At the moment I am rendering for a dvd again. This seems to be the bane of my life. David came around to fix my computer. He fixed one of the problems. But there still seems to be a bug in Premiere which had problems rendering to MPEG-2. I've managed to render one half of this concert. Now I'm trying to get the other one to happen. I've been at it since 4:47pm this afternoon. I think I've attempted 15 times and it hasn't happened yet. I'm really hoping God's not doing a last minute thing on me again. I'm hoping he comes through a lot earlier. Perhaps in the next hour. That would be nice.

Anyway, I better get back to my excitement.

I woke up this morning feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and inadequate. I had boring dreams except for the one where we stuck Post-it notes all over the House of Representatives in Parliament. I think I'll have some breakfast and read the paper and see what that does for me.

I do like Post-it notes ever so much.

Tonight we had an ice cream lucky dip. Everyone got a different type of Magnum that they picked out of the bag with their eyes closed. I got a Choc-Orange. I wasn't all that excited, but it didn't taste too bad.

Tonight we filmed a little thing for the beginning of Impact. It was pretty dodgy. I was a presenter and Tinku a refugee. I shaved and put on a shirt so I'd look the part. I hate shaving. I complained a lot about the shaving and Robert was rude to me because he saw me without a shirt on. My mother said I was too skinny again and I looked terrible. Every one seems to be complaining about my weight. Mum even asked me if I was anorexic. I'm not. One day I'll wake up buff.

Anyway, we filmed this thing and I don't think it's very good. Oh well. We can decide if we like it later.

Sometimes I think that I may be quite an insecure person.

Dirty Rain

I looked at our car this morning and it was covered in all these dirty brown spots. It was all over the roof of the car, the windscreen, the bonnet and the back. I thought that's a little odd. Maybe something was coming out of the tree.

I decided to hose down the car to make it a bit clean. But the hose wouldn't reach the car because Tassa had eaten too much of the hose, so I left it.

When Rob and I were walking up to the food court I noticed that every car in the street had these same dirty spots. And lots of cars were driving on the road with these same dirty marks. I realised it wasn't just our trees, the whole of Hornsby, or perhaps even further have received this baptism of dirt. It rained this morning. Or perhaps it was last night. When ever it was I think it was dirty rain. There was dirt in those thunder clouds.

I think you could write a song about that. Rain is normally refreshing, redemptive, cleansing. But not this rain. This rain does nothing but make you feel worse. It would be a sad melancholy song. You could call it "Dirty Rain".

Tonight at community dinner we had a long conversation where I used the words "Gospel", "Jesus", "Holy Spirit" and "Deception" a lot. I felt like and evangelical through and through.

I also admitted, most ashamed, publicly, to the gathered community, that I was upset when I found out that Paulini was kicked of Australian Idol.

Yes. College. Done.

But I'll be back. I have exams and reflection day. And then more learning. But something or other finished today. I don't feel either one way or the other. I loved college. Lots of beautiful people. Lots of beautiful people who love the Bible and laugh at my jokes, what more can I want? But I guess I'm happy to be moving on. I'm happy to get on with my life. I will miss the train trips. And the hanging out. And the late night maccas trips. And the blogging, especially with James. And the not having to worry about anything in the rest of my life. College was a sanctuary. A time not to be a mature youth minister. A time not to have to worry about saying the right thing all the time. College was a place where I wasn't in charge and people could tell me what to do. A place where I got to learn about God. A place where I learnt what escatology was. A place where I could have my quiet times on the only piece of consectrated outdoor land in Australia (I think that's true, could be a dirty rumour). College was a good place where they looked after me and helped me grow in many, many ways. I say, "Yay for Anglican Youthworks College".

I am about to have my last hour of lectures at college ever. Well kinda. It's my last hour till I do the advanced diploma next year. But it'll be my last lecture the way it has been for the last two years though. I'm kinda excited. Not about the lecture though. We're going to do subject evaluation forms which are always boring, and go through exam papers which is also boring. I would like to go home. It is optional. But I'm feeling very under prepared so it's appropriate I think.

We've been having lots of visitors to college lately. People who are thinking of coming to college next year.

I have got a lot of hits to my archive April this month (actually I get a lot to April every month) and I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't think what I would post that would make so many people find my blog on search engines. But now I think I know. I think it was this post.

We had our last fireside at college tonight we had a time of praise, musical praise. It was really good. We spent an hour singing. And it was really nice in a quaint Anglican kind of a way. I like how Anglicans sing such theologically correct songs. And songs which are just scripture with music. Sometimes they aren't the best songs, but it's good to sing the Bible.

After the singing there was a general agreement that I should preach one last time. It's only my second preach for the year after my shocking one at the beginning of the year. I think I redeemed myself tonight. People laughed. I preached on the Yavneh Yam. I don't think anyone who hasn't been to our college this semester would have found it at all amusing but that's ok. I worked to the target audience.

I was going to make a post the other day. But I decided not to because my mood changed just before I made the post and I wasn't sure if it was true or not. But now I'm in the right mood so I think it must be true. True for me at least and what other truth is there except what's true for you?

The post was: Sometimes it's nice to know you can be distracted by two things at once.

I have changed to Daylight saving time on my blog but I think all my posts before today will now be an hour out. Oh well. These things happen.

Ryan wrote in Spanish and I couldn't understand it, so I translated it. According to Babel Fish he said: Salt is an amused girl. Or single perhaps cynical. This good one.

Tonight in church there was a sermon. There were a few things in the sermon where I thought, "Yeah, I need to hear that. That's something I need help with". When they had the call for ministry at the end one of the call catagories (if you can call them that) fitted me, which I was hoping it wouldn't, but it did. And seeing as I figure it's good to get prayed for I went down the front for prayer. But when I got down the front I completely forgot why I was there. I spent the first few minutes with my eyes closed looking holy and receptive and whatever else you're meant to look when you've gone down the front, while I was racking my brains to remember why I was there. Once I remembered though, it all made a lot more sense.

Yesterday I got up way to early after going to bed at around 1am the night before.

I picked up Tanya and Kirsten and drove to church ready for an 8am (actually it was 8:20, I was running late) Canberra get away.

I drove to Canberra with Matt, Emma and Nic, in a posh new Falcon. I had breakfast at Maccas where we met everyone traveling down that morning. I had a lot to eat because I'm trying to please my mother who says I'm too skinny.

We had a lot of silly conversation on the way down. Much toilet humor and bad jokes. Lots of laughs. Good fun. I read my sermon (I don't know if you call it a sermon at Soul Survivor things. I can't remember what people call it. Not ministry of the Word. I don't know, doesn't matter.) and fell asleep while doing that. I don't think anything went into my brain and it was a wholely ineffective sermon preparation time.

We arrived in Canberra and after lunch we went to visit Parliament house. I got to see where George was. It was a little strange because I got to see all the places I'd seen on TV on Thursday. We went through the metal detectors, so I took off my belt because I can't be bothered getting the wand thing when I beep.

As I walked into the foyer putting my belt on, I got nominated tour guide. That was fun. People laughed at my jokes which was polite of them. I felt like the tour guides might get a bit annoyed at me for paying them out but most of them thought it was amusing.

I talked to one of the tour guides in the House of Reps and asked her what was in the boxes that the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have at their microphones. She told me the Prime Minister had religious texts so that you can swear on them when you get sworn in. She said they had all kinds. I asked if that meant that they had Scientology in there. I don't think she knew what Scientology was but she assured me, if it was a religion it would be in the box. I told her if I became an MP I'd swear on the Scientology religious text and if they didn't have it in the box they could order it in for me. She assured me again that it would be in the box. So I said "Ok, cool" and went to continue my job as tour guide.

I got to see the Magna Carta too. That was exciting. Not that I know what the Magna Carta is but I do know it's a very important document for some reason. I read a book about people trying to steal the Declaration of Independence once. But that's not really important.

We arrived at the church in where Soul was happening and the festivities began. We had a sock wrestling/bullrush game so that everyone could get to know each other. I didn't get to know anyone really but I did feel a little scared and confronted. I really didn't want anyone touching my socks. But I played and managed to be mildly helpful.

We did kindness projects. I was on a prayer walk, door knocking asking people if they had prayer requests we could pray for. It was the one I think I least wanted to do, but I had to because that was the group that was finishing early.

I felt like a Mormon. We had two people shut the door in our faces, two polite rejections and the rest of the houses weren't home. But I'm glad I did it, even if it all felt a little strange.

We finished up, I practiced the talk, this time I didn't fall asleep. Then we had dinner. Very messy burritos. I liked them though. I was a little too nervous to fully enjoy them. I get nervous too often these days.

The evening celebration came around and it was really good. People shared stories from their kindness projects which was really encouraging. We sang and sang good. I talked, that went well. I did it almost all without notes. We sang some more and God did good things during the ministry time.

The talk I did was the same one I did on Sunday night so I had many people pay me out for being like Mike Pilavachi and always doing the same talks.

Other people said nice things to me and I had difficulty responding. I find getting praise for doing a good talk really difficult when you're trying to glorify God. When really you are only trying to speak His words. I don't know what to say. Usually I say something really weak and quiet, something like "Oh, thanks" and then wonder whether I hogged the glory.

We drove home with a bit more silliness but a lot more sleeping. Emma gave me her pillow and I slept most of the way home. Emma's a lovely person.

I stayed the night at Matt and Emma's house and woke up an hour later than I should have this morning (darn daylight saving).

The Sunday morning group went good today. Kids talked about refugees. They thought, talked, and read their Bibles. It went well.

Now I'm here blogging.

Phew, that was a lot.

I feel like I have a lot of blogging catch up to do.

I wrote quite a long post about Friday on Friday night but the computer crashed before I got it all done. Perhaps I'll do a little less of a recap. But I need to get Friday out there and into cyberspace. It's an important thing for me.

Friday morning I went to memorial service for our friend who died. It was a bit strange. Very unreal. I guess I still can't get my head around it and the service didn't really help. It was so unfamiliar to me, it put the whole thing more into the world of the surreal rather than less.

The service was in a big Catholic church in Wahroonga. Most of the service was a Catholic mass which strange. I was working hard not the theologically knitpick the Catholic tradition and participate in the service. It was difficult but I was very interested in what was going on.

The end of the service they had the eulogies. They were nice. He was a really nice man. It's really sad that he's not around anymore. The people that got up to talk must have been through such a horrible time over the past week.

After the service I left quickly because I was running late the Christian group at the school.

Friday we had staff meeting and I had meeting with Steve about what I'm doing next year. I'm pretty excited about next year. I found it difficult to sleep on Friday night because I was thinking about how it's all going to be. Or at least how it all could be.

Youth group went nicely. The kids behaved. I broke a few of my youth ministry rules. I would be frowned upon by college people for the games we played before youth group. The pointless ball games. They're bad. But they were good. We had fun. The kids had fun. I think they worked well in getting rid of the kids energy and that way managed to have a much more normal night. It was good.

After youth group I had a good debrief with Lauren and Tanya. It was good talking to them.

And then it was off to Maccas for dinner and more talking of ministry things.

I managed to stay up late talking to Helen again tonight. That's the third time this week.

Oh well. We had a very productive talk tonight. 'Twas good. And I got to have some dinner.

Just before I go to bed, today I have watched at least 2 and half hours of television (not including a dvd). This makes me feel depressed.

Tomorrow should be better.

And just a little more of the spirit of the visit:




















Thank you SMH and thank you Mr Moir.