ChristmasCarols... Singapore style!

For you Singaporeans out there (or those interested in the Singapore 'culture' and 'language'), check this out! Who is Carol? (Thanks to our friends from Singapore Youth For Christ)

The Lion shall lie with the Lamb... musings about feeling (un)safe

A couple of friends came over today and we introduced them to a couple of our 'kids' (i.e. our stuffed toys are affectionately called our 'kids'): A lion called 'Nici' and a Lamb called 'Ba..aa..arbara'. This friend playfully had the lion and the lamb lying side by side and made an allusion to this verse:
Isaiah 11:6 (ESV)
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.

Then in the evening, Faith and I went for a stroll down King Street in Newtown. We had a conversation that went something like this:
Me: "I wish we were having a stroll like this in Melbourne, or even in Brisbane..."
Faith: "Why is that?"
Me: "It just never feels safe here in Sydney."

In light of the racial riots going on at the moment, but even before these events (did you know the police caught some dude with a grenade near Newtown today... how crazy is that???), I've never really enjoyed going out at nights here in Sydney. It's kinda scary.

But then again, I guess even though I prefer walking around the streets of Melbourne and Brisbane, it's not exactly safe either is it? It's all relative. It especially makes me think of the picture in Isaiah 11, the picture of our 'kids', the Lion 'Nici' and the Lamb 'Barbara' lying down together in our lounge - a picture of true safety, peace and security. Relative to this image in the Scriptures, living in this world should cause us to long for that better world.

Feeling safe and secure? I guess we're never meant to truly feel that in this creation. If you're anything like me, you've forgotten to look forward to the new heavens and the new earth. I'm thankful that even in the ickiness of this world, of this city I find myself living in for the moment, I can be reminded to cast my eyes forward to a better place where I want to keep longing for. I pray you keep longing for that place too.

P.s. photos of our 'kids' (Jossy, Solly, Quinny, Tigger, Nici, Barbara, Melchi and Gigi) will be posted after I do a 'photo-shoot' for them. Stay tuned!

Long Time No Write...

5 days National Training Event...
5 Days 'Mission' @ The Anglican Parish of Greater Queanbeyan...
1 week rest (which included helping out at Faith's sister's 21st Birthday party)...

It's been a while since my last post! Really needed the break after a long couple of months, even a break from blogging - even this requires a fair degree of mental output!

Would love to write a whole report on NTE and Mission, but will save that for next week I think. For now, here's one of my favourite photos from the conference.

Note to Supporters...

For those of you who would like to pray for us and for the ministry we are involved with, we have just updated the ministry blog with prayer points for December. Please click on our ministry blog link!

FOCUS/ESF End of Year Activities!

This is the time of the year for farewells and post-exam fun and fellowship! I'll be trying to upload the hundreds of photos from all the different events. For now, I've uploaded the photos from ESF Farewell Party @ Harry's Woolloomooloo and Karaoke @ Greenbox. Click here! Here's a few samples...Enjoying some good ol' Bundaberg Ginger Beer...

Doing the 'hand sway' thing!

That familiar old feeling...

It's been a good 5 years since I finished uni and I'd almost forgotten that 'after-exam' feeling of immense relief and pure joy trying to burst out from beneath the piles of stress that have built up over weeks of long, arduous and frustrating studies.

Well, the feeling is back! And at the moment, I'm just way too tired and drained to soak it in, but let me tell you, it'll kick in very soon! I'm not sure I've ever had to study this hard before, but I think this says more about me in the past than the course itself! Second year at Moore College is meant to be on another level yet again... and I don't mean 'down' either!

One thing I have learnt through this year is that I want to have a different mindset about college studies for the next few years. The years of schooling and uni had 'taught' me to get through exams, trying to do as well as possible with as little effort as possible. But I don't want Bible college to be like that. I didn't want it to be like that since the start of the year, but old habits die hard. And so these last 5-6 weeks have been somewhat of a major cram...

The aim for next year is to do the learning as the year progresses and not worry so much about getting good marks, but more on really learning things and cementing it through constant exposure and revision. I've got a couple of guys who are thinking the same way and as a group we hope to be able to work together and encourage each other as the 'spirit grows weak'!

If you could spare us a moment of your prayer time, please pray that these years at college for me and all my classmates will be years of great and long-lasting learning, so that we will be faithful teachers of God's word, rightly handling the word of Truth.

For now, the 'holidays' begin... well, not quite... lots going on for the next few weeks, but it's all good. It's great to be 'finished' with studies and be able to devote our energies to other equally worthwhile things, especially catching up with old and new friends!

Asakusa

This place rocks! Cheap and good Jap food. Minutes walk from our place. What do you do after an exam and don't feel like cooking? You go to Asakusa! Well... we do anyway. Come with us sometime!

Quad Lunch Photos are up!

Here's a sample of the photos! I've got them under 3 categories: Random group photos, people photos and babies!

Enjoy and leave some comments for others! Click here

Ontology & Epistemology

Ontology n : the metaphysical study of the nature of being and existence
Epistemology n : the philosophical theory of knowledge

Two big words that I never heard of before until recent times. But it can be said that the field of Philosophy, beginning right back in about 650BC with the Pre-Socratics right up till this generation of Philosophers like Foucault and Derrida, is concerned chiefly about these two fields of study.

"Who am I?"
"How and what can I know about anything?"

These are the two overarching questions, not just for the Philosopher, but also for the person on the street in his or her reflective moments.

The answers to these two questions over the past 2.5 Millennia have been wierd, wonderful and some downright wacky and worrying. A quick search in www.wikipedia.org on 'philosophers' will give you an idea as to the sheer variance of answers they have come up with.

So, who am I? Who are you?
How can we know anything? More importantly, maybe, how can we know God?

It's funny how we know that the Bible can be quite counter-intuitive at times, yet when we are exposed to its counter-intuition afresh, we are taken aback. Well, I am!

The Bible highlights two things for me in response to the two questions posed.

Firstly, let us consider the ontological question. In Exodus 3:14, the God who had created the heavens and the earth reveals His personal name to Moses at the famous (never) burning bush: His name is 'I am who I am' or as some recent translators have argued, 'I will be who I will be'. What does this mean? His name tells us that who He is will be determined by what He will do. And what did He go on to do? He went on to rescue the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, He went on to show His faithfulness to the promises He had made to Abraham, Moses, David and ultimately to all of humanity though His Son's death on the cross, securing our redemption by His blood. And so we see this somewhat counter-intuitive answer to our question, for ultimately what is important is not so much 'who am I?', but 'who is God?'. And the Holy Scriptures tell us this: God will be who God will be and we've been given the privilege to know what God has done in history, what God is doing in us in the present and what God will do in the age to come.

Secondly, let us consider the epistemological question. There is a tiny part of a verse in 1 Corinthians 13:12 (part 'c' if you had to quote it) that you'd missed if you blinked: "...Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." The passage that this verse is found is about love, particular in this section, about the supremacy of love because it never ends, even after the 'perfect' comes, love abides. And so, this talk about 'knowledge' is not even the main point, but it sheds an amazing perspective on our question of knowledge. You see, the reason why there will be a day when "I shall know fully" is because of what the Apostle Paul adds at the end there in 12:3c: it is because God has known us fully first. This isn't the only place we'll find this idea, but the only place we find it put so succinctly, so powerfully, so reassuringly. Counter-intuitively, once again, God turns the tables on our pursuits for knowledge. Thankfully, and maybe surprisingly, the starting and end point is in God's sure knowledge of us. It is only because of this that we can and do know Him.

Who said Philosophy was boring and useless? Well, I thought so once, maybe I've come to think again.

For our supporters...

We've just set up another blog specifially for those of you who are supporting us or who would like to support us in terms of keeping up with the ministry we are involved with and in terms of praying for us.

The 'beandfaithsupport' blog will be dedicated to ministry news and prayer points for those of you who are interested in keeping up with those things. Simply click on the link in the 'links' section on the right!

We want to continue to thank you for supporting us and being the ones who help us do the things we do. We hope to keep you all more up-to-date through these new measures. We hope it works!

A Mid-Exam Treat...

This makes it look like we have gourmet quality food every night! Don't be deceived! This is the first night in ages we've cooked a good decent meal! With the stress of exams, we've mainly just been having instant food! What a nice change! As usual, Ben had his with tomato sauce...
Just a bit of a mid-exam treat! Things we do to get through...

First post!

Can't believe how easy it was to set up this blog! Within a few minutes it was all done. It's great!

So here I am sitting in front of my keyboard and not entirely sure what to write. I don't even know who the heck I am writing to! So I guess I'll just ramble abit...

I guess you may have some vague interest in knowing what's going on with us? (Even if you don't, too bad!) Here we go:

Faith and I are right in the midst of exams. Faith has completed 6 exams (Greek, Revelation, World Religions, New Testament, Old Testament and History of Church Mission) with 2 (Biblical Theology and Doctrine) to go and I've done 5 exams (Greek, Hebrew, NT, OT and Church History) with 3 (Philosophy, BT and Doctrine) to go... yeah, more than half way there!

We finish this coming Thursday, have a week off and then we're heading off to ANU, Canberra for the AFES National Training Event where we'll be taking a strand 2 seminar group for the week and running an elective for international students. We'll be going with a big bunch of students from our church. After the 5 day conference at ANU, we're doing a 'mission' in a local church in Queenbeyan (just outside Canberra).

Phew! After that, which should be sometime in mid-December, we'll finally get a chance to have a break! We'll hang around here in Sydney until just after Christmas and, as has become customary for us, we'll make the journey up to Brisbane on Boxing Day.

Okay, Faith just read this and says it's very 'informative' - basically her nice way of saying it's really boring! Well... sorry! I'll sign off here I think and come back again soon with something more interesting...