Merry Christmas from the Webbs

So, all you people over in the UK will just be waking up to Christmas now (unless you've got kids in which case you've probably been up for hours already) and we've just put our kids to bed for the night.

We had a good Christmas day and hope that you enjoy/ed yours. Here are some photos from us. Now have a great New Year!

Little and Often...

OK, it's nearly 2009. Ruth and I have just moved to Canowindra to become staff at the Cornerstone centre there. I've nearly finished my Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment and should be ready to apply for a visa in the new year. We've got a baby arriving in May. It's the perfect opportunity for a new start.

As a result I've decided that from henceforth I'm going to follow Ruth's rule of household cleaning - "Little and Often..." My goal is to update the blog a lot more frequently in 2009, but probably with shorter updates. It was too hard to write a long essay every week/fortnight/month/quarter, so maybe it will work if I write a paragraph or two a lot more frequently.

So that's it. More and less coming your way in 2009.

Have a great Christmas and a brilliant New Year everybody.

Tortured Genius...

I can't really do anything other than apologise profusely to the two people who are still following this blog (And I think that one of them keeps coming here by mistake). I have been very busy recently, but that's not much of an excuse. I just needed to manage my time better and make sure that this thing didn't drop off - but it did. So sorry about that.

I suppose that I could say that I haven't had much to actually write about. Yes, I suppose that would be a better excuse. It's been a combination of being busy and not actually living the exciting playboy lifestyle that I have previously painted of myself. I have, in fact, been living in a storage container on the Newell Highway for the past few months. Ruth came back from England and found a muddy footprint within a twenty metre radius of the house, so she kicked me out. My days have consisted of eating grass and scraping rust from the interior of my new home. I nearly have enough to make me a rust hat. Yessir, then I'll be set for the summer. Anyway, all of that is not really blog-worthy material so I haven't been keeping it updated.

Wouldn't that be the height of postmodernity, or irony or something, to update my blog with a post giving excuses as to why I haven't updated my blog? I am a genius.

Well, coming back to earth, I can let you know some real stuff that's been happening. I've finally finished the course that I've working on - apart from one bit that I'll tell you about in a moment. I've been doing this, on and off, for the past two years and it's nice to finally reach the end. It's been a long struggle, but I finally made it and that's good. Now we have to think about what we're going to do in the next year. Our ideal plan is to stay on at Cornerstone and join the staff at the first year centre in Canowindra. To stay on, however, we need to think about getting ourselves a permanent visa, and it would be easier for me to become a member of Bloc Party than get into Australia. Although you and I know the truth about my tremendous abilities, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship are not so enlightened. Apparently, I need to have a clearly defined purpose and role to come and stay in Australia, and for some reason vague descriptions such as 'brilliant genius' are insufficient.

So I have to do a little more training to acquire a qualification that Australia is actually interested in (unlike my Master's degree). It's no exaggeration to say that if I was a hairdresser, acupuncturist or private art teacher I'd be able to get in to the country a lot easier. Those are just three occupations that are on the Skilled Occupation List. "Tortured Genius", however, is not.

So, we'll be making some decisions over the next few months and I'll be working on more coursework (and filling our forms). And we'll see what happens.

This seems to be par for the course for Ruth and I. We find ourselves in situations where we've got an uncertain future and we have no idea how it's all going to pan out. I find it a lot more...exciting than I used to. We've been through this before and God has never let us down. I get annoyed that He leaves things so late, or insists on stretching us a little further each time but that's the way that growth happens. It would be nice to live an uncomplicated, safe life but I wouldn't swap our adventure for any amount of security. What Ruth and I have learnt about ourselves and God over the past five years is worth more than anything. The wisdom and experience that comes from finding yourselves unable to do anything other than trust God is priceless. Of course, more than ever we're now seeing the folly of investing yourselves in things that don't last. It's interesting to go through all this against the backdrop of a global economic crisis. Against the backdrop of a global economic crisis? That sounds like a great phrase to put in the trailer of the movie that our lives will become. "A MAN AND A WOMAN FACE AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE...AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF A GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS...WITH THE FATE OF THE WORLD RESTING ON THEIR SHOULDERS..." hang on - I've gone a bit wrong there.

I think I've said it before (in so many words), but I'll say it again anyway. If you're a Christian and life is not constantly challenging and stretching you then you're doing it wrong.

Actually, I have got a story for you. I was up on the roof this evening, trying to clean out our air cooler in preparation for the coming harsh, blistering summer. So I did what I though I was supposed to do and because I'm an awesome genius - I think I may have mentioned that earlier - I managed to short all the lights in the house. Oh dear. Apparently I was a little too indiscriminate with the hose. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to get an electrically-minded person to have a look and assess the extent of the damage that I've done. So I'm writing this by candlelight. Isn't that just the perfect mix of current and ancient technology. Blogging by candlelight. I really am a genius.

Home Alone

Hello all. No photos with this update because Ruth and the children are in the UK and she took the camera with her. She said that she "doesn't trust me with it" and put it in one of the suitcases. How long does a man have to live with the stigma of having once filled an entire memory card with photos of his own foot?

That never happened, by the way, but I needed to make something up to try and explain why my wife would have left me camera-less just so that she can selfishly take photos of friends, family and English grass. Where do her priorities lie? That's what I want to know.

I've spent some time in Canberra recently. I was down for a Warhammer tournament (Don't ask. Please. Don't) at the weekend and I stayed on to spend some time with Cornerstone Assistant National-Dictator Paul Roe. He was speaking at a conference for teachers in some of the Canberra Christian schools and I was there to - in his own words - 'make him look good' by not screwing up the photos and other multi-media things that he wanted. I failed in this task by screwing them up. Still, as we were talking to Christians they weren't allowed to think bad things about me so it all turned out OK in the end.

While in Canberra I got to visit Parliament House (where the Aussie leaders make decisions on big national questions - like "Prawns or Snags?" and "Who's bringing the stubbies?") and the National War Memorial/Museum. Did you know that the Aussies have one of the only four copies of the Magna Carta in the world? It's there at Parliament House. It was fascinating to read the Australian translation on a plaque next to the document. For example, the clause "At her husband's death, a widow may have her marriage portion and inheritance at once and without trouble" has been translated as "Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate. If Bruce carks it, then Sheila will be sorted. Fair Dinkum. She'll be apples."

That was another lie. She what's happening to me without Ruth to offer moral guidance?

The National War Memorial was very interesting. It's a massive museum really. Paul and I only managed to get around World Wars I and II and that was quite enough for one sitting. There's a closing ceremony every day - it included 'The Last Post' while we were there. The Memorial has been designed in such a way that you can see Parliament House across the city centre. The War Memorial is the place where you get a real sense of Australian identity, but it doesn't come across as being an identity that centres around the military. It's more that the Australian involvement in wars had shaped the identity of a very young country. The 'Spirit of the Digger', where you do the job without grumbling and trust your mates to see you through is very much at the heart of what it means to be an Aussie. I actually find it refreshing to be around a people who are proud of their history and acknowledge the way in which it has shaped them. I feel that we Brits are currently going through a stage of nervous embarrassment about our own national heritage and that won't help future generations to understand their own identity.

Canberra is a very deliberately designed city, which doesn't suit everybody. I liked it. It had a city feel, but it's pleasing to the eye and very green - I think it only has a population of about half a million people, which is pretty amazing for a capital city. It was also quite interesting to see all of the different embassies around the centre. They're quite noticeable and all in the same part of the city. The building style that the different nations have chosen really reflects their own cultural thinking. The Chinese embassy was full of stone dragons and Oriental bits and pieces, the Finnish embassy looked suitably Scandinavian and functional, the British High Commission was very understated and plain, while the US Embassy took up about four times the space of any other embassy and was crawling with security check-points. Fascinating.

Well, as there's no-one around to cook my dinner for me I'd better go and see what the mouse-traps have caught today. Thanks for reading, and have a good week.

The Hill is Broken

Hi everybody! Apologies for the lack of updates recently, but I've been a little distracted. I've spent the past month feverishly preparing a module on Acts to teach to the little sunbeams down at Broken Hill. Broken Hill is a Cornerstone first-year centre and they asked me if I'd like to spend a week teaching a module. Hence, I've been preparing for that.

Broken Hill is way out in the middle of nowhere, and that's saying something for Australia. It's a mining town and it's also notable for the being the area where they filmed the Mad Max films. The nearby village of Silverton is where they filmed the 'town scenes' from the first film. Ruth was able to go and see Silverton, but I wasn't able to because I was teaching. So I missed out on seeing something cool because I had to work. Here's a photo that Ruth took of Silverton Hotel. It was only when she was showing me the photos back here in Dubbo that I was able to point out to her that the car in the photo, parked in front of the hotel, is in fact the V8 Interceptor car from the film. The same one. Or at least one of them, as they used had about three I think. I've put another photo underneath - a better one of the car that I found on the Internet - and eagle-eyed readers will note that this is taken in front of the Silverton Hotel too. Of all the terrible things to happen to me in my life, not being able to go to Silverton and have a photo of me taken with this car is probably the worst. No exceptions.




Broken Hill is an interesting place. The houses contain a significant amount of corrugated iron, simply because it was light and easy to transport when they were building things. It's several hours from anywhere else in New South Wales and has a real outback settlement feel to it. The mining ensures that there are people and money around, but it also means that the local government had to regularly test soil, water and children for things like lead content. Everyone has filters for their tap water, and it's probably no coincidence that all three our of children were ill while we were there. In fact, I'm sure Ruth has been glowing since we got back - and I don't mean that she's pregnant. "What's a little fallout between friends?"

The teaching was a very encouraging experience for me. They had a really good group of first-year students and I hope I managed to fill their heads with some useful stuff about Acts. I enjoyed trying to make the lessons fun, and I also really like the emphasis that Cornerstone has on practical application - so as well as being able to pass on interesting historical trivia about Luke, Paul and Drusilla the Jewess we also talked a lot about how the principles of mission and church we find in Acts could mean something to us today. I wasn't sure about teaching Acts because my area of expertise is not really New Testament studies, and the group kept asking me difficult questions that I could only hazard a guess at - like "Where is the toilet?". They did seem to appreciate the course though, and I really appreciated them. I also got to play Risk 2210, which is like normal Risk but with a suitable Mad Max/Broken Hill/Apocalyptic theme.


For those who are interested, Broken Hill apparently got its name from a hill in the area which dipped at the peak so it looked like to was collapsing in on itself. The hill is now gone, I believe, to be replaced by a pile of dirt.

Here are a few more photos from Broken Hill, including a photo of me surrounded by my adoring students and one of the typical traffic problems in the town...





This'll be the last post before Ruth and the children are off to visit the UK. They're leaving on Thursday, so will be with you all very soon. Look after them for me. I'll write again some time - I won't say 'soon', but I will write again...

Men's Conference 2008

This weekend has seen Cornerstone's second annual Men's Conference, so I've been spending the past forty-eight hours being all manly and stuff. It's tiring work and as a result I need to go and have a nice lie down and sponge my fevered brow with a cold flannel. I think it was the harsh brutality of the paintball that did it. A few of the other guys went to play paintball. I didn't go, but I got so tired and nervous just thinking about it that I had to come and sit down in a darkened room for three hours. Oh the humanity!


One of the things that we did was based on Joshua chapters 3 & 4. In the story, the Israelites have just crossed the river Jordan and build a stone memorial so that they will remember what God has done. The idea was that when the children of the Israelites said "Dad, what's that pile of stones doing there?" then the story would be told and so it would be that God's goodness would be remembered from generation to generation. Someone thought that it would be good if we did a similar thing, so we built a wall. We were divided into groups depending on which training centre in Cornerstone's history that we represented. Then each group was responsible for laying a couple of bricks (seconds from the brick-makers that used to run on the Cornerstone site - in other words, we used stones that the builders had rejected...) on the site of a wall. The idea was that when the wall was complete we would lay on top some bricks we've had for a while that were marked with one of Cornerstone's 'mottos' ('To Understand, To Live, To Teach'). I thought it was a pretty cool idea, and I assume that the purpose is the same as it was in Old Testament times - we will look at it and others will be told the story of what it represents and God's goodness will be remembered.


After the monument was completed there was an opportunity for us to make a gesture of commitment / re-commitment to the path that God wants for our lives. It was something worth doing. We don't usually do symbols well in the evangelical tradition, which is a shame because we can miss out on good stuff like this.

Enjoy your week, and try and do something that gives you a physical reminder of God's goodness to look back upon.

The Woman from Snowy River

Well, it's been a long time since I updated this - sorry about that, by the way - but I'm finally ready to let you know what's been going on over here.

The big news is that my parents have been with us for the past two weeks. They'll actually be flying home as I'm writing this. In a plane, of course. We had a great time with them and it was great that they were able to come and see how the other half lives. They claim that they had a great time and particularly enjoyed the Cornerstone lifestyle. If I'm forced to take that back in my next post I won't be happy. Still, at the current rate of updating I won't have to write that apology for a couple of months, leaving plenty of time for "Webb Parents Enjoyed Cornerstone" rumours to make their way around the world.


We did plenty of fun things with my parents, such as visiting Dubbo Zoo (the first time I've actually been, despite living in Dubbo for over a year and having a wife who has actually appeared on TV looking like someone who lives there), riding horses (Well, Xanthe, Ruth and Calvin rode some horses) and more animal related things. We also spent a few days in Sydney together. We visited the Australian Museum where they had a dinosaur display on (because dinosaurs are now Australian, apparently) and went to Sydney Aquarium. Sydney Aquarium is billed as Australia's Number One Tourist Attraction, and I must say it was the best Aquarium that I've ever visited - and I've visited about two others in my life.


Reid liked the dinosaurs and the sharks. Calvin liked the dinosaurs and the sharks. Xanthe liked the stuffed koala. That's probably the difference between boys and girls summed up right there.


I'll put up a few photos now and leave it at that. Hopefully it won't be so long until my next post, but I can't promise anything. Except that I won't try and inhale Lego. I could promise that.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. I always find it helpful to challenge myself at this time of year. One of the big problems I have is that when you know the Easter story quite well and hear it year after year after year it can lose some of its power. I can't remember the first time that I realised the significance of it, and I certainly can't remember the first time that I heard it, so I find it helpful to try and keep it from becoming too familiar to me.

I'm sorry that there haven't been many updates in the past few months. I've been really busy since we moved, as I've been trying to finish the assignments that were outstanding for the course. The long and the short of it is that I need to graduate from the course that I came to do to change our visa. As I'm here as a student I need to finish with that visa before we can apply for a new one. I've completed most of everything that I needed to do so hopefully things will settle down a bit over the next few weeks. Having said that, I'll probably get the opportunity to do some teaching in the next few months so I will then have some lessons to prepare.


One of the things that's 'fun' about having three children is trying to get them ready for bed. It feels a bit like taking part in a challenge on The Crystal Maze. "I CAN'T SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DO!" "Just grab one of the children!" "WHERE IS THE CHILD. I CAN'T SEE THE CHILD!" "Over there! By the desk." "I'VE GOT THE CHILD! I'VE GOT THE CHILD! I CAN'T FIND THE TOOTHBRUSH!" "Look under the desk! Try under the desk!" and so on until all three little cherubs are tucked up safely. We try to have a consistent 'putting to bed' routine, which works very well but ensures for a hectic hour between six and seven. It appeals to the 'J' in our nature. If that makes no sense to you then try this Myers-Briggs Personality test. You can then check what it all means at this page here. Just click on the icons and read up about your personality type. If you have never done the Myers-Briggs test then you should. It's really interesting and helps you to understand yourself (and others) a lot better. I found out, for example, that I'm fine and it's everyone else who's broken. Which was nice.


We've had some family here recently. Ruth's second cousin and his family (Pete, Claire and Ben Aston) were in Sydney so popped up to see us for a few days. It was nice to have people from our previous life come and visit. My parents will be coming in about a month and we're really looking forward to that.

I understand it's a bit chilly over there in the UK. It's been really nice weather here since I last wrote. More summer than Autumn. We've only just dropped below 30 degrees here. Not that I'm gloating or anything... Winter is on its way and that's usually pretty nasty here due to the lack of effective heating in the property. That reminds me, I need to get up on the roof and make sure that our chimney is clear of bird nests etc.


I'm going to close with a poem that was written by a member of my congregation in Haywards Heath. I used it at the Good Friday service that I led this morning and it was suggested that I put it on the blog. It was written by Denis Carter and it won a small local poetry competition that he entered. He was very proud if it. I read it at his funeral, and I think it's a great reflection for Good Friday. Until next time, God bless.

THOUGHTS

Another cross for Golgotha Hill?

How I hate making crosses;

Cruel, torturing things.

But you can't say "No" to Rome.

And the price they pay

And the time they give -

Can't do a craftsman's job.

Rough hewn timber,

Splinters, lumps of bark!

Ill-fitting joints

And just a couple of nails

And some binding

To fix the beam.

"Only needs to be strong enough to hold a man",

They say,

"And wood soft enough to take the nails".

Punishment or sacrifice, what do they care?

So long as they get their picking!

Aye, aye, aye

In these days, in this town -

Who'd be a

Carpenter?

Denis Carter, March 1985.

Australian Weather

I'm supposed to talk about the weather so I'll begin by saying that - apparently - it's been the coldest summer since 1970 this year. Everyone is telling us how lucky we are that we've avoided a 40 degree heatwave but it's hard to feel lucky when you're waking up cold every morning. Is it too much to ask for a bit of sunshine? We've travelled half-way round the world to find that it's like being in England but without central heating. Still, it usually warms up a lot in the day and keep warm well into the evening.

Here's a photo of the mouse nest that we discovered under our sink. It's not a great photo, but I'm sure you can appreciate that our camera wasn't really designed for taking photos of vermin infestation while sticking your head under a sink. You can see some of the snail shells and a mouse skeleton in this photo if you know where to look.


I haven't updated this blog in a while, and I'm sorry for that. In fact this will probably be the customary short post. I'm really busy at the moment reeling off assignments like...something that gets reeled off quickly. Congratulations to Terry, anyway, who's just got his PhD. That means that he's officially a doctor, but not the useful sort.


Calvin's getting on well at school. He gets tired and I think he misses playing with Reid, but he's fine. He had his eyes tested a couple of days ago and despite Ruth and I being short-sighted he's actually slightly long-sighted. Apparently this is quite common in children. Or maybe it's just common in Australian children. Reid is doing well at preschool too. Even though he's still an angry loner, he is settling in really well and tells tales of all the things that he's doing with his 'new friends'. One of the things he's not doing, apparently, is asking their names. Still, one step at a time. Xanthe is still acting like she's the queen of Dubbo.


We've got a few guests coming soon. It's Staff Conference this week (look up the blog post from a year ago to get an idea of what that's about) and then we've got some of Ruth's family coming for a couple of days. In about six weeks my parents are coming to visit. We're looking forward to that.

Have a good week everyone. Hopefully I'll write again soon.

Happy Anniversary

Sorry for the long gap between posts but I've been pretty busy recently. I've been working hard at assignments as I'm trying to finish the third year course as soon as I can. Once I finish that then Ruth and I will be able to think about applying for a more permanent visa and see where God leads us over the next year or so.

It's Valentine's day here, but it's also the anniversary of our arrival in Sydney. We've been in Australia for a year. I can't really decide if it feels like a year or not. In one sense it doesn't, but when I think about all the things that have gone in in the past twelve months some of them seem like a lifetime ago.

It's amazing to think what God has done in the past year, and it's even more amazing to think that the adventure is still going on. It would be easy to, after the journey we've been on and sacrifices that have been made, think that we'd arrived; that we could just settle down and live our lives and assume that God isn't going to ask any more of us. But this is just one step in a lifetime's journey and it's exciting to think about what the future holds.

Speaking as someone who's taken a risk because they believed that God was leading them that way, I say to you 'do it'. It's not that it's been easy or always rewarding. Far from it. It's not that I expect everything to be rosy from this day forward. Again, far from it. It's just that I'm beginning to realise that settling for the mundane and not seeing every day as a potential adventure is not what God has called us to.

If you're deciding between settling down and pushing the boat out then I suggest that you push away. I can't say that you won't regret it, but I can tell you that you can't have an adventure with God without getting out of your depth at some point.

I hope that God has blessed each of you over the past year. May He continue to do so in the coming months.

Fearless Mouse Killers

Can you believe it? We've had storms pretty much every night for the the past few days. There's been plenty of rain - so much rain, in fact, that our garden is more like a bog than a garden at the moment. It's still summer and it's still really hot but it's also really wet. Dubbo usually 'enjoys' a dry heat, but it's been very humid this year. So I suppose we still haven't really experienced a true Dubbo summer.

Our new garden, water features aside, has some nice aspects to it. It's very big, which everyone in the family (except the designated lawn-mower pusher - i.e. me) loves. We are also growing grapes, lemons, limes, oranges and other edible vegetation. That's quite amazing. The grapes growing on our vine just outside the house are probably the tastiest grapes I've ever had. The only downside being that they are, of course, seeded grapes. Stupid non-genetically modified fruit.

Here's a few photos of our orchards. Admittedly, only the grapes look remotely edible at the moment but it's the thought that counts.






Calvin started school this week. Here he is in his school uniform, looking just a little bit like a tiny witch.


Still, I think that's better than this photo of Reid on the day that he started preschool (also this week). For some reason this photo reminds me of Jimmy Krankie.


They both got on very well with their new adventures. It's been quite a big week in that respect and it's made me feel a little tearful at some times. Mind you, that might have something to do with the mosquitoes that have been running rampant in the house.

Our mousetraps have been quite busy. Yesterday Ruth found a mouse that had gotten its rear end caught in the trap. It was still alive and struggling so Ruth grabbed it and tried to smack its head against the door frame. Unfortunately doing this meant that the mouse fell out of the trap and proceeded to escape, commando-crawl style, dragging its useless rear legs behind it. Ruth then smashed it to death with a newspaper. She's come a long way baby.

My Family and Other Animals

This is a little post about our animal adventures over the past couple of weeks.

As you know, we've just moved. Our new home is lovely in many ways, especially the new friends that we have made. As it's a bigger house there's plenty more places for spiders and other insects to hide. Ruth has been spraying and I've been swatting and we've all been eaten by mosquitoes. We've also caught two mice in the past week. Not 'caught two mice' as in "Look what I've found, let's keep it as a pet" but as in "What's that jerking shape protruding from the mousetrap?". Ruth and I are getting good at managing the vermin population. We're still newbies compared to some of the people here though. You're not a real mouse hunter until you've wrestled one hand
-to-hand, Mano-a-Mano, glaring into the whites of its eyes. One man and one mouse enters, one man or one mouse leaves. Tis a noble thing.

We did catch a baby lizard (as in "Look what I've found...") in a box. Calvin found it one day when he went outside. It must have climbed in there in the night and then couldn't get out. Calvin named it Lizzy (even though he insisted that it was a 'him') and sobbed his little heart out when we insisted that he had to let Lizzy go at the end of the day. He didn't bat an eyelid when his guinea pig died, but he really loved Lizzy - or so he told us. Well, as Sting once said, 'If you love someone set them free' so he let Lizzy go. It's hard work being a five year old.

It's Australia Day this weekend. It's a national holiday to celebrate being Australian. The advert on TV tells us that Australia Day is our chance to say thank you for "...beaches, lamington drives, Kylie and our democratic right to give dead arms". It's quite a funny advert. Actually there are a lot more 'public service' adverts on Australian TV informing us about everything from skin cancer to saving up for retirement. It might sound a bit 'Nanny State' but it doesn't come across as that. It's quite endearing in a way.

Calvin has decided to make a book. He has decided that he's going to take some photos, put them on the computer and get mummy and daddy to write the words. He's not mentioned it today though so I suspect that he's forgotten about it. Because it's unlikely to see the light of day I'm going to post some of the photos Calvin took for his book, which was to be entitled 'Calvin Shrinks'. Please feel free to make up your own words.









Freaky but with a certain flair of genius, I'm sure you agree.