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.

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.

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.

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.

heartache and joy

We are going through a particularly tough time at the moment. There has been a very large amount of heartache and pain in members of our extended family of late, I will not go into any details about it, as many of the people who read this blog are known by these family members and I have to give them the respect that they deserve. Needless to say that these situations are playing in the back of both Naomi & My heads as we continue on in our work here in Noble Park. It is difficult as we dedicate ourselves to our work to know that family members are suffering, and while if it is ever really needed we could go and be with the family, there is a sense of separation as we have dedicated to living and working in this community 24 hours 6 days a week. Our prayers and thoughts are with them all.

At the same time, we are facing heartache here in our community too, we have now been in the community long enough to experience the ravaging power of addiction, as two of our regular friends have lapsed into their addictions again and have ostracised themselves form the community. It is horrible to think that just a month or two earlier these two people were active participants in our community and now they have hidden themselves from any assistance and are suffering under the influences of their addictions. I am told however that more often than not these things are cyclical, and that these people will most likely be back, and the hope is that eventually, as we demonstrate the liberating power of Christ, the cycle will be broken.

Needless to say, these things make us feel like we are under attack, (and this is where the old Pentecostal theology comes back into play guys) and the only time that we get attacked seems to be when Satan feels under threat from our actions (I am not saying that these things are only happening because of us - that would be extremely egotistical, the universe is way too complex for that, but things do seem to align and occur at particular times, it is almost like there is some higher power at work). We will continue to do our work regardless, we will continue to stand in opposition of the work of the enemy, we will continue to see God's Kingdom come.

The reason for Satan's attack on our lives would have to be that like no time before in the year or so that we have been living in NP, Naomi and I feel really plugged into the community, we feel like we are really contributing and really digging deeper in the lives of those around us. We have become extremely involved in a group of Burmese immigrants, working along side their kids, teaching them English and helping with their homework, visiting these people and really building relationships. We have also started to build friendships with others in our community, including a Sri Lankan family with a son who suffers from the same disability that I myself do - cerebral palsy. Anyway, all this to say that we feel that we are really at home and in the flow here and we praise the Lord as a result!!

Please pray for our family and friends who are suffering.

Pray for our own peace of mind and strength.

Pray that we can continue to dig deeper into this community and these relationships, seeing real transformation occur.

Thank you...

Peter

Thankyou

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to get this message done a couple of weeks ago, but I have not taken my wife's own advice about busy-ness and so have not had a chance...

I want to thank everyone out there, all our regular readers and supporters, the support we are getting is phenomenal, and really means a lot to us.

A few weeks ago we had a commissioning service at our sending church, it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, a lot of our new friends (both UNOH workers & community people) also turned up, as well as family. It was great to get the feeling of support from everyone, it is easy to feel alone when you are doing these things, especially when you are so busy working within the community that you don't have the time you would like to catch up with those outside who care about you.

Many of you who are family and friends will have received (or will soon) an invite to a special information afternoon we are holding, already from those invites, we are getting some great feedback from people, and again it lets us know that we are not alone, it is great to have such prayer and moral support behind us as we do the work we are doing.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, and don't hesitate to drop us a line (either on the blog here or over e-mail) if you would like to get together... we have started on our support raising, and if you would like to support us, and wanted to chat about it or wanted us to speak in your church or small group or something, don't hesitate to ask, we strongly believe that one of our callings in working in UNOH is to bring the message of Jesus' heart for the poor and marginalised to the wider Church body...

Anyway - thank you again, you are all really appreciated...

Peter

The Next Step Begins

Well, as of today, Naomi & I are officially UNOH Apprentices!!!!

It has been a long time in coming, but finally it is here. For me, it has been a ten year (or probably more) journey since I first got my love for missions & wanted to enter the mission field. Back then , I was introduced to missions more or less accidentally, I was forced to choose an elective at bible college, the choice was between Missions & Creative Ministry, and as I am not really into drama or messianic dance or anything I chose Missions as the better of 2 evils. My perspective of Christianity and Theology was turned up-side-down during that course. So much so that I changed my course to be a missions based course. The following years saw my passion for mission grow and mature from a purely Evangelistic view to a more holistic view seeing the importance and value in social action.

During that time, Jesus was also working on Naomi. I had expected to go to the mission field straight after Bible College, but God had other plans, Naomi was not ready, and I had learnt through my experiences at BC the importance of a married couple being a team on the mission field. Too many men have dragged their wives onto the mission field, where their wives have learnt to resent them, and this often harms the work & ministry of the mission. I did not want this, so I had to wait.

I would like to say that I did not put any pressure on Naomi over this time, but I did put out my feelers every now and then. I guess Naomi was aware of this and felt that I was putting pressure on her, so much so that she would explode in anger towards me. Little did I know that this was because God was working on her and she was resisting it out of the fear of putting her trust completely in Him.

Finally the crunch came for Naomi at the Surrender conference in 05, and since then Naomi has been running towards missions and I have been holding on tight in an attempt to keep up. The last 7 months have been about us getting used to life in Noble Park, settling ourselves and our kids in here, getting to know the people in the community and Rainbow Church, but now the aim of all that waiting is here and we begin the apprenticeship...

Please continue to pray for us as we begin this time, that God will be with us, that we learn to balance our commitments of study and practice, and that we will get a lot out of this time and grow in the Lord & what he has in store for our lives

finally a second to blog

well, what a week it has been, it is annoying that at the busy times when there is so much to write about there is never enough time to actually sit down and blog... the MEC went well, poor Sammy was quite unwell, so we sort of had to tag team the whole experience.

The best part for me was pretending to be homeless in Danenong, trying to find accommodation and other things for the night. It was quite a desperate situation - finding only one place in the whole of the city of Dandenong that was willing to help with accommodation, and they were focused on helping youth only, I got to experience judgmental reactions by supposedly loving Christians, as well as true care by other truly loving Christians (we visited a lot of churches in our search for accommodation). We got a great feed at cornerstone - a mission established by three Dandenong churches, got to visit the needle exchange program (there was an experience!! - I had to organise rehab for myself as part of the project!), and generally walk around Dandenong, being directed from one place to another looking for help...

Naomi and I had out psyc assessment on Monday, that was an interesting experience too (a good one) - we got to find out that we were not nuts, so we are a bit worried that UNOH will not want us anymore, because you probably need to be nuts to join them... but seriously, the psyc assessment was the final hurdle that we needed to jump to get into UNOH - so i guess now we are officially in!!!

the apprenticeship starts in February...

Peter

Interview Update

Hello everyone...

It has been a few days now since the interview - and I thought I should write a quick blog to say how it went.

The interview was really a catch up to see how we went with the past six months of our life here in Noble Park, more than an interview to prove that we have what it takes to join UNOH. I guess our participation in the community has already done that for us.

The official word is not out yet, there is still one more stage that we need to go through in the name of consistancy (everyone else has had to do it) - once that is done I can let you know offically - however, things are looking very posative.

Thankyou for your prayers and thoughts over the last few weeks (and months)

Peter

1 day to go - then we jump!!

Hi everyone.

Tomorrow is the big day, when we get to find out if we have made it into UNOH or not!!

at around 11.30 we will be in a meeting with 3 UNOH members and a board member, where we will discuss what we have learned and accomplished over the past 6 months after moving into Noble Park!!

We have had some good time to reflect this week, and we have been seeking feedback from members of the community here and UNOH workers, and it has been a good and uplifting process... so we go into the interview with a certain level of confidence.

Having said that we are still quite nervous, not that we won't make it through (though I guess there is a small amount of that), but more that tomorrow seals our fate as far as this chapter of our lives is concerned. Whatever happens, we have taken a huge, irreversable step into the unknown. Relying on God to see us through is always an exciting experience, but also always a nervous one - you lose all control, and just have to trust - I can imagine that the experience is probably similar to sky diving - where you jump off the relative security of a plane - freefall for a while relying on the parachute on your back to open and deliver you safely to the solid ground below. I imagine that if I was going to go skydiving tomorrow instead of going to an interview - my guts would probably feel the same as they do now anyway... heaps of excitement, a fair amount of fear, restless, happiness, faith... a whole bunch of emotions...

Date Change

Hi, Just a quick one here...

The date of our interview has changed from friday morning to Saturday morning (2nd Dec) from 8.30ish to 12ish...

Please don't forget to pray!

Peter

The Date is set...

Hi everyone,

The date is set for our interview with UNOH - it's December 1st.

This is the date when we find out if our six months here in Noble Park have paid off or not, we find out if we have proven that we have what it takes to be UNOH apprentices.

Pray for us - PLEEEAAASE!!!!

(P.S. You may have noticed that I have updated the look of the blog - I hope you enjoy!....)

Surrender 06 cont'd...

Hi again.

Surrender 06 was an amazing time for us. It was at S05 that the final crunch came for Naomi and I in our decision to follow the Lord into the call he had on our lives. So in many ways S06 was an anniversary for us (even though it was a couple of weeks later than last year). S05 was a highly emotional time - particularly for Naomi who finally surrendered the battle she was waging against her call to Missions. The year that followed was mad, going through the discernment process with UNOH, visiting Bangkok, telling all our friends & work mates, moving into Noble Park , settling in etc.

For me, attending S06 was like the end of the first leg of our journey, a time to reflect on how our life has changed, and how much God has been with us and blessed us over this leg of the race. Sure there were great speakers and a lot to be thought about and pondered, but just being able to be a volunteer at the conference, working alongside all the UNOH & Rainbow guys, being a team, feeling welcome was what really stuck out to me.

We really have been accepted as part of the community by now, I was able to have a chat with a couple of people over the weekend who were paying me a compliment over a message I shared at Rainbow, and saying that I was obviously a great preacher. I was saying that I did not want to be a great preacher and am very nervous speaking in public like that, that I was much better at doing teaching on a one-on-one or small group basis. These friends then said to me that it was silly for me to be nervous talking in front of the Rainbow Church crowd, as they were all friends. That conversation has had a big impact on me, not that I am proud to be a great speaker or anything( because I am not!), but that I am accepted as a friend by these 2 and everyone else at Rainbow. Social situations are not my favorite things, and to think that despite my social retardation, I have fitted in and am accepted has really done a lot for me, and my confidence in my call to work in NP.

Some Praise & Prayer Points...

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick catch up from Naomi,
The big move on Saturday went extremely well, we are so grateful to all the wonderful people from Foothills who pitched in and helped us out............it was a great way to end our time in such an awesome community.

I thought some of you might like to hear some prayer & praise points........you don't have to pray for us..........but if you want to......

I would like to praise God for

The wonderful acceptance that we have been shown in our new community.........I was imagining sitting around and being bored for the first little while......boy was I wrong.

The fantastic way our kids have settled into our new way of life, new school e.t.c........in fact, they are not just settled, they are thriving!!!!!!!!

Teaching C.R.E in a new school is going very well, I have had extremely positive responses from various members of staff, and am beginning to become familiar with some children and families in the school.

Please Pray For

Me in particular to find some time for rest and to be able to fit more time with God into my crazy schedule..........It would be nice if people stopped commenting on the dark rings around my eyes

I am running Ladies group for the first time tomorrow (i'm a little nervous)

So few of the kids at Noble Park attend C.R.E, please pray that more kids would want to attend

Peter is beginning to form friendships with a few of the Men in the area, please pray that he would naturally form some meaningful friendships, many of the men around here are lonely and often have no where to go....it's good to be able to offer our place as a drop in for them.

We still don't have our names on the lease where we are living...........the Estate agent thinks it will be fine but is taking her time to sort it out with the owner, I am finding it hard to unpack boxes because in the back of my mind I am thinking "what if I have to repack soon" It would be really great to have that one sorted out.

That I would be able to follow God's leading with making some good connections in the school community

That's all I can think of now, Peter probably has more.......but he's not here so it's up to me.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this.................

Love from Naomi

Finally, we are moving in!!!

Well, 5 weeks in and we are finally getting to the stage where we can move our belongings to Nobel Park!!!! - yay!!! - that will mean that we will be able to sleep in our own beds, sit on our own couches get food out of our own fridge... Sorry it is all wearing a bit thin for me - it will be great to finally just relax and call a place home again.

Out side of that, things are going great and continue to get better. I know we go on about it a lot, but Sammy is just doing wonders, and we can not say anything other than it is a miracle and a real example of God rewarding the faithful actions of his followers.

Naomi was called in to the school by one of the aids to discuss sammys progress, going in with fear, she soon found out that the aid wanted nothing more than to assure Naomi over how well Sammy was doing. The aid showed her Sams work and the work that he is doing is not at all modified (something that we were asking the other school to do for ages) and he is doing extremely well at it too - his work is on display with the other kids work in his classroom (again something that didn't happen at the other school) he is participating in class discussions and being relevant to the topic. In fact they are implementing a number of strategies that we have been crying out for the other school to try for months in not over a year off the bat, and things could not be better - NP Primary got the reports from his other school and were preparing for an absolute monster to join their school - however they have had nothing but an angel for more than a month now!!! - this is not simply because Sammy has decided to change either (though he did try his best to start with) this is because this school seems to understand the ins & outs of Autism and they treat Sammy with dignity! - PRAISE THE LORD - is all I can say - it certainly does not fit into earthly logic or wisdom that a move from Ferntree gully to Noble Park would work so well for an Autistic child! Tomorrow night he even gets to be involved in the school production (again - surprise, surprise - not in he other school) - he is a cowboy in a dance revolving around the village peoples YMCA.

Luke is also in the production as a cat in a dance to "What's new Pussy Cat" and Jake gets the lead in Rocky Horror Picture Shows "Time Warp" - he assures me he is not wearing fishnets and stillettos though!!! - once I have my computer back on the net I'll try to post a picture.

On news about Naomi & I, it looks like I have been given the role of looking after the food distribution at the Food Bank here on a Tuesday morning as well as a number of other responsibilities that are just beginning to form around me at the moment. It is hard to describe what a day consists of here - though a lot of it has to do with relating to people, having visitors, making very lonely people feel loved etc, so it is very hard to put down our roles in neat boxes. Naomi is currently hosting a women's group back at home, so I have been kicked out and therefore am catching up with things here at Cafe Salvo - the new local hang out, where if you want to meet a local, have a great coffee or jump on the net its the place to be - a bit like cheers, without the alcohol or woody!

Anyway - I have run out of things to say as a general catch up - I'll post again soon, especially once I am on line again but until then - see you later.

Peter

Well, This is it!

Trivia Question: What are the first four words in the Blues Brothers Movie?
Hint: They are hidden in the title somewhere…

She caught the Katy, and left me a mule to ride
She caught the Katy, and left me a mule to ride
My baby caught the Katy, left me a mule to ride
The train pulled out, and I swung on behind
I'm crazy 'bout her, that hard headed woman of mine…

Ahhh – reminiscing….

Anyway, back to reality… We have done it!!! – we spent our first night in Noble Park!

As yet we have not got a place to live (though we were offered one) so to make sure the kids can start this term in their new school, we are staying at a couples house In NP. These guys have a lot to do with UNOH, though they are not actual members.
The 3 boys are sleeping in 1 room together and Naomi & I get to share the most uncomfortable fold out sofa bed I think I have ever slept on.

Anyway, that is for a week, after that we move to another place that will eventually become our home. At the moment there is a couple with a baby and a single lady living there. They are moving out to find places further out in NP, but they want us to live in this place as it is a great location to have a UNOH worker living in… it may take anywhere up to 5 or 6 weeks before the place is empty, but that’s fine. All this time living with people gives us a really great introduction to UNOH and how it all works!

Well, That’s about all I have to say for now, I am at work typing this out – I still have 2 weeks of Koorong before I go to casual employment, living off baked beans & trusting in the Lord! – Yay!! – (read Yay with the slight note of insecurity that went through my head as I typed it)

Anyway please pray for us as we settle in, as well as for my sister who got some pretty bad news the other day– but more on that when details become available.

Peter

Less than 2 days to go...

Hello everyone...

Less than 2 days to go!!! - thankyou everyone for your support and prayers - they are really appreciated!

We are very excited at the moment and can't wait to get to the destination that has been such a big focus for us all for soooo long!

There are 3 prayer points that we have for our trip - so if you could remember us in your prayers (if your into that sort of thing) that would be great.

1. A safe trip - that nothing bad would happen to any of us - but that we would still be confronted and challenged by our surroundings
2. clarification and confirmation - is Thailand to be a realistic goal for our future or are we to remain in Australia working in Noble Park.
3. That we would be effective in the work that we are going to Thailand to do - ie teach English to the kids in the slum.

Thanks for that - and we hope to hear from you while we are in Thailand!!