ben.atwood.com.au

‘spose I should update this thing.

Our South Asia survey trip was supercalafrickinawesome. Really. I don’t know how else to talk about it, other than to say that it was time well spent in a part of the world that we love and might live in one day. Lots of clarity was had…along with lots of odd experiences. Ask me about it in person and I might just talk your ear off. Anyway, I can’t really compress six weeks of amazingness into words right now, so to save you from complete boredom, here are some stats to give you a snapshot.

• Countries visited: 3
• Total distance by air: 20,490km; by rail: 3,204km
• Actual duration of flight from Singapore to Karachi: ~9 hours; perceived duration: 19 hours
• Estimated weight of pack at beginning of trip: 16.5kg; at end of trip: 19.5kg
• Unexpected McDonalds sightings in Pakistan: 5
• New forms of transport tried in Karachi: 1
• Visits to bazaars: 4; time of each visit: ~3.5 hours
• Average cost of a taxi to the bazaar: Rs. 60
• Sunsets over the Arabian Sea witnessed: 1
• Number of bag-snatchings: 1; number of successful bag-snatchings: 0
• Estimated loudness of fellow passenger’s snores on the Karakoram Express train: 102 dB
• Wedding anniversaries celebrated whilst abroad: 1
• Kilograms of gajar halwa cooked: ~12; consumed: 1
• Church gatherings attended: 4
• Borders crossed on foot: 1; number of times passport was checked at border crossing: 5
• Guessed number of pilgrims at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, when we visited: 5,000
• Offers of drugs in Paharganj, Delhi: 12; average distance travelled between offers: 10m
• Hotels stayed in: 3
• Estimated waiting time to enter Taj Mahal complex at 3:00pm: 3.5 hours; at 9:00am: 3.5 minutes
• Number of allocated seats per berth in Indian trains: 6
• Number of passengers per berth, on average, in Indian trains: 16
• Cups of chai consumed: ~35
• Visits to barbers: 3; number of times head shaved: 2
• Number of Hindu babas witnessed in Varanasi: 12
• Hours spent waiting in an airport at Kolkata for fog to clear: 6
• Books read in Bangladesh: 1
• Bangla names for objects learnt: 18
• Trips to Chinese restaurants: 1; number of vegetarian dishes in the ‘Vegetarian’ section of their menu: 0
• Late-night life-changing discussions: 2
• Decisions made regarding future: 2

There will be some form of open-house thingy coming if you want more than that.

The time has come, it seems.

Lorien and I begin our grand six-week overseas jaunt tomorrow. We will get up at about 4:00am tomorrow morning and will be chauffered to the airport (by the megasuperfantastic Frank and the lovely Rach). From there, we catch several planes, spend lots of time waiting around in airport transit lounges, and land in South Asia sometime at about 10:00pm their time. It’s a holiday with a missional edge – part of the purpose of the trip is for Lorien to show me all the places where she grew up, part of it is to have some much-needed downtime, and part of it is to see what God’s got going on over there, and how we might be a part of that in a long-term sense.

We’re hoping to have a pretty smashing time! It hasn’t been that long since we last visited that parted of the world, but I’ve been craving it for a while, and it will be awesome to visit as marrieds (rather than part of a team), so we can use our time without having to worry about a team of others.

Some random facts so far:

• Airlines do not appear to issue paper tickets anymore. We went down to our friendly travel agent and all she gave us was a printed itinerary with an e-ticket number on it. Allegedly, this is all we need to travel, as the airlines have some secret database or website where our details are stored. I feel slightly unprepared, nay, naked without paper tickets.
• Visas for all three countries we are visiting cost ~$650. Ouch.
• We thought we would be leaving behind the summer heat in Sydney and enjoying the cooler climes of the northern hemisphere. Turns out we were wrong: tomorrow will be about 33°C in Sydney, and 28°C in our first destination.
• Our primary mode of transport will be train or autorickshaw.
• We have heard good things about Changi Airport in Singapore, including rumours of a free cinema and free X-Box (I think, “Awesome!”; wife thinks, “Er…no.”). In God’s provision, we are going there instead of Suvarnabhumi in Thailand.
• This will be the longest time I have been away from my home, family, and country. It will also be the first Christmas away from both of my families. I’m not sure if that bothers me, though.

Anticipating: airports!, seeing new places, meeting new people, cheap and awesome food, spicy tea in clay cups, bazaars, flexing my flabby Bangla muscles, catching trains, wearing salwar qamiz and lungi, riding in the back of rickshaws, time to reflect and write, taking lots of photos and video, getting my head shaved with a razor blade, catching up with old friends and making new ones, grand architecture and beautiful ruins, fellowship, time with Lorien.

Anxious about: many long plane flights and weird time-zone crossings, heat and humidity, sharing my personal space, missing transport connections, getting lost, epic language fail(s), epic culture fail(s), bags getting lost/stolen, various tummy bugs, strikes, explosions, exhaustion, not resting.

Talk to you in six weeks.

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound, a thin silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
(1 Kings 19:11-13, ESV)

I quit my old job today. Er, woo.

The choice wasn’t too hard. There was no anguish or fretting, no late-night chats with Lorien over a cup of tea trying to talk through the pros and cons of it. I just woke up yesterday and wrote a resignation letter, then posted it this morning (how did quitting become so easy and impersonal?). It was more a necessity to leave – I am enjoying full-time paid ministry work, I think I am more productive for the gospel as an MTSer than I was at my secular job (which shows how much of a wuss I am), and my year of unpaid leave will expire when I am on a train somewhere between Delhi to Varanasi early in 2009. So, I quit.

Quitting feels like a concession to failure. The job I did with the NSW government was hard, like climbing a mountain with two heavy rucksacks on my back, a suitcase in one arm, a watermelon in the other. There was a lot of work. There was a lot of heartache. There was nearly burnout. My lame efforts at sharing the good news about Jesus with my co-workers did not seem to fall on fertile soil. To leave makes me feel like I’m bailing out when perhaps there is more I can do. But God gave me the MTS position for this year and next. It has reoriented my thinking about ministry (I daresay I have learnt more about the Bible, about God, and about ministry in the last ten months than I have in the last five or six years). It has given me so many more opportunities and connections which, I pray, will be useful in the coming years. And, ultimately, the government, though generous in giving me a whole year of unpaid leave, cannot be my employer while I am doing full-time ministry. So, it’s one or the other.

My thinking about my old job is more sentimental than I thought it would be. It was a difficult job, but a good job, and as I reflected on it while I wrote my resignation letter, it is one worth doing. I had a lot of impact in certain points in the community I worked in. I met a lot of great people and made some good friends, and I got to work with some pretty awesome little guys and girls.

The plan now is to finish MTS and then go on to college somewhere – the jury is still out between the Big Two in Sydney, though my slight incline is becoming somewhat more inclinated – and then out into the great beyond. It is scary to not have a certain plan, but heck, God is in control.