What I Did Over the Holiday Break

We returned last Monday from a month-long trip to New Zealand (via an 18-hour layover in Tahiti) and Australia. Part work, part vacation.DTS had me teaching a writers’ workshop for a ministry/business school in Auckland. During my first night there, my phone rang at 3:30 a.m., and I learned that my Dad had a massive stroke. We had no choice but to press on where we were.After I taught (and my hubby and daughter saw whales and dolphins), we visited the Auckland Aquarium and ate fish and chips on the beach. With us were our NZ host and the friend from Australia who would be our host when we got to his country.In NZ, our family headed up to Rotorua to learn more about the north island’s indigenous people, visit a sheep farm, explore the kiwi version of Yellowstone sulfur pools, and see Hobbiton. While everyone back home focused on Star Wars, we were celebrating LOTR. It was summer down under, so we had great weather. But it did seem strange to mix sun screen smells with those of Christmas trees.Four days before Christmas, we flew to Adelaide to stay with our friends (flying on points we’d saved for two years so all three of us could go). We shopped till we dropped in the beautiful city, and I noted how weird it felt to make last-minute purchases dressed in capri pants rather than hassling with heavy coats. The longest line at the Adelaide Market was for Christmas seafood.I met with some prospective students, And then off we went with all the kids and the parents of our hosts to do “koala cuddles” (holding koalas), buy “lollies” at a candy factory, and visit a cheese factory. On Christmas Eve, we worshiped (some in shorts) at the Uniting Church.The next morning after stockings and breakfast, we returned to the Uniting Church, where I spoke. Then we played at Grange Beach before joining our friends’ extended family for a big feast that commenced with “crackers” (noisemakers). When it came to the “pantomime Christmas songs” portion of the program, we learned that “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” is not a song people down under know. Oops. Who knew?My birthday is the day after Christmas, and this year that meant a hike to a waterfall on another gorgeous day. As we were leaving, cue a wild koala in the treetop.We departed for Sydney the next morning—road trip for nine in two cars. Stopped in Parkes, famous for “The Dish”—a quirky Aussie film you should watch. It’s loosely based on a true story about the biggest satellite dish in the southern hemisphere that made it possible for us to watch Neil Armstrong precede Michael Jackson in moonwalking. The biggest event there now is an annual Elvis festival.We spent most of the next day in the beautiful Blue Mountains, complete with track and skytram rides, one on a steep mountain, the other over the top of one.On to Sydney…where our daughter turned 21. We spent more time exploring Sydney on New Year’s Eve, including a walk across the Harbor Bridge on a dazzling day. And that night—holy cow! One of my bucket-list items was to bring in the new year in Sydney. And it may have wrecked me for ever appreciating another fireworks display. Our hostess’s sister works in an office building that overlooks the harbor, and she got us all access to her CEO’s corner office on the seventeenth floor. (They also scored us our own apartment for a few days. The Aussies’ hospitality was amazing.)Sydney fireworks. Wow. Picture a beautiful city on beautiful waters, and then imagine five fireworks displays going on down the river, all perfectly synchronized. Include the reflection of all that bursting light on the water at night. With sailboats in the reflections. And the bridge itself spews fireworks into the sky, but it also rains down light like a waterfall. Ho.ly.cow. There’s a 9 pm show for the kids, followed by a midnight grand finale for those who stay up late. And then a c.ra.zy crowd clogging every street and pressing into public transportation. Worth it. (Longest line to a toilet I’ve ever seen.)On New Year’s Day, we took the ferry out to Manly Beach. Then off we went the next morning to head back to Adelaide. That road trip included cockatoos landing on us, driving through a beautiful rain forest, lovely mountains with a view from the deck of our accommodations, coffee by the river in Melbourne, a hail storm, and a midnight return with sleeping kiddos. The strangest sights to me were the kangaroo warning and koala crossing signs.Back in Adelaide, Gary and I did some work, which for me included leading a spontaneous workshop on blogging at Adelaide College of Ministry. Our hosts took us to a cricket game, and the home team won. And all the while we were getting our fill (okay, more than our fill) of meat pies and pasties (pronounced like “pasta” only with “ies”) and an entire grocery aisle of “lollies.” Oh, and sausages wrapped in buttered bread. Meringue-based pavlovas for dessert. Yum-o!We took one of the kids with our daughter to Kangaroo Island for an overnight. There we visited a eucalyptus distillery, a honey farm, a wildlife park; and we saw waves crashing at Remarkable Rocks. Add a koala and baby in the wild, hand-feeding kangaroos, and also a tiger snake in the road (fifth most poisonous in the world). Whoa. And yet another dazzling sunset.On our last full day in Adelaide, we were treated to a wine tasting in the beautiful Barossa Valley (the Aussie Napa Valley), followed by a fabulous meal under a big shade tree overlooking a vineyard. Ahh.After a tough goodbye, we flew home through Sydney, with an overnight there, followed by a long flight during which I watched five or six movies (“Martian” was the best of the lot). At the moment, I’m still having trouble getting to sleep before 3 a.m., and sleeping till 10.I thought a month away would be too long. I was wrong. We had the perfect mix of work and play, time alone and time with people, lots of events and time to think and reflect. I came away more grateful for the life I have in Dallas, with meaningful work. And the frustrations in my life seem less significant. My word for 2015 was “beauty” of every kind, and I saw so much of it.For 2016, I’m focused on “flourishing,” both for myself and others. I resigned as a magazine editor, and upon my return I'm only a professor. Hopefully I can spend more time mentoring and writing.As we were sitting in church on our last morning in Adelaide, we read about how God’s people heard the word after returning to their land after exile, and they rejoiced. They were told not to grieve, and they all “departed to eat and drink and to share their food with others and to enjoy tremendous joy…” (Neh. 8:12). Our God created all this beauty. And there’s a time to grieve and a time to rejoice. I’m headed to Oregon soon to be with my parents. In March, I’m scheduled to go back to Africa with my husband to try to make a tiny dent in the suffering of our friends there. Life holds plenty of pain. But there is also so much beauty in the world. Most of the best beauty we experienced on our trip cost us little to nothing. May we train our eyes to see more of it.