I Spy With My Little Eye

I’d consider myself a very ‘observational’ person. As a kid, this was probably more correctly labelled as ‘nosey’, but as an adult I’ll simply say that I’m just observant.

There seems to be a lot of negative news, down trodden spirits and just tired and worn out people at the moment. Every day Matt and I have been finding ourselves met with sad conversations or just people who have forgotten how to smile. Call it the time of year, blame it on winter, or say that it’s the end of school term. Whatever the reason, it sort of gets to you after a while. Matt so rightly reflected a couple days ago that it was just starting to get him down.

What good is being observational if all you observe is sad, heart wrenching or stressful? There may be a more than the usual stressors and difficulties around at the moment...but perhaps part of the problem is that it’s just so much easier to get caught up in the negative, then to allow our eyes to capture the beautiful and optimistic moments. I’m sure that they are there, despite how cold it is outside, or that it’s week 10 of the school term. It’s just time to start looking for them.

So...I will reflect on the good news and smile worthy moments of the past week or so...

- Two different sets of friends have received a happy and healthy baby. Thank God for new life!

- I spent my lunch hour at the primary school I work at on Mondays playing ‘what time is it Mr Wolf’ with a dozen preps who all seem to have much bigger feet then myself as they always ended up at the wolf before me.

- I watched my husband and his team win their basketball grand final, and then receive free pies to celebrate from the man who owns the petrol station where they hang out for a drink and chat after games.

- I talked to my sister for 2 hours who has just recently returned to Canada from Haiti. And despite her being half asleep by the end of it, thoroughly enjoyed the catch up and entertaining stories.

- I had a lovely dinner at the in-laws, and feel very blessed to know that even though my family is just so far away, I still have people who love spending time with me (and feeding me!)

- I got to hang out with 40 children, parents, leaders and others from our Reservoir community for Family Squads. It was pretty much chaos...but the good kind that you can only get when running programs in Reservoir.

- Played the most intense and vicious (I didn’t cheat I swear...) game of Pit that I have ever seen! But more importantly spent that night with some very lovely people to celebrate Darryn’s birthday.

- Enjoyed the company of my best friend and partner over the weekend as we had time to stay in bed until noon, have a walk in the sunshine, and enjoy a brunch of delicious French toast.

Well, I have to say...I now have a smile on my face and am feeling the most positive that I have felt in a while. Just because I took a few minutes to think of the highlights of my past week.

Happy glasses are now on...and I will be on the lookout for more ‘magic moments’.

What’s yours?

To become an 'Atkins'...

Lets see if you can keep up with this...

We got married in January in Canada, but then returned straight after our honeymoon to Australia.

As soon as we got our marriage certificate, we applied for my partner visa (a VERY expensive visa might I add) which takes up to 9 months to process. We're four months in, and recently called regarding the status, but apparently it won't even get assigned a case worker and looked at for at least another 2 months.

I can't get my Australian drivers license changed without other ID in my married name, as well as the marriage certificate, as it was an overseas wedding. So the plan has been to get my passport changed.

We've been waiting to have enough money to get my passport changed (which you have to mail to the Canadian consulate in Canberra), and finally got around to sending my current passport, our marriage certificate, my birth certificate and a $100 fee to have it changed to my married name. A couple days later, we get a letter back saying I have to re-fill out the form and mail it in id WITH my married name (although the whole point of getting the passport was to get something with my married name on it....) as well as have a guarantor sign my form that is not a minister of religion or pharmacist or physio (which is acceptable in Australia, but not in Canada) so finding someone who is a police officer, a bank teller or notary (and has known me for 2 years...) is on the list of things now to do...

So...I can try again to get my Australian drivers license. but I need to apply with Victorian births, deaths and marriages to have my name changed (if I can prove I've lived here for longer than 3 months and am considered a 'permanent' or long term resident....which I have no idea if waiting for my partner visa counts for that). And in order to put this form in, I have to get BACK my current passport and birth certificate from Canberra to prove what country I was born in and am from. Which means, getting it sent back to me from Canberra, forfeiting the $100 fee for my passport I can't get, and paying $90 to get a piece of paper that says "yes, she has in fact changed her name because she's married".

If I'm able to get the name change form....I then take that to get my license changed....and then mail that and all my id AGAIN to Canberra (and another $100....) to get my passport changed.....

And all for what??? Just so that I can "legally" show that I "assumed" my husbands last name!!

Anyone else feeling exhausted from just reading that?!?

Good grief I say....they don't make what should be a very simple process (at least I think so) easy by any means!

Once a Helpless Romantic...

If you don't know much about me, here's some quick insight....growing up I was a helpless romantic.

I dreamt of love, marriage, being swept off my feet, and one day meeting Mr. Perfect. I was told once, by my dear friend and cousin Jocelyn that I was 'in love with love.' I was defensive of course to that description, but knew straight away that she had hit the nail on the head. As if I could have argued with Jocelyn anyways...the girl who had to put up with me swooning over one guy to the next and using her to call boys for me since I was too chicken to do it myself.

Long story short, I was challenged to give that all up by the time I was 21, to stop planning out how my life should be romantically, and focus all that time and energy on more productive things.

So...present day, I'm now 5 months married to my best friend. It's amazing how now I can look back and see God's fingerprints over the journey we had in our relationship, and the path it took once I did finally give up trying to put it all together myself.

I had a wedding present for Matt, a collection of letters tied up with green ribbon, that I had to patiently hold on to for a year during our engagement...which I think keeping silent about was the hardest part leading up to the wedding.

Somewhere in the teenage years we had a youth group night based around the book "When God writes your love story". Although somewhat mushy and fluffy, it does hold some challenges for those waiting to meet the love of their life. Anyways, we spent the night writing letters to our future spouse. I wasn't entirely sure what to think of it, but the romantic in me jumped at such a fantastically sappy activity.

Regardless of how silly some of the things I wrote were, or how naive I was at the time, I kept writing these letters...over the course of about 8 years. Some were prayers for the man I had yet to meet, and others were more ridiculous. There was probably about 20 in total, with the last one being written just after I became good friends with Matt.

So, after a year engagement, I finally got to give this present to Matt. I apologized several times for how silly I might have sounded, because I couldn't remember most of what I had written (it had been 4 years since I had written the last one), and we sat and read through them together.

The result? It was amazing really. Despite how afraid I was of how irrelevant the whole exercise was, and how worried I was about sounding stupid in these letters, we got to see how our paths were coming together even before we met. During several difficult times of Matt's life, there was a corresponding letter with a prayer for him, written from the other side of the world. I had also stuck an Australian pen into one of the last ones I wrote that had gotten left behind when Matt left Canada.

I'm not going to say that I was predestined to meet Matt, or that we're soul mates that were destined to find one another, or any other hopelessly romantic statement. But, what I do love about all of this is the reminder of how things turn out when you put God in the drivers seat. When you stop trying to have control and to plan it all out, and instead just relax...trust God...and enjoy the journey!

I got to give Matt a really special gift, and together we were able to see how God was and is apart of this relationship. It only strengthened the resolve that this marriage must and will include God in it. It also served to remind me....once again....how important it is to remember what God has done in our past, if we hope to have faith for the future.

God is good.

People Workers

Children are the future.

Any arguments?

I think it’s pretty much a biological fact that the next generation of youth and adults will come from the children of today. Pretty straight forward I’d say.

If the above is true, what I find puzzling is the seeming lack of funding, resources, people and time given to children, in comparison to teenagers, adults, and the elderly.

What is so extraordinarily appealing in waiting until the little ones have hit puberty before we decide to start investing in their futures and well being?

I’m making reference more specifically to the fact that you will find (at least in my experience) an abundance of people willing to spend time with youth and teenagers...willing to run drop in centres, social clubs, Friday night youth groups, church hang outs, etc. But when it comes to the children...only a few put up their hand. And of those few, mainly females remain.

I’m an employed children’s worker. I’m in my late 20’s and have been working with kids, in a very wide variety of settings, both voluntary and for employment for the past 10 years. I consider it a privilege to be welcomed into the world of a child and to have the opportunity of journeying alongside with them. I am never bored but am instead forever being entertained, challenged, taught, and stretched. What’s not to like?

I am continually running into the problem of not having enough people willing to give of time and invest in kids who desperately need someone to care. Oh, there are many good intentions, with most people stating how much they love children. There just aren’t people who are willing to put their words into actions and actually give some time to kids (in their own communities) who could use an hour of positive attention more than anything in the world. However...I’ve been to youth events where the adults outnumber the teens, and the amount of youth workers to children’s workers funded and employed are 5:1. Never mind the fact that more time is put into youth “programs” and big flashy events, then it is into spending one on one time mentoring and discipling youth who could really use an adult to walk along side them and take an interest in their world.

If children are our future, and childhood certainly happens BEFORE adolescence, isn’t that where we should start? If the decisions teens are going to make under peer pressure, biological change, and worldly pressure are going to be at all influenced by what they have known and experienced up until this point in their lives, doesn’t that make the time of their childhood absolutely critical to helping prepare them for the hardest stretch of change, decision making, and new things they are ever likely going to face?

Childhood is fleeting, yet it leaves a lasting thumbprint on the rest of an individual’s life. Doesn’t it make it the most valuable and vital time to invest a few minutes into the next generation of youth and adults? Maybe we wouldn’t ‘need’ quite so many youth workers if the investment time was put in just a few years earlier?

I’ve heard the line, “but I’m just not good with kids” or “kids don’t like me.” Granted, there are a few people who I might want to say that to. Regardless, I was challenged recently by someone who said, “There is no such thing as children’s workers, and there’s no such thing as youth workers. There are only people workers.”

In the past, I may have argued that, stating that I believe my gifting and talents make me a children’s worker and that is the only thing I will dedicate my life to. However, experiences in the past couple of years have led me to think on the above statement that perhaps, the problem we have (specifically in the church) is not being able to train up ‘people workers’.

We tell people that they can only do kid’s ministry OR youth ministry OR seniors ministry, never crossing over between areas. But what if we taught that things weren’t meant to be this off balance? What if we were all “people” workers? Then certainly the important time and influence needed in the life of a child wouldn’t be wanting, and we wouldn’t be bombarded by people who want to join the ‘hip’ ministry of youth work leaving those age groups who maybe aren’t quite as attractive, by the way side. The needs of people would be met, not just a select few.

My heart is well and truly for children’s ministry, and I am continually amazed at the lack of people wanting to pick up on the cause that will affect the future of everyone, never mind the fact that it takes a giving of so little to make a difference in the lives of some so desperate.
However, I would like to conclude with calling you to be people workers. Be advocates for people who are desperate and without a voice, not being limited by the need to be titled and put into a box, only giving time to the groups that are easy or are the most popular to work with.

And if needs be, maybe for the first time, consider investing into kids.