My First Anniversary in Oz

Well, believe it or not, today marks the first anniversary of my permanent arrival in Australia. Bruce and I were laughing over it this morning: It had been a heckuva day: I’d had a brutal 31 hour trip, he was as sick as a wallaby (ha! ha! How charmed I still am by the Australian turn of phrase)

Still, today was an amazing day, and my first anniversary was celebrated with style.



First off, at about 10:00am, a helicopter from Channel 7 news arrived, to cover the event. They even sent along their celebrity Weatherman, John Schluter, to lead the event. How fortunate it was that our Grade 5 students were studying “Weather” as part of their term studies too!


The helicopter circled, then landed on the oval, to the sound of cheering children. I was asked to pose for a photo op by the helicopter, and happily obliged.



Anything for the punters.

I had a wee chat with John Schluter, and he personally wished me well on this auspicious anniversary. Then we all retired to the hall where John made and awesome speech about me and all of my accomplishments and how wonderful it was to have me here at Samford and how I could heal the sick and make homework disappear and how he hoped that I would never leave and that he sincerely prayed that all the children gave me lollies and chocolate.

Oh, and he gave a wee talk on “weather” for the grade 5’s too.


What an amazing first anniversary its been….

There's one in every school, I suppose...

He’s shares a name with a very famous blues singer, so I will call him BB (as it’s not that famous blues singer); and he’s the school pervert. I know that because he’s the one that told me.

BB is in grade 6, and is a difficult child. He’s a difficult child to relate to, a difficult child to “click with”, and a difficult child to like. He is undergoing psychiatric testing to seek a diagnosis, and part of me is praying they find something they can treat.

Well, God never said everyone was a dream come true, and to be a Christian is to truly love the unlovable.

I suppose, if I had to describe him, I’d say that he reminds me of the goofy, socially awkward, comic relief that you’d find in 1960’s sitcoms.

He’s tall and lanky, and wears his hat pulled floppily down over his head so that his ears stick out. He spits when he talks. He farts for fun. He stares at your breasts when you’re talking to him.

He’s sort of like Eb Dawson or Jethro Bodine as a child, only darker. Creepier.

There’s something sinister about this kid… kinda like Travis Bickel lite

The other day he came to my room to “talk to me about stuff”, so I asked him what was troubling him.

He plopped himself down into the beanbag chair and said without preamble, “I’m tired of everyone calling me a pervert.”

I was a bit taken aback. It still comes as a surprise to me when children are the victimizers, and not the victims; but it is part of life at a very large State school, I suppose.

“Why do they call you a pervert?” I asked, tentatively, rolling the word around in my mouth to see how it fit. Knowing this kid, it did.

He shrugged, fidgeting with one of the gazillion toys in the room.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, why do you think they say that, BB?”

“Well,” he whined, “everyone thinks that I look up the girl’s shorts and culottes during PE (physical education).” There was no hesitation in his telling, no embarrassment. Indeed, on his face was a hint of a smirk.

“And do you?” I asked, trying not to rush to any sort of judgment.

“Well,” he exploded, throwing his toy across the room. “It’s not MY fault if they don’t wear clothes that cover their rudey-tootey bits!!” He crossed his arms and sank into the beanbag chair, sulking, one eyebrow cocked insolently.

“Soooo…” I said, slowly, thinking quickly, “you can see their underwear?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, brightening. “Pink ones and orange with little flowers…”

He caught himself.

“It’s not MY fault they show off their rudey-tootey bits!!”

Then he went back to sulking.

What ensued, of course, was a conversation about “the truth” versus “the appearance of truth”; and that while he might not actually deliberately be looking up the girls culottes he might be giving the impression that he is. We talked about averting his eyes, or even turning his back; but none of those ideas seemed to please him. They spoiled the fun.

“How does everyone know, by the way, that you’re a “pervert”, honey?”

“The girls in my class told on me. Mr. M had a chat with me about it.”

“I see, and what did he say?”

BB just shrugged, and fidgeted some more with his toys, that sulky smirk etched on his face.

Kid Fan Mail

Kids express emotion in simple ways. They know “angry”, and they know “happy”. They understand “sad” and even “mean”.

And they certainly know “love”. Kids, up until about grade 5, see emotion in primary colours. After that, of course, it gets complicated….

But I digress.

Any primary school chaplain worth their salt will be flooded with little love notes from their charges (and talking to my primary school colleagues certainly bears this out). When you help a child, or lift their spirits or encourage them emotionally, they will often interpret their feelings as “love”. And they love you for being kind to them, and for helping them, and for making them feel special.

So they will unabashedly tell you that they love you. And they will write it out in pretty colours and draw you pictures, and bring you presents of melted chocolate, or wilted flowers, or a sandwich that they made for you that their brother accidentally took a bite out of not knowing it was a special sandwich for the Chappy; or a favourite toy that they accidentally dropped in the toilet once but now want you to have. They will hug the stuffing out of you. They will tell you that you smell.

The challenge for the Chaplain is to reframe that in its actual context: that it is not you that they love, it’s what you’ve done to help them – or more correctly, what the Lord has done through you to help them. Those love letters are for God.

And so I have a file tucked away at the back of the cabinet into which these love notes go so that a) I am never tempted to believe the hype, and b) I can always find them when the child says “Where’s the picture I drew for you?”

Recently, though, I have been flooded with requests to join an online game called “Club Penguin” – sort of a Disney-owned version of ‘Second Life’… only for kids and with penguins. I’m sort of interested, as I’ve never actually considered a penguin alter-ego until now; but my stepson, Josh, is dead keen.

Last Tuesday, when Josh – a cute and smart 10-year-old with a whip-sharp sense of humour – came to visit for the afternoon, I brought home several of these letters encouraging me to join this online club and chucked them on the kitchen table while I grabbed some dinner. The covers of these letters were decorated with sayings like “Annie you are the best!” and “We love you please join club penguin” and “You are the best Chaplain ever!”

Josh walked into the kitchen and spied these notes on the table. His eyes widened in surprise and he grinned.

“Wow, Annie,” he said. “You got kid fan mail!!”

The Heartbreak Kid

What can I say about Joe?

He’s one of the reasons we exist, and one of the reasons we sometimes resent our own existence.

As you know, for reasons of confidentiality, I can’t tell you Joe’s real name; nor can I tell you the details of his life. But there are things you need to know, so I will fill you in as best I can, without breaking any confidences.

Joe’s biological mother, I am told, is mentally ill, though she’s never been diagnosed. I understand the situation perfectly as I have a sister in the same situation – but she, in a rare moment of thoughtfulness, chose not to breed.

Joe’s mother was not so compassionate.

Joe has been abused – in every conceivable manner – since he was a child, and he’s only eleven now. He is not only the victim in an ongoing sexual abuse case, he also has sexual assault charges pending against him; that’s how bad it is. He’s a beautiful, solidly-built boy with a shock of black hair and deep, dark eyes that hold secrets that no child should ever hold. He has a fondness for guns and knives; and came to us as functionally illiterate, unteachable, ASD, schizophrenic and bi-polar.

He’s none of the above.

He’s a smart cookie, and he’s learned to read and write in record time. He can be polite and charming, sweet and good natured; he can also be suicidal, violent, abusive and savage.

I’ve never met anyone like him. Recently, Joe’s aunt – his natural mother’s sister – stepped in and took the family to court for custody. DOCS (the Department of Children’s Services) now has custody of Joe, thanks to her battle. But it’s only a six month custody situation. No-one can promise Joe that he’s never going to be sent back to the hell that he was rescued from.

I spend the bulk of every day with Joe – he’s never been in a classroom setting, so I am the one that sits with him in class and teaches him the basics: spitting and squirting water on the floor is unacceptable behaviour; keep all four legs of your chair on the floor and don’t make suggestive gestures to the girl you like that sits across the room from you.

I help him learn to read and write, supporting the Special Education teachers that do such an awesome job of teaching him. I come to fetch him from class and spend time with him on the playground when he can no longer cope with the routine of life at school. I am there when his foster mother (and biological aunt) – Ingrid – breaks down in tears because she is torn between loving this wounded child, keeping him from hurting himself or molesting her daughters, and convincing her husband that this terrible lot that God has given them will pay off.

Joe begs me to take him home with me at the end of the day, in case he upsets Ingrid and her husband and they decide to send him back to his natural mother. He comes up with convincing arguments about how he’d be a great part of my family, and would get on really well with my husband’s son. He’s so desperate, so hurt… so lost.
I’ve been asked to accompany him to police interviews, court appearances and psychiatric evaluations. He’s told the police as much as he can, but still can’t tell them about the really “yucky stuff” that was done to him. The police have encouraged him to share that “yucky stuff” with me, and he’s been dancing around it for some time. It will have to come out some time.

Poor Joe’s family is under tremendous pressure: his aunt and uncle are in a marital crisis because they can’t cope with Joe’s behaviour. Joe’s biological mother is making trouble for the family simply because she can and takes pleasure in it; Ingrid’s two young daughters are in very real danger from Joe, her parent’s can no longer take Joe on the weekends and Ingrid is facing the very real, very terrible fact that this child may be to big a threat for her family to absorb.

And poor Joe is terrified of going back to his biological mother. He begs me to intercede on his behalf, but I can’t. I have to keep the health of the whole family in mind; and as long as Joe is so deeply emotionally damaged, he is a cancer in that family no matter how young he is.

And the trouble is that he doesn’t even see that it his behaviour – and the fact that he endangers people around him – that is at the root of this problem. Indeed, he’s been so deeply victimized that he has no concept of “his own fault”. “Personal accountability” isn’t even on his radar – and until he understands the problem, there is no way to fix it.

And the clock is running out. If Joe can’t make any meaningful progress in managing the hurt inside him and not turning his rage and violence outwards, his family will break under the strain and we will lose him……

Satan's favourite plaything

Bruno is an odd child. And apparently “odd” is the official diagnosis. He’s difficult to manage, becomes overly focused on trivia and reacts quite… well… oddly to things at times.

But he’s sweet and endearing, as they all are in grade 1, with big brown puppydog eyes and knobby knees that magically attract scrapes and cuts.

The other day, I was sitting in the playground during morning tea, when a desperately melancholy Bruno wandered up, scuffing his shoes in the dirt, a lone tear trickling down his face, fists jammed into his tiny pockets. He plopped himself disconsolately beside me on the bench and heaved a sigh full of pathos and misery.

Ever the loving and helpful Chappy, I wiggled closer to him and leaned in.

“What’s up, Bruno?” I asked gently. He looked at me with such melancholy, such eternal sadness, that my heart ached for this poor, lost child. His lip trembled as he revealed to me the pain in his soul:

“I miss my pets.”

Well, I thought, here is a wonderful opportunity to minister to this little, heartbroken child; to apply thoughtful and insightful questions, to sprinkle the conversation liberally with messages of love and God’s kindness and to draw him out so that he would share his feelings with me. And so I said the magic words…

“Tell me about your pets”.

That was my first mistake.

For thirty five minutes, I sat and listened as Bruno told me how desperately he missed his four dogs (one had just been run over by a car), three cats (two had been eaten by the dog), two horses (none eaten or run over), eighteen chooks (all with names), nine ducks, four guinea pigs, three budgerigars (a yellow one had died and mysteriously come back to life a few days later as a blue one), six fish, two parrots, three bunny rabbits, a skink and a family of possums that lived behind the shed.

Thankfully, Scripture Union and my training as a minister allowed me to listen thoughtfully and with intent even though my eyes had begun to glaze over as he named all eighteen chickens for me, described in minute detail the differences in the ducks’ personalities and pondered the mysteries of a budgie’s afterlife.

My second mistake was inviting him to tell me more, to let me in on whatever else was troubling him (as something clearly was); to pour out his heart to me and to share the secrets of his soul.

“What else, sweetie?” I said, my voice tinged with just enough care to elicit more of his story.

He looked up at me thoughtfully, cocked his head in the way that only a grade one student can and said “I can control my father’s mind…”

It was a looooooong day, I can tell you…..

Who wants to be baptimized??

I am certain, at times, that I am going straight to hell for the spiritual atrocities committed in the Chaplain’s room here at Samford…..

Steffi is a lovely ten year old girl: she came to my notice early on when her step-mother became concerned that Steffi was not talking about her feelings regarding her biological mother’s hospitalization for mental and emotional issues. We spent a good deal of time talking, walking together and just ‘hanging out’, and Steffi has become my “right hand man” at Samford – whether I like it or not.

She’s a tough but sweet Chiquita: she loves to dance and sing, paint, and is friends with everyone. She puts sparkles in her hair, writes me long letters and draws lovely pictures for the Chappy's room.

She also drinks straight from the sink, farts like a sailor and has announced that when she grows up she wants to be a stripper.

Oh, and she has a boyfriend; though I’ m not sure he’s as keen as she is. See, he has lots of girlfriends. Steffi’s not too happy about that.

Ahhh…. Grade 5. Was there ever so happy a time? But I digress….

The Chaplain’s room is filled to virtual overflowing with toys, beanbag chairs and arts and crafts materials (and when I say “filled to virtual overflowing”, naturally I mean “looks like a bomb hit it”). One of the more unusual items, left (I later discovered) by one of the Roman Catholic members of my LCC (Local Chaplaincy Committee – the group that raises funds to pay my salary), is a small collection of vials: one containing Holy Water, one containing consecrated oil, one with Frankincense and one with something called “Holy Earth”. Oh, and a “mini bible”.



Recently, Steffi found them and asked what they were. I explained as best I could, that they were consecrated tools of the Roman Catholic priest. Then I explained what ‘consecrated’ meant. Then I explained what a Priest was. Then I explained what Roman Catholic meant.

*sigh*

Finally, she got the idea that the Holy Water and Oil were used in the baptism ceremony; dabbed on the forehead to mark one off as God’s own. She was delighted.

Well, Steffi, never one to let a good idea go, waited until the Chaplain’s room was bursting at the seams with kids (as it usually is during Morning Tea and Big Lunch). She then proceeded to chase the children around with the vial of Holy Water, poking them in the forehead and gleefully shrieking “You’re a Christian! You’re a Christian!” until they wrenched the vial away from her and began chasing each other shouting “You’re Christian! No YOU ARE!!!”

John 11:35, I thought with a mental sigh.

Shortly thereafter, she lined a section of chairs up and hopped on, raising the mini bible high and shouting at the top of her lungs “OK, WHO WANTS TO BE BAPTIMIZED??????”

Bizarrely, and yet thrillingly, about three students stepped forward to be poked in the forehead with Steffi’s grimy finger, read to aloud from random sections of scripture and to have her pronounced that they had officially be “Baptimized”.

Somebody ordain this kid…….

The School Goblin

Tracey, one of our year lovely young teachers, came tumbling into my office with Lorelle, the deputy-principal (and my supervisor), grins lighting up their faces like Christmas; and what a story they had to share!

It turns out, they related with giggles of glee, two young girls had approached Tracey on the playground earlier that day and asked if she had seen "Miss Annie".

Well, we have a new teacher named Annie as well, so naturally Tracey was confused as to which "Miss Annie" the girls were looking for, so she asked who they were looking for.

"You know," said one of the girls, with more than a hint of exasperation (I am told), "Miss Annie, the new school goblin!"

*sigh*

That's the sort of thing that sticks to a person.....

Redux

Chaplaincy really is part of the backbone of God’s front-line work, as I am told, and as I am coming to believe. This is where God’s work is really done: in the midst of people – people that know God, people that want to know God, people that only have the vaguest impression of who God might be. It is working amongst the young, the old, the troubled and the uplifted; it is being a part of the lives of a community in a way that the priesthood can’t be. Here, in the chaplaincy, there are no denominations, no complex theological or political imperatives, no ecclesiastic issues to cope with: there is only God, His Word and the journey that both you and your community are on.

In the priesthood, you are stationed in a church, and your drive is to get more people into that church.

In chaplaincy, your call is to bring God out to the community as it stands: to model His love, to do His work and to spread His work where the people are at. This make you a critical part of any community-based ministry team, as you are working hand in glove with the local churches without being bound by any of them.

As I move more firmly into this position, I am struck by just how deeply embedded in the community it is: I cannot go to our local supermarket, chemist or fish and chip shop without meeting up with at least a half dozen children from the community (and their parents); and I am struck by our interconnectedness, and the fact that Holy Spirit is a part of us all, a guide to us all and the foundation of our community – regardless of our “declared faith”.

What an incredible privilege this job truly is.

Godsmacked

Yes, well, I never intended to be a primary school chaplain in Australia, you see.

I had such wonderful plans to remain in my native Toronto; to finish my studies at Wycliffe Anglican Seminary and be ordained as an Anglican priest, along with all my friends, into a neat and tidy, and yet forward-thinking, Gospel centered and world-changing parish in downtown Toronto that happened to be located near the best coffee shops, Turkish restaurants and one or two humble, yet newsworthy, Anglican homeless missions (for authenticity, of course).

Ha. Ha.

Morgan Freeman is killing himself laughing.

I suppose its because He had other plans.

God, not Morgan Freeman, of course. You follow?

So one day in 2007, as I was completing my seminary practicum (read: cheap and politically expeditious turn in the Anglican Church), God threw a gorgeous, smart, spiritual astute and compassionate Aussie at me. The only hitch was that I had to pick up stix and move to Australia to marry Bruce; and may I say right now it was worth every second of the angst, upheaval and uncertainty that is immigrating to a foreign country.

In short order, I found myself with a new husband, a weird family situation, an Anglican Church with rheumatoid arthritis of the spirit, culture shock, and an entirely new way of looking a the world.

The Aussie Way, which isn't as glamorous as Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger and Isla Fisher make it out to be.

But that's not my point. My point is that God (as He does), smacked me in the head, overturned every one of my cherished dreams and threw something so awesome at me, so life changing, that I never even considered it. I'll unpack this more later, but filling you all in will take time, so please bear with the story....

My point is only to give you enough background to understand that God is doing awesome things through Scripture Union in Australia - and I am honoured, humbled, and utterly bewildered to be a part of it.

What follow here are some of the stories that I've been privileged to be involved in. I hope you enjoy, and are as surprised by them as I was...