Brooke's Australia Adventure Spring 2014 Update

Brooke’s Australia Adventure Update – Spring 2014, November 5, 2014

Greetings friends,

Our family has just experienced quite an unexpected week – where Brendan’s Dedo (paternal grandfather) passed away suddenly last Tuesday. Our children were already in Newcastle, so it meant that Brendan and I just headed there straight after work that day and stayed for the rest of the week. This is the third passing of a family member of Brendan’s I’ve experienced since being with him these past almost eight years, but the first since being his wife. When death happens, life comes into perspective and you have time to reflect. I’ve been privileged to witness the sobriety of the mourning tradition Brendan practiced following his Baba’s death and now I am learning to practice it in these six weeks following his Dedo’s death, including limiting entertainment and dressing in dark colours. It is hard to have the kids practice these, but I am grateful our young children were able to be a part of the ceremony too and that we were still in Australia when it happened. I appreciated the time together as a family also. It was also good to reminisce on happy memories that Brendan had of his Dedo from growing up and I feel so grateful my kids got to know him a little as he lived next door to Brendan’s parents, where they go each week. JJ will remember him as the one who would give him bikkies (cookies) and CC probably won’t remember her kisses to him, but I know they softened his heart.

Revelation 21:4
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Most of my life revolves around the other end of the spectrum, the beginning of life, not the end of it. Not just with my own home life full of nursery rhymes, singing and noisy toys, but also with the weekly playgroup I’ve been helping organise at church with my Brazilian friend Fabiana. It has been a great friendship that has blossomed while working together and I’m glad we’ve began to have some themed sessions and an excursion and even a fun mum’s night out for dinner. I’ve also gathered a team of mum’s at church (that Fabi’s a part of) to start a crèche for our one and two-year-olds to have a safe space to be lovingly looked after and have a bit of Godly input into their young lives, while allowing their parents an opportunity to be able to really experience the worship service on a Sunday morning. Prior to this, these children were in the service with their parents, or their parents would watch via live feed and be caring for their children in a shared room with toys, etc. I had experienced the beauty of a crèche and watched Jeremiah create lasting friendships with other children at church from our time at C3 God in the City and was so pleased when our leaders at C3 Silverwater were happy for us to launch one at our campus. It has been a few months of vision casting and gathering some willing volunteers, but I’m looking forward to seeing how God blesses it. In our second week, the first time it was announced, we already had 19 children – so we’ll definitely have to expand our team if that keeps up! It is such a blessing to be caring for children and to see them continue to grow and learn.

“Visions thrive in an environment of unity. They die in an environment of disunity.” – Visioneering by Andy Stanley

CC is now speaking in sentences of a few words and really understands so much including when to put her shoes on and off and where to put them, and also knows there’s milk in the fridge and how to open the fridge door, which makes life interesting. JJ continues to be boisterous and is enjoying being back to swim lessons and is solo with the instructor in the pool now. Both kids are enjoying the warmer weather (as are Brendan and I) particularly now that the City of Parramatta has put in some new splash parks right near our house. CC even knows when we get close and starts screaming: “splash park, YEAH!” We also decided to re-join Wet n’ Wild for the annual pass and went in with some friends to get a deal, which made it even more affordable, and also means I can take the kids with my friend and her kids often this summer as our play date time which will be great. We are really excited about summer coming, and the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had recently has meant we’ve had an excuse to play tourist with Bayli, our house guest, and take her to the beaches of: Bondi, Palm Beach, Curl Curl, Mona Vale and Collaroy in the past few months. Sydney is such a beautiful city and it has been wonderful being able to visit some iconic spots again.

These past few months have also brought some new found hobbies into my life, quite surprisingly. For our five year anniversary, my beloved hubby bought me a long-board skateboard, upon request. The tradition is for the five year anniversary gift to be wooden! It has been quite fun to try to learn this new sport and has leant to some fun outings as a family where JJ has his newly acquired scooter (a reward for mastering toilet training) and Brendan has his Razor scooter and CC will sit on the skateboard with me sitting behind her scooting along. For JJ’s third birthday we even threw his party at the safety bike path near our home in the Holroyd Gardens to encourage the new scootering, but it is amazing how much kids always seem to enjoy their friend’s ones more than theirs; we are all still learning J. The second new hobby is playing acoustic guitar. For years now at Ryde Young Life we haven’t had any muso’s as part of the team and have resorted to singing along to an i-Pod top 40 songs and it has become obvious that this part of our club night wasn’t working the best. With a new leader not afraid to voice his concerns, we began discussing options and I thought well, if no one else will put their hand up, I’m willing to try and learn. Since a few of the boys on the team actually had guitars but weren’t using them, I’ve borrowed one and have started teaching myself using YouTube, books from the library and any willing person I meet willing to teach me a thing or two, and getting heaps of advice. One of the really cool things with this is that there’s a year 10 girl, Skyler, that I love to catch up with regularly and within a month of my starting, she had started having lessons, so she’s been willing to “jam (very loose interpretation of the word)” with me and even accompany me on club nights. We’ve only attempted a few songs so far, but hopefully momentum, confidence and skill will grow. It is funny because skateboarding and guitar playing are skills and interests I tend to associate with teenagers (boys in particular) and not mum’s in their mid-thirties (gulp!), but I love that there are always new things to learn and it is really good to get out of my own stereotype for myself and try something new that I’m actually enjoying. A book that I read helped me immensely in even considering longboarding and thinking about other crazy acts of kindness and taking risks for God, it is called “Love Does” by Bob Goff and I’d highly recommend it.

“You know what it is about someone that makes them a friend? A friend doesn’t just say things; a friend does.” – Love Does by Bob Goff

These past few months have also been full of Brendan and I finishing up our studies and keeping the home fires burning in between the running around. I am so proud to say Brendan’s now finished all the coursework for his Master’s degree and will be graduating in the New Year. He has worked so hard and I’ve been very impressed by his devotion to his studies coupled with his full-time work load. I too will complete my Arrow Leadership course in just over a week’s time, as our final residential takes place the second week of November with our graduation included in that. It is hard to believe that these past two years are coming to an end. Although it hasn’t been a traditional study load, there has been much inventory taking of my current and future vocational goals and direction and it has been an intense time of reflection and learning. We are both excited to complete these courses as it opens up more capacity to put into practice the conversations regarding moving we’ve been having with folks on the ground in Macedonia. We still expect and are preparing to move mid-year 2015 and for my position with Young Life Australia we will begin to advertise for the role very shortly. If you know anyone in the Sydney area who might be interested, please do pass on my contact details. Having been in the role for almost six years, I have a sincere desire for it to be passed on well and to have a few months of overlap with the successful applicant to do a thorough job of transitioning them and introducing them relationally to all the relevant people. Please pray for this recruitment process and for it to be a smooth transition time. As the club year is coming to a close our focus is very much on recruiting for Summer Camp 2015, to be held once again in Jindabyne, Snowy Mountains, NSW. The camp dates are January 11-17, 2015 and we are of course actively recruiting a massive team to help put on the most excellent week of camp for young people to really experience God’s tangible love for them. If you’d like to be a part of it in any way – serving on camp as part of the team, coming to see a night or two as an adult guest, helping financially with a camper struggling to pay the full fees, please go to our website to find out more information: http://younglife.org.au/summercamp/. I’ll end this update with a fantastic scripture that was introduced to me at a Healing School I attended in the end of September with my blessings for you and your families and for God’s word to be alive and active in the communities you are a part of.

Exodus 23:26 “There shall be no barrenness or miscarriage in your land.”

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

 Blessings and love, Brooke