Refresh My Heart

After the extremely long and hard yakka effort last weekend, with Brooke being away and all, I think I'm starting to really get tired very quickly. I fell asleep this afternoon, after having looked after the kids all day... again. Hay fever is kicking in, in a not so pleasant way. It's just hit me like a punch in the face. Taken control of my head and now has wrestled with me to get control of my chest as well, giving me asthma issues.

I'm just sitting down to have some dinner and thought it might be a good idea to just take some time out for a little refresher. I've been madly searching for music today for this camp coming up. I go away tomorrow, get back on Friday and then the camp is on Tuesday, with the public holiday painting session in between. Unfortunately that leaves me little to no time to get things organised for the camp, and I only have the two tunes sorted for the Massed Vocal and one (maybe two) for the vocal elective with no backups in mind yet. I'm extremely underprepared.

All of this coupled with the fact that after I go away (including the camp) I only have a week up my sleeve to do an assignment that I haven't even contemplated studying for. Fortunately, I have printed off all the relevant notes and I'll take them away with me. I don't think I'll get much done while I'm away but the drive over and back should present me with some opportunities to get a few topics under my belt... I hope.

Anyway, back to the refresher I mentioned earlier. I think it's time to just relax and unload on God. I could use some divine strength right about now. Life is such a blur at the moment, I need someone to just stop the world for a minute so I can catch my breath.

Painting Time

Just got back from the school across the road. Our Connect Group has agreed to put on a little working bee style day where we'll clean up and paint one of the buildings across the road. As part of our outreach activities, we're painting the wall and we'll have a bit of a barbeque in the middle of the day.

We've sorted out the equipment issues, so now it's a matter of man-power. I hope we get a good turn out, and not just because it'll be hard yakka doing all that work with just a handful of people. I'd like to really have the opportunity to make a real connection in the community, but to do that we need people to come along.

Long Time Between Drinks

Well, as the title says, it's been a while since I got myself into gear and posted a blog. With Brooke having been away since Thursday and being caught up at work trying to finish off end of year things for different cost centres, it's been a busy time.

It's been interesting these last few weeks. The Oakden Bible group has created some significant discussion on many levels about various topics. Each has been fairly intense. Discussion about evangelism, creation, roles people play in the church, etc etc. With broad ranging opinions and solidarity amongst those opinions, it's made for some intriguing discussion. The only hope is that it doesn't create division. That would be the last thing that we would want, but naturally Satan would be rubbing his hands together at the prospect.

Interestingly, a number of points I have made found themselves weaving their way into the sermon on a Sunday morning. It's nice to know that things I've said are useful, and more importantly that I'm on the right track in my thinking and beliefs. It's more of a confirmation that I'm going down the road that God wants me to lead, rather than that which I have "planned"... and anyone that knows how my life has gone from about 2000 til now will know that my plans, while theoretically sound, always seem to take a dive at the last moment through no fault of mine. What has me concerned, though, is that in each of the plans the only real common denominator throughout is me. So, further confirmation that the path I had "planned" wasn't what God had in mind.

On the Creative Kids Camp topic, I was originally asked to take the Vocal elective and the Massed Vocal core unit, but the person doing Concert Band dropped out and so I was asked to take that role on. Now that the applications in there seems to be another issue. The number of camp attendees that selected concert band as an elective was.... wait for it.... wait..... here it comes....


A BIG FAT ZERO.

So Ben has had a chat with Nathan Rowe, who he had asked to take on Vocal since I was now doing Concert Band, and we agreed that I'd do the Vocal units again and that would free Nathan up to do a few other things, including work on some stuff for his Corps (Semaphore).

Given that the theme is "transformers", I can think of no better song than "Amazing Grace" to fit in there somewhere. A song of ultimate transformation, taking a wretch that was lost and blind and helping them to see and find their way and becoming a child of the Most High, God Almighty. I'll have to have a think about what I really want to achieve out of it so that I can arrange it appropriately, and whether I do it with the vocal elective or the massed vocal.

On another subject, my grandma's piano came on Friday, along with an entertainment unit that dad sent across from Melbourne. The piano is very dear to me, as it is to most people in our family, but it is a long lasting memory of my grandmother. Many a day I sat at that piano in her house, while she hunted around for music that I might try to play, and that she could listen to me plough my way through, sometimes relatively successfully and other times not so much. She would always give words of encouragement and praise and tell me that my grandfather would be proud.

I miss her.

Being Water Wise

In the last few days there has been a lot of discussion in the media about the state of affairs concerning our ongoing water situation. The fact that water restrictions are likely to continue for at least another 10 years. The fact that the Murray will likely be dry within 12 months. The fact that there is no real rain in sight for the next 3 months or more...

I was just saying this morning that the water situation was being discussed at a Federal Parliamentary level back in the 1970's as a major issue for concern requiring some measures to be taken. Unfortunately, this warning was ignored and now look at the mess we're in.

Having said this, when I arrived at DHQ this morning and performed my usual routine (ie turn on the computer, get myself a cup of tea, read the Bible verse for the day and then my unread emails... one of which is almost always the Divisional Newsletter) I happened to notice something that I had been reading just yesterday when I was on my bus trip home from Uni.

Major Dennis Rowe had made comment about the very same issue. He first discusses our plight, which I have already mentioned above, and then goes on to say that David knew all too well the experience of drought. Psalm 63:1 clearly tells us of David's sorrow in the desert and his waiting on the Lord to renew his strength. "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water".

Major Rowe then continues with the very same passage I was reading about in detail just yesterday. He makes much the same point as the commentator I had been reading made but from a different perspective. The Scripture passage I'm referring to is John 4, where Jesus has an encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. From one perspective, it is used as a guide to develop a relationship with others and how to introduce them to the inner well-spring that is Jesus Christ. The other was simply a reminder to those of us already familiar with Christ that Jesus Christ is the "living water" that will quench all thirsts and that we need not look elsewhere to satisfy our hunger or thirst for something more, but that we simply need to look to Jesus and he will satisfy our souls, as David reminds us in the Psalm.

The concept of "living water" was so far beyond the Samaritan woman's understanding that she asked how Jesus intended to draw water from Jacob's Well, the deepest in the region at the time, without so much as a bucket. Jesus explained to her that drinking from that well would quench her thirst for a short time, but soon she would be thirsty again and again, but those who drink of the water that He provides will never thirst again. Ever.

Naturally this got the Samaritan woman's attention since it was a blazing hot afternoon, and she wanted to know more. She accepted Christ as her saviour and went on to share his message and the "living water" with her village, of which she was considered something of an outcast. She was a life-changing influence on that village because of her encounter with Christ and her passion to share the message with others. Those she did share the message with saw that she was changed and made new by the power and grace of God and they too wanted to experience that.

At the same time, it serves as a reminder that Jesus provides us with all that we need. We will n ever thirst or hunger so long as we wait upon the Lord. Isaiah tells us that those who wait upon the Lord, He will renew their strength. They will mount up on wings like Eagles.

We need to get passionate about helping others find the "living water" that is Jesus Christ, and use His example as a way to do just that. He wrote the book on delivering His message to others. It's time we took a leaf out of it.

Ego Boost

Well today I received a bit of an ego boost. I arrived at work this morning after having to be dragged out of bed, unwillingly, and taking the kids to child care. My first day back after essentially two weeks off, having been in Melbourne for the last 10 days or so. I read through all my unread emails here at the office (only 23 so it wasn't bad), and had just begun "working" when Ben Kowald from the Youth Dept came into the office and asked to speak to me in his office.

I followed... and Jen Dunkley (Children's Ministries Co-Ordinator) was in there as well. They asked me to close the door, and I wondered if something had gone down in the last couple of weeks that they needed to speak to me about. My mind was racing wondering what they could possibly be needing to discuss with me, since I work in the Finance Dept and don't really have too much to do with Children's Ministries at Oakden.

Ben began by saying there was something very important they needed to speak to me about. I must have looked concerned because he then quickly asked if I would be prepared to be a leader at the Creative Kids Camp coming up in October. They want me to lead the Vocal elective and the Mass Vocal subjects.

I have often wondered about doing something along those lines, but have never been asked to, so I was pretty excited about actually being asked to take it on. My immediate attention then turned to the date... the week after my trip to Melbourne for the CrossWays conference, which means my wife has the three kids by herself for a week. I told them that I would have to speak to my wife because I was going to be away for the week prior... and that I had planned to go to ACC in Melbourne (the same week as CKC) but withdrew due to the CrossWays conference. They were quick to tell me I could bring my family and stay in a unit by ourselves for the duration of the camp so that my wife didn't have to look after them by herself.

After speaking with Brooke briefly, she said just tell them "Yes" and we'll work it out later. Looks like she'll come down on the Monday with me as it's a public holiday and she doesn't work Tuesdays. Take Wednesday off, come back to Adelaide on the Thursday for work (have someone look after the kids for us for a few hours) and then on Friday they have child care, so it all seems to work out pretty well.

I'll have to organise myself fairly quickly and get music organised, and a schedule to teach, but I'm really looking forward to it.

The whole ACC/CrossWays timing seems to be a little more than coincidence after the events this morning. I'll have to do a lot of praying to make sure I select the right music for the job. But merely being asked to do the job was a nice little ego boost.