so it's been a while...
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
...more than two years in fact, and a fair bit has happened.
I did get my private pilots licence, but it took a fair while; I finally got it done in May 2011. For a whole bunch of reasons we decided that going down the mission pilot path wasn't what God had planned for us, so we changed course. We moved home and church in November 2010, and in 2011 I started doing a ministry traineeship at Macquarie Baptist Church. In the middle of the year we had Jacie, the cutest daughter I could wish for, who is about to turn 1!! The year of ministry at MBC and with Christian Union at Mac Uni was hard and awesome, and it seemed like God was pushing us towards full time church work, so I enrolled at Morling College - the NSW Baptist theological college.
That's where I am now, studying madly to try and get through my first semester of assignments and exams! Life has been huge and crazy and hard and exciting and insane, but we're confident that this is where God wants us to be now. Now all I've got to do is get my head around Greek!
I'm hoping to get back into the blogging groove, and share some thoughts about college and whatever else crosses my mind, but we'll see how it goes.
scrawled bysteve at 5:32 PM 1 comments
where to from here…
Friday, April 16, 2010
So its about time for a very irregular update.
Steve is (still) quite close to getting his Private Pilot License. Thanks to bad weather, bad back and various weddings, Steve hasn’t had many lessons up in the air this year. Thankfully he can study regardless of the weather and thats why I’m writing the blog this time - he is busy working his brain.
When Steve gets his PPL, we will need to decide if we should continue down the same path ie. Steve gets his Commercial Pilots License, does some other practical training and we both end up supporting and working with missionaries that are in remote locations.
God made it quite clear to us that we were not to study at New Tribes Mission this year (He cancelled the course). We are seeking his wisdom as to whether that means:
- a) we keep going and do the training with NTM in a couple of years after Steve has done his flight/mechanical training
- b) we keep going and serve in a similar way with another organisation
- c) something completely different that we haven’t even thought of yet, but is obvious to God as He already knows.
Last week our church was visited by some folk from Mission Aviation Fellowship. These are the folk people assume we are wanting to serve with when we say Steve is hoping to support missionaries through flight. So when Steve started to seriously consider training with MAF I felt like he was an englishman that just turned french, or a vegan that was asking for a steak.
We looked further into what they did and how they trained and we thought it was a real option - even financially. ....until we checked the finances. Turns out that its going to be even harder than we thought for Steve to finish his flying training, especially if we are blessed with kids (which we’d love to sooner rather than later).
Allow me to paint the picture with some more multiple choices. We can pick from the following:
- a) Continue to live and work and save as we are currently. Steve flys/trains on the weekend, and potentially finishes his CPL mid/late 2012. (if we have a child before the completion date, training will be put on hold indefinitely due to losing my income)
- b) Save up for a year and move to MAF to begin training in 2011. I work to keep us eating which again means we can’t have a child before 2012. (this would be training only; we don’t have plans to join MAF)
- c) Steve will complete his PPL and stop there. We will serve our Lord some other way.
- d) none of the above because God knows better.
We are blogging this because we would love for our brother and sisters in Christ to pray with us as we try to decide with God wisdom which path to take.
“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” Proverbs 16:1
If you feel like you have some insight or wisdom to share, please feel free.
“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22
Us on holidays having fun with friends in Brisbane:
(actually poetically written by skye)
scrawled bysteve at 6:46 PM 2 comments
marked as a servant of God…
Friday, February 5, 2010
ever since i became a christian i’ve felt a call to serve God. i never thought i’d be working a career job until i retired, there seemed to be something else that i was called to. even now i’m not 100% sure what that is, as God often re-directs us from paths that we *thought* we were travelling… but i know that i am called to be a servant of God.
that idea is really important to me, something that i shall treasure and strive for all my life. i’ve always wanted a tattoo, but i’ve only wanted to get something that is meaningful to me, and something that won’t lose its meaning with time… so when i finally got myself inked it was with the words doulos and yahweh
the word “doulos” in greek means bondservant or slave; in the new testament it refers to someone who has chosen to remain a slave of his master, it describes the absolute surrender of someone who is totally devoted to their master.
the word “Yahweh” or “YHWH” in hebrew means Jehovah, I AM. it speaks of God being eternal, existing before all and continuing to exist after all is destroyed.
there’s more symbology in my tattoo design too… the old testament was written in (mostly) hebrew and the new testament was written in greek and there’s also a huge difference in the old covenant and the new covenant! behind the words i have two symbols as well, one being the cross and the other being a triquetra – the cross representing Jesus’ sacrifice for my sin and the triquetra representing the unity and eternity of the trinity.
so here are my tatts! i got them done on wednesday night and they still need a little bit of touching up, but i love them! i hope you do too…
scrawled bysteve at 8:44 PM 5 comments
2010: the year to come…
Friday, January 15, 2010
christmas and the new year have been and gone, now life begins to settle back into a routine.
a lot of ppl have been asking us what this year holds for the callans, so i figured (with some gentle prodding from skye) that it was time to update the blog again…
we get asked how we are going with the whole change of plans thing from time to time, and while we’d love to be up at port mac training with NTM this year it’s clear that God wants us here for now. a whole bunch of ppl have left or are leaving st marks, so there’s a lot of holes in ministry and in the church community, and we’re hoping to help fill some of these. we’re content to be here and to be more formally involved with ministry at st marks, but it will be hard sometimes as there aren’t many ppl around our age/stage of life to build close friendships with. so we’ll be making more effort with those that we have, and generally trying to help build the family of st marks here.
in terms of work we’re both planning to continue working fulltime, and i plan on continuing with my flight training. i’m not far off completing my PPL, but am struggling a little with the theory side of things. once that’s done, we’ll make a decision whether to continue towards the goal of CPL and missionary flying. it’s something that i still want to do, and we’d both love to be doing it with NTM, but everything’s up to God – if i don’t have the flying skills or the theory-retaining ability then we’ll have to see where He leads.
that’s the two main things that ppl ask ‘bout… other than that we’ll be hitting the beach as often as we can, watching lots of movies, and hanging out with friends!
happy new year!
scrawled bysteve at 4:39 PM 2 comments
2010: plans change…
Thursday, November 26, 2009
tonight we got some sad news. a call from NTM to inform us that the training that we had committed to for 2010 will not be running.
we don’t have heaps of information about what’s going on, but the main reason for the decision from NTM is that there aren’t enough trainers to enable the course to run.
while we are very disappointed about this, it’s good to know that God will direct us where he wants to be – and this is a very clear “NO” for training with NTM next year. we are blessed in a lot of ways… we have a house to live in, we both have jobs, and there are heaps of ways that we can get involved in ministry here next year.
the cancellation of the training course has affected a lot of ppl; our friends in port mac particularly are unsure of what they will do next year now, and the whole team at NTM are finding the situation difficult and disappointing. for those of you who pray, please keep the team at NTM in your prayers, and particularly our friends scott and sarah!
thanks so much for all the support that you guys have been, we really appreciate it! the news hasn’t completely sunk in yet, and we now have to think and pray about what we do in the next couple of years… we’ll keep you informed about that and any other info we get as it comes.
God be praised, his Will will be done. it’s good that we can trust him to have a plan for our lives and we don’t have to worry too much when our plans fail.
scrawled bysteve at 7:13 PM 3 comments
2010: port mac or bust…
Monday, November 16, 2009
so, we’ve made a decision! after much thinking and praying we’ve decided to trust God for next year and commit to training with NTM in port macquarie in 2010!!
very exciting times, very interesting times! we don’t know how God’s going to provide for us, whether we end up at port mac for two years or end up in my parents spare room looking for work, but either way we’re wanting to step out in faith and trust that God will put us where he wants us to be!
training starts on jan 27, God willing we’ll be moving up the weekend before and setting up house at NTM… can’t wait! there’s a three-bedroom house waiting for us on the NTM campus… so plenty of room for visitors!
i’ll give a bit more detail ‘bout what we’ll be doing in another blog; for now i just wanted to share the news cos we’re EXCITED!!!! w00t!
for some basic info on the course have a look here…
the site is in lakewood:
googlemaps link here…
did i say it’s EXCITING???!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?! hehe
scrawled bysteve at 7:22 PM 4 comments
2010: the plot thickens…
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
oops, a month slipped by! exciting times for us!
two big bits of news: the 2010 NTM training course is definitely running! praise God for providing trainers!; and we have been formally accepted by NTM to study with them in 2010!!!!! w00t!
God seems to be opening all the doors for us to head up to port mac next year. we’ve had heaps of encouragement from ppl around us, and have visited a couple of home groups to let ppl know what’s going on. we’ve got a few more groups lined up and are hoping that others will express interest soon!
so… what now?
- raising awareness and support. like i mentioned, more visits to home groups and anyone who wants to hear ‘bout what we are doing. we’re also doing a presentation to all 3 services at St Marks on November 22.
- make a decision about 2010. we can’t financially support ourselves (mostly because of the cost of flying) so we are relying on God and his ppl to get us there. it’s unlikely that we’ll be given all the money we need for the year, so at some stage we’ll have to decide to step out in faith that this is what God wants us to do and to trust him to provide. feel free to pray for wisdom and discernment!
- finishing my PPL. there’s a LOT of studying to be done before i can go for my licence, and not a lot of time for it to be done in. i’ve also had to cancel a lot of flights due to the weather… at the moment it’s ok, but if i miss many more i’ll be cutting things a bit too fine.
that’s ‘bout it for now, feel free to shoot me an email or ask questions on facebook if u wanna know something! and if you’re a praying person, please remember us in ur prayers!!!
oh, almost forgot, here’s a link to our flyer if ur interested! the outside first, and the inside of the flyer…
scrawled bysteve at 6:43 PM 1 comments
