Goodbye Sydney, Hello Brisbane

Sorry I haven’t blogged but I intend to write weekly. We are now semi-settled in Brisbane and our new church!

We had our last Sunday at our Sydney church as well as other farewells which was very sad. Thanks to everyone who provided for us encouragement as well as material provision. We feel overwhelmed by your kindness in the Lord.

You may be lead to think from these pictures that I’m sad to leave the food. Actually its the people I miss the most but I just don’t like posting people’s faces to the world without their permission.

Travelling up: it was mainly fine, Studio Ghibli OST’s, David Tao, Kpop and John Piper kept me sane. There was one hour where it fully poured and there was very low visability. In an effort to keep up with the car in front of us we kept driving at highway speed which was pretty scary. Thankfully God brought me here safely!

So basically up here I’ll be:

• Working part time with our church as the pastoral worker which includes the (young) women and youth
• Study at a theological college part time towards another degree

It is hard moving church again. I’m sure this is common for many people in ministry. It does get pretty stressful. I don’t handle change well. It usually causes a lot of stress. So this is my:

• 4th house move in the 4 years I’ve been married (incl. marriage). I re-discovered my hate of packing…
• 4th church I’ve been to within 6 years

So the most difficult things are:

• Having that support network amongst peers in ministry
• Saying goodbye to close friendships, being uprooted and having to start over in relationships.

Of course this just leads me back to Christ who is the only unchanging and trustworthy person in the midst of all this. Thanks for all those who prayed for us, things are going relatively well and the difficulties mentioned above have already begun to be addressed.

A good friend recommended a book to me which I’d highly recommend. It ‘explores the impact on personality to cross-cultural mission’. It uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I’m ‘ISTJ’ and my husband is ‘INFP’, almost the complete opposite! After reading the chapters on our types its easy to see why we have disagreements during this transitional phase period in settling into a new church and place.

Thankfully God has really abundantly provided for us since we’ve arrived both the areas of relationships and material needs. Next post I’ll try and dispell some myths about Brisbane as well as show you what our lives look like here. Take Care!