Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Normalcy!?!

In my last post I stated that we were starting to settle in and were heading towards some normalcy for the year. Well if this is normal, then this year is looking very eventful.

In a rather short space of time we have had to rearrange our plans for the year as Marty was not able to do his study (He is now working 2 part time jobs, which equals being a fulltime worker). This was soon followed by a rather scary and emotional hospital visit (all is well now), which was very quickly followed by a family wedding, and the start of uni for Jess.

Well, what is normal anyway!?!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Arrived

Well it seems that often I have to start my posts with an apology for our lack of posts. Once again, very sorry to our dedicated followers!

We have arrived in Tassie and are settling into life in Kingston. It feels both strange, and nice to be back 'home' in Tas. Strange in that Sydney in many ways also feels like home. But nice in that we have been very warmly welcomed here and things are familier to us.

It seems that time has gone by very quickly and we are not really sure what we have been spending our time doing. But with February upon us and as Marty starts his chaplaincy work, it feels that we are heading towards some normalcy now. Well as normal as things can be with lots of changes coming up this year...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Leaving

Well the week of lasts turned into exams, graduation, & then packing. The latter of these continues with this being our last day in Sydney!!

People keep asking what our Sydney highlight has been. This is easily answered with "Bible College and learning about God every day." But otherwise it is very hard to pin down what we have loved about the place Sydney. What we have hated about Sydney is a lot easier: The traffic...the roads...the weather.

Its quite cliche but I'm guessing we wont know what we really love about the place until we are no longer here. Well not long to wait for that now. We hit the homeland in just 5 days!!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Lasts

This week is very much a week of lasts. Last chapel, last church history lecture, last time of lining up for food, and so on.

The funny thing is you would think that finishing up would give us some confidence in what we have learnt. But if anything college has shown me that I am a mere human, and don’t know much, and never will!! So the feeling of inadequacy is definitely there at the moment.

But there are also lots of other strange feelings. Like the fact that we realise we are really going to miss the strange place that is Bible college.

We are going to miss the three sermons a week we are privileged to hear. We are going to miss the constant learning about the Bible. We are going to miss eating our meals with 100 other people.

This has lead to this week of lasts being a rather emotional week, and not just cause exams are just around the corner!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Holidays...

So we just spent our 2 weeks of holidays at home hanging around. Here is a bit of a snapshot of what we did:


  • Thought through decisions about next year...which resulted in the booking of the boat!

  • Visited different parts of Sydney including the Pleasantville village of Breakfast point...which resulted in being weirded out by Sydney.

  • Read Jane Eyre & reflected on the loss of the English language in today’s society...which resulted in many conversations in old English.

  • Watched lots of the West Wing...which resulted in me thinking that I was receiving all the up to date news.

  • Surfed the internet, cause it was actually working...which resulted in many ebay bidding wars.

  • Went shopping for clothes...which resulted in many fustrating hours spent, & nothing bought.

  • Marty went on some fishing trips... which resulted in once again being disappointed by the lack of fish in NSW.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Cookies farewell

Today is a rather sad day for SMBC. After 26 years, the Cooks are leaving. David has served as the principal of SMBC for that whole time! That is kind of incomprehensible to us, because we haven’t even been alive for that long!

Just thinking about the fact that they have faithfully served God that whole time and maintained the centrality of the Bible to the college is an awesome thing. While others around them may have pushed for other things, they have kept the main thing, the main thing. This is just a huge testament of perseverance to us.

Yet, it also shows that Gods word withstands time. It is just as relevant 26 years ago as it is today and it still needs to be kept central for the next 26 years.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Cake theology

I think I have a new fav book: A Meal with Jesus by Tim Chester

Here is a little snippet:

"Every time you bake a cake, you're fulfilling that creation mandate. Every cake is a reminder of our freedom to create and be creative in the image of the Creator. Every time you place a meal on the table with quiet satisfaction, you're sharing the joy of the Creator at the creation of the world when he declared everything good."