In this issue:
Trip Down Under
Report by David Clayton
This article is a repeat of the report on the trip to Australia, which was already published in the December Old Paths. We are reproducing it here for the benefit of our readers who do not receive Old Paths. We hope those of you who have already seen the report will enjoy seeing the additional photos and will also receive a blessing from the other article which is in this edition of Open Face.
In some ways, the trip to Australia
was one of the most exhausting that I have ever undertaken. I left the
home of Glen and Ann Ford at 5:30 A.M. on Wednesday morning, the 3rd of
October. I did not set foot in a home again until Friday, October 5, at
2.00 p.m. During this time more than forty hours had elapsed.
First there was the two-hour drive from Glen and Ann’s home in
Turkey Wallow Hollow up to the airport at Charleston. This part of the
journey was okay. Glen, Ann and I chatted a little, but it was still
dark all the way and I mostly slept. At the airport things went
smoothly. Because I was so early, they offered to put me on a flight
that left two hours earlier than I was scheduled to leave. I accepted
the offer, so I arrived in Pittsburgh with a little more than three
hours to spare before my flight to Los Angeles. I spent the time walking
around a bit and working on my laptop.
The flight to Los Angeles was nearly four hours long and I calculated
that we would arrive sometime between four and five p.m. I would have a
wait of close to eight hours before my flight to Australia left at
midnight. However, I had not calculated for the time difference between
West Virginia and Los Angeles. We landed in LA at approximately 1 p.m.
and I realized that I actually had close to twelve hours before my
flight to Australia. During those twelve hours I became increasingly
regretful that I had neglected to take a supply of tracts with me. Boxes
of literature had been sent ahead of us, but in the frenzy of getting
ready to leave, I forgot to take some in my carry-on luggage.
Los Angeles airport is an international hub from which flights were
constantly leaving for China, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Japan,
Europe and all sorts of exotic places. There were all kinds of people
there but, without any tracts, I found it difficult to start a
conversation and spent much of my time looking at people and feeling
lonely, or else working on my laptop as best as I could with all the
distractions around. One bright spot was when I called home and heard
Jen’s voice. At that moment I wished with all my heart that she could
have been with me.
By the time the Boeing 747-400 took off at midnight I was feeling
dirty, not sure if it was time to sleep or wake up, and my bottom was
sore from sitting so long. I rightly guessed that the 14-hour trip was
going to seem much longer than it really was. Somewhere in the middle of
the flight I realized that my time clock was thoroughly confused. They
gave us supper shortly after we got on the plane at 12 midnight. While
this was midnight Los Angeles time, it was 3 a.m. in West Virginia from
where I had left that morning (my body was still operating on that
time). At the same time, it was 6 p.m. in Australia which was the time
my body would have to become accustomed to. Having left at midnight, I
expected, of course, to begin to see daylight in about 6 hours. However,
the plane flew with the night all the way, as we caught up with
Australian time, and arrived in Australia with the dawn at approximately
7 a.m. However, this was also another major adjustment because although
I had left West Virginia the day before, on Wednesday the 3rd of
October, I arrived in Sydney, Australia on the morning of Friday, the
5th of October. Somewhere along the way we lost one whole day! I passed
the week without seeing Thursday because we crossed the international
date line during the journey.
My first sight of Australia was hard to describe. As the buildings of
Sydney came into view from the window of the plane I was thrilled to
realize that I was truly at last in the land of kangaroos and
kookaburras. Sydney is a city which seemed to me from the air to be full
of water, at least in the waterfront section. The sea seems to be
interlaced with the land and there is almost as much water flowing
around the little fingers of land as there is solid ground. There were,
of course, many bridges all over the place. Everywhere I looked there
were dozens and dozens of boats sitting in the water all over the city. I
also caught a glimpse of the famous Sydney opera house as the plane
came in over the city.
The customs officials in Sydney were the friendliest I have ever
encountered. (In fact, overall, both Allen and I found the people of
Australia to be the friendliest, most polite people we had ever met.)
Some of them were very young people, but all very friendly and warm. One
woman smiled as she told me that one of her dreams in life was to
someday visit Jamaica.
The Sydney airport was huge. To get to the next terminal to catch my
flight to Brisbane, I had to get on a bus that took nearly half an hour
to weave its way through traffic and get to the domestic terminal where I
checked in for Brisbane. By the time I got there the flight was already
boarding.
The flight to Brisbane took just over an hour and I watched from the
window, fascinated at the landscape. It seemed to me to be very orderly
near the seacoast where everybody seemed to live, but I could see vast
spaces of wild, seemingly uninhabited areas stretching away into the
interior.
The People
The people we met in Australia all
seemed to be wonderful people; so warm and hospitable that I can hardly
single out any one person who was most impressive in this respect. Of
course we got to know our various hosts and hostesses better than we did
the other folk, since we spent time in their homes, and these people
will always hold a special place in our hearts. From Queensland to South
Australia they opened their homes and their hearts to us and truly made
us a part of their families.
In Brisbane, Blair Andrew, a quiet, soft-spoken man who had organized
the Brisbane leg of my journey, met me. As we drove to Blair’s home, up
in the mountains an hour and a half from Brisbane, he told me about
himself and the work he was doing in that part of Australia. Blair was
in some ways responsible for the beginning of the spread of the truth
about the Godhead, for when he had first learned it he had called
together 30 of the most open-minded people he knew and had presented it
to them. 28 of these people accepted the message, and from that
beginning the message had taken roots and had spread to all corners of
Australia.
Upon arriving I met Blair’s equally quiet wife, Caroline, their two
sons, Nathan and Benjamin, 8 and 6 years old respectively, and sister
Lee-Ngoh, a young nurse from Singapore who is their landlady, but lives
with them as a part of the family. I was greeted with a lovely
vegetarian meal which was quite tasty. This was a wonderful change from
the airline food which I had been surviving on for so many hours. After I
got a very welcomed bath, I began to feel a little bit like myself
again.
Later, to my surprise and delight, I met Sister Daphne Burson, an
Australian lady who lives in Montana in the United States. We had been
corresponding for a few years and now we met, of all places, in
Australia! Sister Daphne is suffering from a serious illness but you
would never guess it to talk to her. She is full of high spirits and
courage. It was a blessing to meet her and to catch her enthusiasm. She
says that she never slept a wink for 27 hours, all the way from her home
in Montana, during the various legs of the journey, until she got to
Australia! She was all over the plane talking to people.
Brother Alan Walker had come up to Tamborine from Walcha, especially
to take me around and be my guide for the next few days. He was a quiet
and sincere man whom I found myself liking immediately. His
seven-year-old daughter Emily was with him, a cheerful and sweet little
girl. Later, I stayed in his home and met his lovely wife, Donna, and
his other two children, Katelyn and Hanna who are 5 and 1 year old
respectively. I also met Natasha, a teenager, who was visiting with them
and also Bob and Judith Higgs who run a Bible school ministry.
Among the special people whom we
met in Australia, I must make particular mention Alan Walker and Judith
Higgs. Alan gave up several days of his work, and sacrificed time away
from his wife and family, to take me, and then Allen when he joined us,
from one place to the next. He missed his family terribly and he was
often on the phone with his wife Donna. But he made this sacrifice for
us and for the Lord, and we learned to love him a great deal. We were
truly kindred spirits. Judith was a surprise. She sacrificed over two
weeks away from her beloved Bob (whom she talked about all the time) to
travel with us, listen to the messages, and to try to help out in
whatever way she could. And what a blessing it was having her! I don’t
know how I would have managed without the hot water bottle she provided
for me every night. In every way she proved to have the spirit of the
Biblical Dorcas who had done so much for the saints; fixing lunch for us
as we traveled and making sure that we always looked clean and neatly
dressed. I asked Allen Stump what would happen to us after Judith left
for home and he said, “we will suffer!”
In Lismore we stayed with Rob and Kerali Wilmoth. This is a nice young
couple that has two lively young children. They made us feel very much
at home and gave me more food than I could manage, though it was very
good vegetarian food. On the first night I was there I regretfully had
to leave nearly half of my supper (or “tea,” as they call the evening
meal in Australia).
In Cooranbong, we stayed for two days at the home of Esther Walker,
the mother of Alan Walker. Here I joined up with Allen Stump at last and
what a joy it was to see him. It was great to be able to chat with a
close friend and it felt like seeing one of my own family. It was cool
here as well, but I was warm and cozy with the electric blanket provided
for me by Sister Esther.
Here in Cooranbong, both Allen and I were happy to personally meet
Sister Julia Joy Russell. We had both been corresponding with her for
years and had really looked forward to the meeting. It was a joy to meet
her face to face and encourage one another.
After leaving Cooranbong we stopped near Canberra, which is the Australian capital. Our hosts were Gary and Glenys Walkom, with their children, Jonathan and Jessica, who live at Bannister. (Glenys is Alan Walker’s sister.) We had a little meeting in their home that was attended by a few friends. One of them was a young man whose name was Zane Gray. I found his name interesting, as I had read books by an author named Zane Grey when I was a boy. We also met Brett and Charlene Murray. Charlene gave a beautiful testimony of how God had worked in her life and then she and Brett treated us with a special announcement: She was expecting their first child! Our prayers are with Charlene that the child will be healthful and always desire to serve the Lord.
The next morning we were taken
to see some sheep shearing a couple of miles away, and this was very
interesting. The poor sheep are treated very roughly during this
process, but it is fascinating to see how quickly they remove the wool,
sometimes inflicting cuts on the animal in the process, but on the whole
doing an efficient job and removing the entire fleece almost in one
piece. It was a very graphic reminder of Isaiah 53:7: “… as a sheep
before her shearer is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” As the shearer
was cutting the fleece from the animal, it was submissive and made no
noise at all.
In Brogo, near Bega, New South Wales, we spent a couple of happy
days in the country home of Leon and Adriana Pittard. Leon and Adriana
have two daughters, Michaela and Anika, who are about 12 and 11 years
old. Leon, Adriana and the girls did everything they could to make us
know that we were at home and we really appreciated their efforts to
make us comfortable. One highlight of this visit was when Leon played
his didgeridoo (an aboriginal instrument like a long wooden tube). We
all found out that one of their dogs was musically inclined, for he gave
a rousing accompaniment to Leon by howling lustily while Leon played.
At the town of Lakes Entrance we met up with Graham Templar and his
wife Edith, and Andrew Douglas. Here, these brethren had thoughtfully
provided the opportunity for us to spend a quiet evening in a cabin in a
trailer park in the woods so we could recuperate somewhat from the
rigors of our journey in a quiet setting. This was a nice place some
distance away from the nearest town. Here we met Julie, a friend of
Andrew. We also found her to be a very nice person, sincerely interested
in serving the Lord and anxious to hear what we had to share. Later we
all sat down and had a beautiful discussion about the love of God and
the nature and identity of the holy spirit, and why it was so important
for us to correctly understand the issue. We really enjoyed being with
them.
The next place we stayed was at Michael Lawrence’s home in Ballarat.
There we met him, his wife Joanna, his mother Nelma, and his children
Sheree and Jessica who, to say loves horses, would be an understatement.
We also met Mary Beth, a young girl who is living with them at the
moment. Nelma spoke to us of the wonderful blessing God had given in
taking them all the way from New Zealand to Australia to learn the truth
about God. Nelma took good care of us while we stayed there. She
mothered us, encouraged us, and made sure we were well-fed.
After Ballarat, our traveling
companions changed. One of the most difficult moments for us was when we
had to say good-bye to Alan and Judith who had been our companions for
such a long part of the journey. They now had to return to their
families: Judith to Bob, and Alan to Donna and the children. Now we
would be continuing our journey with Michael Lawrence and Graham Tierney
who would be taking us the rest of the journey to Adelaide and Mildura
in South Australia. We discovered, however, that our new caretakers were
as good company as Alan and Judith had been. Traveling with them was
equally pleasant.
In Echunga, near Adelaide, we stayed in the home of Glen and Suzanne
Coopman. Glen and Suzanne impressed me as being two very gentle people,
kind and thoughtful, though Glen is full of gentle wit and humor. He
always kept us on our toes with his witty remarks.
After leaving Echunga, we headed for the town of Mildura. On the way
to Mildura we stopped by the home of Dr. Robert Burness and his wife,
Yiannoulla, who were friends of Michael. There we enjoyed a lovely meal
and refreshed ourselves, before moving on to Mildura.
In Mildura, our hosts were Don and Edith Wilson. Don is quite a
character. In the morning, before we left he took us on a tour of his
junkyard and showed us ancient vehicles and old artifacts, some of them
dating back to the nineteenth century and the early part of the
twentieth. Upon our departure they gave us a couple of bottles of
homemade grape juice and a couple of bottles of honey.
In Tasmania we stayed with Brother Paul Borg and his family. Everybody
had told us that we would like Paul, and we found this to be true from
the start. He and his wife, Helen were very warm, hospitable and very
glad to see us. His daughterTiani, and his small son Shannon, also made
us very welcome. At their home up in the rainforest area of Tasmania, we
were able to take some pictures of the potteroos, which are like
miniature, fat, kangaroos that live all over the place. They came out to
eat carrots that were thrown to them by Helen.
The Meetings
Our itinerary in Australia began
in Brisbane, Queensland. I arrived alone because Allen had to stay at
home a week longer to be with his son Hans during the first week of his
recovery from a major and very delicate operation. I would meet him a
week later in Cooranbong. This stop in Brisbane was the first leg of a
journey which would take me (and later Allen) over two thousand miles
through the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South
Australia and Tasmania, and during which we would visit places such as
Tamborine, Lismore, Walcha, Cooranbong, Golburn, Bega, Canberra,
Bairnsdale, Lakes Entrance, Ballarat, Melbourne, Adelaide, Echunga,
Mildura, and Wynyard among other places.
We had many meetings, some in private homes, some in public
auditoriums, schoolrooms and even one in a Seventh-day Adventist Church.
These meetings varied in the number of people who attended. At the camp
meeting in Ballarat we had more than a hundred people. At the meeting
in Melbourne there were approximately 70. In Cooranbong there were about
50. In Brisbane between 40 and 50. At other places there were as many
as 35 (Wynyard in Tasmania), in several places there were between 15 and
20. In one or two places we ministered to just two or three persons in
private homes.
Some of the folks who came to these meetings traveled a long way,
some of them hundreds of miles and several days, to listen to what we
had to say. While the people in Australia are generally serious about
their faith and are good students of the Word, they were eager to hear
what new insights we had to share with them, and for the most part were
happy for these meetings which helped to strengthen their faith and
encourage them to commit themselves more fully to the task of spreading
the message to all parts of the world.
In a town called Kingston, near Brisbane, the meetings were held in
an auditorium owned by a strange set of Christians. These people were
made up of converted people from motorcycle gangs. There were ex-drug
addicts, ex-alcoholics, etc. They all had big bikes, dressed up like
motorcycle gang people, and rode around witnessing to bikers and drug
addicts. They called themselves the “House of Judah.”
Our presentations focused mainly on the subjects, “The God of The
Bible,” “The Son of God,” “The Spirit of God,” “The Death of Christ,”
and “ “The Return of the Fourth Angel (1888 and the Godhead message).”
Usually Allen dealt with the sonship of Jesus and the issue of His
complete death on the cross. I usually dealt with the other topics.
Sometimes we preached all day and into the night. On one occasion before
Allen arrived, I spoke four times for the day, speaking for more than
an hour each time. At the end of the meetings I was happy, but so
drained that I could hardly stand. Many of our days were like this, but
we also had a few days when we were able to relax and fellowship with
the brethren, or to take an outing and see some of the natural sights of
Australia.
Australian audiences are different from Jamaican ones. They listen
very quietly and are somewhat unresponsive. They do not say amen much,
or show any reaction, but after the meeting is over you get some kind of
idea of what they are thinking because they will come and talk to you
and let you know what they think. One thing that was very encouraging to
us was the number of young people who attended the meetings. There were
some, at the larger meetings, in their late teens and early twenties.
They took a lot of notes and seemed to be very happy with what they
heard.
A few people came who asked sincere questions, and a few others came
who definitely wanted only to oppose and to present objections.
However, the Lord helped us to present the truth so clearly that they
were not able to make many objections, and in most cases they never came
back after the first meeting, which was perhaps unfortunate.
Australia has in some places quite a diversity of different
nationalities. In our meetings at Bega we had people from Austria and
Croatia, some from Germany, Greece and of course, some Australians. With
Allen and me, we also had an American and a Jamaican as well as some
non-Adventists, including a Catholic, at some of the meetings.
One highlight of our visit was the camp meeting at Ballarat, which
took place at a campsite called Camp Adekate. It was about half an hour
away from where we were staying at Michael’s home. The campsite was
lovely, with very clean cabins. Allen and I were taken to a little room,
which had three beds and also a heater (the only room on the compound
to have one)! This was great from my point of view, because the weather
was very cold and most people were shivering. I decided that I wasn’t
doing too badly when I saw that most of them were wrapped up in extra
warm clothing. The meetings were held in a hall which had two
fireplaces, but although they soon had the fires blazing brightly they
did very little to warm the room. Fortunately, I got a seat next to the
fire.
There was a very interesting painting set up behind the speaker’s
podium that depicted several events from the prophecies of Daniel
and Revelation. This included the coming of Jesus and also had a section
depicting the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings. Brother
Michael Rori had done this painting.
It was a real joy to be able to fellowship with these earnest and
sincere Christian people, and to be reminded of the truth that all God’s
people everywhere are simply one big family. I could not have enjoyed
sweeter fellowship if I had been at home. One of the blessings of these
meetings was being able to meet people face to face, who before this had
only been a name attached to an e-mail; people such as Tony Milekic,
Leon and Adriana Pittard, David and Helen Dixon, Lin Herman, Margaretha
Tierney, and others. Margaretha has written and published a large volume
of gospel materials. The last few years she has written extensively on
the truth about God. It was a real blessing to meet her.
When it was time to say good-bye, there were many hugs, handshakes,
well wishes, and hopes that we might meet again. It was very difficult
to part, for we really had become very good friends in a very short
time.
In Adelaide we had the chance to conduct meetings from a schoolroom.
The attendance was not as large as in some areas we had been, but those
who came seemed to be very interested. One night Allen was preaching on
the “Son of God” and a young man came into the room and sat down. After
listening for a few moments he arose and left. Allen was concerned that
perhaps the man thought he was in the wrong place or was unreceptive.
How happy both Allen and I were when he quickly returned with a Bible.
This young man, Gary, had traveled several hours that day just to attend
this meeting. He had accepted the truth about God and had been working
in Burma. Gary was extremely dedicated and sincere. It was a real
blessing to meet him and the others in Adelaide.
At the meeting in Mildura we had only the one night and so we tried
to cram two messages into one. I, first of all, spoke on “The God of The
Bible,” and then Allen spoke on “The Son of God.” It was a marathon
session because both sermons were over an hour long. But the people
showed good restraint and listened attentively. I was supposed to speak
for only about 45 minutes, but as noted, went over an hour. The
ever-punctual Allen reminded me that I had gone over my allotted time.
However, after our break, he was so inspired by his subject that he
spoke even longer than I did!
Tasmania was very encouraging because here we had expected only a
small turnout; perhaps a dozen people or so. However, to our surprise we
had nearly 40 people, all told who came to the meetings. One of these
was Sister Lyndy Edwards, another person with whom both Allen and I had
been in contact, and had looked forward to meeting. We also got to see
Brother Tony Donald and some of his sweet family. These meetings were
open to the public. We dealt with the truth about God and the mark of
the beast. Most all the visitors got a copy of The Great Controversy as
well as other study materials.
Our public evangelistic meetings in Ballarat took place at the
Wyndouree sports complex which has facilities for soccer, netball and
several cricket fields, as well as training nets. Our meetings were held
in the trophy room inside a very spacious building. One lady who came
to these meetings seemed to have been led there by very unusual
circumstances. Two weeks previously, a friend of hers had encouraged her
to start studying Daniel and Revelation. The very verses that Allen
preached about on the first night were the same verses she had been
reading for the past two weeks but not understanding. She was convinced
that God had been preparing her for the meetings. The following night
when I spoke on the mark of the beast this lady decided that she would
be keeping the Sabbath from that time forward. She was very eager, and
evidently was having a close relationship with the Lord. The following
night she was back again and we had high hopes that she would make a
decision to be a part of the Ballarat Bible study group. However, on the
final two nights this lady was missing from the meetings for some
reason and we had to end the meetings without knowing exactly what had
happened. However, I had providentially gotten her address on the second
night and the brethren will be making efforts to contact her.
There was also a man who listened intently and showed much interest
for the first three nights, but he also did not return on the final two
nights. In spite of the fact that this was a bit discouraging, we
continued with the meetings and spent the final three nights on the
subject of the godhead. We placed a lot of emphasis on the practical
implications of believing the truth about God, and those who attended
the meetings expressed great appreciation for the messages they had
heard. Several claimed that their lives had been changed and their
relationship with God transformed by the experiences they had had at the
meetings. The final night was an emotional night, for it was the last
time we would see some of the friends who had grown dear to our hearts.
We said our goodbyes to new friends such as Mark and Deborah
Barrachevia, Michael and Therese Rori, Colin Hammond, Dale, Susie, and
others.
This last meeting took place on Saturday night, but during the day
we went to Melbourne to the Blackburn Primary School where we had a full
day of meetings scheduled. This meeting had been planned, almost as an
afterthought when the itinerary for our trip had been planned but it was
a good thing that we had decided to have this meeting. There were
nearly seventy people present at the morning meeting, including several
young people. Brothers Tony Milekic and Joe Lesic had really worked hard
to advertise the meetings and arrange things. Joe is a teacher at a
local academy and several of his students attended, as well as academy
staff. Most of those present listened with great attentiveness. Again,
we covered the three main topics, “The God of The Bible,” “The Son of
God,” and “The Spirit of God.” However, Allen also included a study on
the death of Christ for the final meeting. These meetings were, in my
opinion, a great success; not only because so many people turned out,
but also because God gave us conviction and power in presenting these
messages and because many people appeared to have been deeply moved by
the presentations.
We finished our last meeting at about 5 o’clock, but only because we
had to hurry back to Ballarat, more than two hours away, for our final,
night of meetings there. It was a full day and really tiring, but God
gave the strength so that I could preach again in the night with energy.
Australian Climate
Australia was, on the whole,
much colder than I expected. Somehow I had been under the illusion that
it was a dry, hot country. However, I was soon set straight. It was just
the end of winter when we arrived there, but in most places it was
still cold. Some places, even Allen felt it. I did not do too badly,
however, because in every place the brethren were very considerate of my
intolerance of cold and they either kept the fireplace blazing, or
provided a heater. At nights I was usually cozy, burrowed beneath a ton
of blankets and cuddling a hot water bottle kindly provided by Sister
Judith Higgs.
Ballarat was especially cold. At the camp meeting there I slept
under a huge mound of blankets. Through the kindness of the brethren,
who were sympathetic to my intolerance for the cold, I ended up with
about eight sheets, blankets, and Dounas (comforters). The weight was so
heavy that I could hardly turn in the bed. However, I was very warm.
The Country
Australia is a beautiful place.
This was the thought that kept coming into my mind as we traveled from
place to place. It was not at all like what I had expected. Somehow I
had an idea in my mind of a barren country without too many trees, but I
was delightfully disappointed in my expectations. There were forests,
or as they say, “the bush,” grasslands, mountains, and plains. Australia
has lots of brooks, streams, rivers, and ponds, as well as a great
variety of fruits. Much of it looked like what you would see on a
postcard or a painting. I was made to understand that it was different
in the interior where it was much more like what I had in mind. However,
in our travel of over two thousand miles, it was pretty much like I
have described.
Among the places that stand out in my mind is the journey from
Tamborine Mountain in Queensland to Lismore in New South Wales. We
followed the Tweed River for a good part of the journey. The land was
mostly flat and they grew lots of sugar cane along the way. In the
background there was range upon range of mountains. We could see mount
Warning, the highest point in this part of Australia. Alan told me that
this was the first part of Australia that was touched by the sun in the
mornings. Along the way we also saw the towers and skyscrapers of the
town called Goldcoast, which is like the Hollywood area of Australia. We
also saw a lot of different kinds of cultivations: sugarcane, bananas,
apples, peaches, and pears. Almost everything is grown in Australia.
Tasmania was also a highlight, being a lush, green island with a
fairy-tale landscape. It appeared, even from the plane as we came in to
land, to be a place of great beauty. It is full of sloping green hills
with ponds and brooks nestling in the hollows. The wonder to me as I
traveled in Australia and especially in Tasmania was that the hills were
so smooth and clean. Those that were used as pasture for sheep or
cattle were generally as smooth as though they had been cut with a
barber’s shears and rolled with a roller. They were also generally as
green as though they had been painted. The hills are smooth and
symmetrically rounded. The scenery, was for the most part, such as you
usually see in a painting or a postcard.
While in Tasmania we stayed up in the foothills in the rainforest at
the home of Paul Borg and his wife Helen. Here, there were huge ferns
growing at the side of the road, some of them perhaps twice my height.
Paul’s home is a lovely place nestling in among the trees of the rain
forest. Everybody had told me that Tasmania would be the coldest place I
had been to so far. However, this proved to be wrong, at least while we
were there. It was warmer than many places we had been to, and when I
got there I was glad that I had left most of the winter gear behind
which well-wishing friends had kindly provided, but which had proven to
be too bulky for me to take with me.
Australian Wildlife
After the first five days in
Australia, I was very disappointed that up to that point, all I had seen
of Australian wildlife were some very beautiful birds and an occasional
rabbit. I had seen not a glimpse of the famous kangaroo and was
beginning to wonder if there really were any in Australia. On the
evening of day five, however, I saw my first kangaroo. He was sitting by
a fence as still as a statue as we passed by in the car. When we
stopped he hopped off, but I was able to take some video of him. Shortly
after that we saw three more. From that time, they seemed to be
constantly springing up in all kinds of places and we got to see lots of
them. At the Ballarat Wildlife Park we were even able to feed and pet
them.
People in Australia are as wary of kangaroos as we are of cows in
Jamaica, and Americans are of deer. They just hop out into the road from
nowhere and cause a lot of damage to cars. At one point we came upon a
whole herd of kangaroo and a couple of them bounded out right in front
of the car. It was a sight as they went bounding up the hillside seeming
to be untroubled by steep slopes. People are also afraid of hitting
wombats, which are animals about the size of a small pig, looking like
an overgrown guinea pig, but which are reputed to be very tough and
capable of doing a lot of damage if hit by a car.
In Queensland I went to visit the O’Reilley’s National Park where
people are allowed to feed the birds. This was a sight to see. There
were dozens of brilliantly colored parrots and other birds such as satin
bowerbirds that came out to be fed. The parrots were sitting on the
heads and hands of the people and were all over the ground, completely
unafraid. You had to walk carefully to avoid stepping on them. The birds
are very brilliantly colored in Australia. We saw many different kinds
of parrots, cockatoos and lorikeets. One kind of parrot called the
rainbow lorikeet has every color of the rainbow on his body.
We were able, at some time or the other, to see most of the famous
Australian animals: echidnas, koala bears, snakes, emus, platypuses etc.
However, we never saw the famous Tasmanian devil. We went to the
Ballarat Wildlife Park where they do have some, but they kept to their
burrows and never showed their faces while we were there.
There are lots of horses, and an abundance of sheep and cows in some
places. Some of the sheep are fat and look overstuffed. These are the
merino sheep that are raised for their special kind of wool. Others are
raised for their meat. I had the chance to examine the sheep’s wool at
close range and was surprised to find that although it looked dirty on
the outside (as we often see sheep looking), when you parted the surface
of the wool, on the inside there was a soft, fine, warm and fluffy mass
of microscopic hair. This inside mass in the case of these sheep, that
were Merinos, was several inches deep.
Anecdotes
In a kaleidoscope of interesting
experiences, some stand out more than others, perhaps because they were
different or simply because they gave us lighter moments in a journey
that was mostly involved with serious matters.
One of these incidents, which I remember and laugh at each time I
think about it, was the evening when Sister Lee-Ngoh took me home early
before the others were quite ready, so that I could get some rest. This
was after I had preached four sermons for the day (before Allen arrived)
and I was dead tired. But when we got home we discovered that she had
mistakenly left the house key with another brother, so we were stranded
outside. I had a good laugh at our predicament, but it was very cold for
me and I was beginning to shiver when Lee went next door and asked the
neighbors to allow us to stay there for awhile. They were happy to do
this and gave us some warm peppermint tea. They were Church of Christ
Christians and we had a little talk before the man of the house went
with Lee to try to break in through a window. While they were gone I
chatted with the lady about cricket and she told me that one of her
favorite cricketers had been Vivian Richards (a great West Indian
cricketer). The man was evidently a good housebreaker because they got
the house opened and I was finally able to get in. I really appreciated
the bed again that night.
Another memory, which I cherish, is the time we stopped and saw a
couple of friends of Alan Walker whom he wished to give a tape to, and
to invite them to the meetings. Their names were Joe and Annie.
Unfortunately they were unable to come to the meeting because of
previous engagements. However, Annie asked, “can you maybe give us a
half hour rehearsal of what the meetings will be like?” We were in a
hurry to get to our destination before dark, but we agreed, and I was
happy we did. I spoke about the love of God in giving His Son. They sat
and listened keenly and never took their eyes off me for a moment. Joe
interrupted me at one moment to say, “it is not you who are speaking, it
is the spirit of God.” When I finally had to stop, Annie said, “I don’t
want you to leave!” This was one of my best moments up to that point in
Australia and it was worth the trip just for that single experience.
How could I forget the meeting we had in the home of Nick and Dina
Salakianos? Here, my reputation had preceded me and so they poked up the
fire really high in the fireplace so that I would not be cold. However,
it got so hot that I started to sweat profusely as I was presenting the
message, because I was standing directly in front of the stove. Finally
I had to tell them that I had gotten more than I had bargained for and I
asked them to cool it down a bit. After that I felt more comfortable
and was able to continue my study in a more relaxed frame of mind. Up to
that point I thought I was doing terribly, (although Allen later said
it was good) after which, I felt that I did much better.
At Mildura there was a surprise waiting for us. Our accommodations
for that night were in the middle of a huge scrap yard which was owned
by Brother Don Wilson and his wife Edith, and which was set on 20 acres
of land! In the middle of it there was a little house where we were to
sleep for the night. There we four traveling companions (Allen and I,
along with Graham Tierney and Michael Lawrence), were left alone to
enjoy a quiet night’s rest. That night we had to keep the door shut and
not venture outside because there were vicious dogs released on the
compound at night. Allen took one look outside, glimpsed one of the dogs
looking in our direction, and slammed the door shut for the rest of the
night!
We were blessed to visit “Sunnyside,” the home where Sister White
lived when she was in Australia for ten years. Here we looked at several
things such as furniture and books that she used to own, etc. Next door
is a museum which showed artifacts from islands of the South Seas.
There were all kinds of boomerangs, images, bows and arrows, etc., which
had been used by the natives of the South Sea Islands in the past.
In Adelaide we visited a market that is somewhat along the lines of
the Jamaican market, in that there were fruit stalls, meat shops and
clothing and souvenir shops all over the place. Of course it was much
cleaner and more modern than a Jamaican market but the idea behind it
appeared to be similar.
In Australia they seem to eat everything that moves. We passed
restaurants where they advertised such gross items on the menu as fish
(shark) and chips (a very popular item), kangaroo stew and crocodile
with vegetables! You can bet we did not eat in too many restaurants!
I must mention also the quaint Australian term “tea.” This refers to
any meal which is taken in the evening. Each time I was asked if I
would like to have “tea,” I kept thinking that I was being offered some
warm beverage. It took a while before Allen and I got used to the idea
that it meant the evening meal.
Stanley & The Nut
In Tasmania, Paul took us, on the final day of our stay there, to the town of Stanley, which lies at the foot of an unusually shaped hill called the Nut. From a distance this hill looks like a rectangle sticking up out of the sea. We took a chairlift at the foot of this hill that took us to the top. It was still very cold but I found the ride exciting. From the top the whole town was spread out below us and we could see the ocean all around for many miles. The view was breathtaking.
Ballarat Wildlife Park
On the last Sunday in Australia we spent most of the day with Graham Tierney who took us to see the Ballarat Wildlife Park. Here we expected to see the elusive Tasmanian devil at last. However, although we saw lots of kangaroos and got to pet and feed them, and saw koala bears and wombats, crocodiles and lots of snakes and birds, the Tasmanian devil remained in his hole and refused to come out, so we had to make up our minds to leave Australia without once seeing this elusive creature which has such a reputation for being fierce. On the way home we stopped for a while at Graham’s home for refreshments and to say our final goodbyes to him. Our parting was somewhat emotional for we had really learned to appreciate Graham and to consider him our true friend.
Departure
On Monday morning we left
Ballarat for the final time, bound for Melbourne where our plane would
leave at 12:15 p.m. We said goodbye to Joanne and the children as they
left for school, and hugged Nelma tightly in genuine appreciation for
the way she had taken care of us, and with a pang of sorrow at the
thought that we would not be hearing her cheery voice again, possibly
for a long time. Then we were off, packed to the limit but with joyous
expectation of soon holding our loved ones in our arms again.
Michael stayed with us to the very end, faithful and committed as
always. When we finally had to go, we did not shed tears, but only
because we were men. There was a prickling at the corners of Allen’s and
my eyes and I suspect it may have been the same for Mike as well.
Finally we did take off after one of the most thorough searches by the
airport authorities I had ever been through. Through it all the
Australians were, as ever, polite and apologetic, and we did not take
offence at the thoroughness of their search.
One final point of interest is that we left Australia on Monday,
November 5th at 12:15 p.m. After flying for fourteen hours we landed in
Los Angeles on the same day at about 7.00 a.m., five hours before we had
left!
How To Maintain Unity
No one can be long in a Christian
organization without being brought face to face with the necessity that,
in a community of God’s servants, the personal zeal and faith of its
members must be accompanied by the ability to live together in harmony.
Next to holy living and love for souls harmonious fellowship is the most
important acquirement. It must be admitted that among Christian
communities of every type, zeal and knowledge far, far outrun the graces
of dwelling together in unity, forbearing one another in love, and
thinking no evil.
Yet in spite of the problems so apparent in Christian circles today,
the word of God exhorts us to be one, even as the Father and Son are one
and there is no question that God not only requires that we be united,
but also makes provision for that unity to exist among those who are
called by His name. There are some principles in God’s word which, when
applied will lead to harmony and genuine fellowship among Christians.
What are they? First we must make this clear.
Unity is not the first fundamental, though it is necessary for the
church to operate effectively in carrying out its mission. However, when
we speak of unity, we do not mean a unity without a doctrinal
foundation, nor a unity which is made an end in itself with any sort of
compromise to attain it, we mean the uniting of a section of God’s
people, based upon the common faith once delivered to the saints, and in
our case with the common objective of worldwide evangelization.
A great many of our problems centre round our failure to unite! What
are the causes of disunity? In the vast majority of cases they are the
effect that the actions or attitude of a fellow worker have on us. A
coldness or neglect towards us is observed and felt, some habit or
mannerism jars us, some apparently unspiritual behaviour or method of
work meets with our disapproval. Now there may well be real
justification for this feeling, our judgment may be true, there may be
real cause for concern. But here lies the secret. Christ gave it. He
said words to this effect, ‘When you are tempted to criticize or resent,
turn your attention to yourself and leave your brother alone’.
Recognize the beam of resentment and criticism in yourself, let the Holy
Spirit deal with that, then you will be fitted to deal with your
brother’s mote. For either you will cease to notice it and it will be
swallowed up in your renewed vision of all there is of Christ in him, or
you will recognize that your Lord, who tenderly removes your faults in
His own way, is also his Lord, who will do the same for him without your
interference; or if in a rare case you are led to speak, it will be
more to confess your resentment than to rebuke his failure.
In other words, the first great secret of maintaining unity is—the
moment I am inclined to criticize or resent a brother, I must recognize
my spirit of criticism as the sin which concerns me, and not my
brother’s behaviour: and I must keep on letting God deal with it till a
spirit of appreciative love replaces it, by which I honour my brother
instead of judging him, and rejoice in the image of Christ to be seen in
him.
From another angle we may say that the key to the maintenance of happy
and easy relationships between co-workers is the same that unlocks the
door to all our problems—faith, but this time towards man. The immediate
problem then arises: how can we trust fallible men or they us? We can
love them—but how trust them? The solution to this problem is that we
are to act towards our brethren as we do to ourselves. We do not trust
ourselves, but we do trust Christ in us (Gal. 2:20) and as for ourselves
apart from Him, although recognizing our many faults and fallibilities,
we are quick to take God’s side in His long-suffering towards us, and
to comfort ourselves with the knowledge that He judges by our honest
motive rather than our poor production!
Now let us go further and apply to the other members of the Body what
we have applied to ourselves. Recognize Christ in them: count on Christ
in them. In so far as there are faults observable in them, show them the
same tolerance and sympathy as we do to ourselves. Believe that Christ
is working in them also, and that they are co-operating with Him;
believe in the earnestness and sincerity of their discipleship; as much
as we desire them to believe in ours. By doing this we are achieving
more than the maintenance of unity; by our faith we are building up our
brethren in Christ, for, faith is creative, just as on the other hand we
help to pull down what Christ is seeking to build in them by our
mistrust .
For the maintenance of unity, therefore, we have only to look in the
same direction as for the solution of all other problems: not to the
solving of the problem by others, or by changing our circumstances, but
within our own selves.
There is an outlook on all men and things, which creates both inward
and outward harmony. It is found in Paul’s remarkable statement “To the
pure all things are pure” : an inward attitude of purity which sees all
the contrasting evil and good of life, not as a mixture, but as pure!
Its effects are given us by the Lord Jesus, when He says that singleness
of eye (purity of eye proceeding from purity of heart) results in
fullness of inward light, and therefore of peace and harmony, radiating
out, of course, to all around.
How can we have this single eye, this pure outlook, in a world of
wickedness? The answer, as indicated, is to be found within. Science
tells us that in the ordinary things of life, from the multitude of
sights and sounds and contacts conveyed to us through our senses, our
minds only actually select and retain a fragment of all the vibrations
which pour in upon us, and that fragment is in harmony with our mental
outlook; what we hear and feel is largely what we are within. Thus in
seeing and describing a tree, for instance, the mind of a botanist will
select and accept visible, tangible or oral ideas which are in harmony
with his outlook, points which concern the genealogy and life of the
tree. The artist, on the other hand, will be enraptured with points
which concern its form and colouring; the woodsman with its Value for
the sawmill; and so on. The condition of the mind controls the choice of
information conveyed through the senses, and influences the way we
give a description and pass a judgment concerning any particular thing.
Follow out this line of thought in the things of the Spirit, and it
will be seen to illuminate those sayings of Christ and Paul. The
Christ-filled man will recognize the hidden perfections and purposes of
the Creator and Redeemer working in and through all things, evil and
good, and will fix his ‘pure eye’ on that. The One who originally made
all things ‘good’ is still at work in all to accomplish His final stated
purpose, to ‘gather together in one all things in Christ’, and upon
this the ‘single eye’ is fixed. On this basis, so far as his brethren
are concerned, the Christ-filled man will recognize and respond to all
that is Christlike in them. There are devilish things in many people and
in many things around us, but the pure heart and eyes see the pure
things, as it is said of God Himself, ‘Thou art of purer eyes than to
behold evil’. The two alternatives always present themselves to us : we
can see at a glance the human or carnal in our brethren, or we can see
the outlines of Christ. Because we ourselves have so many negative
characteristics still clinging to us, we are quick to see those same
characteristics in others : we can dwell on these and point them out,
and thus foster disunity and distrust, as well as bring emptiness to our
own souls. On the other hand we can recognize in our brethren the
divine image which has also been formed in ourselves through the grace
of Christ; we can rejoice in this, make it the subject of our comments,
and thus foster unity, confidence, as well as fatness to our own souls.
Along this line we can also see the weight of those other statements
concerning criticism such as ‘Wherein thou judgest another thou
condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things’ : and
‘With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged’.
We greatly need the new mind in Christ, concerning our brethren. The
curse of sin has been to bring separation both from God and our
neighbour. The centre of our consciousness has been occupied with our
separate selves. We have lost that spiritual union which was meant to be
the original status of man, union with God and union with our
fellow-man, thus making, as it were, one supreme self of which we are
each members, in place of a multitude of separate selves. This spiritual
union is restored to us in Christ, in whom we are members of one body,
members of one another; we in Him, He in us, and thus we may say, we in
each other. As our eyes open to this, we slowly learn that when we
damage a brother we damage ourselves; and when we do good to a brother,
we do good to ourselves. Thus Christ said, ‘Love your neighbour as
yourself’.
Even in dealing with the unsaved, in whom we cannot look for the image
of Christ, there is an approach of love and trust which wins, when
condemnation and castigation of sin often repels. The Lord Jesus was a
magnet to sinners. Why? We learn the secret in the answer He gave the
Pharisees in Luke 15, when they criticized His consorting with sinners.
He revealed by the parables that followed that His attitude to the
sinner was to regard him as a prodigal son and a lost sheep. Prodigal
certainly, but also a son; lost, but also a sheep.
The sinner is lost eternally if he does not return to God. However,
from the point of view of the Shepherd and Saviour seeking the
wanderers, the sinner is ‘God’s offspring’, bears His image in a
multitude of natural endowments, and above all has in him the unceasing
movings of the Holy Spirit in preparation for conviction and conversion.
This work of grace, despite the enmities and opposition of the fallen
nature, fosters in all who are not absolute Christ-rejecters a response
to the message of God’s love, a longing for man’s lost birthright of
purity and power, and a disgust of a life spent amongst the swine. All
great soul-winners know that it is this attitude of tenderness and
confidence in man’s readiness to hear and ability to respond which leads
sinners to turn from a life of sin to Christ.
Adapted from the book by Norman Grubb entitled, “Touching The Invisible,” published by Christian Literature Crusade.
It is the gospel of the grace of God alone that can uplift the soul. The contemplation of the love of God manifested in His Son will stir the heart and arouse the powers of the soul as nothing else can. – Desire of Ages, p. 478
A thought-provoking poem
I sat in church one Sabbath Day
The members talked so loud
And showed as little reverence
As any worldly crowd
Again I sat in that same church
But all was quiet now
For in a casket up in front
Lay one with pallid brow
And then I thought how strange it is
That we so oft accord
More reverence to a man that’s dead
Than to our living Lord
If we could see with mortal eye
Bright angels there each day
Our words would cease, and all could hear
What Jesus has to say
It has been said that fools rush in
Where angels fear to tread
We say we come to worship God
But visit friends instead
Oh, why not show more reverence
in this, God’s hour of prayer?
And try to act as Christians should
When we assemble there!
author not known
Those who hesitate to devote themselves unreservedly to God make
poor work of following Christ. They follow Him at so great a distance
that half the time they do not really know whether they are following
His footprints or the footsteps of their great enemy. Why are we so slow
to give up our interest in the things of this world and take Christ for
our only portion? Why should we wish to keep the friendship of our
Lord’s enemies, and follow their customs, and be led by their opinions?
There must be an entire, unreserved surrender to God, a forsaking and
turning away from the love of the world and earthly things, or we cannot
be Christ’s disciples. – Testimonies Vol. 1, p. 408
Open Face is published bi-monthly and is sent free to all who desire to receive it.
David Clayton: Editor and Publisher
P. O. Box 23 Knockpatrick
Manchester, Jamaica W.I.
Phone: (876) 904-7392
email: david@restorationministry.com
