You don’t normally envisage an exciting new season in God beginning with a snotty session of foetal rocking on the couch, but there I was. What catastrophe had put me there? A list of expectations, both real and imagined, that scrolled through my head as we prepared to take on senior pastorship of Calvary Christian Church in Townsville. Not, as some may suspect, the lack of a department store within a 4 hour drive (…although …
I remember the first time I heard the words that will stay with me forever. I remember the smile on the woman’s face as she looked at me with envy and I remember the pride that exuded from me that day thinking I had just won a gold medal. No those words weren’t you are amazing. No they weren’t you are so smart or kind. They weren’t even you are beautiful. Those words, which held …
I arrived in Australia as an asylum seeker from East Timor. I was not quite two years old. Even though we were now safe in Australia the shadow of what my family had experienced in the conflict in East Timor, hung over our home. From the moment we arrived my parents pretty much laid down their lives to provide a life for my brother and I, of which I am forever grateful. I remember always …
My mum and dad had a very rocky relationship. Although I knew that they loved me and my brother and sister they spent a lot of time arguing with each other. When I was eight my parents divorced and my mum took my younger brother and sister and I to live in Nowra with our Nan. When I was in Year 6 my mum fell in love in with a man in the Navy and …
The signs started to reveal themselves in January 2011. To the untrained eye, everything would have looked the same but for me, her Mama, who knew her better than anyone, I could see things weren’t right. The dancing in the kitchen after dinner stopped. Her nails were no longer painted in bright shiny colours. Photography ceased as did her desire to learn to drive or do anything she used to consider fun. My quests for …
