From C.S. Lewis

"When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right...something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise...

it will be too late then to choose your side.

There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up."

C. S. Lewis

Painting and pushing

Doing BCM Duties ... painting the walls outside the units ... they are looking 200% better ... here's Simon and Kevin going hard!

Hard at work ... as always ...

And later ... someone left the lights on in the van ... so Mat discovered when he had to leave ... here is Marcus helping push start ... photos were taken by Hudson

The Craft Show Fundraiser

Uh yes ... so the big fundraiser for the William Booth Educare (preschool) each year is a Craft Show, where all sorts of local people come and buy a table at which to sell their crafts and let me say, they came in droves. Now, I have never been before so I have nothing to compare it with but there was definitely some cool stuff.

I was just trying to find my wallet at home when I had a knock on the door to find my friend Kelly standing on my doorstep with Suse (sorry if I've mispelt that!) and so we all wandered up to the main building together.

Now, to give a bit of background to this story, Kelly used to be my flatmate up in Hamilton and we both trained as primary school teachers at Waikato Uni. When I ended up going into ministry rather than teaching, Kelly was kind enough to take all my resources off my hands - no small feat either, her car was chocka! So she has it all now in her classroom over in J'ville.

Anywhos last night, Kelly and I were looking at these alphabet cards teachers put on their classroom walls - you know the ones: each with a letter of the alphabet and a picture of something starting with that letter on it.

The convo started out with me saying, "Kel, you should get these."

"What am I going to do with them?"

"Stick them up on your walls."

"I've got stuff on my walls already."

"That's true," I said. "You have lots of rubbish already."(Meaning all my old stuff!)

Of course, the craft lady of that particular table misheard us and thought we were saying her stuff was rubbish.

"Oh no," says Corryn. "She's a teacher. I was talking about her stuff."

Then we heard about how this on her table was good quality stuff and very educational. We felt very tut-tutted by the time we walked away.

If that was the final end of the story, fine. But Kelly went home, as did I, only I had to go back up to pick up something, and guess who I met as I came out the door! Let's just say the alphabet card lady didn't smile at me.

Eeeh.

But it was a great night. I didn't have lots of money so I only bought a necklace and some fudge. Anyway, there's always next year ...

Goodbye cornet

Well, we had our big Bible in Schools production today - the one where we played brass style for the carols. We roped in 5 altogether - Kevin and I were the only cadets but the Majors (Robert, Jennifer and Garth) all joined in and, in all honesty, carried us.

I ended up playing 2nd cornet, which was fine with me, after all this time not playing it would take practice to get some of those high notes and hold them, so Garth played 1st. I found it amusing that the way we arranged ourselves meant he played into my ear, meaning I literally couldn't hear myself so I had to play louder and not completely fade into the background. I haven't worked out yet if that was their plan all along....

Fortunately it's all done now and I intend to not play for another decade. If not longer.

The Christian Ideal

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting;

it has been found difficult and left untried."

G. K. Chesterton

The joke's on me

So after our last two days gardening, I woke to sore thigh muscles. You just don't think of stretching before gardening.

And this morning, as I pulled back the curtains in my lounge, I saw this sight:

And I cracked up laughing. The joke is fully on me. Congrats boys.

A good chunk of the leaves etc are now blocking my exit out the back door. I haven't pinned it down yet as to exactly who was responsible, so I am just doing to have to prank back all the suspects.

I'm now just waiting until Gabbie, Kendal and Hudson come to play later in the day and I'll make some game out of moving the leaves before they completely compost.

The face it aches

Oh the things you do at College that you never thought you would do again!

It has been over a decade since I played a brass instrument (cornet to be precise) and now I find us getting a small group together to play at a Bible in Schools production next Tuesday. The funny thing is that most of us haven't played in years and let's say if my playing today is a glimpse of what Tuesday holds in store, it is going to be very interesting indeed!

I have pretty much completely lost my lip and struggle to reach the higher notes unless it is going up on a scale. And my attempt wasn't overly helped by my session all cracking up laughing, which of course got me going too - and have you ever tried to blow an instrument while laughing?!

Kevin gave me his big Eb Bass to have a go and it took me the better part of five minutes to find C. Sheesh that is a big monster of an instrument and one huge mouthpiece. The entire bottom half of my face feels tingly and numb.

Anywhos... it's for the children! (That's what I keep telling myself) so I'll be practicing this weekend, and come Tuesday I will have that cornet bringing a smile to my Dad's face - one way or the other!