Week away

Tim and I are off to mission this week in Albury (of all places!) so I'm not sure if I will get a chance to post. We are going to be a St Andrews Pressy church and Albury Bible Fellowship (as well as helping out one day with the new AFES group at LaTrobe Wodonga campus).
We would appreciate your prayers very much. We will be doing lots of relational things-as well as Tim and I have a few responsibility with kids ministry.

We are also back in Melbourne in April. We won't (unfortunately) have much chance to catch up with friends individualy but we will definately do some sort of social thing- and hopefully make it along to church and maybe even Tuesday Bible Talk at RMIT CU if we are alowed! I'll post details when there are some.
B

Picture of my life

(The picture is my (fake) reaction to seeing the place we live- notice the nice street)

Hmmm...what is my life like now?

The first thing that comes to mind is the hours. We have classes most days at 8:05am. Its pretty funny- Tim and I are going to bed at the same time...we haven't really done that regularly since we started working at RMIT! And when we have friends from College round for dinner on a week night- they always look at their watches at 9:30pm and say "It's getting late, we better go!". It took me the first few times not to get offended that they thought we were boring!

Tim and I live in Stanmore- on a sweet leafy street on the very edges of urbania. 10 minutes down the road is every ethnic restaurant you could possibly imagine and some very funky looking shops. About 15 minutes down the road you can't find a hairdressers that doesn't offer pink Mohawks or dreads as their speciality!

We walk to College each day together which is really lovely- though to be honest sometimes we are still waking up so we don't talk much! If I'm organised I'll bring out some Greek vocab cards to practice on the way(its probably happened 5 times...). Its a half an hour walk which is just about the perfect distance. The highlight is the walk through the dog park in Newtown. There is all manner of dogs- and owners! The dog collars aren't always on the dogs- and clearly some of the Newtown hairdressers are happy to cross species- with one dog whose got most of his body shaved and dyed pink ears ;)

College is pretty full on. Its from 8:05 to 1pm straight classes most days- with a short morning tea and occasional chapels. But oh the subject matter! A few people had said to me how much I would enjoy studying- and I definitely thought I would- but it really has exceeded my expectations. I feel like a kid in a candy shop- and I'm getting a bit of a reputation for my over-exuberance! I've always enjoyed studying- learning and thinking and reading. But to have it be studying the Bible and God... To be learning from so many learned men- and to realise that they aren't just learned but they care enough to be friendly to a little first year who still getting her head around things. You will hear many, many things I am sure that I am learning- and it feels like it isn't just my head that is being filled- it's my heart as well.

I've had a few struggles from being here. I'm struggling to work out how to be godly in a new environment. I'm probably one of the more 'academic' women at College- so i have to work not to discourage people who are finding hard by my excitement. But I am definitely not the most academic at College. There are people who have already done language study- people who have already read half the set reading list- people who it seems have spent the last five years of their life in preparation for being here. I remember one day in Greek week where I didn't understand the questions during question time- much less the answers! And me in my stupid, arrogant pride want to be among them, and I feel this competitive drive taking over. I even justify it to myself by seeing myself as a champion out to prove that women can be academic Bible genius's too! Tim's been a great blessing at reminding me why I'm here, and bringing me back down to earth and God's point of view. And the Bible and the study has been doing its work- reminding me over and over that it is by grace (not marks or intelligent questions) that I am loved by my great and good Father in Heaven. Silly, silly Belinda- and Great, Great God! We were given an assignment (which you will hear about alot I'm sure ;) to read a series of Essays about right attitudes you should have in ministry. One guy summarised an article like this "Theological Students get their heads full of stuff and become jerks, this is what kind of jerk you will turn into, jerks don't make good ministers, so don't be a jerk!". It was a very heart changing assignment for me. My motto for the rest of the year is this quote from a guy at College called Brian Rosner "God's activity cannot be judged from a higher vantage point"

Greek has been my blessing and nightmare. Nightmare because for the first time since high school (and bits of my old jobs) I am being forced to work at something that I'm really not very naturally good at. My low point was having to hold back tears in translation group (where you meet with 4 people with your class to translate together a section of Mark's Gospel) when I had had mistake after mistake corrected and couldn't even get my head around why. I was sharing prayer points with a girl at College Mel and she commented that my expectation of myself were way to high, and I think she is right. But it has been my blessing because it has kept me grounded and reminded me that I don't have to be good at everything. Please pray, Greek is such a confidence thing (when I'm confident I can do it, when I loose faith in myself everything seems impossible)- and I really want to learn. But also pray that I want to learn for the sake of my teaching and not for the sake of % scores at the end of the year.

But of course missing Melbourne has been a real struggle. Easter was the hardest as I thought about family and friends and what they might be doing without us (particularly with our good friends Wally and Steph having their daughter Eliza baptized that weekend and not being there for that). And while God has been very kind in providing us with fun, friendly people to get to know- the relationships are still at very early stages and occasionally I get overwhelmed with the wish to talk to someone who knows me well and my issues. I feel sometimes like I paint a false picture of myself at College because I don't know people well enough to show them sad Belinda- so all they see is excitable, happy, psycho-academic Belinda! But God will provide in time! And I am much more aware of how good I had it in Melbourne- how wonderful you all are, and just how much in four years I want to come back and serve and be with you all again! Praise God for you my friends!

Then after College I come home (usually not at the same time as Tim) and I read, read, read. I'm so thankful that I'm a fast reader because there is so much to do. We try to fit in relaxing time, date time, social time, and church time- and so far that's been good- though I suspect we will have to work not to let those four things slide. Tim is finding study alot easier than he thought which is an answer to prayer- and he beats me in Greek no problems ;)

And every so often we go out- and we go to the harbour or Manly, or Bondi and I think "I can't believe I'm finally here". This move has been a long time coming and miss Melbourne as I do- It really is the place for us at present- and there are many good things as well as the hard.

And at the end of the day (before 11 if we are good) we go to bed and go to sleep...at least we did most nights- excluding the night where I was woken up by a cockroach on my head!!!!!!!!! I think that was the point when Tim and I decided definitely, finally, certainly that come four years time we are going back to Melbourne!

Praise God,
lots of love
B

Dear Friend,
Hmmm, even as I'm writing this I'm not sure this is such a good idea! Another thing to distract me from study ;)
But after thinking it through I have decided to start a blog. Not only because I love writing and communicating with people- but because of what I'm doing. Studying the Bible every day is an incredible thing- and I'm overwhelmed with the generosity of God for letting me do it. And I find I have so many great and new thoughts running through my head that I want to share.

So I'm starting a blog. This blog will be like a normal blog- sometimes the ramblings of a person who just feels like sharing/talking (and I like talking alot ;). But I also hope that it will broaden out my experience so its not just me who is learning from God's word but that my friends who read can know what I'm learning and hopefully get some of the benefit that I am receiving.

Don't feel like you have to look at my blog if you don't want to- I won't be offended. But if you would like to know a bit about whats happening in my life feel free to pop-in for a visit anytime.

When I think about all the things in life that I want and all the things that I don't have I get really grumpy and introspective. But when I look at my life in terms of what I have and how God has blessed me I feel overwhelmed- like God has just piled treasure after treasure that I don't deserve and that most of the time I don't even appreciate- and that he and his son are the greatest treasure of all. These feelings are both really strong at the moment as I miss so much of Melbourne and hope for so many things that may or may not be- and as I struggle to comprehend just how uber cool it is that I get to study again (I'm a nerd so that's actually a really good thing). And not only study- but study the most interesting and important thing in the history of the world- its maker. So selfishly this blog is an attempt to grow in my contentment as I praise God for study. But I also hope it will be fun and encouraging for you- and this is my prayer.

Well, those are the plans but:
"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps" Proverbs 16:9

love
B