Last Official Cell for the Year.

Last night was our last official cell for the year.... We had a bbq out the back and just chilled and hung out it was great fun...
We were blessed by one of our cell mates bringing this huge platter of meat... lamb and pork chops, chicken, sausages it was that big, that we only cooked that meat and there was still leftovers. We had a huge spread of food.. it was a feast.
it was a lot of work to prepare for the night... my house mates started preparing salads 2 hours before people were meant to rock up and didn't finish until people were rocking up... i got home form work and started setting up out side... getting chairs and a table set up out there.

Although there was a bit of work involved it was well worth it... we only had one of our regulars that didn't show, and had a total of 15 that came and hung out with us... some were only there for half the time, cause they had other stuff on before....
Our cell has been getting a regular of around 10... and at the beginning of the night it didn't look like we were going to break that, even though we had a couple of new people come... there were a few regulars that didn't make it at the beginning of the night... but as the night processed...3 of our regulars rocked up, and brought some friends...

It was a great time,
I think we should do things like this more often... at least over summer while it is warm outside....
Any way i just wanted to share and praise God for the awesome night we had last night.

I have been learning lately that it is really important to be intentional with my relationship with God.... you see, for ages i had a lot of spare time, cause there wasn't really many people around that i could/would hang out with... and it was a little easier to spend time with God.. cause i had time... plenty of it...
however, lately i have being hanging out with people nearly every night of the week... which has been awesome, and sometimes tiring.. I haven't had that sort of community for a while and missed it, even though hanging out with other Christians in community is all good, in fact we are told to hang out with others... i have noticed that i have been getting distracted from spending time with God... That i would put off or even forget to hang out with God ... and my spirit and ministry has suffered because of this... so i am re learning to be intentional about spending time with God... more than just reading my bible, but actually sitting, quieting my spirit (which is a bit hard lately, since i have had so much activity going on) and listening...
Listening and hearing what God wants to tell me, hearing who He wants me to pray for, hearing His direction for me... and the ministry i am involved in...

roadtrip adventures to and from melbourne

Normally this trip takes about 8 hours, which was the case on the way to Melbourne. We drove over night on Thursday night, it was quite fun, we stayed up and got to our destination at the right time, and safely...
However the way back was a slightly different matter.... we had passed Ballarat and was continuing along the road heading to adelaide, when we ran over something already dead on the road... It wasn't seen til the last minute, due to having high beems off, because of on coming cars. So we went over it.... a little while latter we were hearing a weird noise coming from the car... we stopped in this small little town called Beaufort. (this is a nice town during the day.... but at night everything is closed and no one is around). It was here that we had a look around the car to work out what the noise was.... and we found a cable hanging down from the car. We weren't sure what the cable was but thought it would be saver getting someone to look and fix it than to continue driving, So we rang the RAA (well the Victoria equivelant) and was told that because we hit something it is classed as an accident and that they couldn't help... so we spent quite a while ringing different people (around 1am) to get a mechanic to come out or a tow or anything... to no avail. We also txted friends that we thought would be up to pray.
We decided that we may as well settle down and sleep the night. 2 people decided to sleep on the side of the road while another 2 of us stayed in the car.. about 20 to 30 mins after this decision (about an hour or 1 and a half hours since we stopped), a truckie pulled over to see if we needed some help... I told him the situation, He climbed down from his truck to have a look, He told us that it was just the hand brake cable and that we could just tie it up and it would be fine. One small problem, we didn't have anything to tie this cable up with... so we asked the truckie if he had anything that we could use... After searching his truck he came back with a usb cable that he had cut the ends off and cut it in half... Then told us how to tie up the hand brake cable... so we went under the car to tire up the cable, Success... we were on the road again... Praise the Lord... for he answers prayers, both ours and our friends prayers on our behalf. 2 hours after we stopped.
There may be some pictures to come....

by the way we are still on the road.... 398 km to go...

Wedding

today i went to a wedding... it was fun.

the wedding was a traditional style but was very laid back... a lot of jokes and mucking around by everyone involved. (Including the officer starting to read the funeral notes, and then dedication notes, before getting to the wedding stuff).

This wedding really suited the couple, it was awesome.

I have got a pic of one of the groomsmen, and it is someone that a lot of you who read this blog know.... I've posted the pic and do you reckonise him.

young guns

Last night i went to Revolution (ingle farm salvos youth service) and it rocked... i rocked up part way through cause i was out on the street... but it was "young guns" night, which means that it wasn't just the leaders doing every thing. they had one of the young teens doing the lights and av (part of the night), they had 2 people give testimonies (one a young teen and the other was a leader), they had a teen leading worship. Another guy (with an intellectual disability) lead one song at the beginning and the end. A 13 year old lead a dance off competition, and even cut the last round of dancing short, when some of the dancing got inappropriate, (which impressed me heaps, cause i have known this kid for ages,). Then 2 of the sort of older guys who aren't official leaders shared a word from God... it was awesome... the feel to the night was great, it was awesome to see and hear how God has been working in their lives, and how they are ready just to stand up and be counted for Christ, especially knowing their backgrounds, and knowing that that most of them don't come from the best backgrounds.... This youth group is like a family... and majority of the people there don't have the best natural family background, including some of the strong Christians there....
God is certainly doing something in that place. There is so much potential in that place, it may take a while, to scrape the dirt off and polish some of those guys, but it is worth it.... And i can't wait to see the result.

just some thoughts on ministry

There are a number of people that start "doing" stuff in ministry... and after a while they end up being burnt out... And a lot of this is from "doing" "program"
The other night i was talking to some friends about ministry, about how they wanted to just organically do mission, without set programs as such... and we came to the realisation that the best ministry to be involved in is what comes naturally to you... like for me going out on the streets and just sitting, chatting (well, mainly listening) and hanging out with people is so easy and it so natural (well, once i get pass the times where i don't want to go, or not knowing who to talk to or even how to start talking and going up and chatting to someone i don't know ... i need Christ's help with all that)
You see God has created you and has given you gifts and abilities for you to use to see the kingdom grow. All of who you are God has created you and knows everything about you... He knows how you tick and what makes you tick... and He has something in line for you that is totally up your alley... i don't think that it is all meant to be a hard slog (tho sometimes it can be)...

So i encourage you to find what comes naturally for you in ministry.... If we all did that there would be less people burning out... we'd all be working together... and everything would be coved... and we'd enjoy doing it (most of the time anyway), therefore we would be doing more out of love, than a sense of duty...
Sounds good hey...

Clutter

At the moment I have so much stuff in my room cluttering of up. There are Things just everywhere, and I have no idea where to put stuff... actually I have some idea how I want the room set up... and where I want to put things, however I don't really have the money to by the storage boxes thawers that I want which would solve a number of things... Then there is this table that i have sort of inherited from living at the house and it being left behind cause of has no real owner. It is a really nice table. solid wood. and I like it
the Problem lies in that it is reasonably big... and it takes quite a bit of room, and I have no real use for it.
I have been reading 2 Kings & 2 chronicles lately, and sitting in My room at the moment looking around and seeding all the clutter around and thing like the table which is really good but I have no use for it, got me thinking about how much we keep hold of in our lives, that clutter up our emotions, our spiritual life, and our lives in general. And sometimes some of this stuff that clutters up our life actually takes the place of Christ. we spend more the many sure it "fits" into our lives than we spend with Christ to build our relationship with Him.
We don't need to hold on to any of that stuff anymore cause Christ has heal us and has set us free, from all off it... we just have to receive the healing & the freedom that Christ offers us, which means we have to Let the stuff that clutter our lives go... So that our hands are empty to receive.. the fullness of what God has for us.
I want Christ to continually be showing me the things that clutter my life. and helping me to let them go so that I can fully reduce all that He wants to gone to me, I pray that this is your prayer as well.