Dear Church Family & Friends,

Happy New Year! I’m sure it won’t catch ANY of you who have been following my past two years of mission service in Fiji to hear what I did to fill up a little of the time between graduation in November & classes resuming in February... I travelled. This time it wasn’t to any Pacific Islands (the small ones I haven’t been to yet have airplanes full-to-bursting in December & January every year). Instead, I tried to learn about the two “monsters” of the South Pacific, who throw their weight around in every possible way and dominate almost every area in international relations: Australia & New Zealand. They’re parts of Oceania/Australasia, but Islanders do NOT see them as Pacific nations. This was an especially intense Study-Leave, because those two countries are so large and so varied.

My main links had to be by plane (Fiji-Sydney-Darwin-Yulara-Melbourne & Sydney-Wellington-Fiji), but I rented cars so that I could get acquainted with both the land and the churches freely. In 17 days of driving, I covered 6,700 kilometers (almost 400 km, or 240 miles, per day, on average). I attended “Uniting Church of Australia”, Methodist Church of New Zealand, Anglican, Presbyterian, Brethren, and more conservative congregations (preaching three times during those four Sundays). I enjoyed Christmas with Indo-Fijian Rev. Dhirendra Narayan & family in Swan Hill, and New Year’s Day with Rev. Lynne Firth (president of MCNZ). My first worship service was with Nungalinya College Dean Murray & Marjorie Seiffert (Anglicans) in Darwin (on the Indian Ocean, Timor/Arafura Sea), where I heard, before a Bible Society preacher [in shorts] shared his message, the following Advent reading:

“When Libby was six months gone, God sent the same angel—this Gabriel bloke—to a backblocks town called Nazareth, in Galilee shire, to a nice young girl who was engaged to the local carpenter, Joe Davidson. Her name was Mary. The angel said to her “G’day Mary. You are a pretty special Sheila. God has his eye on you.” Mary went weak at the knees, and wondered what was going on. But the angel said to her “Don’t panic, don’t chuck a wobbly. God thinks you’re okay. You’re about to become pregnant, and you’ll have a son, and you’re to call him Jesus. He will be a very big wheel, and will be called the Son of God Most High. God will give him the throne of his father—your ancestor—King David, and he will be in charge of the whole show forever.” “But how? said Mary. “Joe and I have done the right thing, we’ve never... well, you know. I mean to say, I’m still a virgin.” The angel answered “Leave the mechanics up to God.”

  • Kel Richards, Bible Society NSW, “The Aussie Bible (Well, bits of it anyway)”—printed April 2004

Another Anglican parish teamed up with a Bible Church for an Australian Tradition that evening: A Christmas Carol Sing & Barbeque! Attendance was 1/3 “European”, 1/3 Aboriginals, 1/3 Sudanese refugees! We snapped our fluorescent light-sticks & waved them along with one another’s carols. I stayed at the Aboriginal college where a PTC colleague served before, and toured deep into the ever-burning Kakadu Park/Arnheim Land (first of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites I would visit) where I saw crocs & billabongs, cranes & sorghum [spear-grass], termite cathedrals & waterfalls. A fellow hiker fell into fits from heat exposure/dehydration, at a rock where Aborigines recall an ancient act of sexual immorality—that still draws more lightning strikes than any other place on this planet.

My next visit was Australia’s Red Centre, the over-hyped & expensive Uluru/Kata Tjuta {Ayers Rock & The Olgas}. Although there was no colour change at either sunrise or sunset (the impossibly red photos must be taken with filters or when the sky is full of smoke/dust), I can testify to the intensity of that land—hiking gorge-to-gorge ‘round Uluru from 1-4 PM when it was 45° C. / 113° F.! No rental cars are allowed in Western Australia or in the Northern Territory, so I flew to Melbourne (where all of Victoria goes bonkers over Boxing Day tests at The Melbourne Cricket Ground). I drove M-Geelong-Great Ocean Road-Twelve Apostles-Mt. Gambier [in South Australia’s lumberjack country, home of limestone sinkholes]-Pinnaroo [barley/wheat harvest, but with emus, wallaroos & cockatoos in the rural landscape]- on the Mallee [Tree] Highway (between Big Desert & the Murray River) to Manangatang {suggested school mascots: Orangoutang} & Piyangil {pronounced Pee-angle} for Christmas Eve Communion worship [1100 km in 24 hours, driving on the left, but with cruise control].

About a dozen Fijians showed up when “Somebody from PTC” preached at the Nyah West UCA. I had a wonderful international/multi-ethnic/multi-faith Christmas celebration, with cricket & FEASTING!

Kyabram’s Fauna Park introduced me “close-up” to many marsupials, birds & reptiles of Australia. Corryong’s “Man from Snowy River” opened the gateway into the Australian Alps & Mt. Kosciuszko. I spent the night in Cooma, before touring Canberra’s grass-rooved capitol, Cook jet d’eau & territory. I took the new (due to Illawarra Escarpment landslides) Seacliffs Bridge from Wollongong to Sydney. Then I ventured “Under Down-Under” with a quick trip to Tasmania, where I saw the super-yachts arriving from Sydney & Melbourne into the Hobart harbour (including a new record for the regattta). Back to Sydney to see our “SPATS” seminary in North Parramatta & ride a river ferry to Circular Quay.

I spent New Year’s Eve flying to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Sunday worship was in English, Fijian, Tongan, Samoan, and Maori near the bustling intersection of Taranaki & Courtney. Our morning tea was a full meal which gave me lots to time to converse with the clergy & laity alike. I went back later, just before flying out, when news of a possible coup in Fiji endangered my plans.

The Fiji Coup situation is intensely local & complex—so I don’t understand it very well but the MAIN dynamics are within the ethnic Fijian camps (e.g. coastal vs. highlander, and along “cofederacy” lines [Kubuna vs. Tovata vs. Burebasaga!!!]). The two-party coalition which is in power doesn’t mesh with the Military Commander... who wants to stay out of politics but cannot ignore his mission to insure law & order! Does it affect PTC? Yes, in two main ways: a) we’re next door to Parliament, so things could get hot b) folks from other nations are less likely to ship $$ here to save PTC when they know if we have another coup we’ll either leave FIJI or cease to exist altogether. So now it’s even LESS likely that PTC will make it through 2006. Now that the Commander threatened Martial Law (just last week), I’d say that PTC only has about a 25% chance of still being in operation by the end of 2006.

Back to 2 January, I took the ferry across Cook Strait to Picton & rented a car (a ridiculously under-powered Daihatsu Sirion [which was UN-safe on NZ passes] which I upgraded to a Ford Fiesta in Dunedin a day later). Cathdral Square & the YMCA in Christchurch, up around Lakes Tekapo & Pukaki {past “Edoras” to “Pelennor Fields” by Twizel for all you “Lord of the Rings” fans}, down past where the battle scene for Narnia [1] was filmed, by the Blue Penguin colony of Oamaru, ending up at Dunedin. That’s the heart of Scots NZ, with the world’s most unique street lay-out: a half-dozen [incomplete] concentric octagons!! I spent that morning sharing Christ with a Czech back-packer. Then I took the “American Route” around South Island: after Clinton, I turned away from Gore & went towards Bush [Creek] instead..., on down to Invercargill (“World’s Fastest Indian”) & Bluff (where I saw Stewart Island & “almost” got to fly down there). On to another World Heritage Site: the Fjordlands of SW NZ! Manapouri, Te Ana-au & Milford Sound were dramatic glacier-sculpted valleys, as fine as I’ve seen anywhere (and I only got one sand-fly bite). Two nights in Queenstown included two LOTR tours, sharing with a Chinese-NZ family, worship & four hours with a German-Kiwi family, before driving up to Wanaka for a Rob Berg concert (“Lighthouse Church” [Darren: a hedge-funds broker & new Christian] & 2 Presby clergy who knew “Gaf” Knight—the first principal of PTC).

Monday, 9 January [which would have been Nana Upp’s 122nd birthday] I took an unbelievable helicopter ride. Two passengers had signed up for a “Lord of the Rings” tour & two others for glacier exploration, so I just rode along with BOTH... five hours total! Not only did I get to explore a snow cave & throw snowballs on an unreachable saddle (1 of 123 glaciers in Mt. Asapiring Nat’l Park), but I flew round Mt Pluto/Zirakzigil [where Galdalf smote a balrog], stood on Ephel Duath [Mordor’s Mtn.s of Shadow]/The Remarkables, laid in Ithilien where Sam & Frodo saw oliphaunts, & gazed on Amon Hen, Fangorn, Lorien, Isengard, Rohan where wargs attacked, where Gandalf first rode Shadowfax, Mt. Caradhras/Earnslaw, and I trod the fords of Bruinen where the Black Riders were swept away!! A stop at Puzzling World put ME into the optical tricks that shrank hobbits & enlarged Gandalf & men. Whether you’re into Tolkien [I’ve been in that group since 1966] or not, it was world-class scenery!

Behind schedule, I raced on without a bed for the night: from Wanaka to Stratford (in a fourth car for the North Island) & took an additional night at Mountain House to see Taranaki (named Mt. Egmont by Captain Cook) and New Plymouth. More World Heritage Sites: the Forgotten World Highway to Chateau Tongariro, via “Mt. Doom” & huge Lake Taupo to Napier (the Art Deco city on Hawkes Bay). Hastings, Waipukurau, Pahiatua, Eketahuna, Masterton, & finally Upper & Lower Hutt [Minas Tirith & Helm’s Deep!] brought me back to the Beehive (NZ’s Parliament) & Wellington again.

I saw “King Kong” in LOTR’s premier theatre: The Embassy (biggest in Southern Hemisphere), and C.S. Lewis’s [son-in-law’s] “The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe”. I stayed at “Waterloo Hotel” right beside the Waterloo quay, NZ Government buildings, central train station & Victoria University. I shopped at “New World” & saw a grand mix of NZ/AU/global labels & products we can’t get in Fiji. I visited cathedrals, “First Churches” & relief/outreach ministries across the Austral super-power lands. I met immigrants from across the South Seas (& beyond) who are there for fresh starts & more wealth. I saw empty churches “converted” into shops, bars, or theatres; dying liberal denominations ‘resentfully’ kept alive by still-faithful Christian immigrants of Pacific Islands. I saw the globalisation that we at PTC are trying to keep away from the South Pacific: saw it flexing its muscles, confident from its unchallenged success Down-Under, licking its chops for these islands. I discovered that many name-brands I took to be Fijian are actually from AU/NZ or even lands beyond.

The images of threats & struggles seen in the movies break out of allegorical allusions & into real life. Will we follow the guidance which ‘The Inklings’ have given us, or surrender unwittingly to our foes?

On the front-lines of Christian Mission through your prayers & support,

-Rev. Dr. David Upp