Tag Archives: travel

High School Musical Was Right

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When our girls were in their mid teens it was the same time as the hype of the High School Musical trilogy. Hannah still would love to marry Zac Efron, that I am sure of.

The song they used throughout all their movies was the one that had the line ‘we’re all in this together’. Besides the fact that it’s the type of song that annoyingly stays in your head, the lyrics are cheesily good:

Here and now its time for celebration
I finally figured it out
That all our dreams have no limitations
That’s what its all about

Everyone is special in their own way
We make each other strong (we make each other strong)
Were not the same
Were different in a good way
Together’s where we belong

We’re all in this together
Once we know
That we are
We’re all stars
And we see that
We’re all in this together
And it shows
When we stand
Hand in hand
Make our dreams come true

As believers, we follow the God who gives us dreams, but we also need to be knitted into a community of faith, and we find our strength in that community. Like it or not, no man is an island, and the Church is here to stay.

For us moving to Kenya has not been something we can do on our own. We’re working extra long hours to make money for the extra costs of shipping gear and paying huge amounts on insurance. We’re having endless coffees and meals with friends to tell them what a worthy cause this is to invest into. Then there’s the visiting of friends churches, friends of friends and incidental meetings with strangers. We literally don’t make a move without consulting the communal calendar to fit everything in.

Some times it all gets a bit much and even though there’s eleven weeks to go there is no breathing space.

That’s why it’s good just to have a laugh with friends, watch a mindless movie (or the Olympics at this stage), drive out of town to catch up with people we haven’t seen for years, and eat chocolate!

While our whole family is all in this together, our larger family are too. That family extends across several parts of the world and we are thankful for their encouragement. All I can say is KEEP IT COMING!

The Ocean is Really Big

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We went whale watching a couple of weeks ago, something I’ve always wanted to do. Not that it’s overrated but the whales didn’t feel like playing just because we wanted them to. I spent the 2 hours trying no to throw up, thankfully it was so freezing cold, that I didn’t. We did see a couple of juvenile adults lazily swimming a long, but no breaching or anything spectacular like that.

We went in a double decked catamaran that looked quite big in the harbour. That was until we were in the middle of the ocean. It was there that I suddenly realised the enormity of the ocean, it is really, really big.

Most mornings I head down the beach to pray, which is a pretty good way to start the day. This morning there was a beautiful blue sky, but man, was it freezing. The sight of the ocean reminded me of my ‘big ocean’ thoughts on the boat.

It was then that this came to me ‘God’s provision is much bigger than your need’.

He has so much more on offer than all the needs in the entire world. Just remember that!

Confession Time

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This morning I woke up in sheer panic when I realised that in 16 weeks we would be jumping on a plane and heading off to start our new ventures in Kenya. And when I say panic, it was just that. This is one of the few times in my life I’ve been overwhelmed by worry. So I did what I do most mornings and headed up the beach to pray (thanks Ps Phil for setting the standard in this).

I got to thinking about what on earth was happening and realised some important things.

I’m not scared of:

  • Living in a strange land where everything is different, especially the food
  • Being without my dishwasher or waterbed
  • Saying goodbye to Hannah (Skype is the best invention)
  • The possibility of picking up malaria, dysentery or a myriad of other diseases
  • Being the minority just because my Swahili sucks (well, not fluent anyway)
  • The very remote but real possibility of a bomb/suicide attack happening

What it came down to is that I don’t want to be poor and not able to go out and earn money. We’re on a missionary visa and we aren’t allowed to work.

We decided in April last year that we would move to Kenya, but give it a couple of years. That way we could get more financially secure, pay off some debt and be in a strong position. When we got to Africa in September it became very obvious that they wanted us a lot earlier, like immediately. We chose to move in October 2012 because that meant we could take another team to Mt Kilimanjaro and pretty much everything we own is in desperate need of replacing, especially the car, which is in survival mode. If we stayed another year it meant buying a lot of stuff and really be no better off financially because of it.

In our minds it was all going to pan out because we could come back and work our butts off for a year. That was before Pete broke his leg and couldn’t work for a couple of months, and then the 3 months of travelling through several states of Australia for BeyondWater. Remember, Pete is self employed so no work = no pay. So, in essence the 8 months we’ve been back, he’s only worked for about 4 of these. Not the best way to start, but in a way it is.

We are really blessed because a generous business covers our rent in recognition of the role I play in BeyondWater. But beyond that there were no drop offs of groceries or even phone calls to see how we were doing. The insurance money was months in coming and that went to paying back some good friends who had lent us the money to get home. While Pete was stuck to a couch he learned, probably for the first time to really relax in knowing he could do nothing but trust God. Was it easy? No way. We got down to $30 in the bank account and Hannah was heading back to serve at YWAM in Hawaii and we didn’t even have the money to take her to the airport. I kindly suggested to her that her friends (Han, Chan & Mo) might like to do it.

But I will never forget Bevvy. She just happened to be in Sydney for the day, walked in the door and promptly handed both Hannah and myself $500 each. We lived on that for the next month and Hannah paid for her living and school costs.

One person, that’s all it takes to make a difference.

For me this morning, it was that one Person of the Holy Spirit that took me from a burdened, scared kid to one who had that assurance that if God was big enough to create the universe He certainly was big enough to look after 3 little Creans in Kenya.

Yes, we need people to believe in us and our work. Yes, we need people to give us money or we can’t go, but overall our reliance is on God, whose pretty good at providing.

Thanks for standing with us, we appreciate you all – and actually mean it.

What a Blast!

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We’ve just spent 11 days in chilly New Zealand. For those who don’t know much about the country, it’s only a 3 hour flight from Sydney, and our homeland. We left there 10 years ago, tired of being broke youth pastors, started our lives all over again and now we’re off to Kenya for the next 20 years, how crazy is that!

Our time in NZ was primarily to say goodbye to Pete’s parents (mine have passed on) so we thought we might as well fit in as many people as possible. We quite literally ate our way through the week, with everyone saying ‘Let’s have a cup of tea and a meal’. I think we rolled off the plane last night!

The coolest thing was that we met up with lots of people who had a significant impact on our lives while we lived there. The downside was that there were also lots of people who we missed out on visiting simply because of a lack of time.

It was great to be able to be prayed for, sent off by our old church and blessed by so many people. It certainly wasn’t a holiday though, one day we had 5 back to back meetings. We could’ve been there for 20 days, but I still think we wouldn’t have seen everyone. We traveled 1600km’s just in the central North Island.

It makes you realise that you don’t do life by ourselves, that was never God’s intention. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, so it takes a whole community to raise an adult. Our destiny is wrapped up in the lives of people we actually do life with.

So while we consider ourselves honorary Aussies, we thank all the Kiwis who put up with us, loved us, disciplined us, and helped us along the way.

To us people matter the most and we’ve had the privilege of spending some time with just a few of our Kiwi family. See you all in about 3 years.