I'm a new creation...ever human, ever new!

It's been a while since I've written on this blog!  I've been in Melbourne, at St. Fidelis Parish, since mid February.  Our internet's been a bit dodgy, so I haven't yet had the chance to write...until now!

The past week has flown by SO quickly it's almost scary.  I can hardly catch my breath and remember what's even happened recently!  Life on team is buuuusssyyyy and overflowing with experiences and memories.  Some highlights of my time here so far include: 

• meeting the parishioners(!) - and one of the Italian mamas' uncles lives in BEAVER FALLS, PA!!!!!!!  (aka close to home!)
• running a year 6 reunion and going to a water park with older youth
• leading a mini-retreat at the nearby all girls' school
• our weekly Sunday night open houses and the rich discussions we get into (especially when our beloved Scottish priest Fr. Kevin is there!)
• experiencing some genuine and faithful friends who make us feel at home and offer numerous gifts of home-cooked meals (shout out to Jeff!)
• attending Mass every day and living 10 mins walk away from an adoration chapel!!
• running into familiar faces from my previous NET year in Melbourne
• sharing funny+meaningful dramas with the parishioners to help us as we go deeper in our faith

And on top of these and other things, all of the LIFE I've been sharing with the four incredible peeps I live with on team has been the fountain of many highlights. 

Robyn, Roz, Joe, Justin, and I have been super busy, but that hasn't stopped us from bonding over intense card games, ice cream and khalua shakes, and the occasional "honouring."  It's normal and encouraged for NET team members to honour each other in little and big ways.  For example, those on our team who don't have the service of being a team leader surprised myself and Justin (my co-team leader) by cleaning our messy office, rearranging the furniture, writing affirming and supportive notes, hanging up scripture verses and inspiring quotes, and placing a little vase of flowers on the mantle.  It's little things like this that make me feel incredibly loved and appreciated - and overwhelmed by how loved I am.  Funnily enough, Justin and I had secretly been planning on surprising the other members that very night with our first Lord's Supper Saturday (a Christian way of celebrating the Sabbath in the line of our faith's Jewish roots)!!  It was complete with wine and soy cheese (for us who aren't on good terms with lactose...), prayers, lively music, and a hot, delivered dinner of chicken and hot chips!!!  So it was a very honourable day.  :)

It's also customary for the sisters to honour our brothers, and vice versa.  Here's what the girls did for our brothers:

(a special shout out to Fr. David for getting the guys to finally LEAVE the house so we could bombard their door with sisterly love!!)

Many of the parishioners have given generous gifts of food and money to my team.  It's been a major highlight for me to experience firsthand what it means to be in want of a necessity and not being able to have it given me as I'm used to.  Instead, my team and I have been relying on our God-Dad to give us what we need.  An example of this happened last week.  The five of us were planning out how we'd do our grocery run for the week with the $80 we had left.  We said that God would eventually provide, but we were now feeling the stress of not knowing when and how in the meantime.  We had plans for chilli con carne, we wanted garlic powder and spices, we needed flour, stir fry sauce, veggies, and then the essentials of bread, milk, and toilet paper!  We spent quite a bit of time refining our list.  I know I was getting frustrated.  Especially with 5 differing opinions on what's the most frugal way to go about shopping, or what qualifies as "essential."  Then we heard a knock on the door.  Justin and Joe went out.  They were gone for a bit, so I decided to see who came and what was up.  Just then, Justin came in carrying a grocery bag full of food.  I ran out to see who had come.  The woman's name was Maria.  She was so friendly and so generous.  She had to leave but we hope to spend more time with her.  If this weren't enough, we opened the bag of food only to find: a package for making chilli con carne, garlic powder, stir fry sauces, 2 different kinds of flour, canned corn, and a whole heap of other things (including JUICE!!!!).  Wow.  That is how our Father shows his love for us in obvious ways.  It was a very humbling experience.

(I met this puppy during music training....one of the cutest things I've ever seen.  I like thinking about how God loves me more than I love this puppy!)

I wish I had more time to blog, and I wish this blog was clearer and more focused - but these past several weeks have been all over the place.  One thing remains: God's love NEVER fails.  Jesus NEVER gives up on us.  The Holy Spirit is constantly at work within and through us, making each of us a new creation.  The beauty of a quiet, cozy street lined with trees and rose bushes, the gorgeous sunrise at 6am, the constellations and captivating sight of the night sky from the southern hemisphere, the sounds of the birds (of all sorts of colours!) outside in the trees or the bees buzzing in the flowers, the little red rose that a random old lady gave to me and my sisters on a day where I was feeling down and anxious - all of these things are beauty reflected in creation. 

All of creation screams beauty, like a baby screams for the first time.  It's undeniable.  And yet God calls each and every one of us MORE beautiful, more precious, more delightful in his eyes than all of creation.  Because his love for us is so much BIGGER than we can see.  He loves all of creation of course, but he has chosen each one of us to be in relationship with him.  To call him Father, Friend, Saviour, King, Brother, Spouse, Lover, Love.  He loves us so much he gives us the choice, to choose whether we will live our lives as his sons and daughters.  I have never known the joy or love or peace I've known since claiming that truth - that I am a precious daughter of a King who doesn't wait for me to come to him.  Instead, he seeks me out.  He's captured my attention.  He does all this in order to give me the fullest, most satisfying, most joyful life I could know.  He preferred being nailed to a cross as a naked criminal and despised man, rather than living without me in eternity.  This love is love that doesn't stop at nice fuzzy feelings and saying with my mouth that I love him back.  No, I must LIVE my life in HIM. 

So I'm saying Yes.  Yes to Jesus.  Yes to LIFE.  And yes to the journey he's currently taking me on.  One which is full of ups and downs and struggles and tears and blessings and laughter.  Living life with him is worth any pain, and any inconvenience that comes my way.  For he has already begun transforming me into a new creation, one who is being nurtured and loved and challenged by the people around me, namely my team, and in a very special way my sisters on team, Roz and Robyn.  We're currently on the same bed sharing each other's company.  They have been a refuge and a safe haven for me this year.  I've never experienced such a strong bond with young women my age who aren't flesh and blood sisters.  They challenge, comfort, love, and fight for me every day.  I'm caught in a new and life-giving experience of true sisterhood like I've never known.

I used to live life in my terms for my own purposes in the way that I wanted.  This usually meant I was quite lonely deep down.  That has been flipped upside down and around recently, and it seems so new to me - almost too good to be true.  Am I always "happy" and care-free?  NOPE!  But I know that I'm loved.  And that makes me want to love others.

 

Jesus, thank you for coming to me and being my friend.  Thank you for dying for me - and for not stopping there!  Thank you for the love you have for me which conquers sin and death.  I'm praising you for the glory of your resurrection and the love you call me to each and every day.  Make me a new creation! 

 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21