The remains of a caramello koala

Perspective Day

Wouldn’t you know it - chronic bronchitis chooses the Christmas period to raise its ugly head. One of the up sides of feeling rotten and spending most of the day in bed, is a chance to catch up on what Covey calls “quadrant 2″ activities. Things that are important but not urgent. I had time to listen to some audio books and watch some PBS. I listened to N.T.Wright, watched a documentary on Austria in the afternoon that made me feel homesick and then watched a documentary on C.S. Lewis.

Maybe you have them too - every now and again I have what call “perspective days”.
Chances to stop, think, re-evaluate, occasions to reminded of your mortality. It sounds rather morbid, maybe it is the high Introvert in me, but I welcome them.

They’re like a buzzing alarm clock waking me from the stupor that much of western life can sometimes be - the endless droning of marketers pumping our materialism; buy me, own me, let me make you feel better . . .

It rarely does.

So as I approach mid life the questions I asked as a young man return:

What should I do with the rest of my life?
Am I doing the right thing?
Is there something that I should be doing that I am not?
What is important in life?
Is there anything happening/not happening now that will be a source of regret later?

I’m not sure if I have the answer to all of them . . . but then again, I haven’t met many who do.

The Meaning of Christmas

Just like their father did when he was a kid, the kids tear open Christmas presents seemingly brainwashed by marketers and oblivious to the real meaning of it all. They were up at . . . wait for it . . . . 3am!

referring to Scrooge, Scot McKnight on his blog quotes the very last few pages of Dickens Christmas Carol.

'became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him…. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.'”

The real meaning of Christmas? . . . thats what I'm talking about.

Merry 2005 Christmas.

WooWhoo!

Sue’s passed her driving test today.

As in Austria, we have to sit the entire testing scheme as if we are starting from scratch as first time drivers.

I think I am the world’s worst parallel parker on earth - so I’m planning to practice a bit before I try!

photo share

Nikolaus in front of our house

Sun in -15C

For Prayer

I think its not without irony that wherever we have worked with refugees, we have shared with them (to some small extent) the similar feelings of being a foreigner without permanent residence.

Of course we always reserve the trump card of being able to return to a safe home country - ah - analogies, they always fall flat somewhere along the way!

Today we met with our immigration adviser.
It was not the news we were expecting.

As you may know, we are missionaries working with an organization that doesn't pay us. It means that we spent 4 years prior to working full time with refugees raising our own support mostly through churches in Australia.

Since relocating to the US - some of that support has evaporated, and some of it has just plain lost value due to inflation, exchange rates, and Jonathan our third child.

Our plan had been to transfer our visa status here in the US so that Sue could work a few shifts per month in her career as a nurse as a second source of income. We had originally planned that this would happen early in the new year.

Our advice today puts that back another 6 months due to processing times. So now we face the daunting task of not being able to travel internationally, of wringing another 6 months out of our support as well as some hefty processing fees.

It's another shock along the rocky path we call life.
Thank goodness I don't think much of prosperity doctrine - our experience wouldn't even register us on their meter!

The good news is that the Jordanian couple we are trying to secure safety for has just been given a substantial green light by the US state department report. Pray with us that we can safely relocate them from the nasty persecution context they currently find themselves in.

If you're a Calvanist . . .

take a look at this - its hilarious!

http://purgatorio1.blogspot.com/2005/12/help-im-going-hyper.html#links

what ive been listening to

I've been listening a fair bit to Philip Aaberg's "High Plains".
He's a composer out of Montana.

Much like one of my other faves - Bruce Hornsby, its piano music that doesn't suck!
Click here to hear a snippet

Sue's NCLEX exam results

My wife Sue sat her NCLEX nursing exam on Thursday.
She has been and RN for 14 years - even still, the NCLEX is a 6 hour comprehensive exam.

Its all done at a computer terminal under the strictest of circumstances. The computer locked her out after 1 1/2 hours.
She took this as a bad sign and wasn’t confident - it was a difficult day to say the least!

We got results back today - PASS!

It turns out that it is an adaptive test so it poses the next question based on how you answered the last. ie if you got it right, it makes the next one harder.
She maxed out the computer so it was satisfied that she knew her stuff after 75 questions.

That means that we can now change our status here in the US from an R1 visa to a longer working class visa.

It also means that now Sue can legally nurse here.