Brooke’s Australia Adventure Update – Autumn 2014, April 29, 2014

Greetings friends,

We’ve just had a glorious ANZAC weekend here camping in Jervis Bay and hoping and trusting this letter finds you refreshed from your own celebration. Autumn in Sydney is glorious, albeit with the wet weather you find yourself navigating at times, but it is so nice to have a little cool change in the mornings and evenings after quite a hot summer we enjoyed. This past Lenten season has been a reflective time in our household as Brendan and I practiced the discipline of fasting more regularly during this season in accordance with the Eastern Orthodox calendar this year and read a daily Lenten devotional based on the story of the Good Samaritan by Henri Nouwen. It was truly a joy-filled celebration we shared as a family as we remembered our Saviour’s sacrifice on the cross and resurrection and really fun to see JJ’s interaction with the story as we read from his picture Bible and his picking up on emotions in the characters faces throughout the story from Palm Sunday through to the empty tomb. Practicing regular fasting again for me after not participating in it for a few years due to pregnancies was a great opportunity to really focus once again on my prayer life and dependency on Christ in a very physical way. This year is reminiscent for me in many ways on 2006, the last full year I lived in Washington, DC. That year I participated with many others around the country in a 40-day fast during the Lenten season with young people from the Justice House of Prayer praying for a modern youth revival in America and an end to abortion. That was a juice fast and took me beyond my own capacity and really stretched me ways to have a deeper understanding of the Lord. That year was a year to complete the season of working and serving in DC while at the same time preparing for what the Lord had ahead of me in Australia. As a parallel, this year for our family is a similar important season for Brendan and I to complete our studies and the vital work we are doing in our jobs with excellence, but at the same time preparing for our move in 2015 with our family to Macedonia. Since we have begun to share this vision and talk about it more concretely it has been completely amazing to see the way we have been confirmed by so many people and situations that God is indeed going before us to Macedonia and leading us there. One amazing example of this is that a couple, Jim and Becky Brown, on a recent visit to Sydney caught up with us. Jim was on the original basketball tour from the US that helped launch Young Life Australia 42 years ago. We got together because I had met their daughter Bryna in DC over 10 years ago and we had kept in touch. When we got together we had a wonderful time getting to know one another and finding out that we had many mutual friends in common. The amazing divine appointment though was finding out that they had some friends our age with young children also planning on moving to Macedonia at the same time we plan to next year! I want to encourage you that if you don’t have fasting as a part of your spiritual life, you consider incorporating it. What richness and what sweet time the Lord has provided for us and how important it feels to be doing it to really become ready for what is next.

“To the degree that fasting becomes more of a norm in our day-to-day Christian life as individuals and congregations, we will become more effectual in spiritual warfare.” – Peter Wagner

Psalm 46:10
“He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”

Our children continue to grow and amaze us by the life they bring into our home and our lives. Jeremiah can have a conversation with you now that has complete sentences in it, although he certainly enjoys expressing his own will in saying a favourite 2-year old phrase, “No, I don’t want to.” He is learning to sing more songs like “A, B, C, D” and has quite the imagination when left to play to his own devices with pretty much any of his toys. He is full of energy and we are hoping to start him in soccer over the winter as we take a break from swim lessons. Christabelle will soon have her first birthday and while not walking yet, continues to love standing and walking along furniture and is so fast with her commando crawling that we aren’t rushing the walking phase. She is a great eater and becoming a great communicator as she is clapping and has a range of words that include the names of all of her family members and even pretending to bark like our dog Kimba. They have been going up to Newcastle for time with the extended family as I work two days a week and they love being with our family there. As a family we’ve enjoyed going on Young Life’s annual Summer camp in Jindabyne in January and for a weekend to Lake Lyell to waterski in February and the kids enjoy the time with the teenagers just as much as we do. There are more and more families with young children choosing to volunteer and engage in leadership with the mission and it is wonderful for our children to interact with them as well as the young people, it really helps our children become social and engaged.

Proverbs 27:23
“Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
    give careful attention to your herds”

Young Life in Sydney continues to connect with teenagers in their world and seeks to be relevant with the gospel. I’ve returned to my role only two days a week and am focusing on the work in the Ryde area while helping supervise Ben in Northern Sydney and seeking to prayerfully develop work in the Parramatta area. There is so much potential, but for me, it is always about listening to what the Lord is saying and seeking where the doors of opportunity might open. Our staff and volunteers are so faithful in offering up free breakfasts at Chatswood High, regular lunchtime outreach at Marsden High, chaplaincy services at Ermington Public School and Marsden High School and student welfare programs at Arthur Philip High School – but the amount of need in each of these places, multiplied by the potential of all the high schools in Sydney could be overwhelming if we don’t have a focus. My focus for this year is mostly about investing as much as I can into the leaders the Lord has placed around me in this work and seeking to recruit more. I’d love the legacy that I leave the area to be a firm foundation of spiritually mature men and women who are authentically reaching and discipling young people. For me to model to others what it is to be a lover and follower of Jesus who lead others to become lovers and followers of Jesus who lead others... simple and yet profound.

 “This most educated, entertained and endowed generation have experienced so much, so young, that they aren’t amazed anymore. They live in a culture without awe and transcendence.”  - Mark McCrindle, The ABC of XYZ

I have completed my third residential for Arrow Leadership 12 in March and had an incredible week with my colleagues in Melbourne. I really enjoyed the week finding the content incredibly relevant and ranging from Conflict Resolution to Staffing and Performance Management to Soul Care, Personal Evangelism and Ministry to the Margins. It was a week with much food for thought, opportunity to reflect and pray, and work on our ministry goals. I have really been enjoying our reading list as well and have found the books to be spot on in where I am at in my leadership journey and challenging as well. One book particularly helpful in a personal, as well as ministry context, was entitled, Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. Brendan and I have used one of the conversation types she talks about, a mineral rights conversation, as a helpful tool. The idea is to drill down on “what could be the most important thing we could be talking about right now.” We practiced this while out celebrating my birthday at a rare kid-free dinner and it was great to see what came out when you gave yourself time to going down deep and learning to ask good questions to allow the person you are conversing with to really open up.

Proverbs 31:8 & 9
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
    for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
    defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

One other big change has happened in our lives these past few months, and that is choosing to go to a church more local to where we live. We’ve been attending C3 God in the City in Darlinghurst since we were first married and moved into Woolloomooloo in September 2009 and have loved it. But the commute with two children was starting to take its toll and it was challenging to attend mid-week or night services as well as knowing friends close to where we live, so we have begun to attend C3 Silverwater in the past month or so. While we’ll certainly miss our friends in the city, we’ve already received such a warm welcome at Silverwater that we feel very much at home. It is a very diverse congregation, both racially, socioeconomically and generationally and feels very much like the community we are living in and that too makes it feel right. It is a church that is very much engaged in the local community. They have a Care Service each Thursday morning that I’ve attended a few times bringing a mum of some of my Young Life kids who has been so blessed by the practical and spiritual nature of the service. Following the service each week they serve a tasty lunch and every community member that attends is able to receive needed groceries, as well as clothes from a clothes closet, including many new goods donated from companies like Big W. The presence of God on the service is just beautiful and I really feel as if this is what my heart is leaning towards becoming involved with as it just resonates with my heart. I’m so grateful to be attending a church that is closer to the community I serve with Young Life as well and look forward to being able to bring young people and their families to a local church.

Revelation 7:9-10
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”

Thank you for journeying with us and for your prayers for us in this season. 

Blessings and love, Brooke