I'm Ba-ack!!!

No apologies this time, if anyone is still ever even looking at this thing, I'm impressed, it has been a long time since I last updated, but I'm back and wanting to simply share some info, thoughts, stories etc...

Anyway, in a little while I'll be starting by posting bits of an assignment I wrote for college... I'm hoping for some feedback if anyone is out there as my study opened up some interesting ideas and thoughts around the sermon on the mount....

stay tuned....

What is eaten in one week around the world...

someone other than me deserves credit for this one, but who made it I do not know, sorry...


Italy: The Manzo family of SicilyFood expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11


Germany: The Melander family of BargteheideFood expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina Food expenditure for one week $341.98


Mexico: The Casales family of CuernavacaFood expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09


Egypt: The Ahmed family of CairoFood expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53


Ecuador: The Ayme family of TingoFood expenditure for one week: $31.55


Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey VillageFood e xpenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03


Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23


Makes you think, doesn't it?

Healing

Today I was talking with some friends about the issue of miraculous healing, and it has made me think about the issue a fair bit…
I have Cerebral Palsy, it is a disability that I was born with, and it affects the right side of my body. Throughout my childhood, this disability has resulted in me being ostracised from many of my peers; it meant that none of them wanted to play sports with me, many of them were repelled by a fear of the unknown, most thought it uncool to hang out with someone like me and some even went so far as to beat me up on a regular basis. These were the joys of having a disability in the era that I grew up in… Australian society was just coming to terms with having people with disabilities share the same space as them rather than being locked away, and I had parents who (thankfully) had the view that a disability was not something to stop a person being a productive member of society and so forced me into mainstream school and life.
The treatment that I received from my peers caused me to become very resentful and introverted, and out of these feelings of hurt and isolation the only thing I dreamt about was healing from my affliction. I went forward at church to every healing session that came along…
I believe that I have received healing, at least for the most part… I would say that this healing is about 90% complete, and I see it as a combination of the miraculous and hard work on behalf of myself and my mother who forced me to do hour upon hour of physio.
But complete healing to this day has not come, so I still “suffer” from cerebral palsy.
If you have ever done the faith healer circuit, then you would be aware of what sort of impact not being healed has on a person, from being told that you don’t have enough faith to be healed (and therefore by implication are not a real Christian), to being told that you have to receive the truth of your healing before the actual healing will occur (ie fool yourself into believing you have been healed)… That sort of thing can really screw with your mind and threaten your belief in God.
All of this comes out of some sort of misguided belief that as Christians we should all be perfect, that we should not be afflicted with physical disabilities, or health issues; just as we are spiritually transformed, so too should we be physically transformed, but I really don’t see that teaching present in the bible, sure there could be things misconstrued as God wanting us to be perfect (note here perfect is NOT a synonym for whole ), and yes there is a big focus on healing in the bible, but let’s have a bit of a look at that…
Firstly, Jesus, on his time here in the flesh did not heal every disabled person that he met… the pool of Bethesda is a prime example of this, so is his return to Galilee. However having said that we also know that not every healing He did is recorded in the bible either, there are many passages that said he healed many, even that he ‘healed all their sick.’ Having said that, if we do look at the healings that are present in the bible, I think that we can see that there is more going on in these occurrences than simply healing someone’s affliction. When Jesus (and indeed the Apostles) healed someone he did so to illustrate a point or to teach someone (often that person receiving the healing, but not always) a lesson.
You want an example? OK, how about Jesus going to heal Jairus’ Daughter, the crowd were excited, Jairus was powerful and important, imagine what this healing will do for the cause… But then a sick and outcast woman pushes through the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak and get healing. At this point Jesus could have just continued to press on, the woman had received her healing and Jairus was waiting for Him, but he stopped, affirmed the woman welcomed her into the Kingdom and taught everyone there that the poor and marginalised are just as important (if not more) in His Kingdom as the rich and powerful. To illustrate the point Jairus’ Daughter died while Jesus was delayed. Of course we know that Jesus raised her and everything was fine with her, but the focus of this passage is not the Jesus could raise the little girl from the dead, the focus is what Jesus did for the woman and at the same time taught the crowd.
If we hold to a theology of suffering (read James 1:1ff), which says that God uses the suffering in our lives to teach us and mould us, then we have to see that Physical Afflictions are in the same category, God wants us to learn from these things, and in many cases he will not remove this issue because it is a testament to his power (1 Cor 1:26-31). If a person can be accepting of his or her affliction, and continue to be a vessel of God, used by Him in powerful ways then that person receives wholeness within the economy of the Kingdom, perfection is not needed.
The bible says that if we have enough FAITH that we can pray for healing and we will receive it (James 5:15). FAITH is nothing more or less than a complete trust in God, a knowing of his will and ways. So if we have Faith then we will supposedly know what is appropriate to pray for and when. We need to look at what is whole or perfect within the context of the Kingdom, and the more we get to understanding the Kingdom, the more we realise that it’s logic and values are opposite or upside-down to the values and logic of the world.
It could almost be argued that Jesus wants you to be physically whole as much as he wants you to have that BMW… If you think that he wants you to be rich, then you have missed the point.

belated update - yet again...

Ahhh, after all my resolve to get disciplined in preparation for my study next year it has yet again been over a month since my last blog entry.... I guess though it does say that I have been busy and have more important things on my plate.

Well, things have been going exceedingly well for us over the past month or so we have thrown ourselves in amongst the Muslim Burmese community here in Springvale intensely, and are enjoying the fruit of our hard work. We have really been accepted as part of their community, being invited to various family dinners, parties and religious celebrations and we have been able to return the favour too. The biggest highlight for us was Christmas day, where we ended up spending the day in the local park with over 150 Burmese friends, we were able to give out Christmas presents to all the children who were there as well as break open 2 massive Christmas pinatas, play tug of war, have running races and of course eat plenty of food (it was an interesting mix of traditional Christmas food, traditional Burmese food and the good old Aussie BBQ).

After the lunch in the park was finished our celebrations continued as many people came to visit us until about 10pm. And after that day, more relationships have been established and those that were already there have grown. In some ways it was with hesitation that we headed out on our two weeks holiday to Naomi's parents in the central coast (NSW), this time of year has afforded us so many amazing opportunities. But we were able to enjoy ourselves and when we returned the community was still here and they welcomed us back with open hands!


I will write again soon i promise, right now i need to go and cook some dinner...


peter

Re-thinking Christmas

Naomi & I have been trying for a number of years now to do something different within our Christmas celebrations within our extended families. Last year, we purchased all our gifts from a fairtrade shop for our families with a budget of $5 per person, our families rolled their eye's and said that they would expect nothing less from us, but I suspect that they appreciated the sentiment none the less.

We also limited gifts for our children and ourselves at one gift each worth no more than $20... surprisingly they did not seem to mind at all, however with all the extra gifts they got along the way from others I think the intent of that was somehow lost...

It is difficult to make a stand about consumerism at christmas time, when those around you earnestly want to show their love for you through buying gifts, and certainly, we would not want to take that option away from them...

The problem is how to show our love to them without looking like a tightass (excuse the french), there have to be creative ways out there, we have tried to make gifts for our loved ones with varying degrees of success over the years, but even they can often get quite pricey as we buy the supplies we need to make the gifts and as a result our aim of a consumerism free christmas was lost...

If you have any ideas for us this year, please let us know as I personally am running out of ideas.

Anyway, here are a few thoughts on consumerism and christmas...


This is a website dedicated to a "buy-nothing-christmas". Well worth checking out.

And here are some thoughts by one of my favourite writers and revolutionaries shane claibourne

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up.

I recently received a link from a friend of a godtube (Christian youtube rip off – I guess it’s more sanctified or something!) clip of a young African American woman reciting a Hip Hop style poem about peoples misconception of who is the real Jesus… the general thrust of the poem was that Jesus has become too easy to follow or too safe.

The reason that my friend sent me this clip was because he felt that my Jesus has become too safe too (or probably too pc). Now we are not talking about a buddy kind of Jesus like in a recent post by a myspace friend of mine who suggests amongst other things that HIS “Jesus” would have smoked the occasional pot… You come cross that kind of Jesus very often, the Jesus made in your own image kind of thing… He allows us to be more comfortable with ourselves rather than calling us to surrender and transformation.

My friend has always struggled with my view of Jesus. And the latest bent that he is on is one of exegesis… if we study the work properly and understand the context that Jesus was ministering in then we can get an accurate view of the real Jesus… now my friend has not done any of this work himself but has been relying on the work of important biblical scholars who have apparently arrived at the truth. He cannot accept that other respected biblical scholars have done the same thing and come up with very different images of Jesus. Even exegesis when push comes to shove revolves around opinion… especially when that exegesis begins to be applied (I think that’s call hermeneutic from memory).

The problem is that we all come to Jesus with preconceived ideas, sometimes those ideas are challenged and depending on how strongly those ideas are challenged our idea’s about him may change or we may defend our position all the more… and this could be viewed as either integrity, weakness, stubbornness, maturity, immaturity or compromise (again depending on your preconceived idea of who Jesus is). It is easy to see Jesus as a buddy, there is little challenge in this and little area for growth… we can say “I just follow the teachings of Jesus” and remove the sting from any opposing arguments. Unfortunatly we ignore the teachings of Jesus that tell us to take up our cross and surrender our lives. It is also very easy to have a legalistic Jesus, with him we can build firm guidelines of who is in and who is out, we can judge others (especially those who have the all permissive buddy Jesus), say we are following the teachings of Jesus, and feel very sanctified in the process… The problem with this view is that we end up with many enemies and the one teaching of Jesus that we can’t seem to understand is “Love your enemies”.

The problem is that we have a Jesus who likes to party like the buddy Jesus suggests, he hung out with tax collectors and sinners (to the chagrin of the legalists). But those who chose to follow him were called to a life of submission, transformation, pain, and hardship (sorry buddy Jesus). The true Jesus must lie somewhere in between or better yet as Brian McLaren likes to suggest somewhere ABOVE those two views, and finding Him there is no easy task. We have to remember that He hung out with the sinners and prostitutes and was accepted and loved by them, but that he never compromised his own values (the values of God himself as set out in the OT). Whether we like it or not, for this to happen we have to accept that He did not stand in judgement of these people, separating himself from them. In fact – the only people that Jesus does loose it at are the religious types, the legalists, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers OF THE LAW (the very law that he lived by like no other man has). We also have to accept that just about all of his disciples (depending on what tradition you come from) were martyred for their beliefs, as were many of the other followers of Jesus. The reason for this is that they were a challenge to the rule of the day they were bringing a teaching and way of life that was in opposition to that of Cesar and the Jewish leaders, they did not hole themselves up in a religious compound keeping themselves sanctified as the Essenes did – if this was the case they would have dwindled into obscurity (as the Essenes did) and Cesar would not have cared. Rather, they lived out their lives; they partied with the sinners and looked after their poor (not only their own!!). They stood by what they believed but were still accessible to those who they were called to share the gospel with. They loved their enemies and took up their cross and their numbers were added to DAILY!

It has been a long time...

It has been a very long time since I have blogged, and the truth of the matter is that although I have been busy I have simply not wanted to blog. I have been worn out by it all, maintaining it and other websites, blogger, myspace etc… it is all a great waste of time, or so I thought until I realised how much I missed doing it all, I use my blogs as a journal, they are cathartic for me. I can’t say that everything I write here is correct or truth or that I won’t want to take my words back in a year’s time but I need to get this stuff out, I need to put it out there, I hope and pray for feedback, both positive and negative, these comments make me think, make me ponder and I hope make me grow. I do not even know if anyone is interested in what I write. Is anyone interested in what I value?... but that is the beauty of the blog, I guess it does not matter.

I am looking to continue my study next year, I will be working towards my masters after taking a short detour in a Grad Dip. In order to do this, and continue with the work I am doing here in Springvale, I will need to become disciplined, as a result I plan to use my blog as a training ground of this discipline, at least until I begin my studies (hopefully I’ll continue after this, even if it is less frequent). Not only will it train me to schedule my time, it will train me to write more and to think more – at least I hope it will!

Over the time that I have been away from my blog I have had many thoughts that would have been good to get down, so hopefully I can get these down before I forget them… anyway, I will see you all again really soon..

Peter

God's Timing

What an amazingly busy time we have had since we have moved in here to Springvale. We were a bit worried at first, most of the Burmese that we work with are Muslim, and we moved in right at the start of Ramadan, this meant that our homework club grounded to a halt almost instantly. From what I understand, you do as little as you can get away with during Ramadan, as exerting yourself of course makes the fasting a lot more difficult (particularly if you can’t even drink water!). This also meant that there was not many of our usual local Burmese walking around the street, as they were mostly keeping indoors and quiet.

However, God’s timing in all of this seems to be perfect. Just when we were accepting that we had a quiet month ahead of us, the protests in Burma broke out, the protests and ensuing military crackdown, have left the Burmese refugees here with mixed feelings. On the up side, it has been nearly 20 years since there have been any large scale protests in Burma, and these protests were being lead by the Buddhist monks, a unique and amazing situation. The Buddhist monks are the one organization that was not able to be bought out by the junta, and indeed the junta itself recognizes itself as Buddhist, so when they were facing off the protesting monks, they were facing off their spiritual leaders. The other thing that was exciting about this situation is that the world was sitting up and taking notice. 19 years ago it was not until after the fact that the world found out that 3,000 peaceful protesters were slaughtered by the junta on the 8th of August. This time around, modern technology made it impossible to go by un-noticed. Thanks to the internet and cameras in mobile phones, an army of lay-journalists were able to blog the excitement and horrors of the protests for a week or so before the junta could effectively shut them down.

The negative side of this for our local Burmese community is of course that they are stuck here in Australia worrying about loved ones left in Burma, and in many cases reliving the memories of what they went through 19 years ago (many of the families are missing fathers or elder brothers because they were lost during this time.)

During this time we have been able to stand with our Burmese friends, visiting many of them, letting them know that we share in their misery (as much as we can being non-Burmese), supporting them wherever possible. We have also been able to stand with them in protest marches and rallies and through setting up a project team with some of the community leaders here in Springvale, the project team is dedicated to three aims of raising awareness of the Burmese plight, raising funds to help support families that have lost their main bread winner through death or imprisonment, and those political activists in Burma who are fighting foor their countries freedom (click here to learn more). We also aim to get involved in some political actin here, calling on our government to do all it can to put pressure on the Burmese Junta, and calling local companies that are involved in trade in Burma to cease their activities.

All of this activity has been very time consuming and exhausting, though exciting. However it has definitely galvanised our friendship and trust within the community here, so much so that this weekend, as our Burmese Muslim friends celebrated the end of Ramadan, we were invited to more of these celebrations than we could possibly attend. It was an honour to attend these celebrations, and a great time to meet up with many of the community who until now have been standing on the fringes. This time for them was probably very similar to our own Christmas or new years celebrations, where heaps of friends and family get together, eat copious amounts of food, laugh, play, and generally celebrate life.

Burma Update - the real death toll?

Hi everyone, I recieved the following article in an e-mail from a friend, it came from the "Daily Mail" in the UKbut it had some good info and gives a good indication that the death toll is not as low as the official figures are showing (even if the numbers in this report are exagerated)... but then it would be hard to believe that the numbers were as low as they were showing us in any case...

Burma: Thousands dead in the massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

Last updated at 01:24am on 1st October 2007

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.
The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: 'Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.'
Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.
Hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle
Reports from other exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply ' disappeared' as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.
Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.
There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.
Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.
There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.
In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted yesterday.
A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.
Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. 'The Burma revolt is over,' she added.
'The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.
'Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear.'
Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.
'There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets,' she added. 'Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.
'People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned.'
The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned. At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.
The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: 'I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.
'They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this.'
With his teenage son, he made his escape from Rangoon, leaving behind his wife and two other sons.
He had no fears for their safety because his brother is a powerful general who, he believes, will defend the family.
Mr Win's defection will raise a faint hope among tens of thousands of Burmese who have fled to villages along the Thai border.
They will feel others in the army may follow him and turn on their ageing leaders, Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye.

Fasting for Burma

What an amazing and shocking week it has been for the people of Burma... if you have been living under a rock, since about the 19th, Burmese Buddhist Monks have been rising up in protest marches in the main cities of Burma, from what the news reports have been saying there have been up to 30,000 monks and nuns protesting and many other Burmese Civilians, numbers have apparently been over the 100,000 mark, this has been phenomenal for the nation and the cause on a global scale with all the media attention it has been getting...

However in the past 24ish hours the Military Junta has finally said enough is enough, they have enforced dusk till dawn curfews in an attempt to stem the protests, they have been bashing, imprisoning and in some cases killing these peaceful protesters. Rumor has it that the countries democratically elected leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been taken from her home where she has been under house arrest by the junta and been put back into prison.

This news has of course hit the Burmese refugees here in Springvale very hard, as a result, and to show that we are serious about our concerns for the plight of the Burmese, we have chosen to go on a fast and pray for the nation. Unlike the fasts mentioned by Jesus in the bible, we are not keeping this fast a secret, whilst the purpose of this fast is to come to the Lord in prayer, it is also to make a point and to take a stand... So I ask that you stand with us in prayer if not in fasting (also you can SIGN THIS PETITION).
My main prayers for this time will be...

• that this bloodshed will mark the end of the Junta's rule
• that no more lives will be lost
• that the world will stand up, take notice and say ENOUGH!
• for peace of mind for refugees in other countries separated from loved-ones.

I am in Despair...

Hi everyone...

I am feeling a bit down at the moment, I have been going through a hard time with someone I considered as a really close friend at the moment, this friend of mine has decided to start attacking my beliefs and what I do and that sort of thing always hurts. When I joined UNOH we got a fair bit of this sort of thing from other friends, but this guy stood by us. Now my friend has caught onto a new type of teaching, one that stand opposed to what I do in many ways, one that is more focused on personal righteousness than living out the Gospel, I'm sure you know this type of thing... whilst both things are needed there is an unhealthy tendency to swing towards one or the other rather than keeping them both in tension...

Anyway, I take these things really badly and this has put me out a fair bit, it reminded me of something i wrote about 4 months ago when I was also going through a rough stage because of something that was affecting Naomi pretty badly... it was a cathartic exercise that I was going to keep to myself, but Naomi saw it and thought it was good so I thought maybe I would share it with you...

I am in despair…
When I see the condition of this world,
I am in despair…
When I see the Condition of this Church,
I am in despair…
When I see good people fall,
I am in despair…
When I see good people hurt,
I am in despair…
When I see the tear in my wife’s eye,
I am in despair…
When it seems Evil is winning over good,
I am in despair…
That the church sees the answer as offence rather than love,
I am in despair…
When His Kingdom seems to be slipping away,
I am in despair…
When I feel that my hands are tied,
I am in despair…
That the church keeps crucifying him day after day,
I am in despair…
That I keep crucifying Him also,
I am in despair…
At the darkness that is in me,
I am in despair…
That there is no clear way ahead,
I am in despair…
That introspection makes me feels selfish,

But I stand…
On the truth that He will never leave us,
But I stand…
On the truth that He will never forsake us,
But I stand…
Because the light has not died,
But I stand…
Because the hope has not died,
But I stand…
Because He is my life,
But I stand…
Because I am not alone,
But I stand…
Because I am loved,
But I stand…
Because I am called.

Springvale update

Well, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks, it's not long now until we are back online at home and so will be able to write more regular updates, but to fill you in on what has happened over the last few weeks..

A few weeks ago we had an amazing working bee at our new home, we had approximately 20 volunteers come through from Swanson Street Church of Christ to help clean up, and they did an amazing job. The clean up was so effective that we were able to bring forward our moving date, which happened on the 5th and we had a small but dedicated team and we had all our furniture, boxes and junk moved in by the early afternoon. Since then, we have been working hard at getting settled in as well as cleaning up our old place (which was also done with a working bee of amazing UNOH workers and locals - thanks guys!), and getting familiar with our new neighbourhood.

The welcome we have received from the local UNOH workers and members of "Open Hands" church has been amazing - I think in the time that we have been moved in we have had dinner at our house once or maybe twice!

Springvale itself is a much different place to Noble Park, even though they are neighbouring suburbs Springvale is a much larger suburb and as many of you would know, very Asian in flavour, the town centre has the real hustle and bustle of an Asian city, and you could almost think that you were walking down a street in Bangkok... if you had a really vivid imagination.

Drugs, and everything that comes with them seem to be a much larger problem here, there are definite signs of drug use, we have already found a number of syringes in and around our front yard, there are discarded "chroming bags" along the sides of the alleyway behind our house, and probably the most disturbing of all for us was finding someone shooting up in our front yard. The main reason that this person was shooting up there was because we had an easily accessible source of fresh water in our driveway, and it is not uncommon to come home and find that the tap had been used. The scary thing about this encounter was the realisation of any fresh paraphernalia being left behind... fortunately this individual took his syringe with him, however there was a fair amount of blood left on one of the boxes that he was sitting on.

I was struck once again with the opposing forces of fear for my family and trusting in the Lord, I think that this is a struggle that all Christian parents go through... some respond to this fear by trying to pull their children out of any danger or negative influence... we have tried another response, a response that unfortunately means that we need to face this battle between fear and trust sometimes on a daily basis... I probably need to reflect of this topic a bit more at a later date... but having said this I did change the tap head in our front yard over to one of those ones with the removable handle, so hopefully this will reduce the really in-your-face encounters that we have.

It has been great to be so close to many of the Burmese that we have been getting to know, I have been privileged to be able to play some volley ball with some of them, and have had regular visits from one of our closer and more out going friends... As we get more settled in, the week to come will hopefully be more intentional with our visiting our Burmese friends and making new contacts, as well as familiarising ourselves with the exciting town centre and all its sights, sounds and smells.

We have moved!!

Hi guys,
just a quick note to let you know that we have moved into our fantastic new home in springvale... I have a lot to blog about, but no time right now... I will get onto it soon but we are without internet or even home phone for 2 weeks, thanks to the wonderful response time of optus... We will continue to check e-mails and hopefully will have time to blog as well from the office, but don't hold your breath!!!
Peter

On the Move

As we mentioned a while back, we have been looking to move to Springvale to focus on our work with the Burmese community more. Well, (y)our prayers have been answered, not only have we finally acquired a rental property in Springvale, it is THE property that we wanted!! This is a real strategic property that is at the gateway to a very large neighbourhood of Burmese friends and acquaintances, it is also just around the corner from the rest of the Springvale team, and will provide a great meeting space particularly during summer with it's huge back yard.

The house itself is a real dump, which we are kind of excited about in a weird sort of way, but it will need a lot of cleaning and handyman work (if you are interested in checking it out and helping out we are having a bit of a working bee there this Saturday from 10am - give me a call or e-mail and I'll fill you in with the details).

The move itself will happen in a few weeks and then things will really change for us as we begin to focus on our new neighbourhood and work out what we can do and where we will fit best.

Standing with the Burmese

What a fully Burmese week we have just had. As I have mentioned before, Naomi & I are working on focusing on the Burmese community here in Melbourne more and more, and last week was a great taste of what that will hopefully look like.

Our week started with the Burmese homework club on Saturday morning, where we have at least 12 kids (probably more) to entertain with craft and conversational English, or as in my case, teaching year 10 level maths to a girl who has had virtually no formal education in her life! (fortunately she spent 3 years in Bangkok and as a result was able to learn a fair amount of English). It was a challenging yet enjoyable experience even if I did walk away from it with a massive headache. An exciting thing that happened at homework club too was that a friend of one of our volunteers donated 8 or so scientific calculators, which will come in very handy to these young students as often they cannot afford these themselves!!!

The next day we also went on an outing with about 40 of our Burmese friends to the Melbourne museum, where we got to view an aboriginal display and some other bits and pieces, It was a very moving display, focussing quite strongly on the stolen generation and other atrocities that we didn’t learn in Australian history at school. The day itself was absolutely fantastic, There is something about seeing such a large group of people ascending the escalators at parliament station together, for many of them it was the first time on an outing to the city. As always various Burmese families invited us to share their lunch with them and fortunately there was no (obvious) offal involved this time.

We also got the opportunity to spend a bit of time with one of our families that we have been making friends with, just hanging out talking about the differences in Australian and Burmese societies.

On Wednesday six of us (4 UNOH workers, 1 prospective UNOH worker and a Burmese friend) headed up to Canberra to protest the 19th anniversary of the atrocities that happened in Burma on the 8.8.88. The protest was held outside the Embassy of Myanmar (the military in Burma officially changed the countries name to Myanmar some time ago, but none of our Burmese friends recognise the change of name). We got to stand beside Burmese from Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, as we yelled slogans calling for a free Burma, UN intervention and the end of atrocities in that country. It was very moving to get to talk with these people and find out about their struggles, both back home in Burma and living here in Australia. The look of pure joy on our Burmese friends face as he yelled out slogans that would have got him instantly shot in his own country will not be forgotten quickly.

On Thursday, Naomi also got the opportunity to learn some authentic Burmese cooking with another neighbourhood friend, from what I understand it was a great time of connecting as women together (I wasn’t invited :( - though I did get to sample the curry :))…

So anyway, all that to say that things are starting to really pick up for us in this area and we are overjoyed and excited that God would use us in this very important ministry…

Sorry about the delay, here is an update...

It has been a very long time since my last blog entry, things have been flat out for us here… so, let me update you on what has been happening. The last month or so have seen all the UNOH workers heading down to Melbourne for the Surrender 07 conference, which was an absolutely amazing time… probably the best that I have been to. Our main speakers at the conference were Shane Claibourne, Jackie Pullinger and Mike Frost. All three were in fine form, and it was of particular interest to me to hear Shane speak as I have been a big fan of his for some time now!! Mike Frost’s biblical exposition on some of Jesus’ more complex parables was amazing and probably a major highlight for most who attended. Probably the most exciting part of the conference however was to get to hang out with over 1000 like minded people who created an amazingly welcoming and loving atmosphere that was felt throughout the whole weekend.

There have been many meetings and decisions to be made over the last month as well, and amongst them, Naomi & I have chosen to take an invitation to move to Springvale and become more deeply involved in the Burmese community there. Naomi & I have fallen in love with the Burmese refugees that we have met over the last year and have a real heart for them and their plight, and while there are many Burmese in Springvale, there are very few in Noble Park, even though it is only one suburb over. As a result we have found ourselves travelling to Springvale to work amongst these people, and find ourselves quite at home with the team already working there. Because one of the main principles of working for UNOH is to live within the neighbourhood of those you are reaching out too, the time has come for us to make this move.

The move will mean a longer term commitment to the Springvale community, which will mean that we will not be getting to go over-seas to Thailand as soon as we wanted to, however we believe that the Lord has lead us in this direction. Our hope is to put a good 5 to 6 years minimum into the work in Springvale focussing more intently on the Burmese community, getting involved in advocacy and political work around the plight of the country as well as the more interpersonal work we are already doing. Our dream is that this time will prepare us for the possibility of working on the Thai-Burma border or in Burma itself in the future. All this we hold loosely and are open to God yet again changing our plans, it was hard to let go of the more immediate aim of working in the slums of Bangkok, however we believe that the Lord has called us to this course of action, and we are excited by the possibilities.

Hopefully the move will happen in the next month or so, please pray for us as we make this move and look for rental properties, good rentals are hard to come by in Springvale at the moment, and rent has gone up quite a bit in the past year. There is a particular property that we are looking at as the location seems ideal. It is at the mouth of a large neighbourhood of Burmese immigrants and many of them will walk past our door every day if we get the property. We were walking around that neighbourhood the other day and ran into three or four groups of Burmese that we already new form our homework club. The property also backs onto an alley way that leads to where the rest of the Springvale team live so it seems ideal. The property will not be available for another 3 weeks however, and the rental will be quite significantly more that what we are paying now, and as we are living on very limited support this is a step of faith in (hopefully) taking this property.

Women, The Church and Leadership

This is a topic I have been thinking to write about for quite some time, but have never got around to...

For me in all truth the question is a bit of a waste of time, there are numerous accounts in the bible that suggest that women are aloud to teach and are equal to men and all that sort of stuff ... (see for example Gal 3:28)... But it seem to be a bit of a problem for a lot of the church, mainly due to 2 or 3 passages by the apostle Paul. I am one of those people that believe that if we are to look at the context that Paul was writing into that we can understand what he is saying a lot better, I know that many Christians out there see this as a cop out, but have you ever noticed how easy it is to put someone off side when you write them a letter or more often e-mail and they take it the wrong way, because they did not understand the spirit that you wrote it in? - well, context is the same sort of thing... anyway lets not get into a lesson on exegesis, lets just accept that I believe that women should be in leadership in the church.

After saying that, let me now say that a lot of the women who are in leadership in the church should not be in leadership (but then neither should many of the men). Jesus was a big teacher of the first being last, the last first and of servant leadership (washing feet etc.). The sort of leaders that Jesus wanted were leaders who were there for the good of others, not for their own glory or prestige. I believe that we should respect and honor those that the Lord has put in charge of leading the church, but if these leaders expect or demand such respect, I do not think that the Lord has truly put them in leadership...

In a world of women's liberation and a church that tries to suppress female leadership, the sort of women who make it to leadership positions (I talk in generalisations as there are many truly humble and anointed women leaders who I have met), are the sort of women that have had to fight tooth and nail to gain their position. They have had to assert themselves and prove themselves as being professional, great orators etc etc. These sort of women do not understand servant leadership and they certainly would not wash the feet of their congregation (after all that's servants work, and women are not servants!).

It is a shame that the church has put so much pressure on women, that many of those who have the will to stick to their beliefs are those who want to prove a point and therefore forfeit their right to be leaders in the church (according to the servant leadership model), but then if we use the same yard stick to measure male leadership, I'm sure that many of men would fail too...

The question should not be Male or Female, the question should be about motivation... Prestige or Servanthood!!

www.avaaz.org

CHARGE!!!!.... What? Which way???

Today, I went back to my old, old church, one that I left because of many reasons, but amongst the strongest was that I could not find a sense of purpose there. 5 or 6 years down the track, I have found purpose, and whilst praying one morning, I got struck with the need to go back to that church for a time, to get my attitude right with the church and to see that even if I disagree with the form, Christ is still at work in it. I am not going to go into the details of my visit, there is still a lot of work for God to do in my life before my attitude is right and I don’t want to ruin it by bitching here.

What I did want to blog about was a bit of a question that came out of today’s sermon. In the sort of church that I have belonged to for the past 5 or so years I probably could have bounced this idea around a bit with everyone, but I just didn’t feel right standing up and saying “ahhhh… excuse me….?”

The sermon in a round about way was sort of about being a warrior for God, and being part of an Army of God, it revolved around reading the bible and being prepared and fighting like your life depended on it (the female preacher told us that we were not allowed to fight like girls). Anyway, the question that came out of this was what are we an army for? Where or what is our battle ground, our front line? This question was never really touched on… There was talk about personal battles, like when you feel the devil attacking you personally (your self esteem or something) or your family (your teenage kid might be getting into sex, drugs or God forbid Rock and/or Roll)… but those are personal battles, and yes they are serious, and yes we need to fight them, and yes we need God’s help and the Word to deal with them. But I got this kind of picture in my mind of a person in an army walking along to battle, in full armour, kind of like how the Roman legions did, complaining about how rough the road ahead is. Complaining about how there was a log in the road ahead and how he had to climb over it, or the cliff he had to scale to get to the battle ground, and when he finally got to the battle ground saying “well that’s it I’m stuffed, I fought my battle getting here… you chaps can do the rest…”

I think that what the preacher today was suggesting was that we are an army, that we do have to fight together, that there is a battle to which we are all called to fight. But the battle was not named, and I don’t feel like the battle was ever really named in the years that I was there either, only the personal battles, and the threat of some nebulous future threat. I wonder, if the reason for this is because of the user friendly approach of so many western churches, the reality of what it means to be in this army, the reality of what the war is, or what we have to give up or go through to fight in this army is too confronting. Maybe if these people were asked to count the cost of going to war they would rather run and hide, it’s a lot easier to pump people up, to let them know that in Christ they are mighty warriors, to let them know how marvellous their armour is , than to start to train them in the art of warfare, of tactics, of knowing their enemy…

By this point you probably have noticed that I have not named the battle front either… the battle is to further the Kingdom of God (“thy Kingdom come…”) to make disciples of all nations (not converts, disciples)… to love your enemy (even the Muslim extremist terrorists?... surely not?)… to feed the hungry… in a nut shell to stand in direct opposition to the works of the enemy, it is a warfare of LOVE, but the enemy fights back with HATE, he is blood thirsty and vile and that is why we need the armour of God… that is why we need to be a unified army!!

We're Back!!!

Hello everyone,

it has been a long time since my last post, we got robbed, and our modem went with everything else... The police tracked down one of our burglars, and amongst the stuff they had was our modem, so I am back online again....

We are still waiting for our insurance company to come through with a payment; these things seem to be extremely slow...

It is amazing the effects that this has had on my thinking. The robbery itself was of course a shock; it knocked the kids around a bit, though they bounced back pretty well. Fortunately for us, our robbers were quite considerate in the way they went through our property, there was no needless damage or vandalism, and even though they went through draws and stuff, the contents that they did not take were left behind in the draws neatly. I guess that Naomi and I sort of felt that burglary was probably par for the course in moving into this neighbourhood, so once the initial shock wore off, we got over it pretty quickly (the sense of invasion, violation, loss of security etc).

When your property is stolen like that, you are really forced to evaluate how attached you are to material possessions, how much you are a slave to the god of mammon. When we decided to join UNOH and leave the middle class rat race, to join a poor community and take a vow of poverty ourselves, I believe that we took a step in the right direction. There was a real sense that God had released us from the love of money, keeping up with the Joneses just did not seem to hold any importance for us. Looking at things from the other side of the fence, it seems that the love of money is prevalent in the western church… the consumerist mentality of church growth teachings fit hand in hand with the seeking of comfort and safety that characterises middle class society; as a result materialism is embraced or at best ignored within these churches.

Anyway, I have strayed from my point… after leaving my previous lifestyle, I often felt that we still had too many comforts, certainly once we moved our stuff into our small unit that we now call home, it did scream to us “Middle Class”. I felt that we had not gone far enough… actions speak louder than words (or in this case thoughts) however… and I never really did anything about it, so I guess to some extent I was still a slave to materialism. The robbery however proved to me how little attachment I did have to my possessions, as the actual loss of most my stuff has not really affected me (there were a few personal items that really hurt to loose, like my wedding ring).

The biggest problem in this line of thought however is that we had insurance, a wise move really, at least some would say that… however I know that some of my carefree attitude to the robbery was probably do to this, so at this stage of my life I don’t know how free I am from materialism. I am also faced with the problem of deciding what to replace that was stolen, due to the nature of insurance I will have to purchase new items that will make me look more prosperous than I did before. Some things are quite important to me to replace, like a new camera, others I don’t think I will replace if I have the choice, like the playstation (our lives are better without that). Still, I am haunted with the thoughts of what are the best things I can get with the payout… I am starting to understand what Jesus was really talking about when he mentioned the camel and the eye of the needle, and I am truly thankful that it is not through our power that this is possible, but that it is purely up to God to sort the issue of mammon out in each of our lives…

Peter