New Zealand at my front door

jane_gray_lookingatyourself.jpgI discourteously did Onno Knuvers the dishonor of not linking to his website (Due to my use of an image of his in the previous post). So I must do that now.

He is – from my reading – a Dutchy (a very good start!) turned New Zealander. And by a further glance he has some very cute and clever little illustrations. Not meaning to suck-up to nullify my ‘crime’, but I did really rather appreciate this one. (And I can hear Geoff saying in my head, ‘No you’re not sucking up at all!’, in his amused/sarcastic way – scary that!)

So there’s the first New Zealander – at my online front door.

The second lot are at my actual front door. In fact they’ve been living in our rather minute lounge room the past two nights. My lovely housemate’s doing (Who, quite realistically and honestly is a much nicer person than I am). Our lounge room, as tight as it is, is a fraction more comfortable than this couple’s car.

Isobelle (housemate) met them at the free meal my church puts on a couple of weeks in a row. Very nice couple. They’ve fairly recently moved across and yesterday fantastically both managed to score full-time jobs which was fairly important. They are now living in a tent in our front-yard.

Why am I sharing this some what more personal-to-them thing? A couple of reasons.

a) So I can ridiculously claim I’ve got New Zealanders at both my online and offline front doors and that collates into a nice easy blog title.

but more seriously,

b) So that I can remind myself of the crap that’s been sifting through my head and some less than perfect attitudes I have towards these kinds of things.

Conversations of late at: Vocare, Young Adults and with those around me etc. have been quite centered around money. This situation in it’s own way has allowed it to hit home.

I have so much freaking stuff.

image by Jane Gray

3 Comments

  1. said:

    I like that you use such creative artwork in your posts. 🙂

    June 24, 2007
    Reply
  2. said:

    A guy I know who has a lot of experience with concepts around ministry formation and ministry supervision commented to me once that inviting someone into your home is a BIG deal.

    Christians don’t need to guilt themselves into having an open door policy towards every need under the sun. Yet, at the same time, it is a pretty good thing for (slightly) hardened types like you and I to have our comfy little world shaken up a bit by one of those much nicer people who make us stretch out and love, when we wouldn’t otherwise realise that we should probably be trying to.

    That said, there is nothing wrong with being a bit of a Bectrovert. Compassion and sacrifice are not just about denying our selfish agenda – they’re about doing it willingly. That instantly excludes any form of guilting yourself into submission that is driven by comparing the outward expression of your charitable desires, to those of someone who can wear the adjective ‘lovely’ with a slightly better fit. In responding to that, there’s no need to try to stretch too far in one go. You’re far too likely to burn out and lose the motivation to try again.

    My suggestion would be to ask yourself how you can stretch little-by-little, instead of how much you should be able to sacrifice because other people seem to be able to. At the very least, the fact that it makes you uncomfortable is an excellent start.

    P.S. I heard a rumour that I missed out on seeing Geoff preaching on Sunday somewhere? 🙁

    June 25, 2007
    Reply
  3. said:

    yes you did and he was good!

    June 26, 2007
    Reply

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