We Took Our Torches Camping

or The Many Dangers of the Australian Bush

“Doovdé, is that you?”  one of us called into the darkness and nervous giggles erupted from the rest of us.

We were camping.  Five of us had trekked out in canoes loaded down with tents and food and—I’m pretty sure—too many clothes to get away from it all.  It was my first time in the real Australian bush.  It was Shaz’s, Katie’s and Fletch’s first time to go camping “as adults.”  And it was Austin’s first time to take the young bucks into the wild without an actual expert to be our guide.

And we had heard some rustling behind us.

We knew there was a opossum out there somewhere.  We had seen it scamper up a tree a little while before as we were sweeping the woods with our torches (Aussie code for flashlights) for the source of a rustling we’d heard.  But even knowing it was very likely the opossum (who we nicknamed Doovdé out of respect for his brother Vhs, who we’d met at youth camp), our imaginations began to grow with visions of giant, pounding kangaroos and fierce, rabid wombats.  Actually I’m pretty sure mine was the only imagination to conjure visions of rabid wombats because they actually don’t have rabies in Australia.  (Another fact this camping excursion provided me with awareness of.)  Rabies or not, the potential for creepers in the darkness was still scary.

The five of us were huddled around our campfire on our air mattresses eating s’mores (something I was proud to introduce these best-campfire-snack-in-the-world-depraved Aussies to) attempting to ask each other deep and meaningful life questions and answer them while jumping every time someone moved their feet too quickly and knocked something over.  Fletch had spooked us with a few false alarms:  “Back there, back there, I see eyes glowing.”  Nothing in our light beams.  “Did you guys hear that?”  We had all been silent, and, no, none of us had heard it.  A few minutes later Fletch suddenly turned his torch on,  as the three of us who were lucky enough to actually be holding one of the three torches we had brought were apt to do, and scampering about four feet in front of us was a bushy tailed opossum.  The audacity!  To come so close to us and our fire.  All I could think was what if it had jumped on us?  on me?!

I tucked my feet up close to me, thankful that in the firelight no one could really see how curled into a ball I was to protect myself from the imaginary predators.  I had to fight several urges to turn my flashlight on and flash it frantically on the trees in front of me.  It’s amazing what peer pressure will do.  I wanted to be cool, unafraid of the dark, not showing my weakness to the others, so I didn’t turn my torch on, didn’t let myself jump at the noises.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I turned clicked my torch on and about two feet away stood the opossum, staring into my light, eyes glowing red.

“Uhh…” I said.

Even though there was no way I was going to take my eyes off the opossum in front of me, I felt like I could see everyone’s neck snap in my direction and, after a moment of stunned silence, we all started yelling and laughing and hollering at Doovdé to get away from our fire.  Austin jumped up and grabbed a pot and a pair of tongs, banged them together and chased the opossum up a tree.  We shone our torches on him for a while, teasing him, making sure he stayed up in the tree where he belonged and didn’t try to come and steal our s’mores.

Suddenly aware of how easily an animal could sneak up on us, we comforted ourselves with thoughts like, “If a opossum’s here, there must not be other predators around” and “There isn’t really anything out here the eats humans.”

When we all finally succumbed to the feelings of exhaustion that were attempting to take control of our bodies and crawled back to our tents to spend the majority of the night in them, every twig’s snap, every branch’s rustle popped our eyes wide open, and we’d toss and turn in an attempt to remind whatever visitor we had at our camp that we weren’t going anywhere and they’d have to get used to it.  Well, that’s why I did at least.

Check out more pix on my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135324&id=646871400&l=6c203cdc63

A fiery work.

It’s easy to commit many sins (I know that’s strong, but stay with me) against the Holy Spirit.  The two obvious extremes are the people who ignore the necessity of His work and acknowledge Him only because He is mentioned in Scripture, and the people who think every goosebump, every feeling of euphoria or goodness are His handiwork.

Matthew 3:11-12 highlights a work of the Holy Spirit that I think we often are oblivious to.  It’s important that we know what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts and lives so that we can be open to His promptings especially when they involved change.  This is what the Scripture says (John the Baptist speaking):

“‘I baptize you with water for repentance.  But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gather his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

The Greek word for fire here, pu’r, means exactly what is translated as:  fire.  Jesus uses it when he says that every branch not bearing fruit will be thrown into the fire, and Luke uses it when he tells us that fire rested on the heads of those involved in the day of Pentecost.  Fire is used as a symbol for a work of the Holy Spirit.

The messages about the fire of the Holy Spirit that I’ve often heard have more to do with a “burning” sensation to get out and preach, to become “on fire for God.”  But if you look closely at most of the references that include fire, they are not talking about a passion.  They are talking about a cleansing.

The work of the Holy Spirit is, in part, meant to burn away the dead branches, the inedible chaff, from our hearts and minds so that we can bear good fruit and be a better example of Christ’s love to the world.  If we are not becoming a better person every day, if we are not seeing the “chaff” in our lives be burned away, then I don’t think we can actually say that the Holy Spirit has been working through us.

Perfect Faithfulness

It’s so easy to get frustrated when we don’t see things happening as quickly as we want them to, or in the same way or by the same means.  The past three months I’ve spent in Australia have been way different than I ever expected, in ways both good and frustrating.  I was reading in Isaiah when this verse struck me:

Lord, you are my God.  I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. (25:1)

Notice that it says in perfect faithfulness.  God is perfect in His faithfulness.  God had things planned, spoke things through His prophets years and years before they actually reached fulfillment.  This scripture is especially interesting because Isaiah was the prophet that spoke the most about Jesus’ coming to Earth to redeem humanity from their fallen state.  In fact, just a few verses later, Isaiah says, “On this mountain [the Lord Almighty] will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever” (vs 7).  God’s promise to “wipe away all the tears” and “remove his people’s disgrace” (vs 8) was still hundreds of years from being fulfilled through Jesus.  Isaiah was not only praising the Lord for the fulfillment of His promises at that time, but for the fulfillment he knew would come eventually.

God’s timing is not for us to understand.  But through all the valleys we walk in, we can rest in the knowledge that He is faithful to complete the work He has begun in us, to not leave us in the midst of troubling circumstance, but help us find a way to the other side.

‘How do you take your coffee?’

Lately I’ve been frothing my own milk at the office.  Anna gave me the frother and a French press.  I’d mentioned to her one day that I’d had a not-so-good cup of coffee at work.  We had been using espresso ground coffee for a French press, and if you know anything about coffee, you will know that espresso ground is way too fine for a French press (called a plunger—more Aussie lingo).  Espresso grind is too fine to be pushed down completely by the mesh part of the plunger, so you end up with a lot of grounds in your what-would-otherwise-be a very nice cup’a joe.

I’d explained to Anna that I had figured out that this was why my cup of coffee really wasn’t that good, and she of course made all sorts of umm and ahh and hmm sounds and decided that I should just take her French press to the office.  No, that’s not necessary, I told her.  It wasn’t the plunger, anyways, it was the fineness of coffee grind.

Within minutes Anna had pulled out a green Wooly’s shopping bag and was filling it with every miscellaneous item she could see:  the French press, a milk frother, an old orange, a bag of almonds and cashews, and the entire kitchen sink (which wasn’t an easy thing to fit into the Wooly’s bag).

I decided not to even fight it.  It was nothing more than unnecessary, and why do we so often fight kindness anyways? Anna even stopped at Gloria Jean’s on the way to taking me to the office just to get me a bag of fresh ground (course for plungers) coffee.

About a week later, Sue, the assistant director, was making some coffee for afternoon tea and, upon opening the cupboard, exclaimed, “Why are there so many plungers in here?”

“One’s actually a milk frother,” I told her and left it at that.

________________

Other coffee terms I’ve learned while living in Australia:

• Flat white–a latte with all the foam from the milk strained off
• Short black–basically just a shot of espresso

It’s practically impossible to just buy a “regular” cup of coffee here.  I tried to order one my first morning (literally just off the plane), and the waitress just stared at me until I realized I had only told her the size.  (“And a regular coffee, please.”)  I fumbled around with my menu looking frantically for whatever it was that I was missing as the waitress waited patiently (she might have been trying to analyze my accent).  ”A, um, regular…” I drew out the last syllable as my eyes darted around the page “…cappuccino, please.”  A while later, I got a nice frothy cup of coffee with chocolate powder sprinkled on it which, because it had melted, actually made the foam look like it had been burnt.  I was hesitant to have the first drink, but it ended up being absolutely delicious.

Sheep Country

Did you know Australia is the world’s largest exporter of sheep?

A Very Smart Man

Howard, you know me to be a very smart man.  Don’t you think if I were wrong, I would know it?

–Sheldon
“The Big Bang Theory”

Ablaze

The excitement circuiting the room was growing with every beat of the drum and every riff of the guitar, feeding the energy until those standing there thought it just might blow the roof. The crowd was jumping, their hands were raised, their mouths open in adoration. It wasn’t a concert.  They weren’t there to worship some rock star.  No, this was not Australian Idol.  The teenagers gathered in a holy mosh pit were there to meet their Creator, the God of the universe, the only one truly worthy of such adulation.

This is how it continued at AFCM’s Shine09 youth camp.  For four days, the 62 youth who had toiled to raise money and driven long hours to get to a conference center in northern Sydney, shunned the darkness they were forced to experience in their day-to-day lives and, instead, soaked up some Son-rays, determined to leave camp not enlightened only on the inside but shining on the outside, faces radiant with the light of Christ, ready to set the world ablaze with their passionate love.

Continue reading at AFCM’s site and see pictures!

the Key

Lend me a little while the key
That locks your heavy heart, and I’ll give you back –
Rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright to see
This little Key of Dreams out of my pack.

…

How if we stopped and let our solemn selves go by
While my gay ghost caught and kissed yours, as ghosts don’t do,
And by the wayside, this forgotten you and I
Sat, and were twenty-two?

Taken from “The Peddler”
by Charlotte Mew

Room

I uploaded some pictures of my room on facebook.  Here’s a 360 look:

Shine09

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6

Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

I have yet to be able to find words to describe the impact that this last week of youth camp had on me.  I know that it was, by name, for the youth, but (as always happens) I am certain that every single person who was in those meetings was affected.  Youth were giving prophecy in song and music.  God was opening our hearts, teaching us what it would truly mean to shine for Him, to have Him shine in us.  I’ll have a lot more to say about the things that happened these past few days, but for now I can only leave you with the incredible thought that God is seeking us passionately so that He can shine through us to light the world with His brilliant love.