Football how I miss you

Well the NFL season has started and here I am in Australia. Rugby can be entertaining at times but there's no comparing to the NFL. And cricket? Don't even get me started... hehe. I'm hoping there'll be times I can watch some games. I know one person who has cable and maybe if the Seahawks are gonna show on ESPN Australia then we'll see if I can catch a replay.

One thing that has recently been on my mind is my Asian-Americanness. I suppose since I'm in Australia we have to call it Asian-Australianness. But I think being here actually is making me more aware of my Asian American background. I think I've already somewhat talked about that I might be the only Asian American here at Hillsong. There are a decent amount of Asians but no-one qualifies as being Asian American. I wondered if Asian Australians were going through the same issues as AAs back home and yesterday I kind of got a glimpse of it.

During Wildlife, the ministry that caters towards high schoolers, they have a video series that has been going on spoofing "The Hills" show. It's a good spoof cuz Hillsong is located in Baulkham Hills so the parody works. But there was this character who basically is the outcast and hangs out in the background of the cool kids, pretty much remaining invisible. And yes you guessed it, he's Asian. I also caught this scene where that kid spoke in an unintelligible thick chinese accent. I suppose these things arent the worst thing in the world but it does show the similar views of Asians here as in America.

It's the little things that I'm noticing more. Whether it be people doing the ching-chong chinaman speaking thing or people just being ignorant about how there are a variety of cultures in Asia. It was interesting too I was having a conversation with an American and he believed that anything that would help minorities like scholarships that are ethnic specific need to be done away with. He stated that we all need to be on equal footing, as if these scholarships were creating injustice, and it wasn't fair being white. Let me tell you that is something I just haven't encountered in awhile. This is good though because it really forces me to know exactly why I'm at AACF, and how there might even be some opposition to what we're doing.

But we run this race with perseverance right? There is a purpose being here. I am not here for myself. God has a plan.

Here are some more pics of the view from the various cameras I've been stationed on this week.
Camera 1 at Wednesday Chapel

Camera 2 at Wildlife

Camera 3 at Saturday night church