Power to live

“Remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to succeed in life.” Deuteronomy 8:18 AMP

Whether His blessings come in the form of increased finances, improved health or greater influence, when God gives you something, He wants you to use it for His glory. God is the source of everything you have – and ever will have!
www.thewordfortoday.com.au

Sparrow taking a drink, Port Campbell, Vic

Sparrow taking a drink, Port Campbell, Vic

Originally uploaded by bhojman

I took this image last year but didn’t get a chance to upload to Flickr till recently. I was interrupted by the death of my friend, Paulette in mid December. Was gone from Oz dealing with breaking up her house and life work in Thailand. Now trying to catch up with myself a bit.
A nice thing about this photo is how simple it can be to get a drink if you really need it! I also watched a seagull do the same thing, however, I missed the moment of his drinking and only got him afterwards. Still a fun photo but not as good as this one.

Be yourself!

“I have finished my course.” 2 Timothy 4:7

Be yourself. Life’s too short to be anything else. You can only win if you run on the track God gave you. To run any other kind of race is to lose. God will bless you when you’re committed to being what He redeemed and called you to be. So, be yourself!

(www.thewordfortoday.com.au)

My good friend Paulette

My very dear friend Paulette Hopple died on Thursday morning. It was sudden, yet not unexpected. For 20 years she’d had a death sentence over her because of a rare form of scleroderma which had attacked her lungs. Through much prayer God gave her more strength, vim and vigour than most of us without any disease. She was someone who never did anything by halves… it was always full on.
I’ve always been impressed with her keen interest in people, and no matter who they were she wanted to know them, was concerned for them and wanted to encourage them in whatever way she could. I remember on a visit with her earlier this year in Mae Sai. She would always speak with the beggars who’d come across from Burma; she wanted to know who they were, what language they spoke and what were the circumstances of their life that had brought them to begging. Invariably she would give them some money or pay for a good meal for them. I found this care about people to be quite overwhelming.
She had been serving God in Asia. While on a 6 week trip for language data collection and a literacy workshop she experienced increasing difficulty with breathlessness at the slightest exertion. She knew it was bad but did not stop until completing the literacy workshop in which training was given to speakers of the ethnic language with whom she worked. These folk were being trained to be literacy teachers for their own people in their own language. After this her breathing become more laboured and she ended up in hospital. Her heart was unable to oxygenate her blood and gave out just after midnight December 18.
I miss her, and will continue to do. She was a good friend to me. We’ve been friends since being in grad school together in the mid 70’s, so it’s been a long blessing.
All her friends and colleagues around the world are in shock, and feeling deeply the effects of sudden loss. Though it seems as if her life was cut short, it wasn’t. It was God’s time for her. It might not suit us, or make sense to us, but it was definitely God’s time.
This mornming I was reading John 14:1-3 and was impacted afresh by Jesus’ words when he said: “I am going to prepare a place for you … When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” Jesus had finished preparing Paulette’s place and came to get her! Wow! And, I’m sure she was ready to go and knew it was time.
When will our places be ready? Will we be ready to go with Jesus when comes to get us? I pray we will. I pray I will.
Bless you all!

Koalas at Cape Otway

Koalas at Cape Otway

Originally uploaded by bhojman

This fellow ambled across the road in front of us… paying no attention whatever to anyone. He sat and watched me as I walked closer and closer to him to get a better photo. He made no effort to turn and run and seemed as curious about me as I was of him.
I was so pleased to have taken the time to drive through the national park to Cape Otway. I would have missed the koalas.

Box trailers

Following the article I wrote back about wheel problems…

Today in the Sydney Morning Herald is the news of a fatal accident.

Also on the state’s far north coast, a fatal single-vehicle crash occurred about 2.30pm yesterday.

A Holden Commodore sedan was towing a box trailer and heading south along the Pacific Highway when it went out of control and slammed into the guard rail, near Ewingsdale.

“The impact caused the attached trailer to separate from the vehicle and travel a further 10 metres into adjacent scrubland,” police said.

An 84-year-old man travelling in the front passenger seat was cut from the sedan by emergency services volunteers.

The driver, a 62-year-old man from Kingscliffe, suffered extensive head and internal injuries and was airlifted by Westpac Helicopter to Lismore Base Hospital where he later died.

It makes me wonder if they were towing a trailer similar to the one we had. If so the trailer may have been too heavy for the car, or maybe had a fault like ours did. The box trailers really need a landrover or similar heavy vehicle to safely tow them. I am sorry that a family is now bereft. It was probably a simple job that went horribly wrong.

Spring Gardens – Irises

Spring Gardens – Irises

Originally uploaded by bhojman

Around Sydney at this time of year (Spring) are many beautiful gardens open to the public. Today (17Oct08) some friends and I went for a drive to 4 of them. They were really beautiful! Here is a lovely Iris. The colour of the Irises in this garden were quite spectacular!
I find the beauty very refreshing to the soul, especially after the pain of the past weeks and Mum’s death last week.
There are many more of these pictures in the Spring Set on at my Flickr page if you’d like to see them.

My Mum, 8 Oct 2008

My Mum died this afternoon (8Oct) at about 2:20pm.

My brother, Peter, received a call from the nursing home this morning to say that Mum’s breathing had become very shallow and they were moving her into the palliative care room. I’d intended to go up tomorrow but decided I should go today. She was deeply unconscious yet still held my hand. I sat with her praying and speaking gently to her for about 2 hours. At one point I asked her to squeeze my hand if she could hear me. She did and shook my hand quite vigorously for her weakened condition. I knew she was hearing me so continued to speak blessing over her. My sister Stephanie arrived about 1:30pm and I took the opportunity to go for some lunch. On my return I passed Steph driving off. She said Mum’s breathing was extremely shallow and sometimes stopped altogether. As I walked down the hallway the nurse, Heather, met me to say that Mum had just died. She just stopped breathing.

The staff were wonderful! They came into the room to farewell to Mum and took the time to sit with me and give comfort. They talked of the good experiences they’d had with her, and they gave me opportunity to talk of Mum and what she meant to me. They asked if I’d like the chaplain to come and I felt it very right to say ‘yes’. The chaplain was wonderful. We prayed over Mum and she anointed her with oil and committed her into God’s hands. We had a good time talking and sharing together which helped me to process what had happened and was happening.

I don’t know when the funeral will be, possibly Tuesday. We have yet to let all the rels know as well Mum’s many friends.

Even though this has been expected for some time, it is still painful. I grieve Mum’s passing, but I’m glad she’s finally at rest. She’s in God’s hands, the very best place to be.

My Mum: born 3 July 1917, died 8 October 2008… a long life!

Wheel Problems

Wheel Problems

Originally uploaded by bhojman

It seems like I have absolutely no luck with a certain trailer rental company here in Oz. About a month ago I rented a furniture van trailer from them to take stuff from storage down to my place in the southern highlands. We only discovered after completely loading the trailer and heading off that the trailer had no brakes… we discovered the cable was broken and looked like it had been that way for a while. We travelled carefully. My friend was towing with his landrover but even it was pushed through intersections. Down near Campbelltown one of the wheels began to wobble horribly. We discovered that the brake thingy inside the wheel had come loose and was flying around inside the wheel. A mechanic friend fixed that problem and we continued carefully on our way. We lost a number of hours as a result and got back home exhausted.
Last Saturday (Sep27) we again rented the trailer from the same company. The brakes had been repaired.
BUT then, what else can go wrong with a trailer??? We were nearly 200 kms down the road when a passing car frantically pointed at our trailer wheels. We stopped to check and found a wheel almost off with no grease in sight and the ball bearings half gone. We spent 4 hours waiting for help. They sent a mechanic to fix the wheel only he wasn’t able to because the axle nut was ground onto the axle and could not be removed. He felt we’d be okay with 3 wheels and as this load wasn’t too heavy so we tentatively took off and did the rest of the trip on 3 wheels.
Never again do we rent from that company. They were not willing to take responsibility and intimated that we must have hit something! Rubbish! It is poor business practice, poor maintenance, and poor customer support. They gave me a 10% discount off the rental price – an insult!
Both incidents could have ended in injury or death.
The company here in Oz seems to be affiliated with U-Haul in the US. U-Haul seems not to have taken responsible position on the renting of trailers over there. See: Dangers with U-Haul Trailers
I’m just really glad we lived to tell the tale.

Wind swept tree at North Head

Wind swept tree at North Head

Originally uploaded by bhojman

Went out to North Head the other day at the entrance of Sydney harbour. Among the various interesting things to see was this windswept tree. It was dead. The photo I took of it turned out to be a almost a b&w photo. There are spots of blue sky visible through the dead branches so it really isn’t a b&w photo.