Being a Dad

My family arrived here in Melboure a week ago. It was a really happy reunion at the airport. When my kids saw me, they started running towards me and I found myself running to them. The next 2 days my son just followed me wherever I went.

I am glad I had Friday off so that I coud spend the day with them. But at the end of the day, it was also pretty good to see them off to bed. Being a parent can be very tiring.....not just physically but emotionally.

But I am reminded again of God's word to me when we stepped dopwn from leadership : That He wants to teach me how to be a dad. I do acknowledge that I have lots to learn about being a father. So many times I lack the widom and patience to father my kids in the right way. Lord help me.

May the Father show me how to be the kind of Father he wants me to be. My prayer is that in being Dad to my kids, I can lead them to The Father.

One month, one week

Its been more than a month since I left Malaysia. Gosh, time flies. I have been pre occupied with work, trying to get a house, open bank accounts, buy a car, insuarance and all sorts of stuff that you need to do when you start life all over again in a new place. It can be very taxing, not to mention expensive.

People ask me if I miss Malaysia. The honest truth is that while I do miss my family a lot (10 days till they get here), I dont particularly miss Malaysia. Mostly because I am busy with trying to settle in. I am sure in time I will miss Malaysia more. I was feeling homesick the first week I was here, but now its pretty ok. Especially since I am in my own house now. Its just more settling being in your own lace, even if its an empty house.


I started work on Sep 1 and the officein Melboure is going through a lot of change. New manager for the location, new staff like me...etc. Peope ask me what I do, and I myself am not too sure about it. My immediate manager and the MD (who offered me the job in the first place) seem to have different ideas on how best I can contribute to the company, so I am still working that out. But I do know my primary role is to do with Major Account Management.

Work has been ok and I have enjoyed working with aussies. Most of them anyway. Melbournians especially take great pride in how diverse the city is culturally and how tolerant they are. Someone asked me last week if I encountered any racism, and the answer is no. I have not had any probelms so far and I thank God for it. My customers are more ineterested in my experience and work ethic than my ethnicity.

The only drawback about work is the long drive to and from work. Melbourne is a very spread out city and you just have to get used to driving around. But I am enjoying my car!

I also managed to get a nice place to live in. The neighbourhood, while not as pretty as other suburbs around, is pretty nice and my neighbours (mostly Greek) seem friendly as well. The place is close to train stations and shops, so its a nice spot. When we first thought of moving over, both Marge and I kept thinking how nice if we can live in this neighbourhood, and here we are. Its got an asian fruit store, a Korean grocer, lots of great Greek stores and cafes, and a fresh pasta shop that is great. And good bakeries as well.

I have spent most of my weekends shopping for household things like quilts, towels, electrical goods..etc. In terms of furniture, all I have is a dining set and a mattress. I also have a fridge and washing machine. Still do not have a TV. Hopefully that will change soon :) I was glad I managed to do something different the past 2 weekends to make it feel more like a weekend. This weekend I took a 5km walk by the beach with Richard and then went for breakfast. That was nice.

In terms of church, I have visited the Oakleigh Anglican church for 2 weeks now. I went for the traditional service last week where I was probabaly the only person below 60, and this week I went to the "contemporary" service. I will probabaly visit another church next week. I would like to find a church within my neighbourhood.

Thats just some updates from me for now. Hope all of you are doing well.

Displaced part 2

So, here I am in another place. I am currently living in a friends apartment while they are away. Moved out from my cousins place last week. Its nice to get a place all to myself, but its still only a temporary place., so still feel a bit unsettled.

But God is good, and I am learning to put into practice the discipline of submitting everything to God and then just trust Him with it.

I have been looking at rental houses the past 2 weeks. Have not seen anything really nice or approrpiate until last week when I saw a place that is very nice and it comes with 4 bedrooms. In the last 2 weeks before I left Malaysia, I sensed that maybe we should have a place where we can house guests. Maybe one of the things we can do is t open our home to people who want to come over for a stay/retreat. Therefore a house with an extra room would be best. When I saw this place, I thought this could be the one. But the rental market is very competitive. Demand is great. At the house inspection, there were a lot of people who came to see the place and all of them left with an application form. On top of it all, I do not have a rental history here which makes it harder for us. A few friends told me that I may need to offer up to 6 months rent in advance to secure the place and I was thinking of doing this (with a little help from my brother).

I went to bed that night praying about this and the next morning I woke up with this thought in mu head: God is my Father who provides and if this is the place he has for me, I will get it without the need to do anything extra.
So with this, I went ahead with my application. And much to my suprise and everyone elses, I got the place! This was my only application and a lot of peple have told me that I will need to put in lots of applications in order to secure a place.

I am thankful for this blessing. I was sharing with a friend over the weekend about how I hope to get a place asap so that I can have a bit of mental and emotional space to process what this move means for me. He agreed to pray with me that I will be able to get a place soon. God has answered that prayer. Thanks be to God.

Displaced

I am writing this from melbourne australia. I have just spent ky first weekend away from home. In some ways I still cant believe we are doing this.......uprooting our family and moving over here. Starting life anew. I have been busy looking at houses for rent, for a car to buy, finding out how things work...etc. It is a very scary process. Thank God for family and friends who help. But at the end of this, I still have to go through this on my own in some ways.

Th hard part is also that my family is not with me. I also feel the pressure of having to set things up before they come. Al in all, its a whole new journey of learning to trust in God and depend on Him. Its been a whirwind few weeks and I hope that in the next day or so, I will at least have some time to rest, reflect and just listen to Him.

Jesus Brand Spirituality

I picked up this book on Tuesday. I was killing time waiting for a meeting and walked into a bookstore. I was tempted to buy another book by Brian McLaren when I saw this. I picked it up for a few reasons. One is that I like the topic. The author is a Vineyard pastor and I have read a book he co-authored called empower evangelicals years ago.

But mainly, I picked it up because the content resonates with me. That's how I chose books to read anyway. I have only read the first chapter and bits of the second, but am enjoying it so far. The first page of the first chapter pretty much describes how I currently feel about much of our Malaysian evangelical Christianity (though things are changing a little). Here is the part that resonated with me most:

"If my fascination with Jesus began now instead of years ago, I wonder what I would do with it.......I'll be repelled by the witches brew of politics, cultural conflict, moral ism and religious meanness that seem so closely connected with those who count themselves as the special friends of Jesus."

"I would be deterred by the impression that the more people organized their lives around Jesus, the more likely they are to become defensive, prickly, and dogmatic about their beliefs. I'd have to stuff my questions, curb my curiosity and be willing to get on with the programme"

The book's sub title is that "He wants his religion back...so it can be for the world again". Its basically about how to get back to the core of following Jesus, to the way of living as Jesus modelled and not get caught up in processes, programmes and jumping through hoops to participate.

In a few conversations we have had in the past week, I have realised how much we as a church have changed. How different we are. Not perfect....no where near it. But how much we have dismantled the legalistic, process oriented culture. But now must come the path of learning to live in the freedom of Christ and from the heart.

The change is there, but I must come to terms with where I am personally. That while change has taken place, I am still unsatisfied with the degree of change. I want more, deeper, more heart level change. But I trust that God will lead us through this. And come through with a renewed freedom in Christ, and a renewed heart to follow Jesus afresh.

Saying goodbye

Yesterday the church organized a farewell for our family. It was a very nice gesture from them. I am especially glad that it was our friends who were such a big part of it.

I confess that when one of the elders initially told me about it, I reacted very negatively. It was a totally irrational reaction. I just did not want to have anything to do with it. It was only on saturday night, while chatting with my wife and some friends when I realised why I was feeling so antagonistic towards the farewell. Its the fact that the church council operates on a control mode a lot. The overiding thing is to control through keeping up a good appearance of things, even when the fact is things are not nice. And I felt that this farewell occasion was another way of controlling and making things appear nice and I was not going to be a part of it.

But I relented when I found out that there was a group of people who wanted to do it because they cared and they were our friends. I just focused on this and I really enjoyed the time together. Especially the games after lunch.

The hard part was seeing my daughter break into tears when they showed a video of people wishing us goodbye. It hit me hard as well. I realise how much I am going to miss all of them. These are my friends. They have been for the past 20 years. I will miss them all dearly.

Connecting

I had a great weekend. We went on an eating trip with another couple. To be honest, before the trip we were not all that keen on the food as we have been overeating. But we were looking forward to spending time with some friends.

It was a lot of fun just to hang out, try new things together and in the midst of it to just talk about what were on our hearts. I am very thankful that at the end of the first night, we managed to talk very openly about church, and hopes and fears. I always love to hear peoples stories, and this was one of those times. The conversation continued on the next day.

I was glad to hear how someone who was burnt out from the "established church" found a place of healing and faith again in our community. How they sense that we can truly be church in an authentic, down to earth manner without legislation or rules for everything.

One of our hopes/prayers is that as we start our new life away, we can continue to connect with people, and to help them connect to God. That people will discover God's story in the mist of their own stories.