Two Yanks In Oz

A few friends have told me I should start writing down a weekly recipe for good, cheap meals that are nutritious and can be made in bulk. I'm not saying I'm that great at cooking on a budget- but I definitely learned a few tricks when I got here and had a food budget of $150/ month ( and, for example, four chicken breasts will cost around $14.00 pre-packaged like we're used to in the States)!

First though, let me share the things I've learned while grocery shopping here.
#1: ALL the food is going to be 1.5-3 times more expensive than in the United States and it doesn't help to complain- so adjusting the grocery list and learning to use the local, cheaper items is the best option.

#2: Buying non-refrigerated eggs is less expensive ( at first it grossed me out, but apparently the USA is one of the few countries that only sells eggs in the refrigerated section).

#3: Long life milk. It's $1.00 per liter and yes, it's not cold. BUT before you drink it, just pop it in the fridge for a day and it tastes like the normal thing- especially when you consider that regular cold milk can be around $3/ liter.

#4: Canned veggies and huge packages of ground beef or chicken are your best friend. Get the meat that's on price cut- if you freeze it it will last for a long time; and if you mix some canned veggies, meat and rice w/ chicken stock, you have 3 days worth of stew/ soup for cheap.

#5: Speaking of rice, it's my best friend here. That and $0.59 spaghetti.

#6: Buy Coles/ Woolworths brand. Don't be too proud to buy the store brand. It will save your life.

#7: Bread is always on sale. So buy it in bulk and freeze it.

#8: SALE SALE SALE~ every day, the stores have things on sale- including staple items. I always buy things with the yellow price cut sticker on them. It takes some time to go through the store and plan a menu around what's on sale but it's worth it. You can also keep the coupons that come in the mail for the weekly sales and plan menus around those.

#9: Buy Aussie brands. I know we love Ritz and Oreo, but Jatz and TimTams are way cheaper because they don't have to be imported...so get over it and try a new product.

#10: Produce. Only buy what you can eat that week so it doesn't spoil; that's just wasted money.

10 Things that are always in my pantry:
Flour
Eggs
Oil
Rice
Spaghetti
Cans of 4 bean mix
Diced tomatoes
Sugar
Cereal
Peanut Butter

Essential/ versatile spices and other materials:
Baking powder and soda
Cinnamon
Italian Herbs
Salt
Pepper
Garlic (powder's good but I buy a huge jar of minced- it's the size of Jelly jar and actually less expensive than minced in the US)
Ginger (root is cheap but dried is good too)
Onion powder
Cayenne pepper
lemon juice

Of course at the beginning of the month there are other things in the pantry. But if I only had those things, I could survive until the next paycheck.

Here's the recipe. I made it tonight and have calculated the cost. It made 4 servings, so I think I'm getting a good deal.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts $6.00 ( around $10/ kilo from the deli but tonight I had to buy pre-packed)
1 green pepper $0.80
2 ears of corn $2.00 ( the package of 4 was on sale the other day for around $4.00)
1 ginger root $1.00
Spoonful of minced garlic ...minimal
Salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste

Bake the chicken breasts at 180 C (350 F) for 30 minutes. Put them in a shallow pan with a little water in the bottom; cover with foil
Dice the whole green pepper. Shuck the ears of corn; put them in the microwave for 2 minutes.
Slice the kernals of corn off the cobs.
Put the green pepper and the corn in a stir fry pan.
Peel the ginger root and grate about half of it over the pepper and corn. You can put the rest in the fridge and use it in other asian dishes or even in pancakes, tea, cookies or on sandwiches.
When the chicken is done, take the breasts out of the pan and use 2 forks to gently shred the meat. Then pour the chicken into the stir fry pan and turn the heat on medium high.
Once the veggies and chicken have started to cook, add about a tablespoon of minced garlic.
Let the chicken become golden, then remove from heat. Let cool.
Once cool, add lemon juice and salt to taste.
I also added a little Cayenne pepper because I like spicy.

This makes a really good lunch salad. I'll be eating it for a while because it makes about 3 cups of salad and I don't need that much at once.

I would also like to add that I still had 2 ears of corn and 2 chicken breasts after I made this, so you can easily make a whole mess more.
And for 4 meals the total cost would be: $9.80 (let's round it to $10 to include the spices)
So for each serving, the cost is $2.50.
Not bad!
It's really good with some fresh fruit too. It's also better to let it chill overnight and then eat it. It's kind of ucky warm. :)

Enjoy!

<3

Alright folks. For the most part, it's been super easy to transition into life here. Most of that is because we moved to another English speaking country. However, just because we all speak English doesn't mean that every word or phrase is the same. Here are the things that Robin and I hear most often (I'm sure if we were in a less international area we would hear more):

Reckon=think. as in, "I reckon that's a good idea."
Heaps= a lot. as in, "I have heaps of laundry to do!"
Wog= a very bad word...usually meaning an immigrant from Greek or Italian descent.
Ranga= also a bad word...it's what they call gingers (red heads)..you know, like Orangatang.
Lift= elevator
Good onya= well done- usually said to a friend or peer
Shockin'= crappy. " That was such a shockin' restraunt."
Lollies= hard candy (not chocolate)
Ice Lolly= popsicle
Jelly= Gelatin
Jam= Jelly
Macca's= McDonalds
Bench= counter top. " Hey, can you wipe the bench for me?" ( When my boss asked me to do this I seriously stood in her kitchen looking for a bench and asked her where it was...she looked at me like I was nuts.)
Capsicum= pepper. " I think I'll cut up some green capsicums for the salad."
Meusli= granola.
Toilet= the whole restroom.
Grog= liquor
Arvo= afternoon
Beautiful= delicious, enjoyable. " That piece of steak was beautiful!"
Bogan= slob. " She probably didn't shower today~ she looks like a bogan!"
Mozzie= mosquito
I'm pissed= I'm drunk. (whoops...that's definitely one I've had to train myself not to say. :) )
Bush= country. Anywhere that's not in the city.
Crack onto someone= hit on someone.
Feral= wild or horribly misbehaving. " That little boy is being so feral, I just want to slap him!"
Uni= University (college can mean high school here)
Winge= whine/ complain
Footy= Australian Rules Football ( Rugby.)

With Love,
Aislinn Deviney

Hi everyone!

Just thought I'd share a little bit about fieldwork and church life. Hillsong mixes classes with practical experience. For example, I have a class in music excellence and woship band, AND a worship band workshop where we actually divide into bands and play together. Actually, right now we're working on our "culture group" assignment- we're split into groups of 4, and each group has a different culture to create a 20 minute worship set for. Next week we have to perform it. And this past week, we performed songs that were assigned by our trainers. So, since HILC is all about working in real ministry environments, every student is assigned two/ three ministries within the church to serve in throughout the school year. There is one ministry during the week, and on weekends, one ministry per church service, for two services. For some people, they serve in the same ministry for both services. For me, they're different.

Your fieldwork is a ministry that has something to do with your "field" of study. For me, and a lot of other vocal majors, that's choir. Many instrumentalists get placed in production for their fieldwork. Pastoral students get placed all over the place- people doing pastoral studies with an emphasis in events get placed in the events team, youth emphasis people serve in youth, etc. Some people's fieldwork happens during the week (like the youth services) and some happens on weekends (like choir for main services). My fieldwork is on Sunday nights. I get to church at 3:30 and we all warm up together, then we go into the auditorium and get up on stage, arrange ourselves and rehearse with the band/team. We are usually done rehearsing at 4:45, so we go upstairs to the green room and there's another team of students doing THEIR church life/ fieldwork making food for us. So we eat and then go down to start service at 5:30. We sing on stage behind the band and help engage the church in worship. Then, once the set is finished, we exit the stage to enjoy the service. Pretty easy field work! Your field work has to be signed off for each week in a little booklet they give you called a passport. Your "specialist" (a core church member in your ministry assigned to keep track of you, basically) signs the boxes for each week so you can get credit, then evaluates your performance at the end of the semester.

Church life is different- this ministry or ministries can be in any area of the church. I think each ministry that needs volunteers lets college office know, and they randomly divide people up. For example, even though Robin is a vocal music major here, her church life is college sales. She calls people all over the world who have expressed interest in HILC and talks to them about college life. On weekends, her church life is choir, and so is her fieldwork (she's a lucky one who got two services in the same ministry!).
For me, my weekend church life is Stage Managing. I help make sure everything going on on the platform happens smoothly each Saturday night service. I've carried things on and off, gotten water for people, etc. I get to wear a radio, so that's awesome. And it's a learning experience because I can hear everyone who is working behind the scenes to pull of the service talking to each other.
During the week, my church life is Youth Alive. Youth Alive puts on the biggest youth conference in Australia each year, right here in Sydney, called Big Exo Day. It's happening tomorrow in the Sydney Olympic Park, and everyone in the office has been working really hard to pull it together. They're expecting around 15,000 youth from all over the state! I'm in charge of the merchandise team, so I've been getting myself in gear to keep track of products and money and volunteers- I had my "training" last night and I feel pretty good about it. I've got my spreadsheets and price lists and I got to help choose some of the merchandise we're selling, so that's cool.
With church life, it's something you're placed in that you may not really have a heart for. So it's really important that we learn to have a servant mentality and humility about us, because we can all learn even if we're not in the place we think we want to be. I kind of freaked out when I got stage managing because I thought I couldn't do it, and now I'm actually really enjoying it.

No one signs off on your church life, so technically it's not graded like fieldwork is. But trust me- it's just as involved and people will keep tabs on you, their volunteer! It certainly makes for a busy week/ weekend. It's pretty awesome to look around on any given weekend and realize that Hillsong Church ministries really depend on college students. Half or even all of every team I'm on is comprised of students. It makes me feel very needed, and for me, need= value. So I feel valued here.

I hope everyone at home had a lovely week- in other news, I just got a job as a nanny! Pray for me! :)


Cheers everyone!
Aislinn

I promise I won't do this very often- however, today's NT lecture caught me totally off guard. It happened at around 9:30 am this morning and I am still thinking about it!

Today we began looking at how to read parables. What was the purpose of parables? How do we dissect them to really understand the impact they would have had on their audience, and why Jesus chose those particular stories at those particular times?

We first talked about how most people think of parables as allegories. "So when Jesus was talking about this, he REALLY meant this...." No, he didn't. He meant exactly what he said. Parables, according to Duncan Corby (our lecturer) are not allegories, they are literal. And they are purposefully literal. Think about the times you've tried to "analyze what Jesus really meant" and gotten really confused- and you have centuries of Christian tradition and knowledge on your side. The people listening to Jesus didn't understand the things that we understand. There's no way they would have understood things like the kingdom of heaven, redemption, and forgiveness of sins- they lived in a society where the way to God was to keep his law and remain pure. Especially the Pharisees, who prided themselves on being good jews- and throwing the "not clean" Jews out of the country (or killing them) so they could be ready to enter God's kingdom. So Jesus speaks to them in terms they understand. Therefore, you have farmers, slave owners, people at weddings, etc. Literally.

The second thing is, Jesus wasn't using the parables as an illustration for a lesson he hoped they would learn and take to heart. He was telling the stories to provoke a reaction from his audience, and maybe cause change. It wasn't the Sunday School Bible hour with Jesus; Or the Let's Be Good People hour; it was the Hey...Let's Look at Where You Have Misinterpreted Who God Is..and Why You Are Wrong hour. He meant business.

So Jesus sets up the story like any good joke. In a good joke, you get a pattern going...for example,
"Sam gets up to heaven and starts walking around. He sees his friend Bill with an UGLY woman on his arm. He says, God, what is this? God says, Well, that's Bill, my faithful servant. Sam says, If he was so faithful, what's with the ugly woman? God says, Well, he sinned once, and that's his punishment...
Then Sam sees his friend George, with an UGLY woman on his arm. Sam says, Hey God...what's up with the ugly woman? God says, Well, that's my child and mighty man of God George...but he sinned once, so that's his punishment.
Then Sam sees his friend Bob. Bob is walking around with a BEAUTIFUL woman on his arm. And Sam says, Ok God...I KNOW Bob sinned at least once! And God says, Well, that's my faithful servant Jennifer, and she sinned once..." (courtesy of DC..I have no jokes on my own. :) )

So we've got a pattern and we think we know what's coming next when BAM! The storyline changes. For some reason that is either really funny or it really unsettles us.

So Jesus uses familiar terms and familiar places to set the scene and to set up patterns- then at the end of the parable, when the Pharisees think they know what's up, Jesus shakes things all around and basically calls out insecurities in the Pharisees (or makes them really mad. )

First of all, pretty much all of Jesus' parable telling was directed at the Pharisees, usually in response to a question or thought from one of them. ( Woman who anoints Jesus with oil; parable of the lost sheep, parable of new wine, etc) So we know he is talking to a very devout, religious group of men who are unsure of who Jesus is. Some of them think He could be a prophet so they're giving him a chance, while others are all for the crackpot option. It isn't until Jesus starts saying things like "I am the son of God", "Hey you..Yeah, I forgive your sins" and other blasphemous things that these guys start getting nervous.

So the parable we really discussed today was the Good Samaritan. So Jesus and the Pharisees are chatting it up, and one of them says, "Hey Jesus...how do I get into the Kingdom of God?" And Jesus is like, "Well, you're a Pharisee...what does the law say?" And the Pharisee says, "Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor." Jesus says, "Bingo! You're right." The Pharisee tries to justify himself here. I think because he, being a teacher of the law, didn't feel it necessary to show love to those who were sinning and making Israel unclean. At that time, people ate and socialized with their social equal- so for a Pharisee to give attention or aid to someone who was a sinner was like lowering themselves to the sinner's level. So he wants Jesus to say it's ok. So he asks, "Hey Jesus, who counts as my neighbor?" And Jesus launches into the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you've never read it, it's in Luke 10:25-37. Now from here on out, I'm copying and pasting my notes from the morning:

The Good Samaritan
• Luke 10:25- 37 Identify the Audience
o Audience= teacher of the law (Pharisee)
• Jews and Samaritans do not get along (political and religious animosity)
• Pharisees hate priests (Levites)
• Pharisees are into good deeds
--Jesus sets the story up so the Pharisees understand. They would have automatically agreed that a man walking by himself down a road could easily be mugged and beaten- kind of like how we today think, in the back of our minds, that women who walk in dark parking lots at night have a good chance of being hurt.
--First we see a priest walk by the man who needs help. The pharisees do not like priests, because priests often exploited the temple to earn money. So when the priest doesn't stop, the Pharisees are probably like, "Yeah...priests suck...no way any priest would ever stop to help!"
--Same thing with the Levite, who was basically a priest.
--When Jesus talks about the 3rd man, they probably expected it to be a Pharisee- but no, it's a Samaritan, they very people Pharisees hate most of all. Samaritans claimed THEY were the true people of God. How could anything good come from a Samaritan?

o Maybe it’s not about doing good to your neighbor….maybe it’s about who you hate in your heart of hearts, and what you’re going to do about it.
o God’s concerned with the state of our heart- if we hate someone, how are we going to relate with them?
--For example, if I said the story was set in modern day Australia and it was a Christian stranded on the road, and the only person who would help was a man who ran an abortion clinic, how would you feel about that?
Or if we were in America, and it was a Christian stranded, and I said the only person who helped was a fundamentalist Muslim? Or an illegal immigrant from Mexico? (Stereotypes aside)
If it was you stranded, and the very person you hated most in the world offered to help you, would you take the help?

o We need to expose the hatred so we can discover that we need Jesus.
We need to realize that Jesus/ God loves everyone..EVERYONE. And we are not better because we act like a Christian and keep the law- it's what's in our hearts; our love toward our God and our neighbor, that counts.

Hillsong Church does a month or two of what's called "Sunday Night Live" every so often, and we are right in the middle of them. Basically, it's just a church service with the message presented in a creative way. That could mean music, dance, artwork, drama, video, testimony among other things. Tonight's was something that particularly stuck with me. I can't remember all of it- but the message was clear: God will never leave, or forsake us- no matter what we experience here on Earth, God is with us and we can expect beautiful things in the life to come.

There were 3 really great video testimonies of people who experienced some rough times and were now on the other side of those experiences, looking back and seeing God's hand in all of it. There was artwork, and speaking, and someone (who has a beautiful voice oh my goodness!) sang Kari Jobe's "You Are For Me" which made me cry. I posted the song on facebook but it's also on youtube if anyone doesn't know it.

The scripture that has really stayed with me throughout the night is this:

Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it! We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.
That's why we live with such good cheer. You won't see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It's what we trust in but don't yet see that keeps us going. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:2-8

So, I am not going to droop my head or drag my feet when I feel discouraged or alone. For example, when I feel fear because of my lack of finances, I will remember that God has good things to come for me. Someday, I won't have to worry anymore. And in the meantime, my faithfulness in him will come with an Earthly reward all in good time. I should be encouraged by the glory I will see someday, and I will never settle for less.

"Funds are low again, hallelujah! That means God trusts us and is willing to leave His reputation in our hands."~ CT Studd, Missionary to India.
Speaking of finances...:)

In other news, I was rostered for choir tonight. I get up to the stage and who is standing in front of me leading worship? Uh...Brooke Fraser. BROOKE FRASER...I had a little freak out moment. I mean Joel Houston was there too, but I was all about Brooke. If you know me, you know I have all her CDs memorized. You probably do too, if you've ever ridden in my car. But no worries, I didn't do anything embarrassing...just watched her like a crazed hawk while I was up on stage. I tried so hard to be in worship, I seriously did...I had to pray very hard for the Spirit to come upon me so I wasn't distracted, God forgive me.

Ok. I am going to bed. That was a very scattered blog post. Goodnight all!

Do you ever start talking with a point in mind, then keep rambling on, even though you know people are uncomfortable and bored, just because you can't seem to make it back around to your point? That happened to me today.
I was in my music excellence tutorial and we were talking about churches using contemporary music to speak to today's seeker, and why it might be more effective than traditional music. Our trainer asked us to give benefits and drawbacks of using fully notated music vs. chord charts. Somehow it turned into everyone around me talking about the freedom of chord charts vs. fully notated music, then it got into how it's easier to connect with a congregation if there's no music stand in front of you. So while we're talking about connecting more with the congregation, my mind's still on the subject of notation.
I personally cannot learn a song without seeing the vocal line physically written out. Ok, I can learn it, but it takes way less time for me to just look at it, play it on the piano once, listen to the recording and then boom I'm good to go. Then once I memorize it, I can still see the spacing and line in my head, so I know what notes to sing.
Anyway, I just piped up and said something along the lines of that in the middle of a completely different conversation, and the trainer was very gracious. He just re-directed the whole group because I think we'd all gone in a slightly different direction by that point...but I felt so bad. I mean, I just wanted to make a simple statement that some people, including me, really do need the notation and that it's not a bad thing to learn from that. Instead, I went on this rambling stroll about classical training and seeing notes and blah blah blah. Oh man. Luckily for me, people here don't judge. LOL. I think my biggest concern is looking like I don't think I need to learn. So not true! I am so ready to learn! I just learned a lot of other stuff before I came here and I'm trying to connect it all together.....

Something else I learned today was that as believers, when we pray, if we use God's word in our prayer,it's like we're letting God know that we know what He has promised us and that we truly believe He'll come through. So we pray, telling God the things we know of Him from His word, and then we only ask once because we know He has heard it and is working on it. Then the next time we pray, we can just thank Him for orchestrating things and for His perfect timing- we don't have to ask again and again. Just have faith that He's in in control of it and it will happen. That's something I've never heard before and it's definitely not something I was doing before. But I think I just found a new prayer style. Plus it will encourage me to get more into the Word.

Ummmm...that's all I can think of for now. We finally tried Vegemite and we took video so that may be up sometime if we can ever get our wireless to work properly. :)

Love to all!

As someone who's been in a church environment all my life, I can't tell you the exact moment when I really truly became a Christian. It was probably in the summer of 2008, to be honest. I think I knew God, and had been an extremely spiritual person until that point, but that summer completely broke me and it took forever to put the pieces back together.

Over the next year my life became a different picture. As Jesus worked on my heart and re-arranged me, He began to show me all the times I was wrong about Him. All the times I unfairly judged people. The times I told lies to get attention. The times I made people feel like they were not doing anything right; like they were not "good enough". And also the times that I twisted and manipulated people who needed God so that they would need me more. As if they ever could!

Of course, Jesus being who He is, He never left me feeling completely broken- He always walked me through it. Sure, there are some lingering feelings of guilt over things I really can't mend with people at this point, but I'm working through them.

He prepared my heart to come to Hillsong by wiping it clean of any notions or expectations of this place. And so I don't notice any sort of nervous thrill when someone famous walks by or says hello to me ( or helps me find the "loo"...LOL!) I'm just going with the flow and being part of this church.

But through being here and sitting through all these classes about teamwork and worship ministry, watching the way people treat each other with humility and respect and GENTLE words in times of correction, prayerfully considering every interaction, Jesus is breaking me more and more. Each day I have to learn new humility. The urge to be blunt with people, honest about their abilities, gifts, and talents is so overwhelming- and it's coming from a place of self-gratification. "If I can make them understand how bad they are at something, then they will understand how good I am at it!" This is probably the first time in my life I have been aware of how damaging I can be simply because I don't believe in myself.

I don't know how much more I can explain- I can simply say that our last lecture together last week was about "comparing". How we should never ever compare ourselves with others or base our perception of God's plans for us on what we see Him doing with our peers. And then there was a time of prophecy and prayer, and it was overwhelming for me to see. I have never felt so completely unjudged by people- and so "judged" by God all at once!

He's breaking my heart, you see. I keep praying to love people more, and He is first breaking my habit of automatically finding something to tuck away- something that person may not be perfect at- and use as a weapon later.

All I can say is God help me- right now I am feeling so sad for all of those people I have hurt in the name of Jesus. May all of you still come to know how very Good and Loving He is despite my treatment of you. The God I know now is not the God I represented even 2 years ago.