Christmas – we travelled down to Crookwell, where my parents and Emma and I own a little property. We have tenants in the house at the moment so for the first few days we stayed in the Shearers Quarters on a sheep station 15kms out of Crookwell. The whole family was there for Christmas, sleeping in tin shacks. It was completely beautiful. Rolling hills, wind, no people. We went trout fishing most afternoons in the Pejar Dam – caught 2, one decent size. A few days out there and I never want to come back. The property is called Gundowringa – I recommend it for a quiet place to get away. It also has a fascinating history in the development of agriculture in Australia. At least, I found it interesting.

After Gundowringa we moved into town for a couple of nights in more comfortable surrounds. We stayed at Pinn Cottage, a local Crookwell B&B. It’s another beautiful spot. They’ve used Bluestone in the construction, a feature of lots of older houses in Crookwell. It’s really nice that there are still some places in the world where the local pattern of life still reflects a connection to the land and locally available resources. Houses in Crookwell were made of bluestone because that’s the kind of stone that lives there. Life in the country still has a sense of particularity which contrasts with the mass produced cityscape.
We walked around the town, went to the local cafe (Lynham’s), swum in the pool. One day Em and I drove out to Wombeyan Caves. It’s about 70kms from Crookwell but most of the road is dirt (our car – no stranger to dirt roads – has been making a strange sound ever since). We’ve driven that way once before, right through to Mittagong. Be warned, the road between Wombeyan and Mittagong is very exciting to drive. Not for the faint-hearted. This was the first time that I’d actually been into the caves. It’s definitely worth it.
We went on the self-guided walk. You head out through the bush for a while, come down a hill, and there’s a little steel door in the side of the hill. It’s like something out of a fairy tale. You go inside and it closes with a very satisfactory crash. Inside the cave system was spectacular. People always compare caves with cathedrals but you really can’t help it. Maybe the early Christian experience of the Catacombs left indelible marks. Yes, it was like a Cathedral. We couldn’t help talking in whispers, even though we were completely alone.
The other powerful impression was of everything flowing, melting, passing away. In these Limestone (Karst) cave systems the rock looks like wax. Something that your experience has always told you was hard and permanent is clearly revealed as impotent before time. Perhaps that is why people feel a sense of the sublime in caves, they overpower and unsettle us.
You touch the walls and they are rock, hard, immortal. But your eyes tell you that even rocks can perish.

The following day I got up at 4:30am, left Emma fast asleep, and drove to Sydney to preach. My text was ‘store up your treasure in heaven’. I talked about change.

I’m currently sitting in the foyer of the National Museum in Canberra, taking a small mental health break away from the South Pacific Regional Training Event (SPRTE), (Formerly known as NTE).
“What exactly is a ‘Training Event’?” You ask.
“What ever you would like it to be” I answer. That’s why it’s got a name that doesn’t tell you anything.
(It’s a Po-Mo thing, you’re probably too old/young to get it).

In the past two weeks I’ve had exams at College, we’ve moved house, I’ve had another minor drama about which Church to attend next year, and Emma’s been made redundant, all in no particular ordure. As they say in South Africa, “Hectic, mi’china”.

I’m looking forward to the next couple of days, having a break from what we conventionally designate ‘real life’ and focusing on teaching, talking, and seeing how God is at work in people’s lives around the country and our region. I had a great time at lunch chatting with Bernard, a young guy from PNG who has just finished Yr 12 and is heading to Uni. He was so excited to be here (although really tired from spending the night in Brisbane Airport) and I know that the things he learns this week will reshape the way he thinks about the Bible, God, the world, and himself. He’ll take that back to PNG and use it to change others.
For the next few days Canberra will host a splash from which ripples will spread out around the pond…

The foyer of the National Museum is a great place to sit and stare. It has cool curvy couches that look like wicket-keeping gloves that you sit deep inside. The angles of the ceiling were created using this über-cool mathemetical formula based on the negative space of a complicated knot. No two lines are the same, yet the whole thing has a symmetry.
At this point it’s tempting to say, ‘just like life’. But that has the stench of a very particular ordure. (It’s lies)
Don’t you think it’s more likely that we appreciate symmetry because it keeps the absolute assymetry of the Universe at bay?
Justification by Faith vs Parabolic Idolatry.

I made it about 10 metres. Terry’s cash was secure. I managed it a couple more times before I threw my back out.

When we got into the van for the ride home we noticed that someone had placed a sticker across the windscreen, right at eye-level, saying ‘Harden the F!@# Up Dog Face (I seek to spare my readers world-weary eyes). Terry pointed out that if they’d really been serious they would have stuck around to check that he got the message. He seemed ready and willing for a spot-check on his Hardness Levels.
Onya Terry.

In the gallery is a photo of Dave finding the cache and Emma retrieving it.
Ah, simple pleasures.
we had fish and chips on the beach with Kate and Hamish,
then caught the ferry back to the city and had a beer at the Belgian beer cafe – beer brewed by Monks who have been doing it for 800 years.
Time well spent I say.

If you are into geocaching and you don’t want spoilers, don’t look at the photos

If you haven’t caught the news, Emma and I went halves with my parents in a country cottage with some land in the village of Crookwell, half an hour North-West of Goulburn.
The property is going to be let out to tenants but before that would be possible it needed some serious affection.
So my whole family – parents, 4 kids, 3 spouses – went to work. Mum and Dad and I stayed there for during the second week of January, the others came and went during the week as they were able. Since then, Emma and I have made another overnight trip to finish some things off.

It’s hard to know where to begin.
Probably with the moment that Dad started sugar-soaping the ceiling in the main lounge in order to prepare it for painting. Up til that moment we’d been under the impression that the ceiling was painted yellow. When the first wipe over brought down a stream of brown water, we realised it was white, with 20 years of cigarette smoke…
there was much cleaning to do.

Later in the week, Sam (my brother) was poking around in the attic, in the old part of the house. He found an old-skool rabbit trap, with the nasty metal jaws, and a foot. A bit later he found a possum skeleton covered with the last few bits of fur, and without a foot.
Yes, someone had once trapped a possum in the roof, and it had rotted there while they lived with the smell. Probably somehow related to the cigarette smoke.

There were a number of odd-jobs that still needed to be done after the week of painting and cleaning. Most importantly, the old electric stove needed to be replaced, so Emma and I went to work on ebay. I lost 4 auctions before we got what we were after – a good quality, 2nd hand replacement. The pickup was from Mt Colah (about an hour north of us in Sydney). I press-ganged my mate Dave into helping me load the stove into our Toyota Echo (small) in the middle of the pouring rain. We wedged it in, then I dropped off Dave, picked up Emma, and drove with it straight to Crookwell. The next morning, I decided to have a go at installing the new stove (normally you’d get an electrician, but hey, I used to do Dick Smith electronic kits…). I found out that I’d left all my tools in Sydney, but I keep a pocket knife in the car.
I was pulling out the old stove and undoing the wiring when I found what I thought was a nest in the wires. I pulled it out with the knife and realised it was a mouse. It had fried itself across the two live terminals. Not real good for the oven, probably lucky it hadn’t burnt the house down.

So many highlights…

The week of painting was aching, hard work. One afternoon I spent 3-4 hours straight, just painting ceilings. Painful.
The result is worth it. The house now has a consistent colour scheme. It is fit for human habitation.
My brother Sam worked out how to cement-render, and rendered up the chimney in the main lounge.
Emma went to Ikea and bought funky light shades, and cool, wooden fittings for the bathrooms.
Russ went berserk with a brushcutter (at 7:00 in the morning), clearing thistles and weeds, wearing Naomi’s jeans under his shorts for protection. Probably just as well because one of the sections he went to work on turned out to be full of snakes. (and one monitor lizard who died needlessly because he looked like a very fat snake).
Mum and Naomi painted the front fence white – it now has a ‘white picket fence’ – an important marketing feature.
Dad hacked out annoying trees, and managed to find quite a lot of viable plants still in the garden.
Min did all the detailing around the fire-places and mirrors – using our special colour ‘twiggy’ – bought from Shane at the Hardware store, who might be interested in renting…
Mick really finished it all off, he came back when we’d all had to leave, to put on the last door handles, replace the toilet cisterns, did the handy-man stuff.

And on the Friday night of that crazy week, we roasted a lamb and a chook on the Barbie, fashioned some seating from ladders and painting trestles, and entertained our first guests for dinner, my Aunt and Uncle from Bowral. Later that night, my wilder relations kicked on at the ‘Horse and Hound’ otherwise known as ‘The Bottom Pub’ over the other side of the creek from us.
I went to bed. But I heard quite a number of wild country yells.

Video: Work in Progress

Pictures
(click for slideshow)

Work in Progress

Basically Finished

On Friday night we travelled down from Sydney to spend the night, we have a lot of cleaning and work to do to make the place ready for a tenant. The lady we bought the house from has left junk and rubbish all over the property. On top of that, the wet spring and summer seasons have also made the grass grow into a jungle. She also had dogs that lived in the house, so it’s a bit stinky inside. We need to clean the carpets, walls, windows, kitchen, everything; paint the inside (at the moment the rooms are painted in a remarkable assortment of ugly colours); tidy the gardens, remove all the junk. And that’s not even starting to think about the paddocks – full of weeds and thistles.
In short, there is lots of work to do.

We woke up to the sound of a rooster crowing on Saturday morning and found this bloke and his lady hen checking us out. He kept trying to come through the door so I had to put up a barricade. The sheep also turned up early to trim the grass in the yard before taking off to the bottom of the paddock near the creek to escape the heat. The sheep and the chooks all belong to the previous owner, the sheep are still there because she’s going to keep grazing the land for a while, since she’s only moved down the road, and the chooks just keep coming back because they have pea-brains.

We walked over the bridge to town for some breakfast, a very nice bacon and eggs at a cafe. The menu offered a ‘shearers breakfast’ – including lamb chops, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, eggs, tomato, who-knows-what-else, and thick toast. I wasn’t allowed to have that. But maybe I can when we finish work.
Anyway, I can recommend Catherine’s Cafe, “Crookwell’s Premier Refreshment Lounge”.

Here’s a video I made of the house and our first days work.

“I live in a high and holy place,
and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and revive the heart of the oppressed.
(Isaiah 57:15)

It is God’s nature to give himself in love.
Our response is trust. 


How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me! She who has believed is blessed because what was spoken to her by the Lord will be fulfilled!” (Luke 1:43-45)

Notice how Elizabeth changes from the 2nd person greeting (for you see… the sound of your voice’) to the third person statement (She who has believed). It’s a great little twist that Luke uses to make this a thematic statement for the whole section. It’s like Elizabeth looks outside the frame of the picture and talks straight to us. Mary is blessed, and anyone who believes will be blessed, because God is going to keep his word to Mary.
There is nothing so blessed as having nothing but Jesus. I’ve got to keep reminding myself of that, Emma’s work keeps bring in money, I’m doing well in my courses, there are lots of other things that we could trust in, but none of them ever really bless us in this way.
Anyway, I always rabbit on when I sit down to write anything. We hope that you’ll come and visit us soon. If this letter does nothing else, it’s reminded me to pray for you, and I hope you will keep us in your prayers.
This year we are planning (under God) to travel to South Africa with a Moore College Mission team. Emma and I are hoping to spend a little while travelling in South Africa and checking out ministry opportunities over there. We don’t know what will come out of this trip, but we are praying that we can be an encouragement to the people we are serving with while we are there, and that we will get some more ideas about how to use these lives to serve Jesus. Praise God for contacts and some very generous financial support that is making this a possibility.
Here we are, at the End. You really are very special friends. Thanks for reading and lots of Love.

How times change…

I’ve been on a four week break from College, which also turned out to be a Blogging Sabbath. I had no idea that such a thing existed, but apparently the Spirit rushes upon you and your Blog must lie fallow.

It’s a good thing: we were designed for rest.

The first week of the Break was dominated by a College Bibliography Assignment on Basil of Caesarea’s Doctrine of Humanity, must of which was inflicted on the world at large through this website.
I got to spend some time with my brother Sam, who was down from Brisbane as well. We took some photos of the city lights from over at Lady Macquarie’s Chair.

The second week was more relaxing, though I still got stuck into the books. I set myself a goal to read through the Pentateuch during the break (the first 5 books of the Bible). I got into the habit of heading down to Starbucks each morning for a couple of hours to read, then spend some time studying Greek and Hebrew. For a while there, it felt like I was getting more College work done without the annoying lectures to get in the way.
Reading large sections of the Biblical narrative is really exciting when you can find the time. Often we read small portions of the Bible and reflect on them devotionally. That’s a great practice, but it can make it hard to see the grand sweep of the Bible’s story.

I spent the third week in Canberra. Monday to Wednesday on the Focal Point – the annual Mid-Year Conference for the Uni Christian Fellowships. This was a real highlight of the Winter Break. I was able to spend time with friends from Canberra that I haven’t seen all year, and to be encouraged by brilliant Bible teaching. Most encouraging of all was to see young Christian people hungry to know God better.
The conference focussed on the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (the reason why so many Blog posts where along those lines as well). There is a real need for Christians to be thinking hard, talking, and teaching each other about the Holy Spirit.
We live by the Spirit

After Focal Point and the time in Canberra, Emma and I snuck off to Tumut for the weekend.

The final week I was back into the books, and trying to get my head around Hebrew for a Class Test this Friday.

It was a full few weeks, I read, thought, met, travelled…
I didn’t write.
Now I will.

“If we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit.” (Gal 5:25 HCSB)

2. I think I could sing like Tom Waits

3. and I have a strange desire to commit genocide…

Yes, I’ve been studying Hebrew.

We have our first major Hebrew exam tomorrow morning. You know you are dealing with a demented language when the word from which you learn the Regular Verb Paradigm is ‘to kill’.

Qatal – ‘he killed’ – use that to impress all your friends.

Well, if I’m going to become inseparable from my prepositions, I better hit the hay…

… that’s a Hebrew joke.
hmmm