Weekend musings

I recall sharing previously about what activities can be done at a staff retreat. AS it turned out, there was no water-skiiing but certainly some drunken dancing.

Due to the music entertainment over dinner being so loud, I actually almost lost my voice from trying to talk over it. Best option was to sit down and not talk for about an hour, which wasn't hard to do considering I could still be amused by the partners downing many a glasses of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages.

One thing though that I did which I haven't done for a long while, was play Speed. A good workmate of mine brought along a deck of cards to the retreat, so before dinner and after dinner around 11:30pm, we set-up shop in the foyer of the hotel/resort and played a few rounds. We then proceeded to teach the IT guy the game, but he said it was too hard, so instead we chose to play SNAP. Alas.... even he stuffed that up but by then it was too late so we tottered off to bed, whilst the partners stayed up until quarter to 3 in the morning.

Another thing we did last weekend was take the 2 hour winding road down to Lamington National Park, namely O'Reillys Guesthouse. The weather threatened to dampen our trip, but luckily the rain stayed away and we were able to enjoy a nice picnic lunch overlooking people feeding a mob of colourful parrots, and one little butcher bird called "Butch".


Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of "Butch"....but, this was one of the parrots.

As expected, a supposedly 30 minute walk turned out to be an hour walk.

The obligatory post about

FIGS Camp 2006.

It was already a week ago, but as someone else mentioned in their blog, there are so many memories and fun times from it.

We pray that this will become an annual feast of fellowship with the youth at church. I was especially encouraged by the little discussion group I had. Being the topic of relationships, it made sense to have girls/boys only discussion groups.

My little group had some very interesting discussions, and what really caught my attention, was the fact that some people were not afraid to share their feelings and thoughts to the rest of us, about singleness, dating and marriage.
Bearing in mind some of us had only barely introduced each other the previous night.

Panel discussion was interesting. After being sort of dobbed in to be the female married person on the panel, really challenged me to share the experience after only 9 months. I realised that although the questions being asked wanted a black or white response, it was actually not possible to give such an answer.

Truthfully though, I went into marriage with realistic expectations, in that the honeymoon period is limited, and the key is to work on the marriage, rather than having this false vision that all is going to be rosy, especially in the first year.

A book that we read together was "The most important year in a womans/man's life", which basically describes the first 12 months of marriage as being the hardest to work through.

Although some of the younger high school kids pretty much tuned out once marriage was mentioned in the talks, I do hope that the camp in its entirety has opened their hearts and minds to a greater understanding of God's marriage and love to the church.

Thanks again to Dan for presenting such insightful and challenging talks on the weekend.

And.......we're out :(

It hurts. It really hurts.

Not that I am a soccer fanatic, but Johann is commisserating with me over his mug of German beer and string of sausages.

Alas it is time to unstring the snags, put Johann to sleep and tear up the cloths making up the German flag and maybe dig them out later on this year at craft during Klub at mission.

argh, did I mention that 'M' word? Yes, it is official that the two of us will be co-directors of Tweed River Family Mission yet again this year.

So, will be likely to commence the team member search in the not-too-distant future. On the other hand, if I feel you are capable of being a team member, watch out.....I'll be after YOU!!!

We're still in!

Well, it's come down to the last four, and Germany is still in with a chance.

Johann is still sitting high above our work area, looking out towards our semi-final opponent.....Italy.

The teams in our office tipping comp are Germany, Italy, Argentina, England, Brazil and Australia. Only the first two teams are still standing.

Italy's soccer ball mysteriously disappeared from their office area after their win over Australia....and still has yet to be found.

Now, our Germany ball has disappeared from our area, after our win over Argentina....hmmmm.

We are keeping our eyes on Johann on Wednesday and Thursday, in case he is taken also from our area after we beat Italy! HeeHee