NTE
The conference: The Fellowship of the King
I didn't burn out on conference, which was good. Although it was really really overwhelming. There were so many people that I had never seen and will probably never see again during this time on earth. There were so many people who knew nothing about Sydney, and knew nothing about a lot of the things that are central to my identity - where I come from, the places I frequent, the people I know. It really drove home the fact that at the end of the day, my identity is fixed around what Jesus has done: check out Colossians 2:9-12. Once that was sorted out it got a bit easier.
But even among all these random people, I made heaps of new friends, who I hope I will keep for ages. There were so many people in the Sydney Uni group who I had never ever met before. I met Josh and Guy a couple of days into the conference. Argh they are absolutely hilarious. I met Liz a couple of days in too. I can't believe I have never met her on campus before. It will be fantastic hanging out with them next year.
And best ever - Fiji team! There was a group of Fijians who came over for the conference. I have never met people so full of love for each other and for God. They would stay up to the early hours sharing in fellowship - reading and singing together and just chatting. And then they would wake up every morning at 5 to pray and read again. And they never seemed to get tired - they enjoyed doing it. I feel really lazy and apathetic when I think about how I act compared to them.
Tim, Matt and James and their EU shirts
Me, Sarah and Liz
Josh, Gloria and Guy
Guy and Josh are rhe best Fijian dancers ever
Breaking it down oh yeah
Semi, me, Bill and Josh
Some of Fiji team. Luis and Monica from Mexico are in there too. And also Liz from Queensland.
Mission: Belmore Anglican Church
We left the conference on Wednesday afternoon. Half our USYD group went to Belmore Anglican. We were billeted out to lovely families (mine was the best - Bruce and Fay, who owned a caravan and have gone all over Australia, and also all over the world, although not necessarily in their caravan). On Thursday, we visited nursing homes and helped out at the seniors lunch. On Friday we visited the high school and ran the after school kids groups. On Saturday we prepared for Sunday. There were three services (which meant three sermons), plus a kids talk and three different teams to lead the sunday school groups. And Sunday evening was a Carols festival, which turned out to be a Fusion thing (like the stuff Kylie (smileystar03) has been doing down in Tassie!). The festival was heaps of fun. There were games and face painting and balloons and food and singing - and all of it for free!
Hanging out in the church... hehe, we're so lame but it was fun anyway :P
This is Gus and Jeremy looking like they just got out of bible college
Matt looking spaced out
Christina and Beth are poi masters
Gus pretending to be a scary preacher
Iona and I got into the Sunday school costumes
Alison and Eddie
Hank Purple and Jeremy
Kids Plus on Friday arvo
More Kids Plus - Jonno dressed as Simeon (from Luke: 2:25-35)
More Kids Plus - Karen, I think she is a shepherd
Playing with the stuff for the Carols festival
We are so cool cause we switched our thongs around
Guy tries to teach Josh Napoleon Dynamite's dance moves
Jeremy, Christina and Gus
Beth and Jacque
Team Belmore
Getting our groove on
Bruce and Fay, the best temporary parents one could ask for
Sunday school activity
Josh looking heaps trendy
Sunday school at the Sudanese service
Jack Attack - the scariest and most dangerous child in the entire world. He had teeth like I have never before seen in a seven year old's mouth.
Rochelle at the festival
CHILDREN'D
Also at festival
Yeah, I am getting tired, and my sentence forming mechanisms in my brain are flailing and failing. Here, dot form - best times of NTE:
- The way God sustained me throughout the whole thing
- Learning neat Fijian dancing
- Eating lots of icecream after every dinner whilst in Canberra
- Playing hackey in the National Museum
- Being repeatedly pushed into bushes by Christina
- Dan, Josh and Guy sharing the gospel with a curator from the museum until the museum closed
- Listening to a budding children's entertainer from Wollongong Uni
- Running into Joel from Indiechurch/COL gigs (the only random person I met who I already knew out of the 1000 people there)
- Hearing from all the missionaries
- The fantasticness of the kids at Belmore Anglican
- The fantasticness of the retro hip hop that was constantly playing in Christian's car
- Walking around the streets of Belmore singing carols
- Singing Captain Planet with Liz, Christina, Josh, Guy, Karen and Iona
- Listening to Jars of Clay with Eddie
- Eating lots of Chinese Cabbage salad
- Obsessively quoting Napoleon Dynamite with Josh and Guy
- Teaching the memory verse at the carols with Jeremy
- Denning turning up at the carols because he goes to that church
- Helping Jacque find jobs for next year (which was actually sad, but still memorable)
- Repeated trips to Roselands for stationary and lollies
- My christmas card
- People who were nice when you went door knocking
- Meeting a George and Tony at the nursing home
It was gold.
It finished at about 10:30 on Sunday night, with all of us standing in a circle praising and thanking God for who he is and what he has done. Then everybody cried and went home. Except that Christina, Josh and myself didn't go home, we went to Guy's house. We watched Napoleon Dynamite and Cirque du Soleil and read 1 Corinthians and then the sun started coming up so we walked through the streets and watched the sky change colour.
NTE was stretched out til 5:00 this arvo. After the joy of spending 10 days in a loving Christian community and going out to the suburbs and sharing God's love with people of all cultures, it was strange to come home and hear that in the meantime Sydney has beome a hub of bigotry and violence. I want to go back to the community I left behind, but I know that that's not the way it works. There's no way that the problems can be solved if we stay in our holy huddles. Ugh. Getting out and facing the world is so hard. Thank heavens God doesn't let us do it on our own strength.