Security! Security!
Friday, 06 August, 2004
Been pretty busy (as always!) Monday we had our first meeting for TEAM for the Unileavers course that Pete and I are running. I thought it went quite well, though it surprised me at how slow they were at understanding the guidance stuff and God's plan for their lives are revealed in Ephesians 1. We got about 10 students and the DVD player on Richard's computer was way too quiet, even with the volume turned all the way up. But still I was able to teach Richard how to use the AFES data projector which was helpful; he's a bit of a technophobe. After TEAM, I raced around for half an hour to buy snacks and nibbles for the combined colleges Q & A with Carl Matthei at Campus East as part of Mission Week (the theme being “Security”). A dismal number of people came and they only consumed one tube of Pringles and no dip. On Tuesday I went to main meeting and cleaned up HTML all day. I was making risotto when the power went off. Good thing I bought a proper torch last year. And God was good to us—I was just about to finish dinner and all that remained was to stir in the cheese, pepper, lemon juice and chopped parsley. We had dinner by candlelight (me frantically trying to remember where my sturdy candles were) before Ben left for Weerona college Bible study. Their power was off too so he brought them back to our place where they had Bible Study by candlelight in our lounge room. I did not join them. Instead, I amused myself by writing a letter to some guy in Canada who had written a parody of the Endless and Neil Gaiman had said on his blog that he would send you a free comic book of it if you wrote to him. I also read Cart and Cwidder with the aid of the torch. After taking the Weeronians home, Ben and I decided that there was nothing better to do but go to bed since everything else required electricity. The result was we both got about 10-12 hours of sleep each and the power came back on at about 10 pm. On Wednesday I finished the html cleanup of the RAID site so now all 1700 files have been amended to my satisfaction and I can start the proper restructure. My supervisor said he didn't know why I did it but then he's not really a web person; he manages the databases. I think it will make it easier for me in the long-run and at least now the site has some consistency. I tried to validate it using Dreamweaver but the thing screamed back at me, “p tags are not allowed in a table! p tags are not allowed in a table!” which is a lot of nonsense really.I went to main meeting again and there were 114 people there, including Fi who I hadn't seen pretty much since she got married! It was good to see she was doing well. At 3 I left for ECU staff meeting where we heard from various people about how the different events had gone (including lawn bowls on Sunday and the pub night on Tuesday). Carl Matthei, who pastors at Christchurch St. George talked about his experience of working in an independent church and also shared with us his template for writing sermons.
Then we rushed home and I frantically tried to make a double batch of coconut chili basil chicken and a single batch of Thai beef salad before going off to church Bible study. We're still doing the Introducing God course and we were up to the sin bit—Genesis 3. Surprisingly, during the discussion afterwards, the people who weren't Christians said that they agreed a lot with what Dominic said—that God was fair in punishing us the way he did and that, when Adam sinned, the entire human race sinned with him. They didn't seem to have a problem with that at all. I hope they are not far from the kingdom of God themselves!
On Thursday morning I woke up at 7, peeled and grated carrots, peeled and chopped cucumber and tried to assemble all the things I would need for the evening's girls' dinner. I wrote Ben a list of things that he had to collect and bring back: keyboard, amplifier, rice cooker, electric frypan, dips, etc. We were at Sarah's at 8 for guitar (Ben taught us how to play a simplified version of “Consider Christ” and “Lord I Lift Your Name on High”). At 9 we had girls' meeting at the Chin's where we talked about how the IBM girls' dinner had gone the week before and the logistics for that evening's girls' dinner. Stacie didn't come—she was still working on her talk. Amanda and I had a brief catch up on the walk into Uni. Then I spent two hours in the Chaplaincy doing administrative things and typing up minutes from staff meeting and helped Amanda create an outline for Stacie's talk.
Pete asked Amanda and I to usher for the day's public talk—the last one by Carl. About 60 people were there and a fair few wandered up to the McKinnon lawn to have lunch with us. But Pete and I had to meet about the following week's TEAM Unileavers. I think we both felt like we hadn't gotten much done but what can you do when you're preparing a course sort of from scratch.
At 2:30 I met with Little Rach. At 3:30 Amanda and I met with a girl named Katrina whom we met doing walk-up on the lawn the previous week and who was keen to find out more about Christianity. We started working through a book called Tough Questions which is put out by Matthias Media and contains five studies taken from the gospels about Jesus. I was impressed with the first study—the questions are so good. Katrina also came up with some great answers and was keen to keep meeting up. At 4:30 I met with Marina and then girls started congregating for the girls' thing so all the setting up and cooking rice happened around then.
There were about 46 girls who showed up. We ate dinner on picnic rugs in the hallway outside the Chaplaincy. All the food I brought totally disappeared! I met a lady from Japan who was studying International Relations and who wasn't a Christian but had been coming to IBM. Following dinner was all the formal stuff—a collective game of Scategories, a testimony, the Bible reading and then Stacie's talk on the foolish rich man from Luke 12. She spoke very well and held her audience's attention right to the end. Susan sang a song she composed which was absolutely gorgeous—I love hearing Susan sing. It always surprises me because her singing voice sounds nothing like her speaking voice. There was tea and coffee in the hallway, then clean up. Ben was around because he had been at the IBM boys' dinner. At the end of clean up, there was just Amanda, Miriam and me (Ben had gone to get the car) and so we prayed and thank God for the evening and how great it was. We didn't get home until about 9:30-10.
So today I slept for ages and did nothing but read Diana Wynne Jones. My brain has refused to engage itself with the Sunday school lesson I'm supposed to be preparing for Sunday and is only vaguely interested in writing a shopping list for stuff for tomorrow's birthday afternoon tea. Maybe it's my body's way of telling me, “You need to rest.”
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.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments
I’m tired just reading about it. You do need to rest!!