Pilgrim Feet

Someone once said something along the lines of 'a tourist is one who passes through a land taking pictures, but a pilgrim is one who lets the land pass through them' I did a bit of a google for the exact quote, but cannot find it anywhere.

Anyway, the feet of a pilgrim are an important thing, it is by his feet that a pilgrim stands and walks on the land. And wherever your feet are, there you are also... (barring altercations with crocodiles and other unforseen events)

And so, here are the photos of the feet of around 60 people as we travelled from Brisbane to Uluru and back.

Fortunately we went by bus, rather than walking the whole distance, or we'd still be on the way!

'Life is a journey, long is the road...' 'It's a long way to travel alone...' 'the long and winding road, that leads to your door...' 'and I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...' So many songs that involve the image of pilgrimage. All I know is that the Uluru Pilgrimage was a significant time for many young people, but life itself is a pilgrimage, and we are all on that journey. The sad thing is so many people go through lives as tourists, and many of them have no idea of their final destination.

As we all travel along, we need to help those we meet on the way, help them find their direction, because we're all in this together. So lets get on our feet and walk a life worthy of our calling.

Uluru 09

yes, it is time for another update to this rather infrequent blog...

Just this morning I arrived back in Brisbane after around 7800km in a bus with 60 or so young people and their leaders for an 8 day pilgrimage to Uluru.

On the way we stopped in Peterborough Sth Australia for lunch. I used to live in Peterborough when I was in grade 4, in fact, here is a photo of my old house. That was my bedroom window on the left. There used to be an almond tree outside that window, and a water tank, whose bottom rusted out just after we arrived and we couldn't have fresh rain water to drink. We had to drink town water which needed to be filtered and boiled before it was consumable as we waited for the rain to fall...

At Peterborough we had a locust plague and I remember the air thick with them, us kids spending school lunch times seeing how many we could catch in our lunch boxes. It was where I had my first crush - Jacquie Adams - prettiest girl in class, and it's where Allan walked into a Stobie pole and still carries a scar.

It's also where, in the little Salvation Army Hall next door where I as an 8 year old gave my heart to the Lord. It's where I became a junior Soldier in the Salvation Army.

Ah, memories... but an hour or so in Peterborough wasn't the only thing that happened in the last week or two but that can wait for another blog.

Perhaps...

Long time, no see...

Well, I'm back in Melbourne for a few weeks before heading down to Tassie (again) and then back to Brisbane early on in February. On the way down here, I spent a day in Sydney taking lots of photos of the sights and sites of a photegenic city. And it was a warm sunny day - I have the sunburnt nose to prove it!

Anyway I met a few friends today who I hadn't seen for awhile, and they asked when was I going to update my blog? When indeed? Well, I didn't know people were still reading it!

If occasionally, if you think I've been a bit slack and you want an update, just leave a comment in the comment box. It doesn't take long, and its just the spur that I need.

Meanwhile, look at my little digital collagey thing and tell me which photo was NOT taken last Tuesday!

Back to Tas

For a week now I have been in Tasmania - which is not quite as tropical as Rockhampton (there is a hint of sleet here today...) for Fusion's annual International Conference. For the first few days Fusion teams from all over the world presented reports on what they'd been doing in the last year. Inspiring stuff. Then the last half of the week was more about business.
Lot's of intrepid young adults with great stories. At my breakfast table the other day Ashleigh was telling us what it was like to be a young white girl in Trench Town in Jamaica, Kingston's roughest suburb. And then Bec was telling us about being a young white girl based in Beijing. A whole other set of challenges!
There were Ghanaians, Jamaicans, Sri Lankans, Poms, Albanians, Canadians, Germans... all reporting on how this Aussie style of mission was working in their countries. And the work in Australia as well.
During the last intensives, my diploma class got all excited by an idea to set up a global network in the next three years to bring advent pageants to primary school children in every country that Fusion is involved in. We were ambitious and decided that in 8 years time we wanted 75% of the children in all the Fusion countries to have the opportunity to do an advent pageant, and thus learn the Christmas story.
Yep, that's a lot of kids...
It's a daunting project, but the people at this Conference decided to adopt this as the first global project for Fusion International.
Can your local primary school get on board? Let me know, its part of my class's plan to take over the world by 2015. More on this soon...


Oh, and in other news, the family I was living with in Brisbane have bought a unit which they are keen to rent out to Grego and me. It looks really nice, and is only a Kilometre from the office. Really good, and we'll be able to move in in a week or so after we get back to Brissy!

...my hat....

In further news from Queensland, things are happening apace in all departments except the hunt for a permanent place to live. I've been staying these last few weeks with a nice family with interesting children and a nice house that is halfway up a nice, scenic hill. But a nice, cheap flat within walking distance of Woodridge station would be good too.
The weather too is nice, well, except for the record August rainfalls of last week. Very much of it happened for several days, but the water supplies here are still well below where they should be.
This time last week I was at a beach at Bluff Point which is near Yeppoon, which is near Rockhampton, which is on the edge of the tropics. Off the coast, the tourist resort of Great Keppel Island was visible. I was there wearing cardboard armour and having flour fights with a nice bunch of kids as the tide came in. The Daytrips such as this one at Rocky is a chance for kids contacted at schools to have a safe, fun day of adventure and see Christian values role-modelled. The rain that was with us for most of the 650km or so drive up on Friday finally caught up with us as the bus was taking the tired but happy kids home at the end of the day.
This time next Saturday will be the South East Queensland day trip, we are going cable skiing!
About a week after that I'll be back in Tassie, seeing if the southern spring is much different to the one here. As a pointer, the last daytrip in Tassie was a snow trip!

whereever I lay my hat...

Well, I am on the sunny Gold Coast now. Actually it's not so sunny because the sun set a few hours ago... I arrived in Brisbane on Saturday night, and that's where I ate and slept. On Sunday night I was staying on the Gold Coast, just across the water from Sea World. That's the place I first met Murray, all those years ago. I was back in Brisbane on Monday night, and here on the coast (in a different house) for the next two nights. Then its back to Brissy, and at another new house . This sort of thing will continue until Greg and I are able to find somewhere of our own to stay.
If you're the praying kind, I know your prayers will be appreciated.
We need a two bed place in the region of Woodridge, and it must be CHEAP! The Aussie Government is very kindly providing me with funds for study, just not many of them! And poor ol' Greg is not even getting that! On top of that there are plans afoot to go to China next year (and I'd like to go back to Germany too, but we'll see).This is a bit of an experiment in living by faith and seeing how the birds of the air are fed and the lilies of the field are clothed and finding out if that applies to us too!
Still, it's all an adventure, and I know we'll be looked after. Just how will be the interesting part!

"Fish-on-a-Stick"

Deep in the Sea,
Where the Vicious Fishes swim...

...there once was a fish.
On a stick...

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, a little project to make use of the technologies at work - Computer-aided design and Laser cutting capabilities.

But when he was done, what did I have? Well, yes, Fish. On a stick. With a mouse-trap powered jaw and a fully articulated body that flapped around in fishy sort of way.

But of what use is that? Once, I took him to church along with a Gold Fish (called Rod Davies) in a plastic bag. I showed the kids. " Here is a fish I made. And here is a fish made by God..." We are all created in the image of God, so I think that makes us like little creators too! Just not quite as good at it...

Now it looks like Fish-on-a-stick has found a purpose in life! He is in training to go to the Olympics in Beijing! How cool would that be for a little Aussie fish?

Watch this space!

PS. Rod Davies is actually a very talented singer-songwriter. He seems to be a closely guarded secret, well, from radio airplay at least. Captain Midnight will be playing him soon, I hope. The sister of the guy I borrowed the gold fish off had a bit of a thing for Rod back in the day!

overdue...

yes, for all you readers just hanging out to see if I got those assignments done, well, I won't keep you in suspense any more.
yes. All done. I now have a Certificate iv in Youth and Community Work (Christian).
After graduation, I had about three hours off before getting involved in the Poatina Artists retreat. I spent a couple of days helping to make large puppets for use in festivals, with an eye at the Beijing Olympics. Before that had even finished I begun learning the stuff I needed to go on for the Diploma. This was more days in class, and any spare time making puppets, including a larger version of my 'fish-on-a-stick'.
Then came the week-long Foundations Course - How to Live With God, With Others and With Yourself. Very good course, well worth doing, its twice a year in Poatina and people come from right across Australia, and also the world (though not so many of them...). An extra 200+ people in the village and then we finished it with an open day. That was a festival where another 429 people (I know, I counted them) came to our remote
little village and appeared to have a really nice day in the winter sun.
No rest, because straight after Foundations week, we started Diploma 'intensives' - classes from 9am til 9pm for two weeks.
This is why I haven't done much blogging in the last 6 weeks.
Now I am in Melbourne, having some holiday time, before I move up to Brisbane to do my placement in the Fusion centre there.

Poatina Sunrise

Probably should be doing assignments, but I thought I'd better update the blog. Yeah, yeah, procrastination... and actually, the fleetingness of time was apparent too me when I took this photo, the Earth rapidly revolving beneath my feet. I got up the other morning and saw this fantastic pre-dawn red sky out my window. by the time I had grabbed my camera, the sun had already popped up onto the Horizon. By the time I got my shoes on and got to the back fence, it had already cleared the said horizon. By the time the sun does this another 22 times, I need to have all my assignments done. Can I do it?

Life, it's a race against the sun. 'The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older...' That's what Pink Floyd would say. The Psalmist. however is a tad more positive. 'But I trust in you, O Lord... My times are in your hands.' Psalm 31:14,15

Mercy, justice, compassion

Lately we have been studying books like 'Small is Beautiful' and 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' and looking at how God sees injustice in the world as he spoke through the Old Testament prophets. Jesus himself announced his ministry on Earth by quoting Isaiah 4:18,19;

God's Spirit is on me;

he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to

the poor,

Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and

recovery of sight to the blind,

To set the burdened and battered free,

to announce, "This is God's year to act!"

There has also been the anniversary of the illegalization of the slave trade in England; we've studied some of the great reformers, Lord Shaftsbury, Wilberforce, Wesley, Luther, Booth; yet still the world is full of injustice, the rich nations oppress the poor, powerless people are still trafficked in their thousands in the modern day slave trade, third world workers are exploited, young girls forced into prostitution, major corporations more often than not are concerned with the profit margin over and above the welfare of their workers. To be truly Christian, we must align ourselves with the poor and carry on Christ's mission to the oppressed. But what can one person one do?

Awareness of the issues is a start, knowledge is powerful. Frustration is better than apathy…

It's time to go to the archives. Here's a poem I wrote long time ago:

Sole Music

The squeak of his boots as he shoots for his goals,

Brings payment for his fame in the game,

He gained the world when he leased his soles;

Twenty million dollars for his Name.

The tingling ring of the register drawer;

Takes her two hundred dollars from her view,

'...But to wear a pair like Jordan wore'

Said her son 'is the cool thing to do...'

Sewing Machines stutter on the sweat shop floor

Where the boots are produced at a price.

Sixty hours a week at eighty cents an hour

Barely covers the cost of his rice.

The African mourns the death of his daughter

But drought, dust and war leave naught to eat,

No land, no home, no hope, no water,

No boots! He's thankful he has feet.

The squeak of the boots, the register's ring;

The sewing machines click clackity.

The rich man, the poor, who mourn, who sing?

Listen

To the din

Of Inequity...

small coincidence

On the way back from Uluru, we stopped one day for lunch in Port Augusta, in a nice park in the centre of the town. I could see from where we parked the bus the old Salvo hall, just further up the street. I used to live in the house right next door to that! My parents were the Salvo officers in Port Augusta when I was about 4. A fair while back now...
The house is no longer there... But sitting in the park, we found a Warcry, the Salvo magazine. And in it was an article about Christian Radio Broadcasting in Australia! About half a column on that story was about a woman called Sarah McIllwraith, a program director at a Christian radio station in Adelaide, who had trained in radio here in Poatina with Fusion. We wondered if this was a sister of our class-mate Julia, who hadn't come to Uluru with us (but I had borrowed her plastic plates for the trip). It turned out it was! Cool!
A further small coincidence. My friend Fiona, who is currently doing a doctorate in theology (at a much bigger bible school that the one I am at now) and has also worked on radio - some of it was as a producer for ABC radio in Horsham (a much bigger radio station than Heart fm where I work!), also lived in Port Augusta as a pre-schooler, when HER parents were officers in Port Augusta. hmmm

Uluru song

Uluru 2007 Tasmania Song

Sweet Home in the Outback

Bus wheels keep on turning

See red dirt everywhere

We’re far from home Tasmania

To meet some fine folk such as you

Sweet home in the Outback

The Southern Cross is in our sights

We’re a bunch of Tassie Pilgrims

Big Red Rock we’re comin’ to you!

We went to Tandanya

Learnt about the didgeridoo

Aboriginals call it Yiriki

We hope you learnt something new

We stayed in caves in Coober Pedy

Had a look around the town

Sang some songs and we got tired

Way before the sun went down

We have faced some persecution

10 Million flies are in our face

As pilgrims we should love our enemies

We’ll make exceptions in this case

We’ll soon be off home back to Tassie

Goodbye heat wave, hello thermals

With all your faces in our memories

We will bare the winter cold

Sweet home Tasmania

We have gone to the rock

Now we’ve got crusty undies

And a pair of smelly socks