthday gifts

What's our mission?

2008-08-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

VISION: Our vision is to be a catalyst for the development of a network of diverse churches in the city of Wollongong, Australia and beyond.
DISTINCTIVE BELIEFS: We believe God forms His people into catalysts that creatively and distinctively engage the world for the sake of its transformation.
CORE VALUES: Wonder—awe of God and His kingdom. Transformation—the power of God to mold us into the image of Christ. Authenticity—the openness, honesty, and acceptance of God’s people. Empowerment—the God given strength and ability to serve God’s kingdom. Compassion—the merciful character of those who have recognized God’s amazing grace.
PLACE: Wollongong, Australia—a fast growing, multicultural city of approximately 275,000 people. Wollongong is home to a number of industries, as well as a major international university.
PEOPLE: Between 80 and 90 percent of the people of Wollongong are unchurched. We plan to focus our initial efforts on building relationships with the people of the Horsley and Dapto neighborhoods. This is the fastest growing area of the city, with new families moving in daily.
STRUCTURE: Due to a culturally ingrained suspicion of institutions, the traditional congregational model of church has had little success in Australia. So instead of expecting people to “go to church,” we must pursue ways to bring the church to the people. One way we propose to do this is through the use of small, informal, home-based groups throughout the community. We will have weeknight groups that will serve as a place where Christians and non-Christians can interact in a non-threatening atmosphere (outreach), and we will have house churches in which Christians will gather on Sunday for worship, communion, edification, and accountability. All churches will meet together regularly for community wide fellowship. Church leaders will also meet regularly to facilitate cooperation among the house churches in the sharing of resources, training, and oversight of ministry.
STRATEGY: Beginning a new work requires evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training. We plan to take a multifaceted approach to evangelism. Much of our contacts will come from opening our homes to friends and neighbors for food and fellowship. Our team will also participate in such things as local volunteer work, local interest/hobby groups, ESL outreach to our fellow immigrants, and home Bible studies. Our house churches will be centered on discipleship—helping one another to live like Jesus will be the major theme as we share scripture, communion, song, and prayer. The heart of our leadership training will be one-on-one mentoring. This will be supplemented with various levels of leadership curriculum.

Favorite Photo from Wollongong

2008-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

.....I have not been to Wollongong yet, so sometimes I wonder what it will be like. I have seen many photos- some of them my teammates took while on the survey trip, and some of them just random photos found on the internet. Yes, I have seen many photos, everything from beautiful scenery to interesting shots taken of people around the city. My favorite, however, is the photo above. It resonates with me, and strikes a chord deep within. The pictures of the beaches and the city lights don't make me want to go to Wollongong, but this picture does. It reminds me of Sunday dinners at our little apartment at the graduate school when neighbors and folks from our Second Chance class at church came to eat with us. That is what I look forward to in Wollongong- sitting around a table with people from many different backgrounds and sharing a common meal, and with that meal, sharing our lives as well.

My favorite Monty Python skit

2008-08-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

This really has nothing to do with our lives. But it is funny.

Busy Times

2008-08-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

We were very blessed to be able to visit with our teammates, as well as friends from Harding Graduate School, at the Global Missions Conference in Dallas. It was so good to be re-connected with everyone.

As soon as the missions conference was over on Saturday, our team drove down to Austin, Texas, to the Whaley's place. We had a fun time swimming in the apartment pool (it was so hot!) and ate a roast beef supper that Nicole had prepared. On Sunday, we visited the Round Rock Church of Christ, which is the Whaley's sponsoring church. They are a good group of people and were very welcoming.

We all ate Sunday dinner with the Hunters. The Hunters have a beautiful house and we decided to take some team photos there. Maggie the dog was determined to be in the pictures with us. We all found places on the stairs for the photo and Maggie ran over and sat on the step and posed too. (You can't see her in this photo, but she's on the bottom step beside me.) Then we all went into the living room and sat on the sofa, and Maggie knew exactly what to do. She ran over and sat on the sofa too! She had a hard time being still, so I held her.

We knew that Sunday was the last day Nicole would be pregnant (a c-section was scheduled for the next day), so we made sure we enjoyed baby kicks for the last time.

The next morning Nicole and Jason left for the hospital, and around 2:30 in the afternoon Jason called and told us that everything was well and they had a new daughter. We quickly loaded the cars and headed for the hospital. There we met Ella Rhys Whaley for the first time. Jason revealed her name for the first time as we were standing around her little crib. We were able to take turns holding her and that was a lot of fun.

Corey and I and the Griffiths drove up to Hagansport, TX that evening. We stayed with Corey's parents that night. Shawn and Kendra left before daylight the next morning (they were driving a van without air conditioning) and Corey, Brenna, Darian and I left after enjoying a breakfast with the Mullinses.

We left that morning and drove to Jackson, Tennessee. We dropped the kids off with their parents, visited with the Griffiths a little more, and drove to my parent's home in Lebanon, TN. We spent a couple of days in Tennessee visiting family, as well as taking care of some legal paperwork in preparation for our departure. We started back home on Friday, spending the night at Corey's parents again. We finally got back to Fort Worth after a week of traveling. We've decided we're going to stay home for a while...we're tired.