A Beautiful Day

For the past 8 years, I've had the great honour of teaching the Bible to teens who rocked up to our church on Sundays at our church youth group (MYF). Last year, I made the tough decision to discontinue this work that I've been doing. It wasn't a decision that was made lightly, but one definitely made out of necessity.

A busy Christmas spent out of Sydney meant a quiet retreat into retirement, slipping out of MYF and into a much appreciated sleep-in.

But today was a little different - invited to our 9am Indonesian service, then our 11:30am English service and lunch, followed by a MYF "social" and then a dinner out with the new MYF leaders. Sounds like a nice simple day.

Here's a rundown of my highlights:

• 9am Indonesian Service
  
• sitting through a 45 minute sermon in Indonesian... and not understanding a word
• getting up the front at church to be thanked for my work in MYF in Indonesian, and having to have our pastor translate for me in front of the whole church
• 11:30am English Service
  
• finding out (at 11:30am) I had to MC our (11:30am) English service because someone had misunderstood the message that another person was ready to MC, but for "something else"
• going to lunch with the non-MYF-socialing people at our service
• MYF Social
  
• being "surprised" by the fact that the MYF social was actually a surprise farewell party from MYF
• eating lots of food of great food (like sausages, bacon, and lemon meringue pie!)
  
• being serenaded with a personalised song (it was actually quite good) from one of the other MYF leaders
• MYF Leaders Dinner
• eating some spicy Kwayteow Ayam at Ayam Goreng 99 in Kingsford
• completely obliterating a Maxi Ice-Cream Sundae at French Riviera Ice-Cream with ease

It was a great day, spent with great people, and definitely a group of people I will miss seeing and working with every week. I'd just like to say Thanks to all who were involved in planning the day and joining in to make today so fantastic for me. As much as I enjoyed the appreciation that people showed, I think the best thing for me was to be able to look around, gaze upon the old and new faces, and see a group full of people whom God loved and who were taking the Bible seriously. There is truly nothing greater than being able to see people developing through the years into fantastically mature Christian people.

Darby Falls

Last Wednesday was our mission team half-day off. As usual, we headed out of town, and drove through a little place called Darby Falls. Normally an uneventful drive, the highlight was seeing a few kids, standing outside a house, waving to us. A couple of girls leaning against the fence, while the boys were balancing themselves on the fence. Passing by at a leisurely and legal 50 kph, we had time to turn our heads, wave back, and watch as one of the guys on the fence began to frantically wave both arms in the air, before toppling to the ground. All the other kids didn't flinch, and kept waving. We laughed, as we drove by, with nothing but appreciation for Darby's Fall.