Our City, your city? Diseased and hurting.

Just finished a chapter in Generous Justice by Timothy Keller. The book is good and this chapter especially helped with the practical side of things. Since starting the book several articles in the newspaper have stood out to me concerning justice.

Excerpts concerning justice from the above book
 

1. When Redeemer Church purchased property in a neighborhood in Manhattan, we visited both with the neighborhood's city councilwoman and the local community board. Our questions were: What are the needs here that you and the community feel are both chronic and acute? What could we do that would make this neighborhood a better place to live in? Even though, as of this writing, we are only beginning to hear the answers to these questions, we were gratified at the response. Everyone we have approached has been surprised that a church would even ask. Ordinarily, churches and other religious institutions assume they know best what the community needs....let them tell you.

2.  ...doing justice is inseparably connected to preaching grace. This is true in two ways. One way is that the gospel produces a concern for the poor. The other is that deeds of justice gain credibility for the preaching of the gospel. In other words, justification by faith leads to doing justice, and doing justice can make many seek to be justified by faith.

3. I urge my readers to discern the balance I am seeking to strike. If we confuse evangelism and social justice we lose what is the single most unique service that Christians can offer the world. Others, alongside believers, can feed the hungry. But Christians have the gospel of Jesus by which men and women can be born again into the certain hope of eternal life. No one else can make such an invitation. However, many Christians who care intensely about evangelism see the work of doing justice as a distraction for Christians that detracts from the mission of evangelism. That is also a grave error.

4. When the city perceives a church existing strictly and only for itself and its own members, the preaching of that church will not resonate with outsiders. But if neighbors see church members loving their city through astonishing, sacrificial deeds of compassion, they will be much more open to the church's message.  Deeds of mercy should be done out of love, not simply as a means to the end of evangelism.

5."Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers...the impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well."

The Roman emperor Julian

Examples in Melbourne needing justice.

1. Charities in plea for more fresh produce - Food banks in need of help

2. Julia Gillard has vowed to get tough on welfare dependency. Meet the people in her sights who battle daily with debt and poverty - Not so much about Gillard as the people who are being preyed upon. Refugees and immigrants particularly stood out to me.

3. The trouble with homes away from home - International students needing lodging, safety, and care.

4. Behind suburban streetscapes lies a syndicate that trades in sex - What comes out at night. International students preyed upon by the sex slave industry. Mulgrave, Richmond, Bentleigh, just a few of the suburbs that have been mentioned in articles such as these.

Some of these are heavy burdens and will not be dealt with easily. We need to be aware.

People

We have been meeting people as of late. Nice for me especially.


New people #1 - A family up the street. They have a couple of boys that ride their bikes and scooters up and down the street. The girls and Gids like to hide from them. We have talked to the mom a bit. She told us about an awesome park a few minutes away. Maybe we can have them over for a BBQ sometime?

New people #2 - Our neighbors' son Theo. He is Greek. He and Brandon spent the better part of 30 minutes talking about Bible and religious stuff. He came into the house to retrieve his niece who was playing with our kids and we started talking about soccer. He follows the men's premier team pretty closely. Soccer is an important conversation topic to have tucked away in a neighborhood like this.

New people #3 - Lady across the street. I was asking Theo's mom about the name of our strange fruit tree out back. She didn't know the name of it so she yelled across the street to Deena. Deena is also Greek and knows her plants well. According to her we have a cherry guava tree. They are little reddish round things. Kind of remind of a miniature pomegranate. In taste more like a strawberry/pomegranate/something else. Deena told me how to make jam out of them. We now have three jars of jam with more on the way.

New people #4 - American family, met at the new awesome park the neighbors told us about. The accent always gives it away :-) The mom and kids just arrived in January. So they are newbies all the way. They are of Jewish heritage. They have three kids all about our kids' ages as well. It was nice to talk about basketball, Purdue, IU, how expensive Australia is  and other things that flow easily when meeting someone else from your home country.

New people #5 - Jehovah Witnesses that keep coming back. They have visited four times now. I thought after the third visit they were done with me but apparently not.  Although these meetings have been frustrating at times it has been good to strengthen my understanding of their beliefs as well as my own. I am trying to be patient and loving.

You could pray for that these relationships might grow and that we would have opportunities to talk to them about Jesus. Also give thanks that we are meeting new friends. It is always nice to have people around to talk to.

Why?

Conversations with a toddler, preschooler and year 1 cont.

While watching excerpts from "So You Think You Can Dance"

Jolene:" Their doing hip-hop"
Jolene:"I want to learn how to do hip-hop"

Adele:"I don't like hip-hop"

Jolene:"I like ballet the best and then hip-hop"
Adele:"I like ballet but not hip-hop"

Me:" Jolene why do you like hip-hop?"
Jolene: "Because its fast and you can do this (starts make her arms move like snakes)"

Jolene occasionally tries to moonwalk here and there on our wood floors. She is getting a little better :-)

Their most recent endeavor in the world of dance is to do the splits. I tried to show them but sadly I cannot do them as well as I used to. We had to switch over to YouTube.

Gym -> Soccer -> Teen mom -> Tax breaks...following the rabbit trail

I am seriously thinking about joining a gym. I have come to the realization that this is the only way I can get any exercise outside of soccer practice. I really should be doing something almost every night to keep my fitness up for future games. This is difficult because Brandon often leaves the house around 6am. Which in the winter it is still very dark. He typically gets home around 5:30. And dark again. It is not a good idea to run in the dark around here. So the only other option is the gym.

I have never paid to go to  a gym in my life. I really don't like spending money on it when running/biking on the paths is completely free. But I think now is the time at least for the next four months. If I don't run or do something similar I feel very blah.

Thankfully there are two gyms very close to us.

Soccer is OK. I am only playing reserves. I don't think they want to bother with someone who is almost 30 and won't play on Sundays. I am fine with that. I just like to play. The only bummer about playing on the reserves is that there is no grand final. Oh well.

Funny story. Some of my teammates saw me pull up to our game last week. They were jealous because they thought that I only had my L's (I think you are around 17 when you get your L's) but to be driving on my own I apparently had my P's (around 20).  I told them I had been driving for almost 14 years and was long past my P's :-) I also told them I had three kids. That is when they really freaked out. I think I need to get a different hair cut or something. A few weeks ago I was at the Petrol Station using my credit card to pay. The lady at the counter said that I was too young to be using a credit card. I told her I had another one and that I didn't think an almost 30 yr-old was too young. She laughed and said sorry, she thought I was 17. Then she asked what makeup I used. I told her at that point in time just sweat. I was on my way home from soccer practice. So yeah, I think I need a different haircut or something. This may help explain some looks I get when I take my three kids out shopping. They are probably thinking "there goes a Centrelink teen mom." Centrelink is our government's handout system. There are many a teen mom that can live off Centrelink. I have mixed thoughts on all that, maybe some other time I will mention them. So instead of getting tax breaks you get money back after you pay the taxes. Wrong way of doing it in my opinion.

A large helping of Chinese with a dash of Japanese

Having Gu with us has/and is enjoyable. We (including him) are learning all sorts of new things.

Gu often tells us how to pronounce things in Chinese. We don't remember much but it is still good to hear the his native tongue.

Gu and I have negotiated a bit on his rent. First we are cutting out the university so he will save an extra $56/week. I also told him if he wanted to save more he could cook once a week for us. He does not know how to cook, at all. I told him if he ever wants to live on his own or with some flatmates it is imperative that he learns. I also said we were willing to be his guinea pigs (an expression that he totally did not get and after five minutes of trying to explain we gave up) more so than his future flatmates. So he talked to his mom and she told him to cook. So here goes the experimental stage. Once Gu knows his way around the kitchen I am planning on him cooking for me on one of my more busy days (soccer nights). Saves me the worry of what to cook that night.

Special vinegar instead of soy sauce

Last week was his debut. Here are some of the things I learned from cooking for the first time with Gu.

1. The Chinese, at least those from the Henan province, never eat noodles dry. Meaning they always eat them in a soup like dish.

2. The soy sauce we usually have with our sushi and dim sims is not what the Chinese usually have. They have something similar in color but much different in taste.

MSG in all of its glory

3. While shopping at the Asian Grocery Gu asked me if we had this at home. I said no and what was it? He said it was like salt and that everyone at home uses it in their cooking. I had a look at the package but at that moment in time nothing clicked with me. It wasn't until I was searching for a good Chinese restaurant in China Town that it finally dawned on me what was actually in that little bag. Many reviews I had read about Chinese restaurants in town kept mentioning that the taste of MSG wasn't overpowering. I thought it was interesting that people would make a point of mentioning that. And then I went, ohhhhhhhh. I ran to the pantry and behold there in front of me sat a nice little bag of white crystals. I looked at the writing and there in nice red writing was MonoSodium Glutamat. So apparently throwing in a t. or so of MSG into every dish is what most people do over there. Correct me I'm wrong. It could also be just something his family and friends do. I tend to think not. The grocery store that we were at had some pretty big bags of the stuff. After my discovery I chuckled to myself knowing that a few people I know would have a heart attack if they realized what Gu was throwing into the pots of food.

Special meat seasoning

4. According to Gu you must always use this stuff (over there on the right) when cooking meat. When I mean "according to Gu" I should actually make it clear that he talked extensively to his mom before cooking to make sure he did everything correctly. So it should actually read "according to Gu's mom."

5. I am making a lot more rice and maki sushi these days. The sushi is a good lunch to send with Gu on school days. This morning I made sushi with teryiaki chicken, zucchini, and carrot. I bought some rice vinegar to mix into the rice before rolling. Not sure why I didn't use this stuff earlier, I love the flavor it adds to the rice.

6. Gu has never seen measuring spoons. This doesn't surprise me seeing as though they hardly eat any bread products.

Japanese Green Tea - Twigs included!

7.  I bought some proper Japanese green tea while shopping with Gu. This stuff looks like the grass I just cut in the backyard. Heavy duty tea for sure. You must definitely use a plunger. I mean look! There are twigs in the tea! I'm sure the twigs have an even higher concentration of good stuff than the leaves do. I'm sure of it trust me. The first time I brewed it I think I used too much. I kind of just dumped in some. Gu was watching and said a few things that made me think I shouldn't have added so much. Will try less next time.

Not much to report

1. Japanese classes started last week.  Ichi, ni, san...

2. I play my first soccer game on Monday. Playing for the Reserves first and then being called up for the Premier squad. Long story.

3. Gideon has a new knock knock joke.
Gids: "Knock knock?"
Me:" Whose there?"
Gids:"Banana"
Me:"Banana who?"
Gids:"ummmmm God?"

 I tried to explain that we don't make jokes about God. So we tried the joke again and instead of God I got Jesus. Maybe after two more explanations we will get through the Trinity and back to the good old "orange" answer.

4. We finally bought a dryer. I know we are moving up in the world. Australia likes to line dry still. We found one on eBay for 90$ and we gave in. I can't stand line drying clothes in the winter. Especially when there are six people in the house. It was either homeschool the kids or line dry the clothes in winter. One of them had to go.

5. The hot water tap in the kitchen always leaks. Well today I looked into one of the cabinets and saw that the entire underside of the bench top is wet and molding. Lets add that to the list of stuff the landlord will not fix. The window I broke during the "La murete de los guinea pigs" (another long story) has still not been fixed (five months later) and winter is upon us. I am trying to have a good attitude about this land lord. Trying.