No More To Roam

It's official-- I'm a terrible blogger!  Not only is it difficult to find the time to collect my thoughts and experiences, I also feel immense pressure to tell a great story or write an intriguing blog to the point that I give up all together.  I leave it to my uploaded Facebook pictures or Instagram Photos to paint an adequate summary.  (However, I tend to only post beach excursions and party pictures while neglectling the day-to-day excitements, challenges and victories!)  I'm suffering from a disorder called frustrated perfectionism!  In general though, I find it difficult to articulate with words the moments and feelings I'm experiencing firsthand.  The words don't do it justice!  You just need to come experience Australia for yourself!

Well, I've landed.  Though I'm still somewhat of a wandering soul, I have a place to call home!  After spending two weeks with the gracious and generous Gumley family, I migrated to my permanent home.  Whereas the Gumley's live in a suburb of Sydney's Upper North Shore called Pymble, my new home is  26 kilometers west of the city in Northmead.  This location requires [a bit] more public transport usage including buses and trains, but I am so grateful to have my own room and bathroom [toilet].  (In case you don't remember from my last post, brackets denote common Aussie phrases/patterns of speech.)

In general, I have more direction and an evolving weekly schedule!  In order to serve the Sydney Church, I primarily help the Young Professional Ministry; this is a group of recent graduates (young singles) who are entering the workforce for the first time.  I love being around people that share the same beliefs and convictions as me and who also are of similar ages and stations in life.  We have bible talks biweekly on the Wednesday that the church doesn't have midweek; in addition, we have family time on the weekends to build camaraderie and to share our faith with our community.  As well as working with the "YoPro" ministry, I also aid the [Uni] ministries which include three major campuses: Macquarie University [Mac Uni], University of Sydney [Sydney Uni], and University of New South Wales [UNSW].  Each Uni has a weekly bible talk, and I partake in bible studies (individualized studies for students wanting to learn more about God and the Bible or historical evidences for God, Jesus and the bible) on each of the campuses.  Mac Uni is the easiest for me to get to by bus (a short 30 minutes) while the other two require at least an hour of transport to reach.

University of Sydney

In order to keep this short (and to prevent myself from becoming overwhelmed!), I'll highlight some of my favorite events/experiences that have taken place thus far:

Studying the bible with Lily while on Skype with a brother from Ethiopia who is reading from the Amharic Bible and translating our comments and questions.  Lily has been living and studying social work [community service] in Sydney for one year, but is limited in her English vocabulary.  She grew up Christian Orthodox but has never read the Bible for herself; she is eager to learn more about the word of God!

 Using my astute observations of my mother's cooking to make Pad Thai for the first time for my new friends: My host family, Alexandra Bathon, and Ruth Duru.  It was quite the success and yielded a bounty of leftovers which were happily consumed by all!

Playing volleyball at Coogee Beach with the Uni, Singles, and YoPro ministries to kick off the semester on a Friday night.  Megan and I plan to join a club team in the near future!

 Line dancing at the Gumley's house!  This highly anticipated event consisted of nearly 75 people (mostly Uni students and YoPros), a smorgasbord of food that required many trips to the grocer, three days of cooking, and two large bowls of homemade guacamole!  I'm still not quite sure how country line dancing correlates with Mexican food! 

A good friend of Megan, Alexandra and I, Lindsay Gumley has made it her personal mission to make us feel welcome in Sydney, to educate us about all the free activities in the area including yoga on the beach, and to convince us to move to Surry Hills (closer to the CBD).  On a particularly fun night, we went for drinks near the world famous Sydney Opera House and visited an indie, underground pizza bar and pub where we became friends with a traveling bartender from Colorado named Desiree!

South Pacific School of Missions (SPSM) apologetics classes concerning how we got the bible as we have it today, new testament theory, the kingdom of God, atonement, justification, sanctification and glorification:  a revitalizing and encouraging time of education! To find out more, visit the recordings!

Random Facts (or Opinions, some might choose to argue):
- Australians don't know how to cook Mexican food!  In general, they mix their avocado with sour cream among other ingredients, and therefore, the guacamole looks like light green pudding. (yuck!) I cannot fully comment on the taste, because I have not yet brought myself to try it!
- On a similar note, because this continent is so far from Mexico, it is challenging to find black beans; they are not sold in common grocery stores.
- Sydney is the third most expensive city in which to live in the entire world (behind Osaka and Tokyo); both Sydney and Melbourne rose four spots in this lineup in the past year.  What a perfect time to move to the region!
- As exhibited in the previous sentence, sarcasm is widely used and accepted by most Aussies of the younger generation.


As usual, I'll end this post by enlightening you with some Aussie vernacular:
bangs = fringe
sentence period = full stop
"to-go" food = take away
pharmacy = chemist
trash = rubbish
highlights = foils
afternoon = arvo
breakfast = brekkie
cilantro = coriander
(green or red) pepper = capsicum

In a Sunburned Country

It's Sunday evening 2200 and I'm exhausted and jet-lagged; I've been in Australia for two days, yet it feels like weeks.  I managed the flight; when people ask me how the flight was, I simply say "I survived!"  Luckily I was upgraded to Economy Plus and had more leg space as there were no seats in front of me!  I read, watched movies, ate the mediocre airline food, and finally 5 hours into the flight (~0600 EST) feel asleep! I slept on and off for about eight hours and then awoke for the last two hours of the flight.  All in all, not too bad considering how much I had been dreading the flight; however, that's not to say that I would want to do it again anytime soon.  I landed in Sydney around 0830 and was pleasantly surprised at the ease of passing through customs.  The only hiccup of my travels was trying to carry on this enormous backpacking bag.  I was told in Atlanta that I would have to check it (managed to escape the $75 fee of checking a second bag!!!) and I would see it again in Sydney.  Avoiding the fee was great, but not so much when the pack contained a change of clothes, toiletries for the flight, books to read whilst flying, and my laptop.  I turned a pillowcase into a bag into which I placed the necessities, said farewell to the pack, and accepted the fact that I would look like a hobo during the duration of the trip until I would be reunited with the pack in Sydney. 

First off, Sydney is beautiful as are the people and I'm so excited to be here!!! Some friends, William and Forest, picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at my lodgings for the first week of my trip.  This week I'm staying with the Gumley's, a family that my family was close to in Boston years ago; two of the One-Year-Challenge girls, Alexandra and Megan, are staying with the Gumley's during their stay and I will be moving on to my permanent host family's home once I get settled.  It was encouraging to reconnect with the Gumley's, visit with Alexandra, and finally meet Megan in person!  Megan is also a U.S. trained nurse relocating in Sydney, so needless to say, we've been talking a lot [heaps] during the last six months [whilst] trying to figure out how to work as a nurse in Sydney.  

A new friend Katie picked us up from the Gumley's and took us to a nearby beach where we would meet other brothers and sisters from the Sydney church.  Coogee beach was very crowded as it is one of the few beaches accessible by public transport.  I was proud of myself for venturing into the water waist deep (baby steps); I was only able to accomplish this after hearing that there hasn't been a shark attack in a long time (however, I suppose a long time could be three months).  The waves were very rough and there were many jellyfish [blue bottles] that I managed to avoid.  More dangerous than the jellyfish are the currents [rips] that can drag you kilometers away from your starting point.  I didn't venture out far enough to encounter the rips, but maybe on my next beach visit I'll be [a bit] more adventurous.  Of course the lifeguards are trained to rescue people from the rips if you can't manage to escape on your own.  The trick is not to fight it; let it take you then swim horizontal to the current once it dies down.  If that doesn't work, flail your arms above the water and hope a lifeguard comes to your rescue. 

I've learned so many new things since being here: new ways of talking, fun facts about this part of the world, and so much more.  In case you didn't figure it out already, I'm using brackets surrounding words or phrases that are specific to how Aussies talk here. So much more to say, but not enough time. Forgive any grammar and spelling mistakes: I'm beyond delirious!  Tomorrow I will set up my phone here and get a bank account.  It will also be my first time on public transit. 

For now, here are some interesting Aussie nicknames for various things.  They shorten everything! They also use English words we don't commonly use in America and they have interesting ways of saying things like "Are you keen to go to the store?"

McDonald's = Maccas

Guy = Bloke

Sun glasses = Sunnies

Jonathon = Jono

(p.s. I may not have spelled the nicknames correctly, just trying to spell them like they sound.)

More pictures, stories, and quotes from interesting books to come...

The title of this post comes from a book about Australia by Bill Bryson!

Golden Fields Lie Out Before Me

Why Australia?  That's a good question, one for which I do not possess a great answer.  While Southeast Asia stole my heart when I was very young traveling throughout India, an opportunity to move to Sydney opened up and I pursued it.  I have always desired to live in another country before settling down, and even after marriage and children, but there was always something standing in my way.  I kept hearing people say, "Get a college degree," then "Get experience."  Well now I have both and I'm grateful that I listened to that sound advice.  However, after working in the secular world, I discovered myself being pulled more and more toward temporal things that don't have much eternal value.  I felt the tug inside my heart to do something more: a dream I held close long ago was nudging me again.  So I began to pursue opportunities around the world: Ghuangzhou China, Bolivia, Alaska, Norway, Cambodia and Australia.  I have always wanted to travel to Australia and here was an opportunity that was pursuing me as much as I was pursuing it!  The decision was not easy and even still, insecurities remain.  But forgetting what is behind, I press on to obtain the prize for which God is calling me. 

How do I feel? Scared, excited, unsure, stoked, eager, exhilaration!  Do I have a job lined up? No.  Do I know what I will be doing? Not really, at least not in great detail.  This is an act of faith.  There are seven recent graduates and one family moving overseas for this adventure and I'm eager to meet and reconnect with all of them!  I have experience sharing my faith in an atheistic country and while it's challenging, it is also very exciting.  Seeing the expressions of a person who is hearing about Jesus for the first time or reading God's words for the first time is unique, especially coming from the bible belt of America where everyone you meet is a "Christian."  Sometimes I feel like you have to spin Jesus just the right way to catch someone's attention in the south; it's like you have to make God and Jesus trendy before you'll get a response from some people.  So I'm excited for this opportunity to travel, to grow, to be stretched beyond my capabilities, to learn how to be mission centered. 

As I wrap up my last week in this city of Tallahassee that I've grown to love so dearly, I feel bittersweet emotions.  Saying goodbye to friends at work, packing my material possessions, eating out of my pantry and freezer and trying to be creative with the perishables I have left, and leaving best friends and families are all very challenging.  On the other hand, an unknown adventure awaits and my perfect, loving, omniscient father is my pilot!  I'm learning more and more to lay my anxieties at his feet and to trust his guidance. 

Please join me along this journey of self-discovery and personal growth!

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible.                                           --Marcus Aurelius