NTE diary
Tuesday, 21 December, 2004
Thursday 2 December
Wake up at 5:45 am having slept terribly. Ben insists on having a shower which means I can't pack the toiletries. Go to pick up Stacie who has also slept badly. Ben drives. Fall asleep in the car which means that Stacie has to keep Ben awake. He lasts until Lake George and then swaps with Stacie. I wake up and navigate us to Ursula Hall.
Rego office not quite organised but we still manage to grab our pre-NTE book, NTE book, souvenir mug (black this year) and other junk mail. Ben and I lug our giant green luggage bag to the corner room where we find a wall full of bookshelves, a desk, barfridge, ensuite the size of a broom closet and twin beds. It's nice that AFES looks after us and we haven't been separated like other couples have.
Walk to the Coombs building (shaped like honeycomb). Meet the missionaries and AFES senior staffworkers, excellent talk by Keith Birchley, then lunch back at Ursula, free time, electives (fall asleep in Owen Chadwick's elective on student work in France and feel so bad about it that I apologise to him later in the week), dinner, another talk by Keith, bed.
Friday 3 December
Breakfast, second elective in the morning (went one about student work in Queensland; met the QUT and Townsville staffworkers and Tom (?) who knows Deb and who called her a “lovely girl”, lunch, wander around the National Gallery of Australia while Newcastle staff plan their elective material in the café (we're all wagging General Committee, you see), dinner, final talk from Keith, I finish my second drawstring bag. Fight with Ben while Elsie rings on the mobile trying to find her accommodation.
Saturday 4 December
Wake up feeling very low because of the fight, find Elsie in the courtyard who gives me three books of Studio Ghibli storyboards of Princess Mononoke, Nausicäa and Spirited Away which her sister didn't want anymore. Eat breakfast, brush teeth, decide to go for a walk. ANU is very pretty—reminds me of Michigan though I don't know why because I only visited the University of Michigan for a day. Found that I could walk to the National Museum of Australia. Spent an hour wandering around there, having fun by myself. Walk back towards Llewellyn Hall for the first talk but go via the School of Art which just happened to be holding their graduating exhibition. My favourite was this one entitled “Portrait” that was entirely made up of black and white glass balls stuck to the wall. Spend a while gawking at all the beautiful things before going on to Llewellyn Hall. The hall is packed (around 940 students came this year). The session has already started so I end up sitting with strangers (not that I care about that sort of thing; I don't really mind who I sit with and I'm fine with looking like a Nigel). David Cook gives his first talk on 2 Timothy at lightning speed. I barely keep up but I really enjoy it.
Lunch. Find that Ben has slept through breakfast and the first talk (he only ends up hearing David once). We make up. Strand groups—we're both in Llewellyn Hall, only he's co-leading with Matthew and I am doing Strand 4 on Work (yay!!) Helen from La Trobe is my strand leader. Elsie is also in my group (yay!!!) I soon realise that I'm the only MTS-er and the only married person apart from Helen. We do heaps of Bible flicking and work really hard for about three and a half hours. Dinner. Phillip Jensen comes onstage with his Bible but tells us he isn't going to refer to it for his entire talk. What follows is a very interesting lecture on the history of Christian student groups in England and eventually Australia. I start to feel extremely blessed by what God has been doing over the centuries. Mission team meeting—we meet the Fijians who are coming with us to Holt. Bed.
Sunday 5 December
I wake up early for breakfast only to find everyone milling around in the courtyard because the kitchen staff haven't accounted for the fact that our timetable says 7:30 breakfast. Ben sleeps in again. David's second talk on 2 Timothy is just as frantic as the first. Elsie and I talk through reflection time but we do read some of 1 Samuel. My strand group returns to the topic of work and I am particularly struck by the concept of work being a blessing from God—that he has set things up this way so that we work to live and that is the way he wants it. I feel like I have experienced a Copernican revolution (to steal Phillip's phrase); I've never thought about work like this before.
Lunch. Free time is spent messing around on the piano with Ben for a little while. I go to Keith Birchley's afternoon elective on storytelling and end up sitting next to him on a barstool because the room hasn't got enough chairs and everyone has to crowd in very close. He gets us to tell each other a story—any story—in pairs. I tell him the original Cinderella story (you knew the fairy tale comes from China, didn't you?) The elective is wonderful and terribly stimulating. It makes me want to do the entire course and I start envying all those lucky UQ students who got to do it. Dinner. Llewellyn Hall is packed because FOCUS Crossroads church joins us as part of their evening service. Phillip's second talk (with outlines typed in via PowerPoint 5 mins before he begins). I skip meeting the missionaries—met them during Pre-NTE. Bed.
Monday 6 December
Breakfast is on time but I am good and avoid all the hot cholesterol-inducing food and stick to toast and cereal. The Newcastle staff whom we have become quite chummy with have now gone to Canberra City Accommodation (the backpacker hostel where a sizable number of conference delegates are staying). They don't get their own rooms but they do get Pay TV and there is an Internet café downstairs. My strand group is a bit sluggish this morning. Helen very graciously treats us to morning tea at the local café. Most of the girls start asking her questions about singleness and marriage. I feel really weird about it but I suppose I'll feel even weirder next year when married people vastly outnumber singles at Moore.
Lunch. The Wollongong Uni team organise to go ice skating again. We decide to pass and join the Roedigers and Liz's sister in a Canberra city outing. We cannot find a cinema that is screening Hero (should have gone to Manuka!) so we wander around the mall for a little while (found The Teddybear Shop which sells the most gorgeous puppets—I really wanted the dragon one but it was $167) and had coffee at a sidewalk café. Pete who has recently arrived also joins us.
Dinner. Have a walking date with Sonja so we catch up on the way to Lewellyn Hall and sit together during Phillip's third talk. Question time with Phillip. Sleep.
Tuesday 7 December
Breakfast and David's third talk. I walk over to Canberra City Accommodation, following the trail of students over London Circle, to go to the internet café because I've scored Elixir on eBay. It's the first time I've ever been to an internet café. Download time is exceptionally slow so me and another patron complain and get our time up-ed again. Unfortunately it means I have to come back later in the day.
I walk back for strand group time when we're supposed to sum up and then go off to write our talks but we don't actually get to that stage because summing up takes too long. Lunch. I convince Ben to walk back over to Canberra City Accommodation with me during free time. I get the transaction finished and wade through my mail. Ben has just enough time to check his before my credit runs out. We walk back. I meet a guy who studies Psych at Wollongong Uni who goes to Miriam's church and who is trying to knit socks with some leftover wool his mother had. I have my first intelligent conversation about knitting with a guy. Mission team meeting again (we meet Nick from St. James' Holt/Kippax). I start feeling stressed. Dinner. Try to put in my tape order form and the line is exceptionally long. Realise now why Matthias Media's self-service bookstalls are such a good idea. David's fourth talk with question time, finishing off 2 Timothy. I walk back to Ursula with Keith Birchley so I can ask him some questions. I write my talk for Strand 4 very hurriedly. Sleep.
Wednesday 8 December
Breakfast. I interview my last student for the article I'm going to write for Salt about NTE. Strand groups. I finish my third drawstring bag. No one has done their talk except me so I perform it for Helen (it was a kids' talk) and she gives me good feedback. She also asks me to go around to half the girls in the group to see how their talk writing is going. It is nice to be useful and I have some good conversations. We have a group photo together and say goodbye. Elsie and I sit together for Phillip's last talk in which he relates how he had breakfast with members of the philosophical society (not realising they weren't NTE-ers) and how he, the so-called great evangelist, was unable to evangelise in that situation. I appreciated his honesty. It was also great to be reminded that evangelism is simply the proclamation of the gospel and nothing more; it's not up to us to convert people to following Jesus and we don't need any bells or whistles to do evangelism. If I am ever coherent on this subject, I'll blog more about it.
Lunch was sandwiches, canned drinks and fruit. We eat it sitting on the ground just outside Llewellyn Hall. Everyone waves to the WA people who are getting back on board their bus to prepare for their trip back across the Nullabor. Ben is desperately trying to get rid of the last of the morning tea cookies. Loren and I briefly catch up in the shade of the building, then say goodbye until January.
Ben and I walk back to Ursula and drive to Holt. We are early so we sit in the car listening to music until everyone else arrives. There are a couple of hours of rest in which I start teaching the Fijian girls, Va and Alena, how to knit. We prepare for Kids' Club, then the kids arrive and chaos sets in for the next couple of hours.
It is raining very hard at this time. Louise is not game to drive her car out to Holt because she's been having car problems so Ben and I go into the city. Our car starts making funny noises on Parkes' Way and we pull over to the side of the road and call the NRMA. Louise and I cancel our dinner date. It turns out that it's nothing serious—just water in the engine area that has now drained away so the car starts up fine. Our NRMA man notices Ben's ECU T-shirt and tells us he comes from Tuggernong Pressie where one of the AFES groups is doing mission. He wishes us well and we go on our way. We have delicious Thai food in Kingston before heading back to our billets. We're so exhausted that conversation with them is hard but finally we get to sleep.
Thursday 9 December
Ben and I are so tired we don't wake up until about 11. The rest of the team goes off to do primary school Scripture. We meet them at Commonwealth Park for lunch before everyone heads off to do various things for our day off. We drop off the Fijians at the National Museum of Australia but I'm not keen to walk around it again so Ben and I go to Manuka to see Hero (might write a review for Salt about it). We meet everyone at Zefferelli's in Belconnen for dinner. Va has snapped one of my knitting needles in half. I run out of wool and feel really depressed because I can't knit. Sleep.
Friday 10 December
Breakfast in our billets' gorgeous house. We have a team meeting in the morning where people report back about Scripture. Me, Laura and the Fijian girls go to the women's craft group where much testimony-sharing ensues. It is quite encouraging. Lunch provided by the church, then the seniors' afternoon tea where we meet a lady whose husband was in the second world war. In the evening, most of the girls head off to the coffee and dessert night at our billets' place. Ben also goes there to hang out with the men who will be there. I stay for youth group and eat frankfurter sausages for dinner. There is a balloon tyer, fire-breathers and pass-the-parcel. Then the formal part starts which is a lot like a mini church service. They do the music (singing songs with the most appalling words), we do the other bits—testimony, Bible reading, talk, etc. It's hard to get to know the kids. I stay around for a long while to help clean up, then go back to my billets' to find that there is more cleaning up to do. Feel really tired.
Saturday 11 December
Morning meeting at the church. Gently rebuke the rest of the mission team who was at youth group for not staying back to clean up. Go door-knocking/surveying/letter-box dropping in the local area with Jerry from Fiji. I'm not scared of door-knocking but I do find it extremely boring and anxiety-inducing. We come across a house with a sign near the door that says, “Religious people are not welcome; knock at your own risk.” Only one girl does the survey but several take fliers about the carols service. Our last conversation is with a man whose wife had died several months ago. He has a sign over his door which reads, “Forget the dog—beware of the wife!— He and Jerry hit it off really well, talking about Fiji.
Carols practice and preparation for the young adults' evening in the afternoon. Ben and I also stop by Lincraft to buy more wool and knitting needles so I can give Va some proper ones to finish off her scarf. Because my billets aren't home for dinner, I go with Ben to the men's BBQ to get tea. We meet a man who became a Christian after reading a biography. Unfortunately I have to leave before the proper food gets served. Only a handful of young adults come for the evening so we have to change everything we've prepared but it's still very encouraging, watching our students from Wollongong do their best to encourage the young adults at Holt in evangelism, even offering to go doorknocking with them the following day. I get back very late and very tired.
Sunday 12 December
The 8 am service is very high church and traditional with much swapping between the prayer book, the hymn book and the Bible. Jono preaches well on Ephesians and no one seems to mind his ponytail. Susan sings an item. The 9:30 family service is straight afterwards (in which we are involved in various ways). Richard preaches the gospel very clearly. Lunch with the church then we have a team meeting in the afternoon. Everyone is feeling quite hysterical because we're all so tired. Susan and I do more carols practice. Ben and I go home to change and rest but I only get 15 mins of rest before it's back to church for the BBQ (by this stage I am heartily sick of sausages) and the carols service. I meet a girl name Jo that I did Just for Starters training with at the University of New South Wales. Amazingly we remember each other. I also meet another lady who had been going through a very hard time recently and hadn't been attending church, despite the fact she said she was a Christian. I talk to her more after the service as well and wish I could have done more to help her.
Despite the varying dramas with music, the carols service goes off without a hitch. The Fijians sing a song and the entire mission team does the Fijian version of the Haka. Richard preaches very clearly once again. Susan and I sing, “What am I To Do?” by Ruth Buchanan as an item. Everyone is feeling very exhilarated and happy and there are team photos and hugs galore. Some of our team drive back to Wollongong that night. The rest stay with our billets one more time.
Monday 13 December
Down to my last change of clothes. Breakfast is at Commonwealth Park where the entire Wollongong contingent gets together to share what went on during mission. Hannah recites a poem she wrote about it. Richard tells her it should be published in Salt. The Science/Engineering group (by far the biggest team) do their rap. We do the Fijian Haka. There is a big group photo and then we all hit the road. Ben and I take turns driving. Because we can only do 100 kph, The Beast soon catches up with us (that's the name of Simon's ambulance-car). We lunch at MacDonald's.
We reach Wollongong at 2 and find Shaun walking along Foleys Rd. He is moving to Kurrajong parish in January which we think is slightly ridiculous since Sandy came to us from that church and now Shaun is going there to do Sandy's job. We drop him at church, go home for half an hour and then go to counselling. Counselling is very good: we talked about anger. She told me that anger is always a secondary emotion and it masks something else. I think I understand more about why I get angry. Dinner. Laundry. Random packing. Opening the mail. I'm so glad NTE is over.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Other comments
Gosh. Who’s Tom?
Gosh - I’m tired just from reading about it.
Could you expand on Keith’s elective about storytelling? I’m intrigued.
Deb: Ah, that’s me with my atrocious memory for names. It’s not Tom—it’s Tony Rowbotham
. He’s going to the Uni on the Gold Coast next year.
Guan-burger, the elective was all about evangelism through storytelling—specifically (but not limited to) the Bible stories. So he was giving us tips on how memorise the stories, tell them in a relevant way and how to get to the storytelling stage in the first place. If I had my notes in front of me, I could expand in more detail but unfortunately they’re in a box somewhere in my messy house.
Tony is very lovely too.