Help my American Friends...

[UPDATE: We board a Qantas flight to Sydney tonight. We've just spent a few days in San Francisco en route. Dr Laurel was able to spend quality time with her good friend, Marlene. We also got to hang out with Christ Church NYC friends Liz and Jim Churm, also Nick and Stacey Bell and I drove Lunch and Cathy Payne to the airport. Good times. We fly out tonight and arrive in Sydney on Wednesday AM. Pray for us, cos it ain't easy with 2 toddlers and an infant.]

While in flight, I have two questions for you.

I'm asking because a couple I know from Chicago are going to spent 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. They want to know what to visit. I told them that I'd type out some ideas on the flight. But better still, you can help them, and save me the typing.

All you shy people and lurkers can now comment. How hard is it to answer these two questions while we are incommunicado?

1. What are the classic places for 2 Americans to visit?
(Like Sydney Opera House, Rotorua etc)

2. What is your personal favourite place?
(Like a restaurant, a garden somewhere etc)

i.e. Where do you take your visitors?

If you can provide a link, that's even better. But not required.

Go on, you shy people, just comment.

I'll pick up your comments on the other side...

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Pic on FLickr by KyussQ.

ADVENT: 'I do wish Jesus would come back, preferably in a massive ball of fire through the ceiling of the church.'

Tucker Carlson, American political commentator, once said on his Sunday church experience:

You'll never meet nicer people. If you needed someone to hold your wallet, or if you were lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood and had to duck into a stranger's house to use the bathroom, you could do a whole lot worse...No one has better manners.

And that may be the problem. There's a notable lack of urgency...Jesus may have promised he'd come back someday, but in [my church] you don't get the feeling he really meant it. Nor do you hear a lot about sin. Lust, hatred, gluttony, pride, envy -- those are dramatic emotions. ...

The typical sermon leaves the impression that all would be well in this world if only people could manage to be reasonable with each other. Gentlemanly. Thoughtful.

There's nothing necessarily bad about any of this. (I remain [a member], with no plans to change.) But every once in a while, as I shift in my pew listening to one of our unusually well-educated preachers expand on the Aramaic understanding of discipleship, I do wish Jesus would come back, preferably in a massive ball of fire through the ceiling of the church.

Spiritually, I'm nowhere near ready to face something like that. But it'd be worth it for the shock value....Dead religions don't give people the creeps...But Christianity still does. What a relief. It's nice to see that our faith still scares people.

He is an Episcopalian, apparently.

H/T My new friend and colleague at Christ Church NYC, Clifford Swartz. Clifford quoted this in his sermon on Sunday night, and I thought: that's totally worth stealing. :)

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So you met an American Girl? (How to do Long Distance Relationships)

A young man I knew an eon ago Facebooked me for advice. He is Australian, and he is dating an American. They are followers of Jesus. They are keen for advice from someone who has been through the the whole trans-Pacific relationship thing. I met Dr Laurel in January 1998 in Atlanta GA, and married her in May 2000. I am excited for this couple.

But if there are others reading this, I want you to know for the record: I do not recommend the trans-Pacific relationship. We managed it by the Grace of God. If I may sound pagan for a moment, for a relationship like this to work, all the planets have to align at once. And that is not easy. But God is sovereign over the affairs of men.

Anyways, that being noted, I put this together and emailed them (I have tried not to include things that belong to every couple: prayer, love, good communication etc)

1. Enjoy this time and each other as a gift from God.
   
2. And yet overseas relationships necessarily take more time. It’s good to allow for that. So don’t make blithe promises you can’t keep. The Pacific Ocean is a serious body of water and a large barrier to overcome.
3. Make the most of your time apart: It’s certainly easier to be pure, and also you are forced to express yourself almost exclusively in written words. (Less so now with Skype. Pity.)
4. And yet, the best way to plumb the depths of your friendship is certainly face to face. You want to maximize that as much as you can. Don’t believe that sending an email is truly relating. The verse I'm thinking of is 3 John v13-14.
5. Don’t believe the illusion that to marry someone from another country is ‘exotic’. It quickly ceases to be, and starts to be very, very normal. And the exotic thing is at first an attraction, but it can end up very quickly being a destructive illusion.
6. Be aware that if you meet someone overseas, then it often has an ‘unreal’ element to it. Your guard is down, you are on vacation, or you are working in a new environment. People see you as different, and you usually have a lot to talk about. But back down on earth, things are far more ‘normal’.
7. Home is always and only where you live as husband and wife. Never talk about ‘home’ as being the country of your origin or where your parents live. If you see home as being ‘back with the parents’, then it will harm your relationship. That’s in Genesis 2:24.
8. I decided in my heart that wherever we lived at any one time was the place we would live until we die! (Or until God changes our mind). The reason for this is that if I say: ‘We’ll be here for 3 years’, then we’ll always pine for another place, and we will be less likely to put down good roots. I found that easier to decide in my heart than my wife did.
9. Become international, by which I mean: don’t see yourself as particularly Australian, or as an American. That will only put distance between you both. I say this especially to Australians, who like to make loose and unfair distinctions between Australians and Americans. So American jokes are out. To me, it is far too insecure anyway.
10. Your marriage does not mean that you have legitimate travel for the rest of your lives! It means that you will basically travel only one dark path: LAX to SYD. For us, it excludes the rest of the world. We can never spend money going east of New York City. It is almost irresponsible for us to do so.
11. Get involved quickly in a church: both feet, and don’t hold back.
12. Make your vows in one country, and a have decent celebration in the another one.
13. You will face difficult choices if God gives you children: One of you will live further away from Grandparents than the other. There is not much you can do about that, except by persuading one set to move, or by moving to a third country denying both sets of parents. But living near grandparents may be very good and helpful for you (and for them), but it is not the Golden Calf. You’ll just have to talk about that with each other and with your parents.
14. Obey all rules of immigration and do it quickly and thoroughly. Start on the path of dual citizenship as quickly as you can.
    
15. If God gives you kids, register their birth quickly at the consulate of the nation that the child was not born in. Make sure that their dual citizenship is secure early on.
    
16. Keep in touch with friends from both sides of the Pacific.
17. Your true home is not your simple address. As Hebrews says: 'Long for a better country prepared by God.'
    

So, have you been in a relationship like this? Care to offer any other advice? Or critique mine? Which points are wrong or right?

You may be helping my new friends if you care to comment. And feel free to forward this post as an email to those you know in a similar situation.

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Pic on FLickr by KyussQ.