3 ans comme étudiants en théologie

An open letter to the 3rd year students at Moore College in 2017.

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[To the church of the Third Years at Moore College write:]

I’m not saying this as an apostle!

Nor do I speak as a prophet/ess. Though possibly you might call me a tongue-speaker (interpretable), but I digress.

If you recall it (by some freak of nature), we met in 2015, when I was doing First Year, Episode II. On reflection over the months and years since then, I have some expressions of thanks to give that are specific to your year group. It is the right time to say these things because I know that a number of you are finishing up your studies and leaving the College community at the end of 2017.

I am thankful to God not only for your partnership in the gospel, but also for the love I perceive that you have for all the saints.

In four years of studying first-year subjects  -  whilst feeling like an eternal fringe-dweller on the edge of the Moore community  -  the love of Christ has been uniquely expressed in your year group (well, at least in anyone that I know by both name and face!).

Both collectively and individually, I have seen this love practically expressed through your welcoming and inclusive attitudes to one and all.

It has also been evident in the way you have cared and prayed for those who are struggling.

This love is clearly reflected, moreover, in the heart that so many of you show (or have developed) for gospel-poor churches and people groups outside of Sydney and Australia. It has been a blessing and a privilege, not only to see your labour that is prompted by this Christlike love, but to have personally experienced it as well, every year since the start of 2015.

Above all, I am thankful to God, who in His mercy
 has made this Third Year group who you are today.

He is the One who has made your love increase and overflow
 for one another and for everyone around you (1 Thess. 3:12).

Whether we meet much in the future or not:

May He who began a good work in you carry it on to completion

 until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6),

 and may He strengthen your hearts
 so that you will be blameless and holy in His presence

 when Christ Jesus comes with all His holy ones (1 Thess. 3:13).

I look forward to seeing and hearing how God might use you all for His glory in the months or years to come. Prayer points will always be welcomed!

L/T.

3 amis et plus de bénédictions

3 friends and even more blessings.

As a single person, family and friends become of increasing importance.

In the past week I have been exceedingly thankful to God reflecting on the people and relationships He has mercifully given me. Not only my family, whom most of the time I get along with surprisingly well, but the many friends I have.
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I want to briefly note 3 such friends, though not by name (to protect the innocent).

One from out of town (she lives in a climate somewhat warmer than Sydney) who made sure to see me around my birthday because she knew she'd be within literal poking distance. And she gives great hugs and has a wonderfully bubbly laugh that I first heard about 21 years ago and am delighted to have heard again in close range in recent days.

The other two friends in view here - both Sydney residents, one a believer and mission-minded yet quite introverted gospel partner, whilst the other is an unsaved ballet friend - both sacrificed time (and significant emotional energy) precious to them just to spend an hour in my company during the aforesaid birthday week. Time that could otherwise have been spent, one in additional church ministry preparation, and the other on a relaxing few days away in the mountains with her husband. Time that they spent with me anyway, for which I am both joyful and thankful!

As a sinful human person with incredibly low self-esteem, whilst I struggle not to attribute value to myself based on what anyone thinks of me or how people treat me, I do feel very blessed that the God whose esteem for me is all that matters for eternity has given me not just these 3 friends, but many more like them.

Maybe even you, if you count yourself my friend.

And my prayer not only for me and for them, but for you also, is that our identity and our hope be found only in Christ Jesus who came into the world to save sinners (of whom I am the worst, 1 TIMOTHY 1:15ff).

"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever."
1 TIMOTHY 1:17

L/T.

45 enfants en vacances

45 children on holidays.. .. ..

Or, as I like to call it:
"Paid playtime in Little Europe".
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The down-side of being a poverty-stricken part-timer at Bible college is that you spend your semester break working whilst all your College friends go away on holidays to nice places and post photos on social media with unintentionally smug invisible captions or hashtags that all say, in effect, "sucks to be me".

The unexpected up-side of having to work right through the 2017 semester break was discovering that "Little Europe" has come to Sydney's lower North Shore.
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During March this year, for principally economic reasons, I changed out of a 15h p/w after-school care job into a 21h p/w role.

My first 3 months in the new job proved much more challenging and stressful than I had anticipated, and especially in May/June I spent spare time wondering why on earth God had placed me on the lower North Shore (when I could bear wasting spare time on such musings).

But the last 2 weeks in vacation care (it's NSW school holidays), have seemed a divine, albeit simple lesson in why I might be here.
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A tangent.
Last month at my cathedral's midweek women's Bible study, we began studying the Old Testament book of Esther.

In chapter 4, one verse that sticks out is verse 14.
From the Greek (LXX, since I haven't learned Hebrew yet), ESTHER 4:14 runs kind of like this:
"Who knows if in this time you have come to be queen?" (τίς οἶδεν εἰ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον ἐβασίλευσας;).

Or, from my old NIV which I grew up reading, "Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
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It was a pleasant surprise to find that I actually enjoyed the last 10 weekdays of vacation care.

Partly because the children were a bit younger (ages 5-7) than my after-school care clients (ages 7-11).

Partly because they, children on the outside, liked doing LEGO building and did lots of that with me (myself a LEGO-loving inner child).

Partly because they were responsive to gentle guidance of their behaviour and welcomed any friendly interest shown in them, even if it was basic stuff like me remembering their names, ages, family languages and cultural or religious backgrounds.

And partly because the rewards of a little friendliness, a little personal interest and a little hello to parents at end-of-day collection time were discovering just how many Western and Eastern European nationals live in or around North Sydney and Neutral Bay.

Many of my new little friends in this vacation care not only had quite cool Euro names, but their countries of origin included the Balkan nations, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and Slovakia. One French mother was more excited than I was that I could speak more than passable French to her five-year-old son.
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So it appears that a taste - no, wait, a large mouthful - of Europe has come to northern Sydney, if you have the chance to look closely enough.

And for me - whose heart has been with France and the Francophone countries of Europe since my first Paris GBU mission week in 2009 - this means a lot.

And even if none of our holiday program families had been French, I know just as well that non-Francophone European nations are appallingly gospel-poor and need to hear of Jesus just as much as the French do.

But how can we reach these unreached families?

Is it as simple as inviting them to a church where Christ is preached (like St. Thomas' Anglican in North Sydney, or St. Augustine's in Neutral Bay)? Doesn't that mean you have to know who they are first?

What if you're in a professional role that forbids you from openly talking about Jesus (as I am in my role with my reputable but very secular childcare company) - and therefore you are not in a position to invite them to an evangelistic event or gathering?

What if you're the Protestant Scripture teacher in their local school, but most of these families will probably put their kids in non-Scripture, or worse, Ethics, instead?

As long as we can't be in Europe.. .. ..
.. .. ..how can we pray for a "Little Europe" that knows Jesus?

L/T.

~

10 ans (l'âge)

Are you happier than a 5th grader?
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After recently witnessing a day of emotional extremes for two 10-year-olds in my regular vacation care role, some reflections.

Like  me, both are from Asian families. Unlike me, both are boys.

Like me, both have anger management and emotional regulation issues. Unlike me, as far as I know from conversations with them, they seem without hope and without God in the world.
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I remember something of being aged 10-11 and finishing Year 5. I'd had an OK year that year. Not perfect (and in Year 4 I'd been excessively bullied most of the year at school), but I seem to remember not feeling hugely sad, or angry, or depressed very often. (Mind you, this was before Mum and Dad's marriage broke up due to selfish life choices on my Dad's part.)

And if you were my Sunday School teacher, or a Christian in the 25-40 y.o. age bracket, and if you asked me when I was in 5th grade, "How do you know you'll get into heaven if you died tonight?" I would have said confidently that Jesus' dying for me on the cross meant I was saved, forgiven, and sure of new life in heaven. Even then, though life between that time and now would prove sad, frustrating, depressing, enraging, and most of all quite honestly more unfair than many of my peers, I never wanted to die - never felt hopeless - never felt that anything could take away my joy in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Though I understand it better now than when I was a 5th grader, Jesus was always my life and I am so thankful to God for His mercy even when I was small.
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In thinking over the issues leading, this week, to an angry, verbally abusive and physically violent argument that exploded between the two Year 5 boys I first mentioned (boys who are friends with each other, might I add), it occurred to me (not for the first time) that

- whilst both these children, not yet eleven years of age, have the same low self-esteem, the same violent temper, the same inability to manage extreme emotions in a socially appropriate way as I did even up until recently -

they are in a state of despair that God has so mercifully spared me, because He gave me parents who taught me about His love shown through Jesus.

I know they despair, one boy because I know the personal and academic pressures from his family and I can see it in his exhausted body language, and the other because he told me he hates his life, it seems so hard, and sometimes he feels he wants to kill himself. Not (according to a colleague working with me) the first time he has expressed such sentiments.

These boys need hope.
They need God.
They have neither.

At the same age as they were, I had both. And I remain, to this day, as secure in my eternal destination and purpose as I would have been in Year 5 had you asked me the "what if..?" question back then. In fact, more secure, more confident because as a 5th grader I'd barely suffered the way I see that they have, whereas now I've lived through pain.

And yet the difference is not so much an easy life or a hard life - the difference, I see so clearly, is the merciful Lordship of Jesus Christ.
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L/T.