Just Visiting...

Inverse Proportion

2007-07-18T22:00:00.000+10:00

Someone one said that you can tell when someone is busy by their blog because the frequency of an individuals posting is in inverse proportion to their busyness. So yea, I've been kinda busy. It is a bit sad though because it seems then that the most common time to post is exactly when I have the least to say!

Well anyway, semester 1 came, and went, like a flash. It was filled with many fascinating Psalms, sermons, arguments about sacraments, and a fair few episodes of West Wing. Not a bad semester, though I'm hoping my feet will touch the ground a few more times in semester 2. It should be filled with lots of talk about John, exilic prophets, social justice and missions, and the end of times...should be fun!

People to meet

2007-04-21T16:25:00.000+10:00

Adam, a 'shining light in dark paces'

The team with Adam and Naomi

The team with the Cranes

Things to see

2007-03-29T21:44:00.000+10:00

We had the chance, while in Livingston, to go and see Victoria Falls. We also went across the border so got to see both the Zimbabwe and Zambia sides; the falls are around 3km wide! In the local language it is called Mosi-O-Tunya - "Smoke that thunders". Very suitable, it definitely thunders, and you can see the spray from many miles giving it the appearance of a bushfire. It was one of the most awesome things I have ever seen, I wish I could have done it justice with the photos.

We also got to go on a safari in Botswana, to a lemur park in Madagascar, and came across many animals along the way. We got to see Zebras, Giraffes, eagles, hippo's, elephants, antelope, mere cats... too many to post here. Unfortunately no big cats.

Things to do

2007-03-28T14:00:00.000+10:00

Besides English teaching, painting, and just getting to know the place, I had the opportunity to spend a day with Jonno doing the kinds of things he does - riding out through the mountains crossing rivers, helping cross rivers, digging in peoples gardens, eating with them, playing games, talking with them (or at least smiling and listening). We had covered about 50km up and down hills on dirt "tracks" and I was feeling stuffed when Jonno says to me as we ride along, "So Dave, this is Church planting." Those wouldn't have been the first words off my tongue, but it was a good call. It was a little eye into what it might look like to authentically express Christ to people like these, and it was good to have my subconscious perception of what Church should look like broadened a bit. It was also great just to get out and to connect faces and lives with what he and the rest of the team are on about.

In Madagascar it was great to see all the innovative things that MAF is doing to help people in remote areas. Flying, providing logistic, communication, and garage services, using four wheelers and fold-up boats that fit into the aircraft, helping to communities rebuild after fires and even using hovercrafts to get access to the inaccessible! We got to do a range of things from researching how to chip 'n tar airstrips to prevent erosion, to tiling, to visiting villages. One of the more interesting things though, was helping one of the MAF workers to harvest one of his rice fields. It was a really fun day, cutting the rice, bundling it, and beating it out over drums. Fun... for one day. I have a new appreciation for rice.

The name of the local beer in Malawi, in case you can't read it, is "Kuche Kuche". =) The sign was above a urinal in mens toilets in Zimbabwe. Maybe I was tired, but it made me laugh for a long time.

Changing Landscapes

2007-03-24T20:59:00.000+11:00

From City to country, Mauritius to Madagascar, the landscape changed quite a bit on us...

Africa

2007-03-24T16:50:00.000+11:00

My photos from the holidays and the trip to Africa have finally been sorted so I thought I might post some here to give you a little eye into the trip. If you want more details visit Neale's blog.

Getting around...

Our lovely bus which took us from Jo'burg in South Africa through Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, back into Mozambigue, back through Malawai and finally through Zambia. We got to know it quite well...

Other modes of transport... planes, trailers on four wheelers...

We learnt from the locals too...

Finished!

2006-11-27T12:53:00.000+11:00

Exams are finished, and what a good feeling! I now have another week in Sydney before heading to Ballarat untill Christmas. It's kind of a relief to have this year over - though it has been good. Because I'm on holidays now, I am officially lazy and can't be bothered writing about all I've been up to lately, so here are my last couple of weeks in pictures...

How much fun are mechanical bulls!

Studying for Exams

U2!

Team prepares for an interesting time together in Africa

I know you...you're that guy from Rosin!

2006-11-15T10:14:00.001+11:00

Wow...it has almost been a month since my last post! Hopefully that a sign that I am busy, not that I just have a boring life. Well, this last month has been taken up mostly with finishing off assignments and preparing for exams, though there has been some fun stuff - like seeing U2 in concert on Monday... I'm very ready for holidays though.

Last week the band - Rosin - went to a friends place and recorded a bit of a demo in his shed. It was a bit of fun and it actually came out pretty good for a backyard job. I was chatting to Matt that morning - Matt plays electric - and he said he had been at a party on the weekend. He didn't know a lot of the people there and wasn't feeling very sociable, but eventually decided he should go and talk to some people. He introduced himself to two girls at the table...

"Hi I'm Matt"
"Oh, we know you...your that guitarist from Rosin!"

I think it threw him a bit - the expression on his face was quite funny - and when he told me I just laughed and laughed! So, I was at a 21st birthday party on the weekend. I didn't know heaps of people there, but was doing the photos for the party so I was getting to go around and meet people. I was chatting to two girls who I had just met when one of them says...

"So we've been trying to figure out what that drum is that you play..."

It turns out that they were at our last gig and now I have to admitt that I was the one getting thrown and I think the expression on my face was probably even funnier than Matt's. Wow, we are famous and we've only played three gigs! Yea, lol.

Welcome!

2006-10-18T23:57:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the world, Scott Benjamin Valpied!
I pray that God will hold you close every day of your life,
And may you look to Him above all else.
May He protect you and give you success in all you strive towards,
And may you glorify Him in all you do.
May He teach you and give you the wisdom to live life to the full,
And may you have the courage to do all He calls you to.
May He grow you through an abundance of experiences,
And may you have the faith to always persevere.
May He shower you with love and bless you through relationships,
And may you have the passion to love like Him.
God bless you all the days of your life Scott,
Love, your Uncle Dave.

Tidbit #3 "Almond Branch"

2006-10-01T15:17:00.000+10:00

“The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
Jeremiah 1:11-12

Have you ever read this passage at the beginning of Jeremiah and just thought, what the??? Well I have, so here is my interesting bit of learning for today…

The almond branch thing is all about a play on words. The Hebrew word for almond branch is “shaqed” and in God’s reply the Hebrew word used for watching is “shoqed”. This play on words would have been particularly poignant for any Hebrew readers of Jeremiah as Hebrew is written without vowels, so the two words appear identical. The image of the almond branch is also significant as this was the first thing to blossom at the beginning of spring, i.e. if you want to know when spring is upon us watch for the blossoms on the almond tree. This image heightens the picture of God watching over his word and the imminence of him performing it.

Table Tennis Comp

2006-09-22T17:16:00.000+10:00

So there I was facing my new opponent after winning every one of my matches to make it to the semi-finals of the Morling Table Tennis Competition. The atmosphere was pulsing, hundreds of people... well at least 25... turning up to watch and cheer - and this was it, do or die... I copped an absolute shellacking.
Oh well, there is still the men's and mixed doubles. What a great way to avoid the books!

Lust

2006-09-16T23:14:00.000+10:00

Lust. Is it such a taboo thing to talk about? I strikes me how slow people (particularly guys) are to talk about this stuff considering the size of the issue this is. It has become such a problem in our society, and can I suggest particularly in our Churches where it seems to carry this sense of being a taboo topic - to the extent where no guy will want to talk about it for the sense of shame. And yet this just makes it all the more debilitating and destructive. I hate it, but I know this because I've felt it myself. I too struggle to have the boldness to talk openly with others about struggles with this issue, and though I don't think I'm alone in this it is generally something we try to attack alone.

Romans 8 'So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus...'
I pray that God will teach me more about Christs justifying work and help me to have the boldness to be real about the struggles of life, not allowing Satan to use shame to debilitate me. I hope our churches will be places where people feel safe to come and be real, and that I will be part of fostering that. For others who struggle, talk to the people around you. You might be surprised to find people feeling a lot like you do, and surprised by how much you can grow from each other.

Three Sisters

2006-09-02T12:44:00.000+10:00

The Three Sisters near Katoomba in the Blue Mountains

Missions Week

2006-08-24T08:55:00.000+10:00

Last week there was a missions conference running here at Morling. It wasn't compulsary for me to attend, but Morling students could go for free and I really wanted to hear one of the speakers so I ended up going to a few days of the conference. I went to most of Tim Meyers sessions; he is the director of Pioneers. He is probably one of the best speakers I've heard, down to earth, but so challenging and encouraging - and a nice guy too! If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, take it for sure.

On the weekend I went up to Reachout (another missions conference) at Katoomba - which is compulsary for second yearers. The Morling Conference was a hard act to follow in terms of speakers, but they also had stalls with reps from most of the major mission and development organisations so it was good to chat with some of them. It was also just nice to go away for the weekend and hang out with people - a bunch of us were staying in a house together at Katoomba.

This week we also had mission reps from OM speaking at college! It has been very interesting, but all this missions talk is giving me itchy feet.

Tidbit #2 "iota"

2006-08-11T18:04:00.000+10:00

In the 300's - 400's AD a debate arose as theologians wrestled with the concept of who Jesus was/is. There were two very similar sounding groups of thinking. The first used the Greek word "homoousios", indicating that Christ was of the same substance as God. The second group used the word "homoiousios", indicating that Christ was like God. The difference: one iota (i), the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. The result: allegedly almost dividing the Roman Empire... So, the next time you go to say that something doesn't make one iota of a difference...

Weekends

2006-08-06T21:15:00.000+10:00

Weekends are the time of the week when you relax and enjoy yourself after the busyness of the week, right? Well it seems to be the opposite way around here, but that's ok because it's all good stuff. This weekend had a few different things in it which was cool. On Friday I had youth at church and I played soccer with the kids in the pouring rain which was fun - something I haven't done for a long time. Saturday morning I went into the city to catch up with Chris Booth who was in Sydney for a week of holidays. We wandered around the city and caught up on a few years. In the afternoon I went and helped to set up for the church's big annual trivia night. It was a lot of fun and a good chance to get to know some new people... also the table I was on won! (Not much thanks to my extensive trivia knowledge)

Sunday morning I was up early for music practice before church. It was fun learning one of Glens new songs. The service was really challenging, Steve speaking about praying for unsaved friends and we also spent some time looking at the future of the church. In the afternoon I had band practice (Rosin) because we were playing at a Church in Ryde. It was an encouraging night as the gig went quite well, the music gelled ok, and we got lots of good feedback. Also, free food for the visiting band, yay...what more can you ask for?!

Tidbits

2006-07-22T15:32:00.000+10:00

Every now and then I learn some interesting (sometimes pointless) tidbits of information. I thought I might start to blog some every now and then, so here is College tidbit #1 "Jehovah":

Most of the Old Testament is written in an ancient form of the Hebrew language. While the spoken language has many vowels sounds, these vowels sounds are omitted from the written word; ie. they only write the consonants - like some peoples text messages. I guess this is okay if you grew up with the language, but it makes it very difficult to read Hebrew for someone new to the language as many words could be any number of things; and the pronunciation... ?

So... going back a few thousand years (give or take) scholars began 'pointing' the text - adding in little dots to indicate what the vowel sounds should be. When they came to the word Yahweh however, they did something strange. Yahweh, the most holy name for God, was considered too holy by the ancient scribes, even to read out. When they came across "Yahweh" in the text then, they would just say "Adonay", which means my Lord. So... the scholars pointing the text took the vowels from "Adonay" and placed them under "Yahweh", the idea being whenever you saw this you would be reminded to read out "Adonay" in stead of "Yahweh".

Ok, bear with me caus this is where it gets interesting. Fast-forward to the reformation period around 1500's. The protestant church begins to emerge and protestant scholars with their newfound zeal to discover for themselves what scripture is really saying begin to translate it for themselves. When they came across "Yahweh" however, they obviously did not understand what had happened with the pointing and so read it literally. The resultant form when you combine the consonants of Yahweh, and the vowels of Adonay, comes out something like Yehovah. As they could not pronounce the "Y", they would say "J"... = "Jehovah". So that is where the name Jehovah comes from! How funny... someone should tell the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Living on

2006-07-15T14:08:00.000+10:00

The end of holidays and the start of a new semester. It is so true that holidays are always a week too short, but truthfully I'll be glad to get back into it. This also means that there is some life around campus again. It has been a bit of a graveyard here for much of the holidays, but people are beginning to return again. I never thought I'd say it, but it is so nice just to have the noise of lots of people around again! I've decided that living on campus at a bible college is one of the best things you can do. The constant contact with people, support and prayer, sparring in the halls, jamming with friends, cooking together, table tennis at midnight, and deep and meaningfuls to the small hours of the morning are the things I think I'll smile about when I sit on the porch in my rocking chair, 60 years from now.

God of War?

2006-07-04T12:15:00.000+10:00

My final essay for last semester was on the Canaanite genocide in Deuteronomy and Joshua. This is certainly a dividing topic - I don't think I've read so many scholars passionately disagreeing on a theological issue before - and this just among Christian scholars.

A little while before doing this essay I watched the movie, 'Kingdom of Heaven'. I found it really interesting and it had a lot of insightful one-liners. While the creator/director of the movie was probably coming from a different perspective than myself, it was in many ways it was quite a clever movie with the message it portrayed - particularly how both of the conflicting groups manipulated their understandings of God to justify their own desires and wars against each other. "God wills it!"

This brings me back to my questions: Can anyone ever kill in God's name and how do we reconcile the picture of God revealed in Jesus with the picture of a God of war and genocide? I have posted my essay on the Brown Blog (yes there will once again be activity on this blog) if you want to read it. I'd be interested to read your thoughts.

Exams

2006-07-02T17:14:00.000+10:00

What a great feeling it is to finish exams! Just three exams this semester - NT, OT, and Hebrew - and I wasn't too stressed about them, but it is so nice to have them finished. They were all fairly easy exams too which I was very happy about! I have just arrived back in Sydney after my first week of holidays in Ballarat. It was a bit of a quick and busy visit, but it was great to catch up with a lot of people caus I probably won't get back there untill the end of the year.

Yea, Aussies!

2006-06-13T13:36:00.000+10:00

What a tense game! I sat last night with some guys from Church nervously watching Australia v Japan. At one nil down with 8 minutes to go it seemed that the illusive win would never come... until the floodgates opened and Australia scored three quick-fire goals, giving them the 3-1 win! Who would have ever thought that a bunch of people you've never met, playing a game could mess so much with your emotions, lol. The only question I have now is why do they always have to put major sporting events on in the middle of exams??? Last year one examiner had to resort to writing scores on the board during our exam to keep us posted! Hope you made the news Vi.

Allow me to introduce...

2006-06-06T12:26:00.000+10:00

Allow me to introduce my nephew...

Yes, in November Dave will be a proud uncle. For more updates and detail you can visit his blog ruthandadam.com (may be facilitated by his parents).

End of semester

2006-06-05T22:00:00.000+10:00

Lectures have finished for another semester and it feels like this one went crazy fast! I also finished my final essay last Thursday morning about 3:30. I went down to Moss Vale with a friend for the weekend as a post lectures break. Now just one study week, 3 exams and then finnished. I have even booked my flights to spend a week in Ballarat for the holidays. I leave here on the 23rd of June.

Also on the agenda was re-enrolment. My subjects for next semester will be Hebrew (part 2), Aid and Development, and Doctrine of God and Work of Christ. I will also be continuing my internship with Bayside Community Church.

Rosin

2006-05-22T12:16:00.000+10:00

The band has a name - "Rosin". Rosin is the stuff you put on a bow which creates the friction necessary to produce sounds when you play a violin, cello etc. Basically we chose it because it sounded good and it isn't a word that comes with too much baggage. If you want the deep and meaningful interpretation of the name you'll have to ask Matt. We have spent the last few months developing some songs and last night we played a set at Breathe. It didn't go exactly like the practices, but for a first gig it went ok. I also got a call today asking us to come back and play again next week, so I guess that is a good sign.

Praying with friends...

2006-05-07T20:24:00.000+10:00

Last week we began our Monday band practice as usual, except that somehow it turned into an impromptu worship session. We ended up spending the next hour just praying for each other. What a great feeling it is to be prayed over by such sincere and loving friends, and to hear words of encouragement! This has happened quite a number of times over the last week and it has been a great reminder for me of the significance of praying for, and speaking words over your friends. It is an amazing way to build up and challenge each other. Are we making time to pray with our friends?