[Guest post] Australia - A Land of Exposure and Contrast

Guest post time! My dad Tom Burwinkle was kind enough to take up his keyboard and write up his thoughts on his visit to the land of Oz. Enjoy!

-Christine

The very slight immersion in Australian culture we have experienced has been nothing less than spectacular, and unforgettable. We have been exposed to an experience which is different in so many ways to our routine lives in Tennessee. It’s greatly understated to say that adapting to living in a big city urban environment has been a huge adjustment. Not driving anywhere by yourself has been a different experience. Still, it has been nice to let others take care of transportation and just sit back and take in all of the sights and sounds along our ways. We have moved about by taxi drivers, ferry captains, train engineers, bus drivers, and our most capable tour guide Christine. I have been impressed by the extensive network of public transportation which expertly integrates ferries, trains, and buses to get you just about any place you could possibly want to visit in Sydney and surrounding areas. Perhaps the most surprising is the fact that we are beginning to decipher the system and can actually get to where we want to go.

Since we are basing our stay in Sydney, most of our exposure has been to the very small fraction of the country in and near the city. But even so, we have seen so much, experienced so much, and have been exposed to so many interesting people. I did not expect to find such a wide diversity in peoples and
cultures in one country. Of course, most of the people are Australians, but there is a large percentage of
Asians here as well. They seem to be a part of the fabric of the Sydney society and workforce, and not
just tourists. This is illustrated by a picture of a sign outside a church that I took here in Christine and
Toby’s neighborhood.

We did not get an opportunity to go here, but we did go to a Sunday night service at a branch campus of the Hill Song church in Sydney. It too was sharply different from what we are used to, mainly in energy and volume. Probably 90% or more of the attendees were 30 years and younger in age. Here too, there was a high percentage of Asians, and we were befriended by a very nice young Australian woman of Asian descent. It was tremendous to experience worship of our great and awesome God with brothers and sisters from other cultures!

Christine has already blogged about many of the things we have done so I will not attempt to replay
those. I will say though that the beauty and diversity of God’s creation that we have experienced has been unbelievable. We have seen the beauty of his oceans,

the grandeur of his mountains,

 and the hidden work of his hand underground.

Most dear to us though has been the long awaited reuniting with Christine and Toby.

Our stay here is best summarized by this scripture found posted by an art class at an outdoor art display in Glenbrook, NSW in the Blue Mountain foothills.