Looking back and looking forward

It’s been interesting reading some of the old entries on the blog. I’ve now been in the US for almost 2 years. Things have certainly turned out a little different to what we had thought they would be like. Not neccessarily worse or better, just different.

Actually, there are some blessings that we have now that we had not anticipated which kind of make things better in some respect. Being able to buy a house for instance would be an example of this, and of course being given the opportunity to get started on a vision that, at least on my part, has been 15 years or so in the making (namely planting a church). So, in a lot of respects things are better than what we planned – God is good.

But what I was more referring to was being happy – like Paul says in Phil 4:11 that he has learnt to be content whatever the circumstances. If it had been God’s will that what we had a orginally planned had actually materialized then I’m confident I would still be happy. This is not say I don’t think there are things that could be better, for instance my work situation is a little more stressful then I would like, but although we tend to think of life as a journey we often forget what the eventual destination is and we get hung up on reaching or not reaching certain milestones and in doing so we miss out on the joy. For me, I believe my destination has already been set and is secure, not because of my own merit but because of what Christ has done. What I don’t know is the road God will take me to get to its eventual end, in the meantime I would do well to keep taking each step as my path is lit and to pay attention to the scenery as we go along.

Living up to a name

Well, I knew it was mistake to call this blog *daily* breadcrumbs since it has been almost 10 days since I posted anything. That’s not to say I haven’t been doing any “chewing” it’s just that time has had to be devoted to other things.

I‘m still in New Zealand waiting for a police report from Papua New Guinea. Today, I put a plan B into action since plan A seems to be on the go slow. I appreciate the many people praying for this situation and well admittedly it is VERY frustrating for us we are confident that God is in control and He is using this situation for His purposes.

Timing is of the essence

As we prepare to leave New Zealand we have spent a lot of time listing things for sale on Trade Me (it’s a NZ based auction site, Ebay has very little penetration in this market). It’s been interesting watching the different sales, how much they go for or whether they sell at all. Of particular interest to me is how we can list an item for a week and have it go through unsold without even a sniff of interest and then relist it the following week and have two bidders go to war against each other for the privilege of being the next owner of our stuff.

It just goes to show that it’s a matter of timing. Waiting for the right person to come along who recognises the value of what you have on offer and clicks on the button. One of the great things about online auctions is you significantly increase the pool of people browsing through your stuff and there by increase your chances of catching that willing buyer. For us though time isn’t something we have a lot of at the moment so everything is being listed for $1 reserve. This means that some items are going for rock bottom bargain prices. From our perspective though it’s one more “thing” that’s been disposed of to a good home and turned into cash (albeit less than what we hoped but still more than what we had with it sitting unsold)

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.

‘Til we meet again

We’re in the final stages of leaving now so that involves a lot of saying good bye to various people. We had our last Sunday at our church this weekend and in the afternoon we put on a bit of a concert for our friends and family. At one point during the day I was talking to some more senior members of the church and one thing they said, “well I guess we might not see you again” meaning if and when we return they might no longer be living. The wife quickly corrected herself saying, but of course we will see each other again.

What a wonderful hope we have, it makes me wonder whether we truly live with the hope or do we at times slip into “grieving like the heathen”. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 And I mean that no just in the sense of people dying but also in our attitude towards the things of this world.

Sports psychology and faith

Years ago (hmmm, we’re talking about 17 years ago) I worked for a Christian media production house. While the main focus was on radio we also did video and television production which is the area that I worked in. One of the programs we did was about prominent Kiwi Christian sportspeople. This was when Michael Jones was still in the All Blacks (the priests of New Zealand’s state religion ;) ) so he was one of the people we interviewed. We also interviewed Chris Nicholson (beware this link goes to a PDF file (sorry only decent info I could find)) who is a dual Olympian competing in cycling at the Barcelona games and also the short course ice racing in the Winter Olympics in that same year.

As a cyclist he spent a number of seasons on the European circuit and mentioned how he was often under a fair bit of pressure to get a good rank in a race because the resulting prize money would mean he would be able to eat, etc. Our interviewer remarked that this must have been quite good motivation. His response is something that has stayed with me and influenced my thinking ever since.

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In defense of the Kiwi palate

Gorgeous has made some (unfavourable) comments about food options in New Zealand. I feel it is my patriotic duty to mount a defence.

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Hangin’ in there!

James 1:2-4

At the end of 2006 in faith we started a process that, Lord willing, will soon be completed. Well, at least the first stage of it anyhow. Those of you who also follow Gorgeous’s blog will be aware that we have been preparing to move to the US in order for me to begin working towards a Masters degree at a seminary in San Francisco.

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Hey, I’ve missed you

In the last post I quoted 1 Thessalonians 5:17. It made me remember something a worked out one time. If I remember correctly I was sitting on a ferry going from Shenzhen to Zhuhai (near Hong Kong). I was thinking about 2 Peter 3:8.

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Pruning or Distilling your life into 9 suitcases

Matthew 5:29

We’re currently in the final stages (hopefully) of shifting to the US. It means a lot of things but because we are only planning to take what we can fit in our 9 pieces of luggage we take on the plane (plus a three drawer filing cabinet that will be shipped over) we’re having to sort through all our stuff and see what makes the cut. We’re also emphatic that my parents only get lumbered with the minimum of things that they need to store on our behalf (mostly it’s financial records that have to be kept for seven years for tax purposes at which point they can be thrown out) which means anything that isn’t coming with us needs to be either sold, given away or disposed of in some fashion.

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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.

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Jury service

I received a jury summons today. Never had one before. I’ve known a couple of people who have served on juries and I must say it sounds really interesting to be at the coal face of the justice system. Unfortunately, it is for the week we (Lord willing ) will be shifting to the United States. So I had to compose a letter asking to be excused. Apparently one of the cases due to be tried that week was scheduled to last 3 weeks which in New Zealand would probably mean a case big enough to garner national media coverage. Not that I’m interested in being on TV (as a jury member wouldn’t happen anyhow), but I’ve always been interested to compare what gets reported vs the full picture. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to see all that stuff until after the trial. Oh well.