Australia Day

This past Friday was Australia Day, which commemorates the day in 1788 when the first governor took office in the first British colony in Australia, making that day in effect the birth day of what would become the nation of Australia. We got the day off work and I celebrated by sleeping away most of it. It was wonderful.

A radio show host here in Brisbane did a bit on Australia Day allegedly to determine how much Americans knew about Australia. He called a woman in the U.S. at midnight her time, waking her up. He told her he was with the Australian government tourism department and asked her if she’d mind answering a few questions. They were all multiple choice. One was: “In what year did Tasmania almost tip over: a: 1947 or b: 1954”. She guessed 1954. Another was: “In what year did Adelaide get electricity: a. 1999 or b: 2000”. She guessed 1999. The last was: “Who is the king of Australia: a. Steve “Hot Dogs” Bunning or b. Wally Lewis. That was the only one he told her she missed. He told her after she answered each of the other questions that she’d gotten it right. When she guessed Wally Lewis on the last question, he sadly told her that, no, King Hot Dogs was actually the king of Australia. She seemed not to find anything ludicrous about any of the questions, and felt pretty good about herself that she’d only missed one. No telling how many people they had to call to find one like her, and it wasn’t very kind, but gracious it was funny. (And by the way, in case you’re with her, Tasmania is an island and they don’t tip over; Adelaide is a large, thoroughly modern city that got electricity a hundred hears ago when major U.S. cities did; and Australia does not have a king. If they did get to elect one, though, they probably would vote for the one named Hot Dogs.

Roland and I had a very nice visit last Thursday evening with Michael Schmidt, the district superintendent of this district of the Church of the Nazarene. He’s a good guy, doing his best in a very difficult assignment. We’re looking forward to getting to spend more time with him, just for friendship-building and prayer.

Roland’s mother and I went this past Sunday to the Redlands Church of the Nazarene after she was invited to attend their special service celebrating their 25^th anniversary at their present location. Their pastor always just oozes warmth and humor. And the former pastor who preached the message spoke of the simple Christian obligation to love one another, to speak words of encouragement and affirmation to each other. It was the most thoroughly positive service we’ve been in yet in a Nazarene church here in Brisbane. A group of people who were mostly old, who’ve seen their numbers decline and many years pass since they regularly witnessed God’s grace transforming people in their midst stopped to take stock. They looked around and remembered erecting that building and they recalled glory days when they were impacting their community and God was moving around them and they reminded each other that it wasn’t always like this, and that it needn’t always be, and encouraged each other in a discouraging time to be again a people of hope and expectancy and love and spiritual power.

We sang the old songs of victory with them, and I found myself tearfully praying for them that God would do a new thing in their church and give them the deepest desires of their hearts, not for the forms or the methods they remember, but for the victories they remember. I prayed that God would help them to see clearly and love deeply and expectantly the people around them; that they would lift up Christ in such a way that all people would be drawn to him.

I think that day is coming.