Dear beloved sponsors and friends of Good News India.

We have never seen anything like this. We knew that Orissa was the most resistant and hostile State in India as far as the Gospel is concerned. And we brushed off the continuous threats and harassment we faced as we went about His work. But none of our staff imagined that they would see this kind of carnage….. And it seems to be totally under the radar of the Western Media …..

Let me explain…. A militant Hindu priest and 4 of his attendants, who were zealously going around the villages of Orissa and ‘reconverting’ people back to Hinduism, were gunned down by unknown assailants in Central Orissa last weekend.

Immediately the Christians were blamed. The cry rose up…’Kill the Christians!’

And the horror began…. In the past 4 days, we have first hand witness to hundreds of churches being blown up or burned and many, many dozens of
Christian tribals have been slaughtered. For no other reason than they bear the name of Christ.

Night and day I have been in touch with our Good News India Directors spread across 14 Dream Centers in Orissa… they are right in the middle of all this chaos.

In Tihidi, just after the police came to offer protection, a group of 70 blood-thirsty militants came to kill our staff and destroy the home. They were not allowed to get in, but they did a lot of damage to our Dream Center by throwing rocks and bricks and smashing our gate, etc. They have promised to come back and ‘finish the job.’ Our kids and staff are locked inside and have stayed that way with doors and windows shut for the past 3 days. It has been a time of desperately calling on the Lord in prayer.

More police have come to offer protection. In Kalahandi, the police and some local sympathizers got to our dream center and gave our staff and kids about 3 minutes notice to vacate. No one had time to even grab a change of clothes or any personal belonging. As they fled, the blood thirsty mob came to kill everyone in the building. We would have had a mass funeral there, but for His grace. In Phulbani, the mob came looking for Christian homes and missions. The local Hindu people, our neighbors turned them away by saying that there were no Christians in this area. So they left. We had favor. The same thing happened in Balasore.

All our dream centers are under lock down with the kids and staff huddled inside and police outside. The fanatics are circling outside waiting for a chance to kill. Others were not so fortunate. In a nearby Catholic orphanage, the mob allowed the kids to leave and locked up a Priest and a computer teacher in the house and burned them to death. Many believers have been killed and hacked into pieces and left on the road…. even women and children. At another orphanage run by another organization, when this began, the Director and his wife jumped on their motorbike and simply fled, leaving all the children and staff behind. Every one of our GNI directors that I have spoken to said: ‘We stay with our kids…. we live together or die together, but we will never abandon what God has called us to do.’ More than 5000 Christian families have had their homes burned or destroyed. They have fled into the jungles and are living in great fear waiting for the authorities to bring about peace. But so far, no peace is foreseen.

This will continue for another 10 days….. supposedly the 14 day mourning period for the slain Hindu priest. Many more Christians will die and their houses destroyed. Many more churches will be smashed down. The Federal government is trying to restore order and perhaps things will calm down. We ask for your prayers. Only the Hand of God can calm this storm. None of us know the meaning of persecution. But now our kids and staff know what that means. So many of our kids coming from Hindu backgrounds are confused and totally bewildered at what is happening around them. So many of their guardians have fled into the jungles and ar e unable to come and get them during these trying times. Through all this, I am more determined than ever to continue with our goal: the transformation of a community by transforming its children.. Orissa will be saved… that is our heart’s cry. If we can take these thousands of throw-away children and help them to become disciples of Jesus, they will transform an entire region. It is a long term goal, but it is strategic thinking in terms of the Great Commission.

What can you do? First, please uphold all this in fervent prayer. Second, pass this e-mail on to as many friends as you can. We must get the word out and increase our prayer base for this is spiritual warfare at its most basic meaning. We are literally fighting the devil in order to live for His Kingdom. The next 10 days are crucial. We pray for peace and calm to pervade across Orissa.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please pass it on and help us to get as many people to partner with us on this cutting edge effort to fulfill
His mandate: Go and make disciples of all nations….

Prayer works!

Blessings, Chip & Sandy Wanner Col 2:2 MBI

Team Facilitators to YWAM frontlines

 Like the US and several other western countries, Australia has historically downplayed cruelty by Indonesian authorities; to the point that Australian authorities attempted to confiscate video evidence of a 1990’s massacre of East Timorese in an attempt to protect Indonesia’s reputation. We have a lot of vested interests in the area including massive Natural Gas reserves and the world’s largest gold mine, so historically our governments have found it easier to express their concern privately when Indonesian troops raped and murdered Papuan women, tortured community leaders or imprisoned individuals in shipping crates or tanks of human excrement.

While diplomacy is a difficult matter requiring sensitivity, last year the bipartisan Joint Select Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) recommended that the Australian Government address Indonesian human rights abuses in international fora rather than just keeping it in cosy talks behind closed doors. The difficulty with the cosy talks is that, as the UN Special Rapporteur on torture found earlier this year, not one member of the Indonesian military or Police ever has ever been convicted and punished for torturing a West Papuan. The talks aren’t working, we need to back them up with action that puts the lives of people ahead of our economic interests.

Have a read of the letter and Petition, and if you think you can help then print out some copies and collect some signatures.

- that a Registered Medical Professional can perform an abortion without question up to 24 weeks (about 6 months pregnant).

- Abortions can still be performed after this time up until the time of birth if another professional (doctor or nurse) agrees that the woman’s “current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances” warrant it.

- If a registered health professional has a conscientious objection to the abortion, they have to state this up front and refer the woman to another professional that is known to not have any objections.

There are a lot of smokescreens in the abortion argument. The real issue is not actually a moral question of whether abortion is right or wrong, but 2 questions firstly scientific, then moral -

1) From a scientific point of view, are unborn babies human?

2) From a moral point of view is it right (perhaps under certain circumstances) to kill humans?

From a scientific point of view, the first question seems a little strange. I don’t know of anything in the animal kingdom that changes species with age. If I accidentally hit a kangaroo in my car, I check the pouch believing that if there is a joey there, it is a kangaroo. Because it is hairless and completely at my mercy doesn’t make it less of a kangaroo, and because we can’t physically see the baby doesn’t mean that it’s not a baby. The argument is used to arm teenage girls that want to have abortions, but by telling them to call their baby a foetus rather than a baby all it arms them with is denial. Do you disagree? Remember this is not a philosophical, moral or legal argument, it’s a biological one. The question is a simple one - are Homo sapiens still Homo sapiens if they are young or can’t be seen through the wall of the mother’s body? Are humans the only species on earth that changes species with age, or is this just a convenient argument?

The moral argument is more complex simply due to the fact that we don’t all share the same morals. While some believe that it is never justified to take another person’s life, others believe that it is OK in cases of war or if we think the other is bad enough to deserve the death penalty. Some take a kind of natural selection approach - the strong have the right to take other’s lives so long as their society is not offended and they receive enough benefit. Trade arrangements are a good example of this. By placing the right sanctions in place and using market power, many rich western countries are able to keep developing nations in crippling poverty with massive death tolls. The clinical language of “free markets” allows the perpetrators to free themselves of guilt, but the fact remains that if they had not pushed as hard for profit, hundreds of thousands would still be alive.

If unborn humans are still actually humans, then where does abortion fall in this argument? Clearly, no one can say that the unborn child has done some great wrong that deserves death; the argument is generally about the welfare of the mother or the wider family, sometimes the community. In the very small percentage where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother due to birth difficulties etc, there is a dilemma as to who has the greatest right to live. If however most abortions in western nations are carried out to preserve the mother from issues such as post-natal depression, the shame and hardship of being a single mother or the inconvenience of having to give up a working career, then the question is: is taking another person’s life the only answer? Some point to the effectiveness of abortions in population control amongst the poor and where resources are scarce, but again, unless it can be shown biologically that babies are a different species, this is only talking about reducing the population by killing people.

Biblical morality is the antithesis to natural selection. Protection of the weakest is of highest priority, so while we should do everything within our power to care for single mothers and remove obstacles to their welfare, the highest priority goes to protection of the weakest, those who “cannot speak for themselves”. Jesus said “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his own soul?” In the same way, how does a society show love to a pregnant teen by convincing her that it is OK to “treat her for pregnancy” as if it was like removing her appendix, then leave her with the knowledge in the back of her mind that she has taken the life of her own baby when her womb was supposed to be the safest place on earth? She may avoid some very difficult times, but at what cost?

This bill allows 2 people to decide that because giving birth may cause the mother emotional hardship, they have the right to take the life of her child up until the point of birth. If they were to wait a few hours until after the child was born, we would be horrified and call it the worst kind of murder; but our society is being asked to suspend this moral character that instinctively cares for the weak. 24,000 children die every day of easily preventable diseases, but 126,000 children are killed by abortion every day. That’s 1 every 0.7 seconds. If humans are still humans when they’re young and can’t be seen, then this is almost certainly the highest cause of infant mortality on earth.

Dear ALL,
The right to self determination is a right held by West Papuan people – a right which has been recognised by United Nations as pre-eminent and preceding UN acknowledgment of Indonesia’s acquisition of ‘the Land of the Papuans’.
 On 15th September 2008, a rally will be held in Canberra, starting outside the Indonesian Embassy at 11am and, from there, walking to Parliament House.
 Leading the rally will be the foreign affairs coordinator of the West Papua National Authority, Jacob Rumbiak, together with Herman Wainggai and others of the 43 West Papuan asylum seekers who arrived in Australia two years ago.
 In addition to the issue of self-determination, the reason for having the rally at this time, with the current parliamentary sitting commencing on 15th Sept., deals with monitoring of human rights in West Papua.
 We are asking for your support in the need for action by the Australian government and the international community to free all Papuan political prisoners – many of whom are incarcerated in prisons in Java but most of whom are now in a gulag of prisons inside West Papua.
 The fraudulent implementation of special autonomy by the Indonesian government – a policy that has benefited nobody in Papua but corrupt officials and complicit members of the Indonesian security forces – must be strongly condemned. The failure of special autonomy and the continuing human rights infringements must call into question the so-called reform of the Indonesian army. The Labor Party platform has drawn attention to these vital issues but so far any positive action has yet to be seen.
 Herman Wainggai points to the absence of freedom of speech in West Papua, which was recently brought to the attention of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in a letter by 40 US Congressmen who condemned the imprisoning of Philip Karma for 15 years for raising a flag in a peaceful demonstration in 2004.
This week five more Papuans were arrested in Sorong for possession of a document from Vanuatu – the 2007 Declaration by the Port Vila Council of National Chiefs supporting West Papuan decolonisation. These five were :Agustinus Yesyan; Abraham Malak; Dominggus Maas; Felix Maas and Daniel Ligit.
Since March 2008, eleven Papuan students (including Jack Wainggai) in Manokwari are awaiting sentencing for raising the Morning Star flag; and in July, two Papuans were arrested in Fak-Fak – again for raising the flag. All were peaceful demonstrations.
During a celebration of ‘United Nations World Indigenous Day’ in August 2008 at Wamena, more than 6000 people attended. When a Papuan flag was added to the UN flag and the Indonesian flag which were already hoisted, Indonesian police opened fire, killing one Papuan and injuring many.  
I would like to invite AWPA members and other Australians who recognise the need for justice in West Papua to take part in the West Papua Rally on Monday 15th Sept., gathering outside the Indonesia embassy 11 am.
In Solidarity,
 
Herman Wainggai

While some have perhaps naively suggested that the ‘upside’ to global warming would be increased food production and more livable climates in some areas, this likelihood has the potential to cause massive conflict by increasing the gulf between those who have and those who don’t. Densely-populated tropical third world nations are expected to see unprecedented disruption to water supplies, increased spread of disease, unreliable rains, more intense storms and inundation of low-lying land by sea water, but at the same time some wealthy nations in the cool-temperate zone will see longer growing seasons, increased rainfall and less cold extremes. It is a bit ridiculous to think that the starving billions will just lie down and die peacefully, secure in the knowledge that the rich nations which have caused climate change are now even better off than before. As Schwartz & Randall put it in a 2003 report to the Pentagon, “Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid”. 

It might be comforting for some to think of these scenarios as something in the future (let the kids deal with it), but the reality is that climate refugees are already on the move. President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific, recently said:

“Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. These are not theoretical, scientific losses — they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods…. For island states, time is not running out. It has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet”.

While the past Government was arguing over whether Australia should set any targets at all for emissions reduction (and strong-arming our small neighbours to stay away from the Kyoto Protocol), some of our Pacific island neighbours were arranging deals with New Zealand to relocate their entire populations due to already damaging climate effects.

The simple and terrifying reality is that governments are largely powerless to put real action in place that will cut emissions, and to date globally we are on track for the worst-case scenarios of warming. Comfortable people are in general content to make changes to their lifestyles that ease their consciences (new light globes?) but are too minor to make a serious difference. While water supplies to a billion of the world’s poorest are in serious question over the next 50 years, our Senate has just voted that we should not even take the very small step of funding climate action by increasing the taxes on luxury cars. It’s the ugly part of human nature - placing our right to own the newest four-wheel-drive over the right of a billion people to drink water. Not clean bottled water, all they’ll get is the Ganges or some other heavily polluted river, but it would keep them alive.

Fortunately there are many many Australians that aren’t that self-absorbed. Unfortunately, most don’t have the confidence to speak out unless someone takes the lead, so many will go to their graves in silence. 2000 years ago Jesus told His followers that they were “the salt of the earth”. Come on Christians, let’s speak up! It’s not all just going to be OK, decisions have consequences and we need to act urgently. Without serious planning and some unselfish giving, many experts are expecting our world to decline to bloody battles for survival. We’re already fighting over diminishing oil supplies, how far do we have to fall before we take it seriously? Empower your Government to take moral action by speaking up.

In addition to looking at ways to live more considerately, think about writing a letter to a politician that doesn’t take climate change seriously. If you get a response, post it here and let’s look at it together - remember politicians are where they are because they can talk convincingly so we should be careful not to be deceived. Also take a look at the petition to support what the Pacific Island leaders are asking for. We have God’s full resources to do what’s needed, let’s start taking the lead.

Source: Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights’

Reports today confirm that it was the Indonesian Police who shot the local man Opinus Tabuni yesterday at remote highland city of Wamena in West Papua.

The UN World Indigenous People Day event where the shooting occurred, was attended by 20,000 West Papuan people, who had travelled mostly from the Baliem Valley and neighbouring highland areas.  Many visiting community leaders from other regions of West Papua attended the rally, including the Goldman Peace Prize winner Mama Yosefa Alomang and speakers from Dawan Adat Papua.
 
Reports say at the end of the rally Indonesian Police and other security forces with a water cannon, which had been on standby outside the rally, moved in to disperse the crowd. The four flags had been raised at the end of the ceremony.  These flags were the Indonesian National flag, the United Nations flag, the SOS flag saying Papuan people are in danger and the banned Nationalist symbol the Morning Star Flag.
 
After the flags were raised the Police reportedly moved in and started firing into the surrounding buildings and into the ground in front of the crowd.
 
Opinus Tabuni who had been sitting near the fence of the Santa Thomas Catholic Senior High School (SMU YPPK) was killed with a bullet.  Photos of Opinus Tabuni show bullet puncture wound on his left side.
 
The body of Opinus Tabuni was kept at the Tribal Council Office (Lapago) in Wamena before being transferred to the hospital. A request has been made to the Chief of Police in Papua to view the body.
 
The local police Chief, Lt. Col. Paulus Waterpau, denied in the media that his police officers were involved in killing. Waterpau made the claim that Mr Tabuni ‘might have been accidently killed by protestors’ with spears in the crowd.  An Indonesian military officer Lt. Col. Gandry in Wamena also claimed in the media that military had fired warning shots before the crowd become hostile.  He reported that the dead man could have been shot or killed by an arrow.
 
Paula Makabory from Institute for Papua advocacy & Human Rights said today,  “The Indonesian Police also have the audacity to deny they have killed this man when he was shot in front of everyone.  Indonesian Police and Military have been immune from prosecution in West Papua if they use violence to kill or torture our people .” 
 
Two other men were reported also seriously injured by Indonesian security forces. It was reported that one man who was shot and critically injured. Human Rights workers are searching for this man and it is feared that Indonesian security forces have removed him.
 
Witnesses reported that the other man was severely beaten by police using their rifle butts.  The family of this man report that he is missing.
 
Paula Makabory continued, “This incident is a clear indication that the Indonesian police believe that unfurling the Morning Star flag is enough justification to shoot at people in a peaceful rally.”
 
“This police action could easily have escalated into conflict and lead to deaths of many West Papuan people. There were 20,000 people at the rally many of whom were armed with tradition spears and bows & arrows.   If they had the people reacted forcefully to the Police shooting there would have been a major catastrophe. It is a credit to our people that they continued to react peacefully to such provocation.  The police wanted to trigger a conflict.”
 
After the shooting it is reported that non-Papuans (Indonesian) inhabitants of Wamena and surrounding areas have moved to Police and Military compounds because of the perceived risk of retaliation from local people.
 
There are said to be about 10,000 people from the surrounding mountains still in Wamena today (Sunday).

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Please consider writing to Mike Kelly, Stephen Smith or Kevin Rudd on this (addresses from The War Room). It is important that they know we hear about these events and that they matter to the Australian population.

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Reports from Fakfakstate that 6 West Papuans involved in a flag raising ceremony, with the banned Morning Star flag, on early Saturday morning, will be charged under the Indonesian Criminal code for crime of ’subversion’.

These reports follow earlier information that 35 local West Papuan, including ex-political prisoners, were involved in a flag raising ceremony outside the “Act of Free Choice” building (Fakfak Archives office) on 4.30 am Saturday morning 19 July 2008.

Local Human Rights workers reported that Indonesian Police in Fakfak arrested 46 local West Papuan people, which included some people not involved in the ceremony. (Also see attached IPAHR Human Rights Alert 19 July 2008. Also Jakarta Post Sunday 20 July 2008 reported 41 arrests of ex political prisoners in the incident.)

Human Rights workers report that the Indonesian Police appear to have had prior knowledge of the ceremony and attacked the demonstrators beating them, kicking them with boots and torturing the demonstrators. The men in the group were then stripped to their underwear before being taken to the Police compound. Two women were included in those arrested.

The names of those now charged with Subversion ‘Makar’ under section 110 of Criminal Code and detained by Indonesian Police are:

1/ Simon Tuturop, 58 years;

2/ Tadeus Weripang, 52 years;

3/ Viktor Tuturop, 42 years;

4/ Tomas Nimbitkendik, 19 years;

5/ Benedidiktus Turuop, 35 years;

6/ Teles Piahar, 20 years.

Three men, Walter Wareopor 60 years, Daniel Nimbitkendik 14 years and Simon Hindom 50 years, who had bush knives/machetes in their possession were charged under Emergency Regulation Section 12.

It was reported that the other 37 detainees would be sent home after meeting with and being briefed by the Fakfak Regent, Dr Wahidin Puarada.

Please take a minute to think this through. I will be sending this back to Dr Kelly to ensure that I have not misunderstood anything and to ask for a response. If I had to put what’s happening in a nutshell, I’d say that we’ve been caught out by at least a decade of inaction on renewable energy, fortified by greed and vested interests dressed up as common sense or in the worst instances, given religious justification. We are now approaching a crisis and our seemingly desperate response is to revert to primal instincts and take what we can from others to postpone our own fall. Once again, I am reminded that we have been warned long ago, and that our Christianity is about to be sorely tested. Will we quietly allow the poor to be robbed for the sake of our own comfort?

“The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” 1 Peter 4:7-8

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The issue is a complicated one because it comes down to the whole question of right and wrong. Is there such a thing? In western nations we outlaw certain religions or sects if they contravene certain socially accepted norms. If a new religion promoted violence, polygamy, suppressing the poor or child abuse we would be outraged and demand exactly what the Indonesian Muslim population have - that this “cult” be outlawed. These moral views seem self-evident to us and many in the west can’t understand why anyone would think differently, but what we fail to realise is that the “self evident” morals we profess are largely inherited Christian morals that many other religions don’t share. Whether we are Christians or not, we in the west look at so much of the world through Christian lenses that affect our concepts of justice and what is right. Many of us may not realise that the whole issue of religious freedom is, although common to some other religions, very much a Biblical one based on the teaching that God allows us freedom to choose or reject Him without any compulsion. At no time in the ministry of Jesus did he even attempt to “sell” his way of thinking, he simply presented his teaching in black and white and allowed others to choose without strings attached. He readily healed those with no faith (eg John 5:13), giving practical or moral warnings but exerting no influence to make these into followers.

The issue with JAI (not be confused with Jemaah Islamiyah or JI) is not actions, but theology. JAI followers believe amongst other things, that Jesus returned to earth in spirit in the 14th Islamic century (western 19th century) as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. This directly contradicts the accepted Muslim view of Jesus, but more importantly, allows that Muhammed was not the final prophet in the sense that mainstream Islam understands the Koran (Sura 33:40) to teach. To outsiders this may seem like a small matter, but to Islam the matter of false teaching or apostacy by other professing Muslims is a capital offence. The Koran states:

“Why are ye two parties on the subject of the hypocrites, when God has cast them off for their doings? Desire ye to guide those whom God hath led astray? But for him whom God leadeth astray, thou shalt by no means find a pathway. They desire that ye should be infidels as they are infidels, and that ye should be alike. Take therefore none of them for friends, till they have fled their homes for the cause of God. If they turn back, then sieze them, and slay them wherever ye find them; but take none of them as friends or helpers, except those who shall seek an asylum among your allies, and those who come over to you - their hearts forbidding them to make war on you, or to make war on their own people.” Sura 4:91

The decision of the Indonesian Government to censor JAI has received widespread condemnation as an infringement of religious freedom, however we need to recognise that were they not to censor JAI they would have been contravening this basic teaching of mainstream Islam. Far from being a simple matter, the Indonesian government is actually faced with a decision of which religion to censor! In fact, since the majority of Indonesians practice forms of mainstream Islam, censoring JAI may actually be the democratic pathway! Does anyone out there have any wisdom to shed on this?

After a time when there was only the whisper in the grass to be heard, the whole hillside was lit brilliantly with lightning and the following thunder felt like it was coming up to me through the earth.

My friend Rod Mason is a Bemeringal Storyteller, one of the few keepers of the old knowledge from the Monaro and surrounding mountains. The Ngarigo word for our open grasslands here is Nullaga - “the free country”. On either side was important men’s & women’s country, but Nullaga belonged to no one. I used to look at the hill where I walk and only see the weeds that had been allowed to infest some pretty nice native grassland. After spending enough evenings walking there however, it now towers over me and invites me to come and explore the hidden saddles, find the animal paths and sit in the silence to listen to the voice of God.

As I lay in the grass on the ridgeline last night, the strangely mild wind that comes ahead of snow brought the whispering back to the grass. If I am prepared to be honest, it’s difficult to believe in a God that lives in formality, suits & ties when all of his expressions are so wild. It’s also not possible to consider my deepest questions and believe any longer that God is too remote to relate. Whether it’s the grass by moonlight or Black Cockatoos wheeling and crying as a snow-bearing gale roars up a mountainside through the Ash, when I chance on one of those corners of the world where the wildness walks and I glimpse part of the face of my God, I want to go deeper somehow. I think the best words for it here come from the man who knows all about glimpses of another world, C.S.Lewis:

“In one way of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more - something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves - that, though we cannot, yet these projections can enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so.”

Jesus said “The wind blows wherever it chooses. You hear it’s sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  In a world of people driven by their own needs, what could be less predictable - more wild or more beautiful  than Jesus’ image of someone that lives by love? Someone that has no “sensible” limits but “spends themselves” on behalf of the needy; who returns love for hate, protects the dignity of people trapped in their own failures, cares intimately for the small things, stands up to the powerful on behalf of the oppressed and is motivated by a level of compassion that causes them to feel the suffering of others as if it was their own? Isn’t the longing for this the same wind from God’s country blowing in my face as the one I feel on the mountain?

Every time I hear the Black Cockatoos in the storm or see the day’s last light across Nullaga I am aware that I have just glimpsed a hint of God’s country. It makes me restless and the longing is stirred up that I don’t want to be normal, I want to join with these and be something beyond it all, something beautiful. It still eludes me and I live a normal life of self-preoccupation, but as Lewis put it, I have just experienced “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited”. If it was only possible to live without numbing this deepest part of my soul.

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” John 1:5