Our weekend away was absolutely sensational!

We headed off on Friday arvo with Graeme and Sharron Mason, two close friends and went to a place called Mandurah, where we stayed at Mandurah Quays resort. Verrrry nice… No kids, great food and lots of time sleeping and vegging.

The highlight was on Saturday night when Danelle gave me a present she had been compiling over the last month or so. She is into Creative Memories/Scapbooking (photo albums) so she put together a small photo album with some shots of me from teen years to now and some quotes that kind of capture who I am (or like to think I am!)

As well as the photos there were about 10 letters from friends and family that she had collected, all telling me what a top bloke I am 🙂

On Saturday night I sat while she, Graeme and Sharron read these letters to me. It was a really special night and really affirming for me to hear what my friends and famiy had to say.

I feel very grateful for the people God has brought into my life and for the experiences I have been able to have over 40 years that have shaped who I am today.

I am especially blessed to have such a generous and fun loving wife who took the time to make the weekend so memorable. 5 card stud online

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On Monday I turn 40.

It feels like ‘official middle age’. Middle aged sounds so… I dunno, kinda like you have become your parents all of sudden!

We are going away to Mandurah tomorrow for the weekend to ‘celebrate’. It’ll be great – no kids and just two of our closest friends until Monday.

I’ll be sucking up the breathing space as our holidays aren’t until mid July when we’ve booked two weeks in Dunsborough.

So… here I am middle aged…

I was cleaning out my bookshelves…

Yesterday I started to sift thru my youth ministry books – good books, but books that I will probably never ever use again. I don’t like clogging my shelves with books I’ll never read so I regulalry go thru and cull.

I finished up with about 25 youth min books and 10 years of Youthworker journals – 1992 – 2002.

The books range from ‘Purpose Driven Youth Ministry’ / Willow Creek textbook type stuff from when I was running the Bible College course to simple games/ideas books.

The Youthworker journals have been very helpful – even if I am an Australian…

If you’d like this pile of books and journals -many of which are excellent, then drop me a line – make me an offer and they’re yours!

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In case you wanted to know…

* Breakfast at McD’s with Ellie
* Meet with a guy I don’t know – a Seventh Day Adventist worker who has been reading stuff I’ve written
* Meet with Mike for coffee – a good friend and one of our mission team
* Chair Baptist Church planters task team meeting – some interesting developments afoot.
* Meet with Forge interns – discuss what’s been happening
* Brighton team meeting at our place tonight – beginning some teaching on key themes of mission.

Tomorrow I go surfing…

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Has rung and rung and rung tonight!

After getting home late I was hoping to veg quietly with Danelle. Several phone calls later that idea has evaporated.

It was great to chat with some good mates though.

Its quite bizarre to me just how ‘taken’ I am with my kids.

Prior to having children I had no great desire to be a dad, and I wasn’t overly enamoured with anyone else’s kids either. Children just weren’t something that captured my heart in any way.

Then Ellie came along.

I don’t know what happened, but all that changed almost instantly. Even on the week of the birth when people would ask me if I was excited I was fibbing ‘yeh can’t wait…’ (actually wasn’t really thinking about it!)

Then she was born. Kabooom! My world changed.

Instant adoration!

I was at Kings Park today with our family and some of Danelle’s tribe and the kids were playing on the playground. Ellie strolled off on her own as she often does and played alone. I spent maybe 15 minutes watching this little girl exploring her world and interacting with other kids she didn’t know. I saw her pushing herself to try new things, I saw her negotiating with with other kids, I saw her weighing up right and wrong. It was fun to watch.

In it all I was aware of how much I love her and how taken I am with her.

Who’d have thought it!?

As one who is somewhat disenchanted with my teaching work at present, I hover between just putting up with it and actively pursuing something I would enjoy more.

Sometimes I feel like I need to do it so I can empathise with everyone else who hates their jobs… but that just isn’t a good enough reason! I know what it feels like now. Perhaps I need to go get a job I enjoy. I really believe we have a significant amount of control over what we do, if we choose to exercise it. I have always said to people ‘if you don’t like what you are doing then QUIT and find something you do like – (or maybe the order should be find something you do like then

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QUIT!)

Alternatively we can choose to put up with the frustration of spending our lives doing something we do not enjoy.

Tomorrow I am going to tee up a meeting here in the local community to try and see if I can ‘create’ a job for myself here in Brighton. I can’t say any more than that!

Its a long shot, but if it comes off it’ll be a really suitable role for me.

It might go nowhere… but I always believe you never know if you never ask…

Here’s hoping!

Lately I have been starting to feel the need for a bit of time away.

When life, ministry, work, fun and friendship all intersect so messily, the only way to really take a break is move out of the city for a short time. I feel the need for us as a family to have that kind of space at present after 8 months here in Brighton.

Some would say that my life is a complete breeze, and it may look that way to an onlooker, but there is a lot that goes on that is unseen – a hell of lot of thinking and reading and processing that will never show up on the ‘work’ radar!

So we’ll look at a week or two somewhere (cheap!) to relax and switch off the missionary antenna – to hang out, read novels and go surfing. (Hopefully I’ll get some leave without pay from teaching if needed)

We could use the stack of frequent flyers that are sitting there at present but then its find accomodation, hire a car etc etc.

Gets expensive!

The big difference between a shitty day of being a pastor/missionary and a shitty day of being a teacher is that when I’m a pastor/missionary I don’t think about finding another job.

I love this work and its my calling to a tee. I am teacher by neccessity now.

When the paper comes out tomorrow I’ll be looking thru the positions vacant section!

I probably won’t find anything, and I may not bother to apply even if I do, but I have had one of those days that causes me to wonder ‘are there easier ways to earn a living?…’

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Ellie’s words as she watched the Purslowe funeral company’s TV ad…

If only she knew!