AUSTRALIA DAY, WAITANGI DAY AND NEW DAY
Today is the last day of our summer holiday. We have been in Queensland, Australia with our daughter and her family for ten days. We will sadly miss the Australia Day anniversary next Monday which celebrates this country and its culture. If we lived here I guess we would call it Straya Day and celebrate with a few snags thrown on the barbie on the beach in the arvo!
This morning we stopped by our daughter's place of work at the University of the Sunshine Coast. How can anyone seriously think about studying and working at a uni with such a beautiful sounding name? While there we saw a group of students relaxing before going to their classes.
These iconic Australian creatures were everywhere in the campus grounds. The collective noun for a group of kangaroos is a mob, but this sounds more like a group of British soccer supporters to me. Interestingly, the nick name for the national football team of Australia is the "Socceroos" so maybe mob is a good group name for them. They are currently doing quite well in the Asian championships. I have noticed that Australia has some very interesting expressions. I heard recently a wonderfully quirky Australian saying that describes someone who isn't blessed with a lot of common sense. It describes them as "Having a roo loose in the top paddock." You just need to see a mob of roos bouncing around a field to visualize this.
The week before last we had some time with our other daughter and her family in Auckland, New Zealand and amongst other things visited the Treaty grounds at Waitangi where we witnessed a Maori cultural show.
This was a place of great significance in the founding of New Zealand and the desire for partnership between the indigenous peoples and the European settlers. New Zealand's national day in February is called Waitangi Day.
All these things were part of the wonderful rest time we have had since Christmas with our family down under. Now we are looking forward to seeing the rest of our family in the UK next month.
So tomorrow we start the journey again as we leave Australia and fly east across the Pacific Ocean to the USA for the first of the Fatherheart Ministries A schools that we will be leading this year. This is just outside Charleston in South Carolina hosted by New Day Church. The year ahead is going to be busy with a steady flow of Fatherheart Schools and events in 14 different countries. We eventually return to New Zealand in November.
We have taken time out recently to review the life we lead, the ministry we are involved in and how it unfolds and have felt that we are still walking and living in the grace of God to do this. One of the clues we have looked for is, does this ministry and way of life bring us joy? Is it fun? Undoubtedly there are costs emotionally, physically and financially and moments of great challenge, but over all we continue to so enjoy this journey and sense the Father's blessing and hand upon us. We have received many, many encouragements from friends in all sorts of ways. There have been expressions of support and love that have on occasion overwhelm us. We feel a sense of great privilege as well as joy in this journey as we continue to walk with Jesus depending on our Father as we share his love with this world.
Thanks for reading my intermittent Blog. Feel free to follow our journey on the Comings and Goings Pages above and if you want to receive regular news from us send us an email and we will add you to our mailing list.
This morning we stopped by our daughter's place of work at the University of the Sunshine Coast. How can anyone seriously think about studying and working at a uni with such a beautiful sounding name? While there we saw a group of students relaxing before going to their classes.
These iconic Australian creatures were everywhere in the campus grounds. The collective noun for a group of kangaroos is a mob, but this sounds more like a group of British soccer supporters to me. Interestingly, the nick name for the national football team of Australia is the "Socceroos" so maybe mob is a good group name for them. They are currently doing quite well in the Asian championships. I have noticed that Australia has some very interesting expressions. I heard recently a wonderfully quirky Australian saying that describes someone who isn't blessed with a lot of common sense. It describes them as "Having a roo loose in the top paddock." You just need to see a mob of roos bouncing around a field to visualize this.
The week before last we had some time with our other daughter and her family in Auckland, New Zealand and amongst other things visited the Treaty grounds at Waitangi where we witnessed a Maori cultural show.
This was a place of great significance in the founding of New Zealand and the desire for partnership between the indigenous peoples and the European settlers. New Zealand's national day in February is called Waitangi Day.
All these things were part of the wonderful rest time we have had since Christmas with our family down under. Now we are looking forward to seeing the rest of our family in the UK next month.
So tomorrow we start the journey again as we leave Australia and fly east across the Pacific Ocean to the USA for the first of the Fatherheart Ministries A schools that we will be leading this year. This is just outside Charleston in South Carolina hosted by New Day Church. The year ahead is going to be busy with a steady flow of Fatherheart Schools and events in 14 different countries. We eventually return to New Zealand in November.
We have taken time out recently to review the life we lead, the ministry we are involved in and how it unfolds and have felt that we are still walking and living in the grace of God to do this. One of the clues we have looked for is, does this ministry and way of life bring us joy? Is it fun? Undoubtedly there are costs emotionally, physically and financially and moments of great challenge, but over all we continue to so enjoy this journey and sense the Father's blessing and hand upon us. We have received many, many encouragements from friends in all sorts of ways. There have been expressions of support and love that have on occasion overwhelm us. We feel a sense of great privilege as well as joy in this journey as we continue to walk with Jesus depending on our Father as we share his love with this world.
Thanks for reading my intermittent Blog. Feel free to follow our journey on the Comings and Goings Pages above and if you want to receive regular news from us send us an email and we will add you to our mailing list.
cultures are abeautiful thing. they make a country whole. i would love to one day attend the austrailian national day called straya dayai and new zeeland's national day called waitangi day!
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