How did I ever end up Catholic?!? Pt 3

And so to Tonga and more “happy hours”, school teaching, leading the Wednesday morning service…and being very –incredibly lonely! To not speak your own language for weeks at a time makes you lean in very close to the Lord. Especially when you are the only palungi(non-Tongan) in the village and very much “under the spot-light”.Again this was a year of learning about

community and also receiving so much wisdom from the very giving hearts of the people of “the friendly islands.”

During the year a friend visited, as did the missionary ship “the Anastasis”. Said friend and I returned to New Zealand and were married in his Anglican church.

Then it was back to Tonga and work there until the end of the next year when on the advice of a midwife in Tonga we returned to New Zealand to have our first child.

Just a word on church in Tonga, if you

have never heard the wonderful music of a Tongan church choir you really have missed something!

In New Zealand we settled in the small rural community of Dargaville where we attended the Baptist church. We taught Sunday school, attended a home group and felt at home in this small community. Our church was a hodge-podge of people who had left other Christian communities; (Brethren both open and closed; Presbyterian, Anglican ,Salvation Army, and “non-denom. Charismatic”) so learning to “meld” did make for some interesting times!! At this period my thoughts on the Catholic church wnt something like “its not even a Christian faith…they add and take away from God’ word, they blend truth with untruth…the Pope is probably an antichrist”!!

How did I ever end up Catholic?!? Pt 2

So here I was in a strange town amongst strangers.

The Catholic Church was on a hill not far from the public library so I thought “why not?”. One of my new flat mates encouraged me. And it felt right to be going to church again.

I remember saying the Nicene Creed (“Lord I want to believe please help my unbelief ")

Also at this time I read “By Searching” by Isabel Kuhn. This book had a big influence. I went out and bought a Bible and wrote the verse “Canst thou by searching find God?” Quickly I added to it “if you search for me with all your heart…”

Of course I thought in my ignorance that it was all about me finding God, I little realized that He had not given up offering Himself to me all along.

Then things started to get confused, a fellow teacher and friend invited me to her Baptist Bible study. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, their pastor mentioned the need for “believers baptism”(wow I’d thought I was already baptized) but he informed me this wasn’t a proper baptism. Ah well I wanted to get Christianity correct and he certainly spoke with authority and like my good old dad could quote Bible verses with authority! So I went ahead and got baptized in the Baptist church …but for good measure the week before I still went ahead with my confirmation in the Catholic Church!

I’ll fast forward a bit now, the next year I continued teaching but on the opposite side of the North island. Became part of a “cell group” of young people from a whole range of church backgrounds. We met once a week for prayer and Bible study, went on retreats, had a garage sale to raise funds for missionaries in PNG and met and then supported a missionary family in India

And so the following year I gave up teaching and went to a Bible school. Nothing Catholic about it and no Catholics present. But what a wonderful year!

There were people from Fiji, Tonga, Canada and even Australia. (!)We taught "Bible in schools" held "happy hours" at college , lead services in different churches.

I had never felt so awake to the community of God's people before!

Wattle birds

The wattle birds are back in our yard.The other night we saw them as they swooped and dived trying to catch small flying bugs in the air. It was very hard to photograph but wonderful to watch!Query: does anyone know why these honeyeaters would only appear in our yard in early autumn and spring.

How did I ever end up Catholic?!? Pt 1

I was asked recently about my journey of faith from the Baptist church to the Catholic. I have thought how to do this explanation without making it very long…and it could be because the journey itself was a long one, sometimes step by baby step other times running in leaps and bounds, times of pain and sorrow and confusion and times of jubilation and joy!

To begin: I was born into a family with a Catholic mother and agnostic father. However because my father married a Catholic he promised to allow his children to be brought up in the Catholic faith. Consequently when only a few weeks old I was baptized.

The year of my 5^th birthday I started school at the local Catholic school and the day after my 7^th birthday made my First Holy Communion. All smooth sailing so far? Not exactly. Dad bless his heart never made any bones about his dislike for the Catholic church and mum kept her faith very personal (i.e to herself) The Church itself was undergoing some pretty big upheavals around this time too (Vatican II) and so any formation I had in the faith until I turned 14 was minimal or I slept through it(!!)…nothing stays in my memory except my father’s logic which made more sense to me than anything of faith (After all he could quote passages of scripture that seemed to support no God!!) I went to the public school from 8 on. One highlight in public school was a “Bible in School”s teacher who read us a beautiful children’s version of Pilgrim’s Journey…(ah so faith was about a journey; the die was cast)

At 14 I turned my back on my mother’s faith and on all people of faith. I remember shouting in our school oval that if there was a God why didn’t he come and strike me down for my disbelief in crying out against Him.

….But at the same time whenever I went to stay with some good women of faith(my aunts) there would come into my heart a wistfulness…”if only it could be true”

And so began another period of the journey-“the atheistic period”. At times I would be incredibly angry and at others deeply depressed. As St Augustine said: “Man is filled with a God-sized whole that only God can fill” It wasn’t terribly bad and yet nothing terribly good happened either. Life was frustrating and unfulfilling.

When I was 23 I left home to take up my first teaching position as a “New Entrants” teacher in a rural city. God provided situations and two people in particular that made me receptive to Him again.

Spiders and moths anyone?

These are some of our recent nature "finds" in our back-yard. Warning : some viewers may find these images "distressing".

More on a donkey

These images come from the book"Easter" by Brian Wildsmith. I think they make a great meditation for this time of Lent. How the seemingly insignificant things we do,that nobody else notices can be of great import.

A shower or two!

These photos demonstrate how attached we are to rain at the moment in this "neck of the woods"!! The small containers collecting droplets that ds(7) put out put me in mind of the stories one hears of droughts in the outback for years at a time where children were born and grew up never seeing rain...and so their first reaction when finally the "heavens opened" was one of screaming terror! No my son isn't frightened of the rain but as you can see we are just slightly obsessional about it

our Lenten Journey Day Thirty-Four

Did you know that a donkey was once awarded a medal of honor for bravery in Australia? Read about (duffy) Murphy the Australian Army donkey who served courageously in the Battle of Gallipoli who tirelessly carried wounded soldiers from battlefront to the beach hospital. What other donkeys have courageously carried and served. Meditate on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Focus on the simplicity and courageous faithfulness of this little animal.

our Lenten Journey Day Thirty-Three

 Try not to complain if you get hurt, feel sick are tormented or if you feel like sulking. Remember we are called to live the whole life of Christ, not just his birth and resurrection but also His cross. Today take up that cross of Jesus and offer up each small suffering for the souls in purgatory.

our Lenten Journey Day Thirty-Two

St Athanasius painted a cross on his door in an effort to give courage to others especially Christians who were hesitant to proclaim their faith. Pray the prayer of St Michael the Archangel. It is a good prayer to pray in times of temptation or fear.

More Sunday "snaps"

Our Sunday outing continued with a hunt for something new. We always like to find/see something new if we can; a place a view a memory to return to. And so we embarked on our travels. We spotted some interesting “four-footers in a field. I saw a house I could imagine living in, we spotted some maples in brilliant red and then headed in the direction of our friend’s place to share some apples with them. We decided not to go back on the freeway. As we wound our way along, past valleys of grapevines I spotted a sign that pointed to a picnic area we hadn’t visited before. While dh rested in the car and listened to his favorite classical music, the boys and I went for a walk along part of the Heysen trail. It was amazing that we had never notice this walk before as for some of it we were close by the free-way(we even went under it at another place which the boys thought exciting!!) while the view to the left showed alpacas and beautiful scenery! After thirty minutes we stepped out of the bush walk to see the old mill. What an enjoyable afternoon we had! The only worry on the horizon was the sound of sirens and rescue helicopters hovering overhead…we learnt on our return home that there had been a bushfire in the general area of our excursion.