post supportMIKE: 2007

Wedding Craziness
31 December 2007

Christine blogged about a wedding we went to over the weekend over here. Our prayers and congratulations are with Christina and Peirce.

When I say weekend I'm talking about Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was a great, if very tiering time. Anyway over to some photos... most are taken down at Port Arthur where the wedding practice was held.

0 comments

tags friends, pictures, travel

Meetings that rock...

I hate dead meetings... and unsurprsingly so do students. Very often in the past they have been long and boring but we're out to change all that. In the latter part of the the year the FOCUS Committee has had a blast. I blogged about our last meeting in the hot-tub.

Our most recent meeting accoured a few weeks ago (haven't been able to blog because of my computer issues). For this one we went down to Damon's father-in-laws house at beautiful Kettering. Below is a picture of the catamaran he is building.

At the meeting we covered some new material on the job descriptions for various roles on the Committee. We also covered general responsiblities and requirements of committee members.

Judging from my the photo above of morning tea you'll see there was food and lots of it. Then followed by a BBQ lunch. I'm ready to declare 2008 the year of meetings that rock at FOCUS.

All the work that Damo and I have put into the FOCUS is begining to pay off. The students seem to be 100% behind the new look Committee which has been a great encouragement. It's great to have a bunch of students who can't wait to get stuck into FOCUS for 2008. This has definately been one of the highlights of the year.

3 comments

tags christian, focus, friends, ministry, pictures, update

Christmas confessional
30 December 2007

Christine and I were very blessed to get many good wishes and presies over Christmas. We spent Christmas day with my parents having slept in (I worked Christmas Eve). A big thank you to all the people who sent cards, and presies etc.

On Boxing day I went and spent a JB Hi Fi voucher my brother gave me, on some CDs and DVDs. So now I have a couple of confessions to make...

I bought this which I really like. I watch it almost as soon as I got home because it's just so funny. It's easily a four star (note the four fingers) film.

I also bought this film. It has a similar concept to The Matrix but appeared back in 1998. Four stars (or fingers) from me for Dark City.

Most shamefully I bought this (it was cheap).

I'm Sorry to say but I actually like this. Later albums I found are rubbish, but this is my little pop indulgence and for that I'll give myself a stupid award. This isn't the worst CD I own by any means... but before I own up maybe you should...

8 comments

tags pictures, review, shameless self promotion, stupid award

No computer... what to do Part 2

One of the other benefits of having no computer was that I spent more time reading and praying. In fact compared to through the year I've been reading heaps. Amazingly I've even been reading some books that relate to my hobbies (I hate that word) rather than my ministry and Christian life.

Anyway here's a few pickies... Also the facial expression helps to give the review.

Jeremy Clarkson what a crack up. If you haven't seen Top Gear (Coming to SBS 8th January) or more specifically him on it you haven't lived. It's the car show for non car people. In fact it's only the fun police and caravan owners who ever have a problem with this show. This book* is a collection of his ramblings in the Sunday Times. He's an opinionated, passionate and humourous and I like that. He's the kind of bloke who you'll either love or hate.

I've really enjoyed this book. Dickson is one of my favourite writers for his simple straight forward easy to understand style. My brother gave me two Dickson's books for my birthday.

I've read most of World Religions and I like it. Although Dickson is a Christian he gives a very balanced account of the big five major religions in the world (Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam). He concludes the book with a broadside critique of pluralism rather than an Christian evangelistic pitch which was refreshing. This is an awesome book to give a non-Christian mate especially one who is sensitive to "bashing". Dickson is a very sensitive and careful evangelist just the bloke for sensitive situation.

This puppy on Jesus I haven't read as much of (Thus the shrug in the picture). I've heard stuff about Dickson's theology which has recently made me more cautious about what he writes. I stared by having a flick through the stuff on the atonement, judgment and hell and so far it look ok. I'll post about it in some more detail some time in the new year.

* You can grab a copy for ten bucks from Benny @ Fullers

2 comments

tags christian, review, thinking, update

No computer... what to do

It's been strangely nice not having a computer for a bit. For those who don't realise I rely heavily on it to organise and get most of my work done it. Having it out of action forced me to take a break over a few weeks. I didn't enjoy seeing all the work build up mind you. This month didn't look that busy on iCal.

During my "break" I went back and cleaned a few windows for my old work to get a little more cash rolling in as MTS isn't the best paying job in the world. I really enjoyed seeing people houses as I cleaned. Check out this rubber duckie collection.

Classic!

As always cleaning windows at Christmas resulted in physical exhaustion so I turned into a couch potato and then watched the first couple of days of the Boxing day test.

0 comments

tags christian, ministry, windows

Back in action
28 December 2007

That's right I have a brand new MacBook Computer. It's the latest model with all the newest and latest software. If you care about specs it's a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB HHD* but most importantly it flipping works.

So how did I manage that you ask? well as you may know I've had a few issues with the old one. Firstly the top case was replaced because of a faulty button then the DVD drive stopped working and was replaced. Most recently the whole logic board was replaced because the bluetooth and sleep function weren't working.

After this fix the computer pumped along fine till the 12th December when the bluetooth and sleep function failed AGAIN and the indicator on my power cord also stopped working. Not to be perturbed I spent the best part of 12 hours trying to get the thing working with help from Apple. They finally decided it was a hardware problem... and I got very angry.

I woke up the next day still really angry and decided complaining would be the best course of action and using my tried and true formula (without loosing my temper)... Bingo! "It sounds like we can provide you with a brand new computer."

Thankyou Apple and Applecare I am thankful but you have wasted a great deal of my time. Here's hoping we have more success this time around.**

* I paid a little extra to get it upgraded from stand configuration.
** Before you start bagging I've had the same amount of trouble with my Mac as I did with my PC

4 comments

tags linkage, pictures

Happy Christmas
24 December 2007

Sorry for my slightly longish absence. I've been computerless for over a week now. I'm currently waiting on a brand new replacement laptop for my very nice black MacBook. I'll let you know the full story the moment it arrives.

Thank you very much for reading, whoever you and wherever you are in the world. Until I'm back have a very happy and safe Christmas. Cheers and God bless.

Mike and Christine

1 comments

tags update

NTE Mission 2007
10 December 2007

Here's a belated post which covers the remainder of the NTE Mission in Sydney. As you may know it hailed heavily in Sydney on Sunday. It was more lumps of ice than hail.

tasted nice...

As did the gift my host family gave me.

We experienced the Sundanese church meeting that takes place at St Anne's in Merrylands

And I caught a nice view on the plane trip home. In other news I've been having major issues with my macbook and which don't look like being resolved anytime soon. So I'm not sure how regularly I'll be updating. Grrrr

7 comments

tags christian, friends, ministry, pictures

About two weeks ago...
08 December 2007

...my good friend Seumas finally got married to his long term girlfriend Rachel. They've been in an on again and off again for a long time. It was great to see them finally tie the knot. The wedding was the main reason Christine and I traveled up to Sydney so early before NTE. We had an enjoyable break here but I'm looking forward to getting home.

0 comments

tags friends, linkage, pictures

Finally a day off

With National Training Event (NTE) and half of our mission out of the way I'm well due for a break. So here I am sitting blogging, catching up on the internet and listening to some bad emo music.

You may be wondering what this NTE thing is? Well NTE gathers students from all around Australia who attend Christian groups similar to FOCUS... sounds like it would be big? It was...

big...

real big!

There were around 1100 students (there were 6 of us from Tassie plus Staff)

If you watched my videos at all you'll notice that (having never been before) I was pretty skeptical even cynical about NTE. By around the second day it had won me over. The sermons (talks) from Greg Lee and Peter Adam were really good. For a slightly cynical old man Peter Adam was very very funny. I found myself powerfully challenged by God's word.

Of course there was music, and while it wasn't my cup of tea, it was of a very high standard and lyrically I had no problem.

I also got to meet famous* people... Below is pocket rocket Richard Chin about to be dropped on the ground. I called him Uncle Richard... maybe he'll come to little ol' Tassie some time next year.

I also got to meet some of the hard working AEFS staff including Rebbeca (whose pictures I stole). I also really enjoyed leading one of the strands with a group of fellas. They all worked really hard and wrote sermons on Micah 5 and did me proud.

As usual I'm already looking forward to next year when we'll have more students up. I'm going to drag people by eyeballs if I have to**. I think NTE should be a compulsory one off for all students at FOCUS. But more about that another time.

I'll sign off with a word about Peter Adam (Principal of Ridely College) who not only did the sermons on "God's Word" but wrote a rap which he presented during one of his talks... complete with sunglasses. Craziness that shouldn't be missed.

*Perhaps only in my mind
**Naturally this is a joke

3 comments

tags christian, focus, linkage, ministry, pictures

NTE Day 5
06 December 2007

And of course Day 5. I forgot to mention that I did have a video planned for Day 4 but it didn't eventuate.

I think it's time to give up video blogging when I'm so tired. I seem quite hazy in this one.
Please keep all of us up here in your prayers as we truck out the rest of Mission here back in Sydney.