Introducing Kate

I have a crazy roommate.  Crazy-awesome.  Really, what would life be like with out roommates?  They show you such a great piece of the world – open your eyes to things you might have never noticed on your own.  I thought, at one point in my life, that I was done having roommates, but I wasn’t and I’m actually pretty glad.

Kate and I “get” each other.  We love irony.  We appreciate weird stuff.  She acts a bit loony, I laugh at her.  She gets her crazy ocker accent going, I make fun of her.  I bore her with long stories that I have to get off my chest, she listens enduringly.  I drag her all over the city, moving without stopping (except of course for coffee and banana bread), she strolls patiently behind me.

But, honestly, my favorite thing about Kate is the way she walks across crosswalks.

I noticed this one day as we were walking to the bus stop (I think I had coerced her to study for one of her evaluations at a coffee shop because I was really craving coffee).  I wouldn’t say Kate is exactly a speed-walker.  She’s not slow, per se, but she is short and short people (nothing against them) just seem to lag a bit behind.  As a fairly fast walker myself, it takes me a few minutes to get into Kate’s rhythm so that I’m not a jerk who’s thirty yards ahead of her all the time.  But this day, as we were walking to the bus stop, and I was in my cool I’m-with-Kate-right-now amble.  We stood waiting at the crosswalk for a few moments – only one we’d need to cross to get the correct bus.  The annoying knocks sounded, letting us know it was safe to cross, and before I could blink, Kate was halfway across the crosswalk.  And I was still cruising along at the speed of my Kate-amble.

“What are you doing?”  I hollered, trying to make up the 15 paces or so I was behind.

“Aww, yeah,” she said, her accent extending the words and twisting them around like so it sounded like “ah yeh”.  “It’s just a habit.”

“Well, er, Ok,” I said.  “I really do think the cars will wait for you.”

We laughed and Kate shrugged sheepishly.  I guess you can take the girl out of Dubbo, but you can’t take Dubbo out of the girl…

Scratch the Itch? Or not.

I have about 3 mosquito (mossie) bites on my legs right now.  Really, really itchy ones.  The itchiest one is on my left ankle and driving me crazy.  This morning before I got out of bed I gave it a really good scratch.  Probably 5 minute worth.  As soon as I got up, it was itchy again.  I scratched it again.  No more than 1 minute later it was burning itchy.  Everything within me wanted to scratch my ankle raw just to get rid of that itch. But I refrained.  Why?  Well, as any of you who have had a giant, itchy mosquito bite know, itching it, paradoxically, is about the worst thing you can do.  I don’t know why, but it just seems to make it itchier.  And itchier.  And if you keep scratching you end up with a raw, gaping wound – and that’s even worse.

It made me think about bad habits.  Sin, maybe.  Or maybe just something you know isn’t good for you (“Everything is permissible, but not everything is profitable,” as Paul said).  It’s like an itch.  It’s a craving you can’t seem to ignore, yet if you let yourself give in to one little scratch, the craving only holds on tighter.

It seems that the best thing to do would be to just not scratch the itch.  To not give in to the craving, the bad habit.  What would one more cigarette hurt?  What would one more drink?  I’ll just tell Sarah this one last thing about Judy, then I’ll stop.  We only make the itch stronger when we indulge it.

The next time you’re tempted to give in to something you’re trying to overcome, think about the mosquito bite on your ankle and resist the urge.  I know I will.

Quote

Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain

- Edward Thomas “Rain”

Quote

“One little dream, no matter how small, how wild.
Just now, I think I found it in a field, under a fence-”

Charlotte Mew “Fame”

I ♥ Oz

DSCN2260, originally uploaded by prettyhowgirl.

Watching a Transformation

It’s too easy to forget that there are some people (lots, really, even in our Western societies) that know almost nothing about God, about Christianity.

I met a girl this weekend who is one of those people.  She’s in her early 20s and she just met Jesus.  We were hanging out with her because she’s cool

and because we were trying to give her a reason to stay connected with church and with God, trying to give her a reason to seek him even more and trying to be a little bit of Jesus to her.  We  walked into her apartment, to a table that was littered with various beer and alcohol bottles – leftovers from the night before.  A few minutes after we arrived, she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, grabbed an old, empty coffee cup, and sat by the open window to light up so she could blow smoke out the screen and flick the ashes in the cup.

We talked for a while.  Laughed for a while.  Looked at her art.  ”Oooh”ed at her pictures.  At some point she pulled out a Bible a friend had given her.  It had scuffed corners and she showed us some scribbles on the inside.  She’d pulled it out because one of us had promised to show her how to read the Bible.

I’ll be completely honest here (and this is embarrassing to admit):  In my naïvety I thought, This is silly.  Why are we showing her how to read the Bible?  I almost made a joke like “Well, just open it up and start reading, like any normal book!”  But I didn’t, and I think it was the Holy Spirit that held my tongue.

The one of us who was taking this seriously (unlike me, at first) started by showing her what the bigger numbers (chapters) and smaller numbers (verses) meant.  ”The Bible is divided into the Old an New Testament,” she explained.  ”The New Testament tells us about Jesus, and that’s what I would start with.”

“Wasn’t God around in the Old Testament?” the girl said.  Well, yeah, we said, trying to explain that Jesus didn’t come until the New.  ”Well, how did he write the Old Testament if He wasn’t alive?”  We all jumped in again, trying to explain all these important issues.  Issues about God. About the Bible.  About deep theology (that some of us still don’t fully understand, or even realize is deep theology). All in a matter of mere moments.

It made me feel so emotional – And not just because she didn’t know God.  But because she was finding Him.  Someone had planted a few seeds in her heart.  Had invited her to church.  And in that moment, there in her own home, among new friends, I was watching her begin a journey that could potentially change her life.

This is what God wants from us.  He gives us beautiful opportunities to lead a person out of darkness, into light.  Opportunities to show the dead how they can be brought to life.  To give the prodigal a chance to return home.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  LIke the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.  But because of His great love for us, God – who is rich in mercy - made us alive with Christ even when were dead in transgressions.

Ephesians 2:1-5

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! [Oy! Oy! Oy!]

Tuesday the 26^th was Australia Day, and if there’s any day you want to attempt to experience Aussies in all their glory – this is it!  Australia Day is the great celebration of the founding of Australia, a celebration of a short history (they’ve barely been a nation 100 years) filled with convicts, aboriginals and surprising dangers of a unique land.  (If I were keen to do more research, I’d tell you about some of the interesting parts of their actual history, but it’s 6:30 in the morning, and I must still be still jet-lagged – it’s the only reason I can think of that I’m up right now.)

But in this place where the laid back atmosphere makes the citizens seem almost un-patriotic, you realize as soon as you step out the door that instead all the patriotism gets rolled up into one day of Australia-celebration insanity.

“Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” they yell as they walk past in their flag-patterned boardies and their goofy-looking umbrella hats.

“Oy! Oy! Oy!” they answer, Australia flags tied around their necks, flowing behind them like a cape.

I got to spend the day at the harbour/beach front in Wollongong with some friends I made through connections with AFCM.  I remember them telling me last August, when I had only first arrived, that I had to be here for Australia Day.

“It’s the best,” Aubrey said.  “We spend all day at the beach.  Everyone wears Australia bikinis.  It’s so fun.”

It was fun.  And we did spend all day at the beach.  We got there at 8 am to stake out a great location and spread out blankets and eskies (read: coolers) and bags of food over about 15 square meters.  We ate and swam and jumped off ledges and rocks and body-surfed (well, I attempted, at least).  The whole place was a fairground with food of every kind, bands playing, carnival rides, market-style shopping.  There was even a thong-(read: flip-flop)-throwing contest.  It was definitely a reality of something-for-everyone.

The day ended with traditional Aussie songs (like Waltzing Matilda), brilliant fireworks, and weary Aussie Day-soldiers packing up their temporary campsites and heading home – some of us with a parking fine, some without.  (Well, for those of us who were sane.  Apparently the party is just starting for some Aussies, but I’m not sure I really want to witness those scenes.)

Thinking I could get by all day without any sunscreen (and really wanting to get a tan), I only slopped a little on my shoulders and my face.  Needless to say, I got BURNT.  My face feels pretty red, but I got a lot of compliments at prayer last night on my “tan”.  It was pretty dark in the room.

Back in the Land Down Under

Back in Australia. Arrived today at 9:40 am (an hour late, by the way). Took a beautiful sweep of the coast just before landing, and I have to say, I had forgotten how lucky I am to be living here.  Looking southward at the waves crashing against the jagged cliffs and gazing across the rumpled, green expanse of New South Wales I was breathless.

The beauty of that moment amazed me.  And made me feel very small.  And I still feel small as I sit here and type.  Why am I here?  What good can I do?

I am going to (planning on, at least) be helping with the youth at the church I’ve been mainly attending since I came last August, and I was talking to one of the girls who is really interested in getting something going (she often brings unsaved/far-from-God friends to church), and she was telling me about how she was sort of wanting a mentor or something – someone to help her in her own walk with God, someone to encourage her, someone she can be accountable to.  And today, just as I was getting overwhelmed with my smallness – with my inability to do all the things that need to be done in this world – I remembered her.  And I think God said, She is worth you being here.

And that gave me a little bit of peace.

Now to change the subject a little bit:  If you read this every now and then or are interested in keeping up on what I’m doing in Australia, or you’re just a person who stumbled upon this and made it all the way to the end of this post and might want to come back some time in the future, I want to promise you something.  I will do way better at telling you what I’m up to here in Australia.

It is my desire to wake up every morning with arms wide open to God, to His plan for that very day, and to push out all the voices crowding around in my head, selfish desires that are trying to keep me in a comfortable, unimpressive (to God, anyways) kind of life.

But I also want to know what you’d like to read.  So, if you’d be so kind as to leave me a comment, and tell me what you’re favorite stuff is:  whimsical facts about Australia, ministry-type stuff I’m doing, everyday encounters, etc.  What will make you come back?

A Parable

There was a small town that had two distinct neighborhoods.  If you walked through the north side of town, you’d see all sorts of big houses with green lawns, three-car garages and swimming pools in the back.  Everybody on the north side of town had good jobs and nice cars.  Lots of the teenagers had braces on their teeth, but didn’t mind too much because they knew they would be getting a car for their 16^th, so they felt like that made up for it.  It was a good neighborhood.  The kind you want to live in.  The kind the American dream promises.

But through the middle of the town ran a set of railroad tracks.  When you crossed the tracks you were immediately in a dumpy neighborhood.  The houses were smaller, and most of them were rundown.  The yards were overgrown and there were old beat-up cars out front.  The teenagers in that area of town usually only had one pair of jeans and one pair of shoes.  They might have a couple of t-shirts, but they would have to choose everyday between the one with the holes or the one with the stains.  It was a tough neighborhood.

Most of the parents from the north side of town didn’t let their kids even visit the south side of town.  They were embarrassed to even admit their town had such a neighborhood.

On that rundown south side of town was a dingy little restaurant called Southside Diner.  The manager of the place was a woman who had grown up in the town, living on the south side her whole life.  She had started working at the diner when she was in high school—as a waitress—and had been there so long she had worked her way up to manager, more by default than actual talent.

Nobody from the north side of town ever went to eat at Southside Diner.  The food was disgusting, they claimed, and they felt that by eating there they would be supporting the manager’s lifestyle.  And what kind of example would that be to their kids.

The manager of the diner, the woman stuck there since high school, had been married five times already and was living with a 6^th man even though her divorce from her 5^th husband wasn’t even finalized.   All of the wives from the north side of town whispered frantically behind their hands about the woman, and if the she ever needed to buy supplies for the place, she would have to go late at night when the north-side women weren’t around doing their grocery shopping because she couldn’t stand how much they looked down on her.

Then one day a preacher who was starting to become really famous came to town.  A lot of the people on the north, rich side of town had heard rumors about the preacher.  How he had been going from town to town doing seminars.  How he claimed that he knew about how to get closer to God, and what God was actually saying. How people could know exactly what God was thinking, and how people could do things to please God.

A lot of people would attend his seminars and follow him around the country as he kept preaching.  He had a whole entourage of people who would go with him, making arrangements for where he would stay and where he would preach and what he would eat.  When they came to the town with the two neighborhoods, the entourage headed immediately to the north side of town—the area with all the fancy hotels and the fine dining.

But when the preacher got to town, to the surprise of his entourage, he went to eat at Southside Diner.  He strolled in and sat at one of the swivel stools at the counter.  Everyone could tell that he wasn’t from the south side the second he walked in.  He didn’t really look like a north-sider, but his jeans were a little too new, his shoes a little too shiny.

The woman who managed the diner happened to be working behind the counter that day.  The preacher smiled at her and asked her for an ice water after she turned around to greet him.  She gave him a look that said, “You don’t belong here, mister.  People like you don’t usually associate with people like me.”  But she didn’t actually say any of that, but the preacher could understand what she was thinking.  Instead of getting the preacher the water he asked for, the woman said…

Quote

He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently.  And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.

Donald Miller
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years