On Writing...

I haven't written in a while, I know.

Since the last time I wrote, we've sent off the Beisleys. Lots of hugs and shed tears, but at least the last time I checked, they're somewhat settling back in St Helen's.

Oh, and I moved. Yup, I found a place on the Peninsula where the rent is decent, the landlady is laidback, and I'm still close enough to Kathrin and Stefan that I can still go back and harass them and create more mayhem from time to time. Who knew such a place existed, ay?

It's been 4 days since the move and I already miss their craziness. But it was time for a change. Time to put a bit more into my life so that it didn't revolve solely around Westside Christian Fellowship, which would have been hard to do since Kathrin and Stefan are a part of WCF. Not that WCF isn't good for me or anything like that, but too much of something can make one off-balance, ya know?

What else is new? Hmm... I've (surprisingly) kept up with the Bible reading AND the exercising twice a week. The birthday isn't too far away, and I actually have a pretty good feeling that I might be able to keep this up past the birthday this year. We shall see.

Oh, and I've also picked up Anne Lamott all over again. No, I didn't get very far into Bird by Bird the last time, and probably wouldn't this time either (not because it's a bad book by any means--it's more a reflection of my ADD). But even just reading the introduction reminded me of why I love writing, and made me pause to think of why I hadn't written in so long. Between Anne Lamott and reading the Goldmans' last newsletter last night, I figured out why.

Somehow I got carried away with trying to meet the expectations of my new role.

See, I write because I love writing. I love trying to find the right way to craft words so that they mean something more than just scrawly letters appearing across a page (or screen). I love giving a little more meaning to life than just reporting the events of the day-to-day mundane.

But as Dwayne and Kara wrote,

We realize that newsletters are typically glowing reports and newsy tales of success, and this has been a dilemma to us as we have wanted to write an update but felt the news wasn’t ‘good’ enough.

Because I had become a "missionary" by some awkward standards, I felt like I lost my voice as simply Jael. (Which, if you know me well, tends to happen a lot thanks to my chameleon/keep-everyone-happy/TCK personality)

I felt like I couldn't blog unless I had "glowing reports and newsy tales of success".

By any standards, I feel like I've messed up more than I've had successes. The messes were never beyond redemption, like the egg in the microwave or the ridiculous cheese-sauce experiment (story for another time), or getting way too involved in areas where I should have trodden more carefully. These stories of messes remind me of how much I need grace.

But ask me about successes, and really the only concrete thing I can think of is the tea-party we had for a bunch of the little ladies. But even that, I hesitate to call a success. Just because we've had an "impressive" showing of twenty-seven little ladies didn't make the event a success.

Any good student of ministry will tell you success isn't measured by numbers. I'm learning more and more that "success" is measured by God-sightings, and lately I've had a lot of those because of the messes I've created.

And all good missionaries should have good stories to tell. At least, that is the expectation. My stories are often silly, sometimes weird, and usually involve a heck lot of laughing or some bits of crying.

You see, life in Aotearoa has been anything but boring. And even though no one has vocalised the expectation for me to write good missionary stories, I've given myself the pressure. (did I mention I'm learning about grace?)

But I'm breaking out of the box I've put myself in. I may not have glowing reports and newsy tales of success, but I'm writing anyway.

Besides, what fun is there in writing if I can't take the mundane and craft it into something whimsical? :)

Dear Keren - The Cycle of Life, and Things They Never Taught Us

Dear Keren,

Today, Rochelle said something about trying to figure out how to explain to Ashton and Rhea (her 4- and 2-year-old) that the Beisleys were moving back to the US for good.

I kinda smiled inside. You would remember that just over four years ago when you left, we went through the phase of being angry that we might have missed the day at school when they taught us how to say goodbye. Would that have been Primary 1, or First Grade, or Year 2?

Goodbyes are a part of life. When we move away, when friends move away, when pets die, when Grandpa "became a moth in the after-life," these things all disturb the normal cycle of life.

When Grandpa became a moth in the after-life, we didn't go to school for a few days. I remember watching Grandma fall apart the day before we were to bury him. And then Grandma moved out of their flat in Blk 837, and us grandkids no longer hung out at that playground anymore. For years after that, every time I walked past that playground on the way to my uncle's house before or after school, I would from time to time wonder what it would be like if Grandpa were still alive, and if that playground would still be our stomping grounds.

But nobody taught me that I was really saying goodbye to Grandpa when they gave me instructions to toss the white rose into his burial grounds.

Years later, we moved to the flat my parents still live in now. I no longer had a direct bus home from school, which meant that since Mum picked me up on their way home from my aunt's, I didn't get to hang out with Laura on the bus anymore. It was all good because we had a fight the year before anyway, a stupid fight that only 10-year-olds were capable of.

But nobody taught me that moving didn't just mean that our peanut-butter jars and my stuffed Hello Kitty now lived on a different shelf. It meant becoming friends with Lydia and new lifestyle habits like visiting the library everyday after school to check out every single Babysitters Club book they had available since we now lived across the public library.

You see, I think when you left, I learnt that goodbyes don't have to be an ugly thing for the rest of our lives. I still miss you from time to time, but I'm ok with the fact that you're gone now, except for when people get awkward when I talk about death like it's a normal thing. Even now, when people ask me about the story of the ring I'm wearing, I don't always tell the full story because people get awkward when they find out it once belonged to a friend who died in a car accident.

Death IS a reality. As fatalistic as this sounds, at the end, we all die.

But that's the problem. See, they never gave us permission to talk about death or saying goodbye.

"If we don't talk about death, maybe we can pretend it's not there."
Or bullying in schools.
Or prostitution and/or other present day slavery and human trafficking.
Or the struggles that displaced people faced (Yes, I see you nodding your head, thinking about our conversations about Displace Me).
Or the oppression because of corporate greed.
Or...

"But if we just don't talk about it, maybe it will go away. Or we can pretend it's not there."

The truth is, goodbyes are a reality of life.
And even if bullying and other forms of oppression aren't our reality, as long as it's someone else's reality, it's our responsibility as followers of the Christ to change that reality to Kingdom Reality, right?

Or am I reading "do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" wrongly?

Dear Keren, I wish you were still here so we can continue these conversations. I wish you could be a part of the conversations I'm having now to make the conversations we had five years ago become even more of a reality. But I'm reminded from time to time of the task I have to continue these conversations, even if you're no longer here to be one of few friends who didn't laugh when I wanted to be homeless, or work in a coffeeshop, or run a bed-and-breakfast.

Dear Keren, I will keep these conversations going. I will (and have already) continue to find like-minded people to bring more conversations together.

Dear Keren...
I miss you.

Until next time,
Me.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’ - Jeremiah 29:4-6

Of Paper Cranes...

The box of the rest of my stuff that my mum sent finally arrived here in Auckland yesterday. As I was unpacking the box, it was almost like opening a treasure chest because there were parts of my past that came along with it.

There was Cindy bear (named after Yogi Bear's girlfriend) - the little stuffed teddy bear I got from my first plane ride when I was 3 or 4.

There were the Pollock/Van Reken's TCK book, The Shack, my first Anne Lamott book, bird by bird from Amanda, Thad's copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and God is No Fool, a collection of musings by Lois A Cheney, a gift from B-row just before I left the US.

There was the card from Keren, and a photo of her from her parents.

And then there were these three paper cranes.

Paper Cranes at the
Killing Fields memorial
in  Cambodia

The three cranes brought back memories of trips to Cambodia (December 2010) and New York City (Spring Break 2010). According to Wikipedia...

Thousand origami cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes (鶴 tsuru) held together by strings. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise), and is said to live for a thousand years. In Japan, it is commonly said that folding 1000 paper origami cranes makes a person's wish come true.

Inside the church beside
Ground Zero, a 9/11 memorial.
These paper cranes were from
victims of Hiroshima.

Cranes had been presented as symbols of peace to these parts of the world because of certain very dark events in history. These cranes symbolised wishes for peace, friendship, and hope for a better world where violence no longer existed.

My cranes have their stories too. Two of them came from Heidi and the 3Ts as a part of my graduation reception from seminary. They remind me of my fear of hanging out with kids--and how the 3Ts, my little kid-brothers and the other growing-up-way-too-quickly kids from Park Place helped me overcome that fear.

Paper crane from Alex
from 2008

And then there's the one made from a sheet torn out of the NAC roundup of 2008. It's the one that reminds me of the beginning of this whole journey leading up to my moving to Auckland.

See, back in 2008, I was into the end of my first year at Church of God Ministries when I met this lovely family. They loitered around the office when they had the time, and volunteered their time to help with anything that would help make our lives easier during the rush of Convention madness.

As often happens amongst missionary kids, their kids got a little restless during the Convention while their parents were in meetings and spending time catching up with supporters. Their oldest son, Alex Beisley had made a ton of paper cranes from sheets torn out of the NAC roundup, and they gave me one, just because.

I've had that crane hanging in my car until I finally had to sell it to move here, not even thinking anything about it, or the possibility that I might run into this family again.

I find it slightly amusing that this whole time that I've been in New Zealand, the crane had been sitting in a box in Singapore, and it's finally come back to me on their last week of this chapter in New Zealand.

Tomorrow at church, we will be celebrating with them the close of this chapter.

Doug, Danette, Alex, Allison and (not-so-little-anymore) Robbie, thank you for being family, and for paving the way for us at Westside over the last 7 years.


I've heard it said

That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have re-written mine by being my friend.
- For Good, from "Wicked"

Of Coloured Pencils...

I have a confession to make. (There seems to be a lot of those lately. Hmm...)

I may or may not have a slight obsession with coloured pencils.

I'm by no means a talented artist, more likely a wannabe-dabble-here-and-there-in-this-and-that noob by any standards. But ever since I was a kid, the one thing I loved most about Christmas (before the whole Jesus thing got in the way became more important, of course) was going shopping with my mum for school supplies for the new year. Every year, we would comb the aisles of Popular Bookshop, looking for new pencil cases, pencils, and then when we got a little more grown-up, pens, mathematical sets, and when we got EVEN more grown-up, calculators (gasp!). I would then be given the task of wrapping all my brother's and my school supplies up and putting them under the tree to be opened on Christmas day.

But my favourite of favourites would definitely be the coloured pencils. The kind I loved were the ones that had two different colours on either ends. There was the the one with light green on one and brown on the other, the cliche baby pink and baby blue one, the steady black and white one, and the pretty one with lilac on one end and lavender on the other that you only got in the box of 48 colours.

My favourite "getting ready for school" thing to do was, of course, sharpening the pencils. They had to get just sharp enough that the could be used, but not too sharp so that the ends would break off too easily. And if they were just blunt enough, it makes colouring so much easier because the texture is more consistent to work with. (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you may just have to try it out yourself.)

So of course, when we were making cards and doing some colouring at Kids' Church on Sunday and Phoebe came to me and asked for a sharpener, imagine my delight when I realised I would have to go through our bags of coloured pencils to make sure they were sharpened.

Last night, I dumped out all three bags of coloured pencils and sorted through the colours. I had to make sure there were enough of each shade in each bag as I sharpened the pencils and put them back into the bags.

One of the last colours I sorted was white. I had half the mind to just throw them out, especially as I was thinking about something I read recently (that I thought my fabulous artist friend, Joe Watkins had written, but I couldn't trace back the original source) about how white coloured pencils were essentially a rip-off.

Who uses white coloured pencils anyway?

I remember an art class I took as a kid where we experimented with water-colours. One of the things the teacher suggested we could try was to use a white crayon to mark out rain drops on our sheet before using a darker shade of water colour to go over it. The different mediums made the white crayons useful, but white coloured pencils, I could think of no use for.

That was, until I realised at least one of the white coloured pencils in our supply had been used.

Which made me curious.

How would anyone use a white coloured pencil?

Maybe I'm just too silly to have realised there are practical uses for the white coloured pencils and I'm just too stuck in my ways to give them a further thought.
Maybe I'm completely missing out on what folks who know the trick to putting white coloured pencils to good use can do.

Which made me think even more.
Do I sometimes stick "white coloured pencil" labels on people I interact with?
What am I missing out by doing that?


Hey, if you're one of those who know how to put a white coloured pencil to good use, will you please share your tips?

The Only Constant in Life...

It seems odd that (nearly) four months in Aotearoa have flown by that quickly.

The Beisley clan leave in about two weeks. In the last four months, Doug and Danette have become parents to me, just as Alex, Allison and Robert have become like my little siblings. Dinners, movies, outings and game nights with them and Steve have been dwindling. Most of the furniture have been sold, and more and more boxes are getting stacked up against the wall in the office space.

It's hard to believe that this is all really happening now.

As much as I no longer believe in goodbyes, the moments of separation and the anticipation leading up to those times of separation still are never easy. It's hard to pretend life is still normal when we're trying to figure out how to make dinner when pots and pans have been packed up in boxes, and the only serving utensil left is a ladle with holes, and you can't even dish up canned tomato soup.

I'm finally feeling like I've arrived in Te Atatu, and things are being shaken up as we speak.

They say the only constant in life is change. I couldn't agree more.




In exactly a month from today, I will be turning 26.

In my (almost) 26 years of life, I've never celebrated a birthday that was not shared with my brother (whose birthday is three days before mine).

Sharing a birthday with a sibling has its quirks. Our parents always made it a point to have two separate cakes for us even if we had a joint celebration. And every year after we moved to the US, even if we've had a big disagreement just before our birthdays, on the day itself that we celebrate our birthdays, we at least pretend that things are ok.

This year, I'll be turning 26 in Auckland after my brother turns 28 in the US. While it's nice to finally be able to have my own birthday celebration to myself, I'm still a creature of habit, and it still seems odd to have a birthday without him.

Anderson folks, if you see my brother on 3 Feb, please be nice to him.

They say the only constant in life is change. I couldn't agree more.



While we were (trying to) watch fireworks on New Year's Eve, Chad and Diane asked me if I had any favourite memories of the year. These were the ones that came to mind:

My last Chinese New Year celebration in the US.
WAY too many trips to the doctor's office with Jenny.
Moving one of my favourite people out to Colorado and hanging out there for Spring Break.
Deciding to move to Auckland after I graduate.
Getting commissioned and hooded by MaryAnn, and the whole graduation fiesta.
Packing up and selling 7 years of junk and reducing my life back to 2 suitcases and a few boxes in storage.
Endless nights of beading and talking at Love's Hangover.
Getting to see some of my favourite people in Oregon.
Hanging out with my sister for a couple weeks in my old stomping grounds in Anderson.
Saying goodnight and tucking the 3Ts in to bed for the last time (and Brother Frank).
Moving back to the parents' home in Singapore and dealing with reverse culture shock.
Moving to Auckland, and the months of crazy after that.

For whatever reason, the one memory that stuck out most to me that night was the trip to Colorado.

First time in Colorado.
First roadtrip with a kindred.
First goodbye in the US.

But it was also while I was there that I had time to rest, pray, breathe, and think about this madness called "Operation: Move to New Zealand?" The week there was a pretty good summary about life in 2011. Transition, moving, friendship, rest, New Zealand, nature, new experiences, and the faithfulness of God.

They say the only constant in life is change. I couldn't agree more.

Of Chinese Legends

Ok, let me begin by asking forgiveness for my nerdsplosion in this entry. You were warned.

Even though I grew up speaking two languages (and two other dialects), in my relationship with God, we've only communicated in Chinese on the rare occasion. (Usually that involves God REALLY trying to get my attention).

But to give a little variety to my lectionary readings, I decided this morning I was going to read in Chinese.

Talk about contextualizing.

Even though I'm fluent in both languages, my command of the Chinese vocab is limited to day-to-day communication. Sprinkle in a few spiritual terms and a few of the Chinese classic phrases or idioms and I get thrown for a loop.

Part of the problem is that I only understand the Chinese classic phrases because of the TV shows I watched growing up. Words like 公义 (which translates quite literally as public/community righteousness/justice) as used in Isaiah 61:10, or 差遣 (which means to send on a mission) as used in Galatians 4:4.

Emperor 乾隆 (Qian Long)

It isn't that I didn't understand the words as I was reading. It was more that I hardly read or hear these words outside of the context of the ancient Chinese royal courts as seen in TV shows. Sure, I come across the words "righteousness" and "justice" in theology everyday. But when I read 公义, I think of the Emperor 乾隆 (Qian Long) made famous by the 還珠格格 TV series about the long-lost daughter of Emperor 乾隆 who was born to a peasant whom the Emperor had an affair with on one of his incognito trips out to the country. The story revolves around 紫薇 (the "princess") trying to make her way back to the palace to be reconciled to her father after her mother dies. Along the way, she runs into 小燕子 (a peasant girl called Little Swallow). Because the journey is long and tiring, and 紫薇's body is too weak, she convinces 小燕子 to make the rest of the journey for her to tell the Emperor her story.

The plot thickens when the Emperor mistakes Little Swallow for his daughter. The thing that sticks out to me about this story is that while I'm not sure whether the whole 還珠格格 story is fact or fiction, the Emperor 乾隆 is known to be one of the more well-liked Emperors of China. He is portrayed in the story to be a righteous man, but still merciful after he finds out that Little Swallow is not actually his daughter.

Ever since my introduction to Emperor 乾隆, I've had great respect for simply out of my love for ancient Chinese history and culture. To think of my God in that context, except far greater since 乾隆 was human...

Righteousness and mercy got a little more personal today.

I was looking for pictures of a Chinese warrior prince because that's what 差遣 (sent) reminded me of. In one scene, Emperor 乾隆 sends his son on a dangerous mission. I found myself asking the question today, how many times have I read the words, "God sent his son," and went, "Oh yeah, that was the Christmas story. Angels, shepherds, mangers, Mary, Joseph, King Herod and the Wise Men."

But the words 差遣 (sent) made me think of an emperor sending his son on a dangerous mission. That was what "God sent his son" really meant, aye?

Princess Warrior

And since I couldn't find a picture of a Chinese warrior prince that I liked, I found a picture of a lady warrior instead. True confession time, I guess, and I'm slightly embarrassed by this one (mostly because it's so stereotyped). I've always wanted to be a sword-wielding, martial-arts expert Chinese princess. The jewelry and even the cosmetics from the ancient martial-arts era have always fascinated me, but even more so, the ability to conceal secret weapons in their garb. A pearl hairpin could just as easily be a murder weapon.

Taking it full-circle, this week's NT passage from Galatians 4 talked about how we are heirs in the kingdom because of adoption. If the Emperor 乾隆 was my imagery for God today, I guess that makes me a sword-wielding martial-arts expert Chinese princess, aye?

And taking it another step further with 差遣 (sent). I'm not just a sword-wielding Chinese princess. Something about missio Dei comes to mind for whatever reason.

(I warned you. Nerdsplosion.)

And then taking it yet another step further, if reading the Bible in one of my other native tongues led to this nerdsplosion, I wonder what it would be like if this contextualization happened for someone else...?

New Year's Resolutions... -ish

I've never been one who would start off a year with New Year's resolutions, mostly because I knew myself well enough to know if I made it to my birthday still keeping those resolutions, it would have been a miracle.

But this year, I decided I was going to make a short list of 5 3 goals to put a little bit more health and discipline into my life. So here's what I've come up with...

Spiritual Health
In the few months since I left Anderson and the circles of Seminary and Park Place influence, I've found myself REALLY missing the lectionary readings. So combining that with my attempt to take Bible reading a bit more seriously this year, I'm going to start following the lectionary readings at my own time.

Feel free to join in if you want, and especially if you're interested in having cyberspace conversations in this space. This is the resource I'm using, and I'm following the Revised Common Lectionary.

Mental/Emotional Health
Along with that, I'm also going to try to be more intentional about my writing. Because a lot of my processing happens through writing, I'm going to try to write once a week, and they will revolve around one of these:

• Something from the lectionary reading
• Something I'm thankful for
• Something I've learnt about God/myself/others
• Something I'm praying/need prayer about

I don't want it to get to a point where I'm hating writing, but I think I'd like a bit more focus, so I'm adapting some of the conversation points from XZBerlin. And don't worry, my usual nonsensical ramblings will continue :)

Physical Health
Because I'm tall and thin, I rarely feel like I have permission to complain about my body image issues. But the truth is, just because I'm tall and thin doesn't give anyone the excuse to say to me, you don't have to exercise since you don't have any weight to lose. Well, bullshit, I tell you. Just because I don't have to lose weight doesn't mean I don't have to work out to stay fit. But I've used the "you don't have any weight to lose" excuse to be lazy for too many years now.

In the last couple of months, I've started going to work out with Kathrin about once a week, and then to Zumba at Helen's. The goal this year is to keep to a consistent twice-a-week workout time. Even if some weeks I only have time to do crunches, it's the thought of keeping that disciple that counts.


So we'll see how well I do with that this year, and if I make it to my birthday in February. You're welcome to help keep me accountable :)

Editor's note: By 5 goals, I really meant 3. Thanks to Kathrin and Stefan for pointing out my inability to count.

Happy 2012

A quick review of the last day of my 2011, and the year in general:

Woke up wishing I had another appointment with my old chiropractor in the US.
2011 had been a year of more doctor visits than I can remember. Between the chiropractor, the gastric annoyances, the flu-like symptoms that included something like an ear-infection, I think I'm finally hearing my body tell me, you're not doing the best you can to take care of yourself.

That, and realising I'm 25. Still a young pup to most of my friends, but I can't help remembering that when I was younger, I had set goals to have had achieved more by this age... And I'm not quite there yet.

But the crazy thing is, even though those goals that I set way back when I was a wee lass have yet to been achieved, I've had so many more crazy adventures than I could ever dream of.


Stefan asked Kathrin and I at breakfast this morning if we had any reflections on the year. This has been one of those years that feels like a big wave came through and left me no time to catch a breath. The wave was fantastic to ride, but I could have done with a little less adrenaline.

So no, I haven't really had time to reflect. The year has been fantastic in so many ways, but also so disappointing in so many others.


We went in the afternoon to look at a place that could be a possibility for me to rent.
2011 had been a year of so much moving and transition. Between living off the couch in Becca and Jenny's apartment, packing up 7 years of life in Anderson, packing to house- or pet-sit for a friend for a few days, packing to move Amanda out to Colorado and the 10-day adventure in Oregon, having more garage sales than I can remember, selling faithful Cuddy the Hyundai that I had practically lived out of since the day I got her, moving back to my parents' in Singapore for about 5 weeks and trying to relearn what it's like to have a bank account and do other grown-up stuff in Singapore, and then finally moving to Auckland but still waiting for answers with the visa... Suffice to say, I'm ready for a bit more stability in my life now.

Living with Kathrin and Stefan has been a great arrangement, but I'm ready for a space to call my own now after a year of so much moving around.


31 December 2011 ended with a night of games, snacks and (trying to watch) fireworks.
Food and games had always been a part of seminary culture. But 2011 also saw an unfinished game of Ecuador Monopoly that will have to be on hold for a while till the next time I get to hang out with the Robertsons.

And 2011, I got to watch the 4th of July fireworks in St Helen's, National Day fireworks on TV in Singapore, blow some up with friends on Guy Fawkes' day in Te Atatu.


So yes, 2011 has been a crazy year.
I've experienced bigger disappointments and anger.
I've been on a plane more times than any other year that I can remember.
I've said more goodbyes than I've wanted in Colorado, Anderson and Oregon.
I've sunk even deeper roots in Singapore.
I've met heaps of new crazies in Auckland.


Here's to a 2012 with even more crazy emotional roller-coasters ahead, and even more so to a crazy God whose faithfulness leaves me speechless.


Happy 2012, everyone. Love and peace to you and yours.

Welcome to Te Atatu

Katherine and I went today to mark out the route for our prayer walk on Friday. Along the way, I got a little bit of a history lesson, which made me realise I guess it's time for the blog world to be formally introduced to Westside Christian Fellowship and Te Atatu Peninsula.

Westside Christian Fellowship began as Auckland International Church. As AIC, the church primarily consisted of international expatriates. In 2007, the church moved to Te Atatu Peninsula in the Waitakere region, which is west of the Auckland mega-city.

I'm just trying to be impressive with my geographical terminology here, ok? To put it simply, for those of you familiar with the Great State of Indiana, it's kinda like saying Anderson (Te Atatu Peninsula) should really be filed under the Madison County cabinet (except in this case it's the beautiful Waitakere (mountain) ranges), but it's now lumped together with Indianapolis (Auckland) as part of the mega-city.

Completely confused yet? :) Google might be able to help.

West Auckland has apparently been historically the area with the notorious reputation. Te Atatu was apparently one of the most "unsafe" areas until recently. According to Katherine, churches on the Peninsula have been prayer-walking the community and much change has come to Te Atatu Peninsula.

Westside has chosen intentionally to work very closely with the schools and families on the Peninsula. It has been an interesting few months for me, watching the subtle influence of post-Christianity play out in family life on the Peninsula. But it has been even more fascinating, watching the growing number of people in our church stepping forward to influence even more positive change in our community.

I'm excited about the things that God has in store for us in 2012. But even more so, I'm honoured that I get to be a part of this. The approval of my 2-year visa (which I just realised I haven't even blogged about!) answers a lot of prayers that have been whispered. But even more so, it affirms that the vision of bringing me here wasn't a mistake; that the dreams we've dreamt in the last few months weren't a mistake; that, just in general, we're doing ok.

2012 promises to be another year of adventure. Sure there will be more (and bigger) emotional roller-coasters--I wouldn't expect any less from a crazy God with an incredibly misunderstood sense of humour. But even through all the big disappointments and heartaches of 2011, God's faithfulness still came through in the few in quantity but massive in quality victories.

Bring it on, 2012 in Te Atatu Peninsula. I'm ready for you!

Unexpected Christmas

In all the weirdness of me, I've always secretly looked forward to my first Christmas away from the birth family.

Don't get me wrong. I love my family, and Christmastime with my crazy cousins and church family is always fantastic. But there's a part of me that feels like my first Christmas away from the birth family is another rite of passage--or perhaps another symptom of the pains of growing up.

So in all the weirdness of me, I've been secretly looking forward to this Christmas for a while. But somehow, the last month got insanely busy with trying to meet datelines to get my visa sorted so I could actually spend Christmas here. Then there was the exhaustion from trying to help plan for Christmas service and stuff while I wasn't even sure if I would be here for it.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I forgot how much I had been looking forward to this, my first Christmas away from family.
Somewhere in the middle of puppet show rehearsals, writing newsletters and hanging out with kids, I forgot the expectant spirit of Advent.
Somewhere in the middle of trying to find stuff to fill the emptiness of being away from what is familiar, I forgot to even find time to miss the traditions that I've grown up with.

So here I am in the first hour of Christmas morning in a whole new part of the world that is now home, sitting in the home of a friend where I'll be sleeping the rest of this week because the housemates have family in town. The Christmas Eve dinner with the adopted family has long been digested, the cheesy Christmas movies and family games have been put away, and the Christmas tree in Janice's home is lit.

This wasn't at all how I had envisioned my first "grown-up" Christmas. I'm settled in to Te Atatu, but not having my own space to start my own "grown-up" Christmas traditions is creating a feeling of displacement that I hadn't anticipated.

But I wonder if this was exactly how Mary and Joseph felt. It was their first child, and they probably didn't even have the time to get ready for their own family traditions before they had to head to Bethlehem for the census. I wonder if they had themselves envisioned what the birth of their first child was going to be like, and how far it might have been from what they had expected.

Yet somehow in the midst of all the hustle and bustle and feelings of displacement, the Christ-child came. So as exhausting as this whole month has been (I barely even noticed this is the first blog post in over a month...), and in spite of the fact that it is 1 am and I have to be up in a few short hours for a long, long day of festivities, I'm taking a few moments to breathe in the Christmas air. I'll shed a few tears for the traditions that have now been broken, and give thanks for new beginnings and new hope that could only happen because of this Christ-child.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Love from Aotearoa,
Jael