Feeling nervous

Last Sunday Gorgeous and I were commissioned by our current church to begin the work of establishing a new church. Obviously everything is in its very early stages but if you’re interested you can read more at www.networkfellowship.org. I mentioned to a couple of people that the last time I remember feeling as nervous as I did on that Sunday morning was the day of my wedding.

It’s not so much that I was worried or anything, and it’s not as if I haven’t been up in front of that particular group of people before but like the day I got married there was a whole new life to look forward to, one that I was excited about; but at the same time filled with quite a few unknowns. In the lead up to the wedding Gorgeous and I prepared for our new life as best we could and for the most part we were as ready as we were ever going to be (It’ll be 10 years in December so we must have done something right). But what single person really knows what they’re getting themselves into? All you really have is your commitment to each other and to God and the rest you sort out as you go along.

I draw some parallels to our current new adventure. We believe God has called us to this ministry and we’ve done our best to prepare as best we could, but in the end all we have is our commitment to Him and desire to serve.

Self worth and relationships

One way to earn a bit of money when you’re a student is to sign up to take part in psychology studies. I was driving along today thinking about one that I was part of. It had two parts. To begin with you were taken into a room with 3 other participants where were asked to talk about some random (can’t remember what it was) topic. You were then given a sheet of paper where you had to , based on your first impressions, indicate how trustworthy you felt the other people might be in different situations like lending money, advice on relationships, etc.

We were then ushered into separate rooms where we were going to do some more tests. These tests involved looking at various pictures of women and rating them along with whether or not we would be interested in having a “relationship” with them. Anyway, before I started doing this one of the graduate students conducting the experiment came in with the results of the first part of the experiment. It turns out I come across as a very shifty person because the other three guys rated me very low in the trustworthy stakes in all situations. Needless to say I was mortified and I was trying to figure out how they all could have formulated such a low opinion of me????

After we had finished the second part they came clean and said that they had fabricated the results of the first part to try and manipulate our self esteem! So while I was the unlucky one to pull the “everyone hates you” straw, one of the other guys got the “everyone thinks you’re a star!” straw. The whole idea was to investigate how feelings of self worth effect choice of partners. The hypothesis was that someone with lower self esteem would see relationships with “the beautiful people” as being unattainable and set their sights lower. I don’t know whether the results I produced backed that theory up or not but thinking about it today as I drove along with Cutie in her car seat in the back made me think about and PRAY about her future husband.

Obviously I want the very best for her, but there are things I can be doing right now that help ensure that she doesn’t end up falling for some “dead beat”.

Hang on – these are funny looking crumbs!

Yeah, that’s because they are pizza crumbs. We had pizza tonight and I just have to sing Gorgeous’s praises. One pizza she makes is Thai Chicken Satay and it is DELICIOUS (If you ask her nicely over at philoxenos she might share the recipe with you all). You know the saying about how the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? Well, tonight it would have been better to go a different way because my heart was experiencing heavy traffic on that route.

It never ceases to amaze me what comes out of any kitchen under her control, especially when you consider we have 3 children under the age of 4 and the limited budget she works with especially when you consider that today hasn’t been very good with the children and the ongoing delays with the documentation for my visa. I know many of you are praying for us and I thank you heaps for that. Please pray a special blessing for Gorgeous (and if you want to be specific please ask for that blessing to be in the form of Little Buddy sleeping more than the current 2 -3 hr stretches) Thanks to you all.

Wisdom turned upside down

One of the local news web sites I visit is NZ Herald. They’ve recently started some blogs as part of their site. Just a variation on the old opinion columns really. Anyway, this morning one of their headings caught my eye. The blog it was part of is called “Blonde At The Bar” and is obviously one person’s take on relationships and the singles scene in Auckland. Most definitely not coming from a Christian perspective, but having browsed through some of the old posts provides some interesting insight into the mind of the “modern woman” (well, at least one of them).

Read the rest of this entry »

My wife thinks I’m handsome :)

Gorgeous and I have been discussing about how we should refer to each other and also our children. We are conscious of the potential public reach of these blogs and so want to do our best to minimize any potential for unpleasantness like ID theft, stalking, etc.

Read the rest of this entry »

Are we speaking English?? – tales from a cross-cultural marriage

In a sense all marriages are cross cultural. You take a man from one family context and put him together with a woman from a different family context and viola you’ve already got TWO points of difference and potential perspective. This situation only gets more “interesting” when the two individuals are from different parts of the globe!

Thankfully in my situation English is our shared mother tounge however that is not to say we are always speaking the same language. Accents and idioms can some produce some “unfortunate” confusion. I’d like to share some of ours and no doubt it’ll be something I come back to from time to time.

Read the rest of this entry »