Belicious

Saw another spot of Engrish while waiting at the traffic lights today:

2 Femals or couple to share
Sensasional views

But I think that's probably just laziness! Karen* posted a beauty the other day from a pack of noodles:

The front of the bag boasted these “Four great speciality”:

1. It's not easy break or bunt.
2. It won't wound stomach or get angry.
3. It's rice scant, sweet and toochsome.
4. It's good mouch feel and smooth.

The instructions are great too, it's worth checking out the full post: "Is sa sa belicious"

*I've never met Karen in real life, but she was in the same college year as Miranda and I started reading her blog a few years before that when her and her husband were going to start MTS

Coldy sick yuk

You know you must be sick when: you live in Sydney, you're wearing two tops, a jumper and a hoodie and you're still cold.

Thankfully greek is over, and went well. I thought that as far as exams go it was hard but fair. I didn't have all the answers, but that was my own fault.

Apart from the fact that I got sick, the weekend was nice. Susan, Therese, Bek and I went out for cake in Newtown after the exam. We were defeated by an enormous lemon meringue and tiramisu.

On Saturday Des came over and he and Nick got started on their beer brewing. It's some kind of lager. We introduced Des to Zucchini Chilli Pasta for lunch and then in the afternoon Nick and I went for a nice walk around the waterfront.

Today I didn't go to church. All the walking and the trains is a bit much when you feel rotten. So I stayed at home and did a bit of catch up homework reading.

kakos probaton

Mission, the SMBC preaching conference and subsequent conversations have all given me heaps of things to think about. My mind would have been racing without the Hebrew test last Friday and the Greek exam this week.

In Congregational Ministry we were hearing about how ministers can become discouraged and bitter by failure or jealous of others or ungenerous with their financial and people resources. It struck me that I could end up like that. Those ministers could have been just like me, sitting in college, thinking everything was going to be cool but reality wasn't so nice. So it's been on my mind a fair bit.

One reflection which may sound obvious but has been extremely helpful to me is this: it is not enough to have a vision for ministry like "I want to preach the gospel in that part of Tassie" or "I want to build up the church in Claremont". The vision I need to have above all is that I want everyone, everywhere to know Jesus. I want the whole world to know. I want the kingdom to come. If I'm thinking like this then:
-the relative difference between success and failure is not so big
-I'll never feel like I've arrived and the job is done
-I explicitly know from the start that it is God's mission
-I can be generous with all my resources because I want them to be used all over for the kingdom
-I'll be happy when other people's ministry is flourishing

Like I said, it's obvious but it seems very easy to get focussed on your own patch and become blinkered.

Lately I've been listening to sermons by Mark Driscoll, John Piper and of course David Jones. I found some Tim Keller sermons yesterday which I'm looking forward to hearing.

Get your greek on!

This week has been dominated by greek. Well, for me at least - Nick's doing fine. The exam on friday is a proper 2 hour exam, with questions testing our vocab, grammar and translation skills. In some ways it's kind of scary because it's the first proper exam we'll have, and with everyone else freaking out, it's easy to get swept up in it all. But, it's also got a safety net because if we bomb out totally we can choose not to count the mark and instead just be assessed on our end of year marks. So I alternate between being stressed and feeling blase.

Yesterday evening we had our friends Bek and Weber over for dinner. It was a lovely evening. They brought us mandarins from Bek's parents citrus farm in QLD. We cooked them a rogan josh curry with 'Jamie' potatoes (which are absolutely awesome, and you will have to insist on Nick making some for you to try one day!). It was really nice hanging out with them and we get along really well.

As I write, there is a lady cackling and drunkenly singing. I don't know whether the noise is coming from the street or the block of flats next door. Sydney eh. But here's a bit of a tassie experience - earlier tonight I was standing in the loungeroom hanging out the washing and I heard a very loud rustling noise. So loud it sounded like it was someone standing outside our front door scrunching paper. So I go over to the peep hole to find out what's going on, only to almost step on the note that is being stuffed under our door:

"dear neighbour, you're cordially invited to a drink+nibble by the gals from unit 3. Celebrate the coming of winter and find out who else lives in ...(our address)"

How great is that, friendly Sydney-siders! I had already started up a bit of a washing-line friendship with one of the girls from another flat who is really lovely and friendly, but she's from NZ and thinking of going back there soon. And we were just praying with my girls prayer quadlet about being able to get to know our neighbours the other day. God continues to show us his goodness in so many ways.

Here's something we learnt at college today: the true mark of faith is perseverance.

We went to visit Des' church tonight - Church by the Bridge. It's at Kirribilli, just at the start of the North Shore. Very different to Blacktown out west! The people were friendly though, and there was a good sermon on 1 Timothy 3. It's nice to be able to visit the church your friends call home in this crazy big city.

Overall we had a very quiet weekend. We had a good rest, lots of washing got done and even a little bit of greek homework. Friday we watched some House. On Saturday we went to Newtown for lunch. Nick had 'mama Rowda' (ie, beef kebab from the lebanon) and I had 'pad kittykat' (Pad Ki Mao from our favourite Thai place in Newtown). It was good, but a bit hurried because I had volunteered to help out with a special public lecture that was being put on by the college library.

On Saturday night I was going to cook shepherd's pie, and had fried up the onion, garlic, carrot and celery when I realised that the meat I had defrosted was not smelling like it should be eaten. So, I kind of improvised. It ended up being pretty good. The only protein in the cupboard was a tin of chickpeas. We had bought some red wine for the shepherds pie and Nick was in the process of making Harissa (Moroccan chilli preserve). So I decided to shoot for something North African/French. It could have been a disaster but it was actually quite nice! We ate it with couscous and garlicy green beans.

I'm looking forward to another week of college. On the radar this week: The greek test on friday, hopefully going swimming with Katie and Noah again (and not geting an ear ache this time!) getting started on the stuff for the womens' 'winter festival' in Tassie and having our friends Bek and Weber over for dinner.

Oh yeah, I did this to my hair the other day
It is proper fudge red, it just looks a bit orangey in the light and against our yellow bathroom walls.

I can sense our blog losing momentum. Oh dear. Well, that's probably cos we haven't been posting much. Things are going well up here. Well, sometimes great, sometimes not so great. I had one of those days yesterday where you just feel a background level of frustrated rage that threatens to well up and spill over. But then I went swimming with Katie, and it was so nice just hanging out and it was so refreshing having a beautiful refreshing swim in the sunshine (outdoor pool!) that I was able to feel much better. Came home and went to sleep at 6:30pm. I slept right through till 6:30am.

Today we had a great doctrine lecture on the trinity. John Woodhouse was teaching us about the Athanasian Creed (which is all about the trinity). We also had a lovely Church History lecture. At the moment we're being taught by one of the lecturers who is very passionate about history. He brings us in poetry and tells us cool stories about all sorts of things. It's like being back in Margaret's history lectures (except Christian!)

So that's been good. Also, it's nice to be back doing normal classes after having all the routines disrupted with holidays and mission and assignments and everything. But what is 'normal' feels like a pretty crazy pace of life. It's highlighted by the fact that at the moment my pda seems irreprably broken. The operating system thinks it's a phone. Which is not so good.

Tonight we decided to pike on cooking dinner. We went down to the local shopping centre and had cheap sushi in the food court. Then we went and looked for an organizer/diary for me. It was fun.

Awesome Aldi-ness

Ok, this electric shoe polisher is probably the pick of the catalogue this week!

In other, less wacky news, things are going well. We're trying to settle back into regular routines, eat vegies etc. It's been an absolutely wonderful few weeks with mission and then Nick being able to go to the preaching conference but we're both feeling like we've been riding the high for a while now and just need to crash and sleep and some more vegetables! Also, there are some Greek and Hebrew exams coming up in the next few weeks which are causing a bit of panic. So the vibe at the moment is 'knuckle down' (with renewed enthusiasm)

A good time was had by all

Our time in Sydney so far has been fantastic. We've been challenged, encouraged and had a great time with God's people here. Even the things that have been hard have turned out for our benefit (of course!). Given how good all this has been I hope you can appreciate how good it is when I say that mission has been the best thing since we moved up here. It has:
-given us a chance to be involved intensely with a church (even if only for 8 days)
-helped us to get to know some of our classmates better
-and made me look forward to the day when they start working in churches!
-given me heaps of respect for the hard work the people at St Peter's put in
-reminded me again of why I'm a Christian
-reminded me of how desperately important it is to preach the gospel
-made me think about how to preach and what is essential to the message
-called me again to the basics
-given me lots of joy in being saved

There's heaps of stories from mission that I'd love to share but I think I'd kill them in the typing. You'll have to give me a call if you want to hear more.

At the moment I'm halfway through the SMBC preaching conference. It's an awesome way to finish off mission because preaching is the core of evangelism and so all the questions and reflections I've had on mission are being answered or challenged. It's such a blessing to hear Don Carson and Ralph Davis speak and it's making me want to spend all day in the Bible and then preach.

As many of you know I'm a big hip hop fan. On mission a guy told me about Epiphany Fellowship. They're a church that aims to reach out to the hip hop generation in Philidelphia. They're committed to the gospel, they're solidly evangelical but preach using hip hop slang. There's two main preachers and one of them is part of a Christian rap group called The Cross Movement. In the hip hop world sin is glorified and the supposedly Christian hip hop scene has a lot of self glorification and not much Jesus. Hearing about Epiphany and The Cross Movement has made me very thankful to God.

Keep grinding

We've both just been away on college mission week at East Lindfield for the last 8 days. It's kind of difficult to capture the experiences, thoughts, feelings, challenges etc of such an intense week. I'm sure we will try. But just so this blog doesn't stall permanently, I wanted to let you know that it was fantastic! We had a wonderful time and are very thankful to God for the whole experience. Contrary to all my worries about it being too full on and stressful, it was awesome and we had a ball. Thanks also to those of us who have been praying for us. Now, maybe it's Nick's turn!