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.
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| University of Sydney |
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
