it's pretty hard to wipe the smile off my face at the moment :)

well i got some fantastic news recently, from my best mate Dave
he is my great friend of many years, we first met each other in about July/August 1992 at a church service
he and his family had been apart of this church for a while and my family had just returned from a 3 year stint in the USA where my Dad being apart of the RAAF worked in the Australian Embassy in Washington DC and moved to outer west Sydney where my Dad was then serving at the Richmond RAAF Base
ur mothers had both met each other many years before in a doctors wating room, Dave's Mum was pregnant with her first and Dave's older brother and my Mum was pregnant with her first and my older brother, they happened to recognise each other over ten years later at this church
other interesting facts are that both our Father's work for the RAAF, our Mothers both share the same birthday, although different years, Dave's older brother and my Dad also share a birthday, and Dave's youngest brother also named John has his birthday the day after mine, all kinda freaky i know
so anyways we ended up joining that church and Dave and i became friends
we were pretty good friends and would often go over each others houses after church on a sunday
for 5 1/2 years we had Boy's Brigade, Kids Church (like Church for Kids), eventually youth group and weekends when we would have fun togehter
then in 1997 my family moved to Sale and we pretty much lost contact, but the best thing was in 1999 his Dad got posted to Sale and so their whole family moved on down
it was year 10
i was stuggling with being at the new senior campus at Sale College, not being one of the toughest kids in the school anymore cause now we were the youngest, and trying to work out where God fitted in my life and finally realising the answer was everywhere, so i had to change
then there was Dave the friend who i had actually been praying for, as i didn't have any friends my age who were Christians, who just came back outa no where and helped me get back towards the straight and narrow way, to God's way
it was these two boys who were very different, yet both needed a friend, who became best friends and life long buddys

we went through a heap of different stuff together, girlfriends (well Dave only had one, not a bad thing), ESA camps, church, youth group, he joined me and my mates at school (who quickly became his mates too), FAT group, school (including yr 12), lots of videos, discovering God and He that worked in our lives, and just hanging out together
we used to spend alot of time together, and living 5 mins walk away most of the time helped, it was a good 3 years we spent together in Sale and i will never forget giving him a big hug as me and my Dad dropped him off in Melbourne where he was to start uni as i was on my way to Ballarat to do the same, there was a long embrace and tears, in my eyes at least
so it has been just over three years since that summer February day now, and thank God we have kept in contact, we haven't seen alot of each other, but every time we do, our time together is special
oh and that one girlfriend he had in highschool Rosie, she is still there, but i am so happy to say that after 4 years together Rosie has a new role Fiance!
yep on sunday afternoon Dave proposed! :) (i wish i could do an extra big smile, so you could see the how big it is on my face)

Rosie is great and i love her, although i was a bit worried about her at first she has turned out to be great and the best girl for my best mate
so well done Dave for keeping her for so long and deciding to stay with her for life :)
it's pretty hard to wipe the smile off my face at the moment :)

but when change happens to you

change is an interesting thing
sometimes it is easier to cope with than others
i think for me i have found that it is easy to cope with change when you instigate it
but when someone else causes the change and you have to try to cope and adapt it is so much more difficult
also i think i have found that long term change or change that happens with much notice is easier to cope with and adapt to than sudden unexpected change
while i try to like change especially when it is for beneficial purposes, i don't like having to cope or adapt
but i do thank God for it
without change life would be boring, there would be no twists or turns, life would be too easy, life would be down right crap
change
it can make me cry
it can make me smile
it can make me angry
it can make me shy
but when change happens to you, you should happen to change

now that is one different but good school excursion

A snippet of the story from 'Its a Pigs Life' and this Yr12's, Girls Catholic High trip to Melbourne

Ministry Retreat
"we also went for a brief walk that night, and while nothing much happend on my walk, the other half the group who went first, sat in some dorways in the centre of melbourne and just sat there and wathched the expressions on peoples faces as they looked at them, everyone thought they were homeless, the sterotypes we give people based on there looks hey! i mean these are some girls who are by far not homeless and this is what society depicted, becasue they didn't have brand name clothes on and because of where they were sitting they were thought to be homeless."

and so then there were three

and today she left
to start the next part of her journey
and so then there were three
and we stood in the carpark and wept

you are not your own

i was reading flying blue sky and the "Thursday morning in Melbourne" post got me thinking about some stuff and thinking of this couple sentences from Corinthians


You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
NIV

that i am not my own is something that i think i need to relearn and discover much more
cause way to much i end up living my life my way, and 'conviniently forgeting' that i was bought at a price
that He, the Holy Spirit is livin' in me and shaping me for the things to come
that i need to "let go and let God"

find some new direction

so on last thursday morning i went to melbourne to begin a new thing for me...beach mission
beach mission is a summer mission to mainly coastal areas (hence 'beach' mission) in Australia organised by SU (scripture union)

we had a bit if an introductory meeting meaning what the Warnambool Beach Mission for teens and young adults called Ignite is about and what it has been and may look like
it will be a bit of a change for me having been a dedicated ESAer for many years, this year being the first in 7 years that i have not been to or lead on an ESA camp totalling 17 camps in all

i loved ESA and still do, but times change and so so things
one of the things that has made me ave this change of heart is not because things at ESA are bad and at SU are good, but that things at ESA are mainly still old and at Warnambool Beach Mission at least things are moving into the new
i really like the ideas and that we are going there to "give God a good name" as has been drumbed into me by friends who were on this beach mission last year
and that we have a main purpose of building relationships with young people in the area and that the way we do our mission is based around that
where as ESA is pretty much the same today as the first time i went as a yr 8 highschool student
i think this is partly due to that i don't think they know just what their purpose is and why they run the camps and who for
i mean they run the camps cause they always have and the same people come and there is always some who's parents did ESA camps, so it is just the next generation doing the same thing
ESA seems to be the way it is because of a lack of direct purpose and so it has been adapted for the audience that comes and not necessarily the audience it may want to reach
this is quite a sad thing for me the think about :(
i put so much time and energy into ESA in the past and i just hope they can find some new direction in the future: