Light

We had such a good send off from Park Ave Church. We were so encouraged as we walked out of Dana's sermon. (Ironically, he was talking about casting anxiety on the Lord from 1 Peter 5.) Thank you for the support and encouragement and teaching.



Today (Wednesday), the question was: How can I engage a total stranger in conversation?

We spent some time talking about what we were looking for in terms of what real estate agents could show us . . . but we couldn’t get them to show us anything. “Oh, that one’s about to be sold.” So we just drove to the addresses and took photos of the rent house and surrounds. We want to be prepared to rent when we first move to Wollongong, so we wanted to see what neighborhoods looked like and the typical house or apartment. The women (and baby, Jack) drove north and the men drove south. Us men saw houses (boring), but we also saw two boys throwing rocks or, hopefully, dirt clods at a minivan across the road. I yelled out the window at them: “Oi!” They looked at me. We drove on but I wanted to have a conversation with them. We were trying to find a pay phone so we could call a travel agent and say, “Meet us at the house on such and such,” but we couldn’t find a phone card. But, we found lunch in a little convenience store. The two men working there were cool. I wish we could have had a deeper conversation with them, but they had work to do and we had to go see some more neighborhoods. Then, we met the women back at the house on Smith Street. From there we drove up Mt. Kiera for a beautiful view of the city. We engaged a couple of older friends in some conversation. We were almost hurting ourselves laughing while taking our own picture. This new grandmother, Natalia, and her “friend,” Joseph, eventually offered to help. Joseph’s hobby is photography. He moved to Wollongong from Ireland several years ago. Jon and Sara were really good at engaging Natalia in conversation. Joseph was a little stand offish, but eventually we were all talking for a bit. “What’s your favorite thing about this city?” Natalia said, “Oh, the beaches!” Joseph said, “I’d have to say the harbor.” The harbor is old and rather small. There are still canons there from WWII, I think, and there are two lighthouses. The interesting thing about the lighthouses, I think, is that they no longer shine light into the darkness to save ships from destruction. They merely shine light on themselves as historical monuments. Isn’t that like God’s people? Sometimes we shine light on ourselves rather than piercing the darkness with the light of the world.

“You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14)


After talking with the folks on the mountain and overlooking the city, we went to Wollongong University. We saw people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds graduating. The University is set in the shadow of the mountain in the middle of a Eucalyptus forest (difficult to find, but thanks to Shawn’s navigation, we got there). We did find two young women, student workers, I think, and we said, “We’re here trying to see what this place is like and what goes on here. Where would you go and what would you do if you were us?” They answered pretty enthusiastically and seemed really glad to help us. “Go to the Uni Bar. But really classes start back Monday, so maybe come next week.” We will probably go back there and try to speak with more students and hopefully we can bond more with some students.

Well, we have prepared for spending most of the day today (Thursday), at the Macquarie School of Biblical Studies (MSOBS) annual lectureship. We’re excited about meeting some long-time brothers and sisters in the Sydney area. The lectureship takes place in a small building about the size of a four-bedroom house . . . in a city of 4.5 million souls. The churches of Christ form a small but strong group in the city. There will be a devotional at 10, Frank is doing something at 10:15, morning tea at 10:45, Dale Hartman is doing something at 11:00. Then we’ll have lunch, then Roy Courtney is doing something. I don’t know how the day will end, but we’ll probably leave there to do some shopping back in Wollongong and prepare for the next day here.

It might be a while before our next post. WiFi is hard to come by.

“Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.” (Romans 15:21)