Keeping Up With the Andersons

My only exam is in a week. I'm looking forward to it (gasp!). Well, exams are a great way of making you work hard and consolidate info, so studying for an exam can be quite an enjoyable process. But often my only study time is 9pm at night (like now...) and I so am not up for reading and thinking...so here's my secret. Multi-tasking...yes - I do it...and it's been successful so far. Here's an insight into how I studied today: Firstly, Caleb had a nap - so up came the commentary. Then we went for a walk, I sang Old MacDonald had a farm (always end up wondering what sounds a chook makes) and read my commentary whilst pushing him to Salvos - I was looking for a "trolley with bricks" (that's what Toby calls it - us Aussies would say a "cart with blocks") for Caleb to push around because he's trying to pull himself up on EVERYTHING!. Then later on he played happily for 10 mins whilst I read. Then we went shopping...well, that was the plan. We drove the 5 min to the shops, he fell asleep on the way - and since he was tired and had been pretty grumpy I let him be...and pulled out my commentary (and some pen and paper). 1 & 1/2 hr later I left the shops, having never gotten out of the car since he hadn't woken up, and the Westfield Parking ticket only gives you 2 hrs free. But I'd got some good work done. Yay! Don't stress - I got some milk on the way home at an unusual corner store (I always how they make money...hmmm). And here I am procrastinating tonight. So, that's probably 2 -3 hrs work done today. And time to digest it whilst washing, playing, chatting with a friend, exercising and calming a teething child. I'm not trying to be a supermum, just enjoying the time I have to reflect on Deuteronomy, and loving it. Enjoy the opportunities that your situation in life affords. And you're welcome to go for a walk with me and Caleb anytime...I promise I won't read - I'll talk with you. And hopefully I won't walk into any poles...

You might be wondering what this event is that keeps popping up...some friends at our bible college sat down and brainstormed about how to care for families in Australia, particularly with such a high abortion rate. We decided to pray. We know that God is in control, he made us, he knows us, he cares for us. What a good decision. So once a month we pray for Australia, our families, our governments etc. Why 90,000 kids? Because that is the recorded amount of abortions each year in Australia. Many lives terminated. What sadness. So, please come join me on the lawn at SMBC at lunch. Or you could pray right now. Pray for the parents and children of Australia. Pray for support for overwhelmed women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Pray for a change of opinion in our country. Also pray for those who want children but can't have them. All these who suffer (usually in silence). I hope my little boy can bring delight to not just my heart but to many who need healing...everyone's hurting in some way. Every time I go to the shops someone cuddles him or plays with him. People who have lost children, who have just had a patient die, people who hurt. Next time you meet a stranger think about how you can be of comfort to them, how you can sit a while on a bench with them. My biggest comfort to them is the comfort of the new creation, where Jesus has brought death to an end. Please pray for me to be of comfort to people, as the Holy Spirit gives me power to speak words of life.

Well, our first Mothers' Day proper...Caleb is 6 months already. I've enjoyed reading all the stuff today's paper publishes about mothers. The inconsistencies always strike me - one page talking about trying to improve our stat of 49% of mums with youngest child under 6 in the workforce to at least match other developed countries (59%) by introducing paid maternity leave (which I wouldn't be eligible for!). The next page talked about middle class people working long hours to provide for their children and their children being the unhappiest and depressed group in Australia. Whilst I think work can be satisfying and necessary to pay the bills (in fact, a number of mums in my mothers group are working part-time or plan to return to work - because they enjoy it, or need to pay the bills, or because their husbands are now unemployed due to the economic situation), it is really strategic that parents have energy and time for their children, not just giving them the leftover 'grumpy' energy. The love of a childcare worker can never replace the time and love of a parent, or even better, a community of family and friends. My childcare worker friends would agree with me, even though they love their kids so much.

How do I make my time with Caleb fun and enjoyable, and even intellectually stimulating!? I see him as a little person who needs to know and grow...I try to see the world from his perspective. I have made myself a mini expert on all things to do with children's development...it's like rediscovering my childhood - thinking about how things work, lots of time to think about how to explain the world to a child, how to help him know God, how to meet with people and encourage them as we walk down the street and go to mothers group. And lots of cuddles. And I read to him, not just kids books but whatever I'm reading...at the moment I'm enjoying a book on God the warrior whilst reading Joshua...feel free to ask me about it.

And music - I always wanted to be a professional singer, and now I have an appreciative audience for all my musical blunders...in fact he plonks the piano and sings along with me....and he's trying to plonk the computer keyboard at the moment too. Whilst dancing to the music.

Kids are fun. Praise God for them. I'm happy to share mine with you. Come join me for some fun.

P.S. I love my working mum friends...and I will probably join your ranks at some point, but my priorities place my family before my work...so when I have the need to - I will be praying for a job with good balance...but til then I enjoy my busy 7-day job with my family, the opportunities it gives me to meet with people, help them, be helped by them, and look forward to my spare-time hobby of study and sleep

Hi friends.
I was reading a sydney anglican website whilst eating my spag bol tonight and it was talking about the benefits of blogging...well, I benefit from blogs of others, hearing their thoughts, and reflections on life, and seeing what they're up to. That's part of the appeal of facebook. So, I officially declare our dormant blog re-opened!

Toby's away, and sent me an email...he's on an overseas visit to Beijing with others from our college. Something he said was fascinating...
"So far Beijing seems a nice city. Quite similar to Sydney." I think: Sydney and Beijing - diff language and culture, diff size, diff food, diff weather, diff government, diff attitude toward Christians....but maybe some of those differences aren't really differences, and the others don't really matter. The world is a small place. I remember when a Viet guy in one of my bible groups at uni said that Sydney was more like Hanoi than he expected...and he thinks it was because of American tv. I think it's more than that...
What are the similarities?
1) People are people everywhere. Despite language and culture and experiences, people are really similar...we all long to be loved and accepted. We all long to make a difference. We all long to be heard. We all long to achieve and succeed. We all long to be young forever. We all want freedom. And I can't help thinking that God, our creator meets those longings. Maybe in different ways to what we expected.
2) Food. This sounds silly but living in Ashfield, we can get most of the Chinese foods that Toby's enjoying...just down the road - and def all under $10. Come join us sometime. "I had delicious Seafood Congee for lunch at a really nice Chinese food court"
3) something I think's cool is that there are believers in Jesus everywhere...even if they're hidden from view (as many of my aussie asian friends say when they return home). But I think it's cool that there's so many in China that the goverenment doesn't stop them meeting together anymore, they can't when there's way more Christians than ppl in the communist party.

Let me know other thoughts you have about similarities, small or big, superfiicial or profound - I'm interested.

Other funny things toby said:
"had a 2 hour language class with the people who teach the 'workers' here. It was fun." ha ha - he'll be better equipped to speak with our neighbours now - so many within 100 m of our unit who don't speak english, but only mandarin. Well, at least he can say hi in a vaguely kosher way. That sounds so imperialist...we have bought a teach yourself mandarin cd, and keen to learn...and we have heaps of friends who speak it. It's a much richer language than english - and that's even after they simplified it!

I'm off to Brisbane tomorrow...that's my adventure whilst Toby's away...and it'll be nice to have company and hang out with some good friends from uni days. Caleb's getting on a plane at 4 1/2 months, I think my first trip was age 11! he scored! Should be heaps of fun.

Full Name: Caleb Toby Anderson

DOB: 2008-11-13 3:28amWeight: 3.53 Kg

Height: 50cm

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Debatable, possibly strawberry blond

Distinguishing Features:
• Extreme cuteness
• Strong legs
• Strong arms
• Strong suck
• Ability to feed continuously with only short breaks
• Ability to sleep for up to 6 hours even while being cuddled by friends and relatives

We recently had a holiday in Jervis Bay. It was great fun, and we got to see the bottle-nosed dolphins that live in the bay. Here are some photos we took.

Us at Jervis Bay

Dolphin at Jervis Bay

After our holiday we had a training weekend for our Scripture Union mission on location in Tarcutta. Each section's plans for January started taking shape, which is very exciting.

Now we are into the second week of a 4-week block of lecture time, with an essay due this Friday. Next week we need to get stuck into studying for our exams which will start on the Tuesday of the following week (we requested to do our exams two weeks before our fellow students because our baby is due in the college exam week). We won't bother trying to go to lectures in the week we are doing exams.

It's a busy time of year for everyone at SMBC; This afternoon I had to study in the dinning hall because all the desks in the library were taken up (FYI there are 62 desks in the library), and for us this busyness is compressed by 2 weeks. Our last exam is on 7 Nov. After that we only need to be concerned with our baby. It's very exciting. Many of our friends have just had babies, and they're very cute. It's a bit scary too, but I 'm definitely looking forward to it. We've rearranged our house so what was the study is now a nursery and the living room doubles triples as a study and dining room - which actually works out pretty well!

Pray that we'll get all our college work done in the next few weeks and that we get through exams. Pray for MG's final month of pregnancy and for the birth.

I'm working on two essays this week. The first which is half done is a response to Hebrews as if I was an original recipient. The second which I'm yet to start is What is the rationale for the ruling against mixed marriages in Ezra-Nehemiah?. I don't really like writing essays because it's hard work, but once I get into it I actually like it because I learn so much from researching and I end up knowing a lot more about the topic, and I really love learning stuff.

The last essay I wrote was about how chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation (The letters to the 7 churches) fit in with the rest of the book. Here's my conclusion:

The whole book of Revelation provides a big picture of what God is doing, into which the present afflictions of the church can be placed. Chapters 2 and 3 contains the messages of the glorious Lord Jesus as He addresses specific churches directly and indicating He knows their situation, their strengths and their weaknesses. It is exhortation to continue under pressure with the rest of the book as motivation to do so: The upcoming judgment of the world and victory of Christ. As their current situations are placed alongside God's grand plan for the world, these messages also allow the hearers to see that their suffering as part of something much bigger. Finally it provides them with hope, through the promises to those who overcome, as they see into the future a new Jerusalem where there is no more pain, and so they can push on toward that goal.

This week is a research week which means there are no lectures and we have time to catch up with reading and assignments. MG and I are working on New Testament assignments. Mine is abut how chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation (the letters to the 7 churches) relate to the rest of Revelation and MG's is a similar question on chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians.

This week SMBC is also hosting a conference about teaching Acts, which means two things for us:

1. We're allowed to come to a talk from Acts each morning, which is useful for getting us out of bed.


2. We get really nice morning tea.

I've noticed that the use of laptop computers has been on the increase at SMBC. I just had a look around the library and 45 out 59 students working here at the moment are using laptops.
As you might have guessed, I'm procrastinating from doing my essay. Gotta go, it's time for lunch.

We've both recently finished writing an essay about Oliver Cromwell and his impact on the religious and political life of 17th century England. Did you know that England had no monarchy for a decade? That during this time the Baptist Church came about because of Cromwell's tolerance for religious splinter groups? That ever since then England has had a constitutional monarchy instead of a monarch with absolute power?

Anyway, although church history is a really fun subject, I've noticed that it's really difficult to write history essays. The reason is because you generally have to decipher the causes and motives behind the actions of individuals and groups who are no longer alive. Generally causes and motives are a blend of an unbounded number of variables and all you've got to go on are descriptions of the events by people who weren't there and possibly a few things the people involved said or wrote that are distantly related to the topic and very specific to some particular context.

Even so, church history is still a very interesting subject, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

Sorry we haven't put anything up here for so long. I'm going to try to be more regular with making posts from now on (not knowing whether anyone still reads this). We're hoping to put out another newsletter this month, but I might pre-empt it a little by giving you a brief rundown of the highlights of this year.

Main thing is that Mary-Grace is pregnant! The baby is due in November. This will mean a lot of changes to our lives starting from net year. Firstly MG will finish her study and graduate with a Graduate Diploma (leaving open the option for continuing study later), while I will go on for 2 more years and get a Masters. Secondly we will probably change churches and I might be a student-minister. We will strive to keep ties with our Christian family at Christ Church.

I'm very excited about becoming a father, but it is a scary thing too. Pray that we will both be able to make the necessary adjustments, and be good at raising children to love God.

We both passed our first set of exams, and are now in second semester, where we have sensed a significant increase in the pace of our study. Pray that we wont fall behind, particularly as we will be taking exams early, so they don't clash with the birth.

We still thinking and praying about what our long term ministry will look like. We hope to gather some close friends around us to pray with us about our future. Let us know if you're interested.

Our April newsletter is out.
You can see an archive of our newsletters here.

I've just changed the blog software from Wordpress to Serendipity, because I think it's better.
It all started when a new version of Ubuntu was released. I felt like my server needed a fresh install of this operating system, to clean out all the junk. While I was at it I thought I'd improve the blog software, and so here it is. The whole process didn't cost any money, but it did take time (which I should have put into working on my new testament essay about people's responses to Jesus at different stages of His ministry) but I think it was worth it.

I imported all the entries from the old blog, but the pictures didn't come through. Sorry.

Wow - we've slipped into a routine...I actually enjoy the library! I'm a bookworm from way back and I'm loving exploring some of the issues. We've been looking a lot at the first few chapters of Genesis and asking loads of questions...I'm really enjoying the time to explore some of them more deeply, challenging what I see as important or true. I am really being challenged in my OT reading that God is not of my own creating, but amazing and purposeful. I think I find it easy to box God in a list of attributes or something equally as limiting. I'm a nerd, and enjoying memorising Greek...Toby's already known as the greek man in the class, so it's fun competiting in the Anderson household to know our vocab. Toby's made a computer program to help him learn Greek...he wouldn't buy one - he wanted his own...you should ask to see it next time you chat. He'd be chuffed.

Anyway, love to hear what's happening in your life.

We always appreciate your prayers, espeically for our neighbour. We feel powerless to help her in her sickness, but we know God is working out his purposes. Please pray for God's strength, love and care for her.

It's been a while since we've last blogged. We've been away a lot since we finished up with EU Grads Fund the week before Christmas.

We had an amazing week at Tarcutta with summer mission, strengthening relationships and sharing fellowship with our brothers and sisters there and helping them in the continual work of making a difference for Christ in their community.  It was lovely to have two of the teens decide that following Jesus was for them. And their overjoyed mum who was so proud to tell us. Please pray for them and so many people that we were able to share life and the gospel with.

We've also been holidaying. We planned on camping with a good friend, and were washed out, so ended up staying with her parents on the coast, which was really lovely. Then Toby and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary  by holidaying at Manly for the Australia Day weekend. The weather was lovely, and it was nice being right near the beach.

And last Wednesday we started some intensive Greek...I'm really enjoying it, and I'd forgotten how Toby loves learning...so he's been having a ball.  It's a lovely community of very diverse people who are being changed by God's love, and it's a real priviledge to study and 'live' with them (we're still living in the inner west, so 'living' consists of lots of meals and fun and chatting). Where else would I have lunch with a firey, a sparky, a teacher, a physio, a burger maker, a zooligist, a marketing researcher, all ages and backgrounds? It's great getting to know these people, who God made with heaps of different interests, personalities and stages of life, and a place where people are keen to learn, and share life honestly with each other.

Love to hear how the new year's shaping up for you. Much love.

Looking back over the last two years I can really see the value of what I've been doing. The benefits for myself and also for people I've been serving.

For myself I've learnt a lot about what Gifts I have and how I can use them to serve the Church. I've also been forced to practice a lot of some things that I'm not very good at such as one2ones and leadership, so now I'm getting better at these. For others I can see how God has worked through me to help them mature and for some people I have been a part in them coming to know Christ, and I think this has been more important than any other benefits going.

Thank God for how He has blessed me and others at Sydney University over the last two years.