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… at the year that was two thousand and nine: Part one, Part two, Part three

I sometimes stream this video and keep it in my cache all day and all night, regularly going back to watch it when I have a spare moment. It’s a gentle, yet powerful reminder of how fragile we truly are. We can live our lives in such a hurry, almost to the point where we become blinded to life itself. I constantly catch myself racing to this, attending to that, striving to achieve something, all the while I feel like I’m neglecting the things that really matter in my life. To God, my family, and my friends, I love you all very much.

Surfing; it’s about as Australian as driving a Holden, having a BBQ with some mates, and riding a kangaroo to school. Surfing was something I always wanted to try but never wanted to be the comic relief for beach-goers and shame the surfing community at the same time. The closest I got to surfing was playing California Games during summer break as a kid. To this day I still can’t get a perfect score of 10 and it kills me.

A little while ago I was out one night for dinner with a friend from church, Israel. With a very large mouthful of chicken, large enough to hinder the projection of his voice, Israel asked if I slurp much. I said, not usually, I think it’s bad manners. With a slightly puzzled look on his face he finished what was in his mouth then proceeded to talk about the beach. I quickly put together that he wasn’t talking about slurping at all.

It works out Israel was keen to go surfing. From what I could gather during the conversation Israel was about as hopeless as me when it came to surfing, which put me at ease before going.

With more connections than a telephone exchange, Israel knew of someone that had a couple boards we could borrow. Unsurprisingly, Nick, the quintessential beach bum turned pastor, was that man and was happy for us to borrow them for the day. Unfortunately, when it came time to pick them up one of them were in need of repair. Fortunately for us, it appears Nick’s brother was also born double recessive with the beach bum gene, so we ended up swiping one of his brother’s boards instead.

We managed to cram the boards in my car, which certainly made for a lonely drive up the coast as the boards created a partition between us. Although the partition was there I would still turn my head slightly as if to face Israel. I’m almost certain passing motorists thought I might have been a little nuts, as it appeared I was talking to some surfboards.

By the time we got up to the beach and stood on the dunes, looking at our options, we were both a little apprehensive as to where to take the boards into the water. On our left we had a congregation of pro surfers and on our right we had spine snapping rocks and lurking in the water was probably killer sharks and giant octopus that devour whole ocean liners. For the sake of our dignity, we both opted for the latter, until we saw a small group of people about halfway between the pros and the giant octopus and ended up going in there.

It took some effort paddling out past the pounding waves but I found there was great reward in the sense of stillness and peace beyond the breaks. We went fairly early in the morning, so the water looked very glassy as well, which added to the calm. It was as if the ocean had been transformed into a lake. I was quite content to just sit on my board in the stillness and forget about trying to surf.

We were in the water for a little over an hour. In that time I managed to catch a couple waves, but I don’t recall standing up once. I suppose reading the waves would probably help. For me, reading waves is like reading a book in Swahili; I couldn’t seem to understand them really well. Either I’d be too early or too late. I guess it would have helped if both Israel and I were more focused. While sitting on our boards, waiting for waves, we’d chat about life. Unbeknown to us there was a perfect wave forming from behind. I lost count of the missed opportunities.

We decided to throw in the towel when the crowd was getting larger and kids half our age were not only good enough to surf, but to do a few cartwheels on their boards while riding a wave. It was time we just swallowed our defeat… with a fine coffee from Mooloolaba to help it go down.

For a little while now I’ve wanted to try my hand at creating a time lapse but for whatever reason, be it time or location, never got around to it. This of course changed when a friend invited me to stay with he and his wife at Q1 on the coast. I thought it would be a perfect time to finally give it a try. If you look closely there’s a bit going on in this lapse, but it’s hard not to be sucked into the hypnotic flow of the ocean. This was taken between 17:45 - 19:15 on Thursday night. Shout out to my brother for letting me use his machine to painstakingly compress and encode this clip.

In recent months Tanzania has been a place of interest to me in terms of a possible starting point for a babies home. This interest is a far cry from a couple years ago as Tanzania was just the country next door to Uganda and nothing more. I had no interest in its people, its politics, and its need. Now, it’s a place that has nestled itself inside my heart and my conscious. Although I still haven’t had a clear direction to the possible starting point for a babies home, this recent stirring in my heart for Tanzania is a little too strong to scratch off my shortlist of countries. There is a connection to this country, however it’s a little sensitive for me to write about openly here.

A few months ago, after Tanzania popped on my radar, I was at a conference at a reasonably large church on Brisbane’s northside. While there I caught up with an old familiar face. During conversation I happened to drop the word Tanzania and the conversation went into overdrive. It worked out the church hosting the conference were supporting an Australian family in Dar es Salaam. It also worked out that this family were due back in Brisbane on a short furlough, so I knew that I would have the opportunity to meet the couple and pick their brains about Tanzania. So, after waiting patiently for a little over a month, I finally caught up with them last night!

All I can say is that I was just truly blessed that we crossed paths. We spoke for a few hours about all things African. It was great! I shared my heart and vision with them and they were so open and supportive. I felt it really bought my vision of opening a babies home so much closer, that this was actually one day going to happen. I was encouraged as we shared, and reassured within myself that I wasn’t crazy about going to Tanzania. It’s something that I’ll certainly keep praying about for further direction. Watch this space.

A little while ago a friend lent me a book called St Jude’s. It’s a true story about an Australian woman, Gemma Sisia, and her journey and trials of starting a primary school, from scratch, in the middle of Tanzania, Africa.

In essence, this book has almost the identical makeup to what I one day hope to achieve - to start a project from nothing in the middle of Africa. For me the biggest encouragement was that she was an Australian national. This may seem like a relatively insignificant thing, but all too often I read these sorts of stories and they usually come from people everywhere but Australia. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I felt a connection as I read her story. Her Aussie slangs and colloquialisms, that I’m sure non-Australian nationals will be scratching their heads at, gave this book a very ‘home’ feel. It just made me feel all the more able to start this type of work knowing that the author was just your average run-of-the-mill Australian.

The book could easily be broken into two halves. The first half is a romance story and the second half is the actual side that gets down to the business of the school. During the first half I had to continually check the cover and the blurb on the back to make sure I was reading the book about a woman and a school in Africa. The author ended up meeting and marrying Tanzanian national. Although this love story based on pure serendipity would be something you’d expect to find in between the pages of a romance novel, it wasn’t until later that I realised their meeting and subsequent marriage was pivotal in where the school is today.

This story confirmed some things for me and it also answered some questions I had about long term work away from my homeland. This book was also a friendly reminder about African life. Those once past frustrations came flooding back as I read her accounts. Toward the end I lost count of the times I nodded and muttered under my breath, “Ahh yes.”

Probably the most significant point the author made in this book was her explanation and contrasts of foreign aid. For the life of me I can’t remember the page she wrote it on, so I can’t give you the direct quote, but it went along the lines of the differences in providing money and providing something longstanding, like education. If you provide something like education or even love and affection to children, then it’s something they will have with them for the rest of their lives. Despite their poverty, no one can ever take away their love and education. Money on the other hand can be taken away. It is not eternal. Pouring only money into a country through various means and channels is like pouring water into a leaking bucket.

Although the author wasn’t having a dig at the various channels that are available for people to provide monetary contributions, she was just merely stating the difference between people sacrificing money to save African lives and people sacrificing themselves to save African lives. Money can’t buy these children holistic education. Money can’t buy these children love. There needs to be something more.