God is a Great God!

My dad is amazing ..... and my heavenly father is even more so!! My dad is a testimony of God's goodness. He went to see the cardiologist on Friday for a check up and found that 5 arteries in his heart were blocked .... a few up to 90% blocked! He had had no symptoms other than slightly laboured breathing.

The doctors said that they could do by-pass surgery on 4 of the 5 arteries, but the 5th one which was blocked 70% they could not reach because it was in an awkward location. On Monday he went in for the 6 hour operation and they were able to by-pass all 5 arteries!! Dad is in intensive care at the moment but the doctors said the operation was successful and he has already stopped bleeding, which is a good sign. Praise God for his healing! We serve a God of miracles!

This is a picture of my dad when he won discounted tickets to the musical "Wicked" in New York. Instead of paying over USD$200 each he got 2 tickets for just $26.50 each! He said that he asked God in the morning to give him a fruitful day. And then, being the amazing and generous dad he is, he gave the tickets to mum and I as he knew how much we both love musicals! He was happy, as he went to Times Square Church (the church which David Wilkinson founded) with Jono for the evening service and was ushered to the front row of the packed church.

New York New York

As I sit at my kitchen table trying to finish my reading for my theology class, I thought I would take a moment to digress from the riveting discussion about contextual Christology and reminisce about our trip to New York.

It was my first trip to New York. I now know why people so love New York - the hustle and bustle, the ease of getting around, the many sights to see and the range of food to eat! We stayed in this hotel which was perfectly situated within walking distance of Times Square and Central Park and with a subway station entrance just outside our hotel entrance.

Some of the highlights were that we saw 3 musicals for about USD$27 per ticket (you can't see Wicked, Chicago and the Wiz for that in Brissie), a sushi buffet which was nearly 1 NY block long (anyone who has been to NY can tell you how long some of those blocks are!), a yummy Malaysian restaurant called Nonya (the chilli crabs were amazing!!!), the incredible view from the top of the Empire State Building, the fantastic shopping at Century 21 and the weird and wonderful street buskers in Central Park.

Niagara Falls

We then went to Niagara Falls, and it was fortunate that Jono had been there before as he was able to plan our attack of the American and Canadian sides of the tourist activities. My favourite was the "cave of the winds" which is on the American side and is basically a walk way at the foot of the American bridal veil falls. You can go right up to the falls onto the hurricane deck! Each spring they rebuild the whole walkway and deck, as the falls freeze over. I'm glad we went in summer! It was amazing having that much water crashing down on you. Mum and dad went onto the hurricane deck twice,as you can see in the above picture!!

We did everything - the maid of the mist (which is a boat that takes you right up to horse shoe falls), the journey behind the falls, the aquarium and even the Niagara Gorge discovery centre (which had an elevator which takes you on a journey through the earth's core - it took mum and dad several minutes to work out that it was only a simulation :o)!. But the piece de resistance was that we had an awesome view of the horse shoe falls, the larger of the two falls, from our hotel room. Probably would have been a more romantic trip for Jono and I if we hadn't decided to share the room with my parents :o) But I think Jono was in photographer's paradise with all the amazing photos he took.

Touring Chicago with the Lais

Hmmm, it seems so long ago that mum and dad came and visited us in the US, but in an attempt to procrastinate and avoid reading for my next subject "Systematic Theology 2 - Christ, Sin, Man and Salvation" I have thought to start on the long overdue project of updating my blog! :o) hehe

My mum and dad came over to US on 20 June and we had a fantastic time - showing them around Chicago in summer. We went to Millenium Park where they have these two huge fountains which have water falling down the sides onto which they have faces of different people projected. Every few minutes they have this water spout which appears to shoot out of the person's mouth. All the kids would gather around to catch the water coming out of the mouth. Needless to say, since my mum and I are the biggest kids out there (one of the requirements for being a Sunday School teacher I think), we were in the thick of things!! It was lovely and refreshing after walking about in the hot sun.

We also went on the architectural river boat tour - which was excellent! It brought back memories of my architectural studies and the various forms - gothic, art deco, naturalism, moderism. This is us outside the Wrigley Building - which is one of the iconic buildings in Chicago with its white terracotta ornate cladding.

Chicago is really lovely when the sky is blue, the sun is shining and there isn't a foot of snow on the pavements!!

Crikey, we miss Australia

As you can see from the video above we are hard at work studying at Trinity! :o)

We have finished the first semester at Trinity and are due to receive our marks any day now. Trinity is highly academic - but even in the midst of studying and preparing assignments we still find time to have a laugh... I think it is the Aussie larrikin spirit.

Celebration of Hope

Never one to turn down the very attractive look of canteen lady I donned the hair net in order to help pack food parcels in "Celebration of Hope: Hunger and Thirst" at Willow Creek church. It was only two hours out of my day and it was a great cause - packing 4 million food parcels for children in Zimbabwe.

It was very well organised, with people working in stations to pack hydrated vegetables, chicken flavour, soy and rice into plastic packs. Obviously we had the Mok-Ong team (Chris, May Yen and the awesome Ong kids - Rachel and Nicky - and myself) working like a well oiled machine in the process packing line!

We were told stories of kids who were so hungry that they would eat stones or mudcakes - which were literally made from mud, just to have the feeling of something in their stomachs.
It was very humbling to know how well we live and how other people in the world still do not have basic necessities like clean water and sufficient food.

Chris Tomlin and Israel Houghton in Chicago!

Woohoo! We (Jono, May Yen and I) went to a concert last Saturday - Chris Tomlin and Israel Houghton. It was awesome!! It was like a two hour plus worship session. So fantastic to worship God led by some amazingly talented singers, song writers and worship leaders. God is soooo awesome - it was really wonderful to hear some of Chris Tomlin's stories and experiences of worshipping overseas in Brazil and the Ukraine.