NTE/Mike and Maddy's Wedding

WARNING: This WILL be a LONGER post than normal, so read only if you can read fast or if you have heaps of time just to go through this.

Came back Sunday night and it's my last CU camp as a student. It's so crazy how much we really did during the week and a bit we were away. It's just so inspiring to see so many people who're just that fired up for everyone to know the saving knowledge of the Gospel. I have always maintained and will continue to say this: NTE is heaps better than MYC. This year didn't disappoint either :) There's just so much to say about it, but i'll try and split it up into semi-readable sections.

NTE

Talks:

The talks by Phil Jensen and Richard Chin were really great, but in my opinion, last year's talks by Richard Chin and Gibbo were more challenging. Richard stepped in for Lindsay Brown, who's father is quite ill and had to stay in the UK. For the time he had and the preparation he had, he delivered awesome talks, that were progressively better as the conference moved on.

Phil Jensen's talks were really awesome as well, as expected. But obviously he didn't push as much as he could. Apparently his last talk was the exact same one he gave at MTS challenge conference, but a toned-down version of it. But all in all, they all focus on setting our priorities right and seeing who's really at the centre of our lives. That's just the gist, but there's so much more that could be said about them.

Strand groups:

We had something that was uncommon - 15 guys in a group with only 1 strand leader. But still, it was really awesome just to do it and to see how much depth there is in just one doctrinal issue. The good and bad thing was that this strand was more of a self-learning strand, which really improved how we learnt and whatnot, but also if we weren't doing it in the right way, there was limited direction. Self-learning, in general, is really good though, and I don't think it should be changed in that way at all. It should be getting ourselves ready for this type of ministry - learning through dependence on God totally. It's obviously heaps good that you're in teams so that people do help you out and whatnot, but also that we need to learn that we should totally rely on God alone. But all in all, strand groups were really challenging and awesome :)

People:

What I also love about these events is that you get to meet people you've never seen before and have great chats with them, or at least to try and know them, but also to see people that you don't see often at all. This is apart from the fact that you'll definitely get to know someone from your uni better. That's just a given, regardless :)

In my case, some of the guys in strand group I had a chat to and yeah it's awesome to see that they're also fired up and learning heaps about it :) It's unfortunate that I probably won't see them again since we didn't get details, but yeah i'm sure we'll see them someday :) One of them stayed in the room next to me, and yeah had a few chats with him, but again didn't get his contact so yah.

On top of that, it was awesome to see at least some people from my church there (Katherine and Happy - The one who was on the Cumbo training video). We had a bigger contingent last year from church compared to this year, and i'm sure they had some sort of proper reason, but until I hear it, i'm assuming they're lazy :P Or maybe they couldn't pay for it. Meh. I'm sticking with lazy. Last year we had a contingent of around about 7 or 8, and this year it's 4. Quite disappointing in that regard.

Fortunately, it's the people who I haven't seen in aaaaaaages that was really encouraging to see again. I hadn't seen Dazz nor Georgie in aaaaaages, but yeah just to see and have a small chat with both of them was really good :) But the one who I hadn't seen in quite a number of years belongs to Carmen. I think we had a chat on the train once sometime in the last few years, but apart from that and maybe a random 1 minute chat here and there, there's been next to no contact between us for a good half a decade or so. So to see her again was awesome (and that word doesn't cover what I mean). Hopefully we'll have decent chats from now on or something like that.

Random Canberra Moments:

* Saw Kevin Rudd in question time in parliament - as in his 1st day as opposition leader. Still a bit rough around the edges then, but yes his 1st day :) Just on this point - if you petition to parliament, there's honestly no point of doing it. What they do is they have the petitions at the end of question time, and when the petitions come up, all the parliamentarians just get up and walk out of the House, so yeah just letting you guys know what happens.

* Trying to find groups of people who walk back to Fenner (The place where we were staying) after talks and then pumping up something like "Servants of the Gospel" slowing down to walking pace whilst we were doing that.

* Ash's van and the impressive grip it has for a full load...as in 9 people. As it was said: "It's an experience"

* The return of Jarryd's funbus including more of his MoTown collection :)

* Other moments that aren't coming to me at the moment, but check out Katus, Ali, Ems or Bella's blogs for more info.

Mission:

This part of NTE was such a great experience for myself personally and just to see how God works in each one of us and also how He works in the wider community. I'm just going to do a quick recap of what happened; well more what I did during the mission so it doesn't turn into a massively large post.

Meeting our billets was quite an interesting experience. The 1st meeting was ok, I was quite busy then and was running around like a madman trying to see what's going on. It meant that we didn't have a great chance to talk about stuff, but it was ok. Later on though, we found out how crazy they really are. For example: There was an attractive blonde in our mission called Liz, and guys from the church we were helping at ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS flocked to her and whatnot. Anyways, my billet always called this flocking: "The bees are surrounding honeypot". These kinda comments happened all the time my billet his kids provided a ending source of entertainment and also you always had to be on guard with those kids lol.

The main part of the mission that I was involved in was with the kids, and we had a dedicated kids team for that. Before I continue, I'd like to say a HUGE THANK YOU for those who were involved in the team in one way or another. You guys did so much work it's not funny, especially with the little preparation time that you had as well :) It was an awesome job that you did and this service to the Lord isn't overlooked.

In particularly to Bec, Ali, Bella, Katherine and Sandy: You guys had to do basically all of the up front stuff and that's tough work especially around the kids that we all handled, but you had to handle them on top of teach them. For that, it's so awesome to see you guys serve so much through that :)

We had a pre-school/childcare type of thing in a church, where the discipline isn't as strong in some, and in others they were stricter than the normal classroom environment. It was quite a challenge, but we handled it alright, especially with Chris and Nelson being kids, well more so than normal. So yeah that was interesting to watch. Then the up front stuff with singing and puppets were nice :) Heaps great job :)

We also took over their kids club time. This was a shocker. These kids didn't listen to authority and ran away often. Their parents don't come because then it's more forced rather than out of their own choosing. They hid under tables and ran outside when someone came or if something new was going to happen. It was quite a nightmare to handle, but somehow God enabled us to sort of handle them ok. Definitely props to the 2 normal leaders and the other crowd control dude for doing that week in and week out. That's just nuts.

After a repeat of the pre-school thing in a pre-school centre with more disciplined kids (which were very good and quite enjoyable), some of us went door knocking, others went walk-up. I went door knocking and yeah Liz and I had an hour long chat with this dude who was quite different in understanding what the Bible has to say about things. It was quite interesting, he mixed "The Gospel" with "common sense", as in you should have the common sense to know that some things, by knowledge, can be passed to others so that people may be able to do good deeds for others. It's a bit more complicated than that, but yeah it's just a taste of what happened.

[EDIT] Forgot about the Chocolate Fondue we had...with strawberries, banana, grapes, and the most indulgent of foods: marshmallows. Think about it: chocolate covered marshmallows...mmmm...yum...[/EDIT]

The Wedding:

During our free time on Saturday, there were people who had nothing to do during this time, just like Katus (Check her blog just to see what happened). But for some of us, we had a wedding to attend. So Robbo, Pier, Ajo and I frantically changed straight after the Men's breaky in the morning, and headed off to Mike and Maddy's wedding.

The CU people who turned up: The Yagers, Ali and Tom, Ash, Robbo, Pier, Ajo, Heather and Ro, the Smithies (Chelsea and her husband), Mo and Grace, Steve Gilmour, Gary and Ali, Ben W, Myfanwy, Pappy and Lissa (I'm hoping that was the full list).

The ceremony was awesome, and just the Mike type of humour that came out of it. For example when Maddy was putting the ring on Mike and it was time for Mike's response: "I receeeeeeive this ring..." (Just imagine the ring being a tight fit and it being put on when Mike elongated his "receive"). At the end of the ceremony, Mike wore a top hat and had a cane...AND I DIDN'T GET A PHOTO OF IT GRRRRRRR...but I did get photos of the car the newlyweds were in, and it was quite crazy. Check out the pics for more details.

The reception was nice as well. Apart from the longest wait for food in history. A whole bunch of us were up in the back corner and it seriously took about 3/4 of an hour before we saw food, and when we were in the queue, it took about 15 minutes before we could actually get food. But yeah apart from that, it was really great just to catch up with people just to see what everyone's been doing recently, especially with the Chatty mission people as well.

The pics will show you what happened for both the wedding and NTE in more detail.

I've only talked about a little bit of mission and the wedding, but check out Katus' blog for more details. IT'S LONG, but has alot more detail than mine :) I'm just too lazy to type out everything and she has more QQ's and MM's than I do.

Catch you all soon!!!