The Plunge Down Under

How Do You Like Your Coffee?

Our first visit to Melbourne happened so quickly that we did not have time to order and read a copy of the very helpful Americans' Survival Guide to Australia and Australian-American Dictionary before we left.  I don't think it even crossed our minds that we would need such a thing.  Australians speak English after all.  We quickly realized, however, that we would need some help understanding and making ourselves understood.  Fortunately, the Australians we met were very friendly and eager to lend assistance.

Thus it happened that on our second night down under, after a long and tortuous dinner with work people (tortuous because we were not served our main course until about 6am Pittsburgh time), I ordered coffee.  The waiter gave me a blank stare.  I repeated the order in a louder voice, and a look of comprehension came over his face.  "Would you like a flat-white, short black, long black, or long mac?"  Er, what was that again?

Thankfully there were several new acquaintances happy to explain the terms.  A flat-white is espresso in frothy milk, pictured below.  It is somehow different from a cappuccino.

A short black (in the background above) is regular espresso, a long black, watered down espresso, and a long mac is a macchiato, a double shot of very strong espresso with a little bit of milk.

I chose a flat-white, and it was so good, that I ordered it at every opportunity during the remainder of our visit.  It is the Italian influence that can be thanked for the high quality coffee drinks served at every restaurant, food joint and corner shop in Melbourne.  Apparently it was not too long ago that if you requested coffee in a restaurant, you were given hot water and a packet of instant.  

While I will miss regular drip coffee served with good old American half and half, I am grateful to the Italians for seeing to it that we will have a good alternative to instant over the next two years.

Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee

Second Confession:  I am still buying books even as I know that our moving specialist told me I would need to reduce what I had hoped to take to Australia by half.  In fact, one of the first things I did after making the big decision to move was to purchase Patrick O'Brian's entire Master and Commander series.  After all, almost all of my admittedly small knowledge of Australia at the time I could trace to O'Brian's Desolation Island.  Plus I figured the books would serve as a good stress reliever during the turmoil of relocating.

I now doubt whether the O'Brian books will make it into the container, but one book that will find a spot is Eric Metaxas' splendid new biography, Bonhoeffer:  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.  Instead of escaping into the delightful world of Captain Aubrey and his surgeon-mate Stephen Maturin, I have spent the past few weeks living in Germany during the 1930s and up to the time of Bonhoeffer's execution at the hands of the Nazis.  I had expected this to be a book which I would have to force myself to finish, but instead I found myself deeply moved and almost inhabiting this frightening world of Hitler's Germany.

Self-pity during this period of separation from Ross before our move became an impossibility as I read of the increasing persecution not only of the Jews in Germany, but also of those few who dared to oppose Hitler.  Although our circumstances were very different from Bonhoeffer's, I found some remarks that he recorded in his diary on decision making very relevant:

"It is remarkable how I am never quite clear about the motives for any of my decisions.  Is that a sign of confusion, of inner dishonesty, or is it a sign that we are guided without our knowing, or is it both? . . . The reasons one gives for an action to others and to one's self are certainly inadequate.  One can give a reason for everything.  In the last resort one acts from a level which remains hidden from us.  So one can only ask God . . . to give a merciful judgment on today and all its decisions."

At the time he wrote these words, Bonhoeffer had escaped from almost certain death in Germany to New York where many felt he should remain until the end of the war so that he could help rebuild the church in Germany after Hitler.  Bonhoeffer, however, realized he had made a mistake and would soon return to his suffering brothers, a decision that understandably brought dismay to both his family and his friends, and did in fact ultimately lead to his death.

The verse in the title of this blog post comes from a sermon that Bonhoeffer preached in 1932.  His friend Franz Hildebrandt used it as the text for the sermon he in turn preached at the memorial service held in July of 1945 in London after Bonhoeffer's death became known.  It has remained with me almost constantly since I read it two weeks ago, and today, I share it with you:

"Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee."  2 Chronicles 20:12

The First Visit Down Under

The good news is that Melbourne captivated both of us on our first visit in February.  The bad news is that it took us 34 hours to get there door to door.  The change from Ross shoveling three feet of snow off our porch roof just before we left to sunshine, eighty degrees and palm trees was almost surreal, and probably had much to do with the pleasure we found in exploring the city.  

 

Front Garden of the house we loved (and and later rented) in Melbourne:

At some point what started out as a fact-finding visit to determine if moving to Australia was even a possibility turned into a house hunting visit.  Decision making has always been difficult for us, and remains a mysterious process to me to this day.  I cannot really say that there was a specific time that a decision was made, but rather that as we traveled down this path, and  prayed frequently for God's will for our family to be made clear, there were no obstacles put in our way, and each day brought us closer to the point of no turning back.

Practically speaking, as I traveled around the city with Allison, our friendly and helpful relocation specialist, I concluded that I may as well pick out the house rather than leave this to my husband to do at a later date without me. I certainly had no plans to make the long trek again unless it was to move there. I loved the architectural style of the early 1900's homes we saw throughout the city---Edwardian we were told--and so we decided to go with the one pictured at the top of this blog in spite of its small second floor. The picture below is the back of the house:

   

Picking the house was the easy part.  Next would come living with our decision to make the big move.  I always second guess decisions, and even small ones involving a shoe purchase, for example, have been known to keep me awake at night.  This time, however, God graciously provided peace and sleep during the ensuing weeks.

From Denial to Acceptance

The journey from forbidding my husband to mention the word Australia, especially in front of family during the holiday season, to agreeing to accompany him on an initial visit in February was a long one.  Mostly I refused to think about it, choosing to ignore the rather sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  However when he mentioned in January that we might not asked to be go after all, along with the expected wave of relief came a tiny twinge of disappointment.  This I did not acknowledge to him initially, but the door of my mind and heart opened slightly.

About the middle of January I happened  to share with two respected friends on a weekend retreat that Ross had nearly been asked to move his family to Melbourne.  I described my feelings of dread and inadequacy to cope with such a move, and asked for their counsel.  While both were sympathetic, they gently encouraged me to be open to God's will in this matter, and deep within I knew they were right.  Within five hours of this conversation came the phone call from my husband's boss that started the ball rolling.  This time around I felt an inexplicable peace and calmness that I can only attribute to divine intervention in my heart.

Shortly thereafter Ross was asked to accompany some colleagues traveling from Pittsburgh to the Heinz offices in Melbourne, and we decided I should go with him. The time had come to share this development with family and friends, something I very much dreaded. The responses, however, were mostly enthusiastic, something I received as pure grace.  I wondered if I would be able to respond the same way some day if our own children informed us that they planned to move to the other side of the world, taking our grandchildren with them.  We had given them the opportunity to make yet another sacrifice in the long line they have made already as our long-suffering parents. We were asking them, essentially, to not only receive the news without protesting, but to be happy for us, and they came through.  Within days Ross's parents had checked out several books on Australia from the library and quickly knew more about it than we did.  My own parents started making plans to visit. 

A quick check of our passports revealed that mine would soon expire.  We promptly sent it off to Philadelphia, paying the exorbitant fee for expedited service, confident that it would be back in time for our planned trip.  We had not reckoned with the worst winter in Pennsylvania in recent memory.  When it became clear that the government offices in Philadelphia would be closed for a full week due to the dumping of three feet of snow in the latest snowstorm, we got in the car and drove north to Detroit, away from the snow, where I was able to apply for a new passport in person.  It arrived just two days before our flight to Melbourne was scheduled to depart. 

We now had tickets for a five day trip to the land down under, just weeks before Ross's 40th birthday.  Underneath the excitement of traveling to a new continent, however, lurked the apprehension of the big decision yet to be made.

It Started Last November

Confession:  When my husband first mentioned the possibility of moving to Australia last November, I could not have told you its capital city.  Nor did I much care. 

Within twenty-four hours of him dropping the bombshell, I lay prostrate on the couch, having finally succumbed to the stomach bug that had been plaguing our children for the past ten days.  Australia?  Absolutely not.  I knew he had been dreaming about another international stint for quite some time, so I was prepared to perhaps consider a European location.  Perhaps.  But definitely not Australia.  It took me about two seconds to discover that I had never even had the slightest desire to visit, let alone live, there.

Six months later I find myself wandering around the house trying to figure out which items should be included in the fifteen or so boxes I was told would fit into our air shipment container.  My bookshelves alone could easily fill up all the space.  After my family members and friends, books will be the hardest to part with, even though I know the parting is temporary and that there is a big library within walking distance of our house.

Apparently our eldest feels the same way.  I gave her two boxes to fill with her most desired possessions, and she has chosen mainly books.  "You can get those identical books at the library," I protested, secretly feeling sympathetic.  "But look how many I left behind," came her response. 

We now know that Canberra is the capital of Australia, and despite a few initial tears and protests, are looking forward to the next two years.  Thanks in part  to Bill Bryson  and his lovely, hilarious book "In a Sunburned Land," I even feel excited about it most of the time.  The middle two children have resigned themselves to saying goodbye to friends, and the youngest mainly wants to be reunited with his beloved daddy in "Hysteria."