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6/27/2006


Monday Vs. Tuesday 

Well prac has started this week and I've made it to day two.

Monday was a disaster. I didn't have enough time over the weekend to plan anything decent for Monday morning's double period, so I ended up getting up at 2am (after going to bed at 11pm!) to try and get this lesson finished! I was so nervous and unprepared (how confidant can you really be when you have to wake up at 2am?!) that I stuttered and mumbled through the first hour. Thankfully I was able to introduce them to the new task so I could give them the next hour to work on it.

By third period I was so delerious with tiredness I couldn't even think straight, much less talk straight and I had to take another class that afternoon! I hate feeling unprepared... its like one of the worst feelings! Plus one of my classes wouldn't stop talking through my lesson even thought I tried for sympathy points and told them how knackered I was! I was on the verge of throwing the towel in.

I had to keep myself from falling asleep in the car all the way home, and then to find myself at home crashed on the bed. In what supposed to be a 'nap' to recoup before I had to make my way to The Furnace, turned into a 2 hour endevour and an hour late for my monking duties! Sleep deprived, exhausted and frazzled. Yes..Monday was not a good day for me...

Today thank God, was alot better. Being with the students in my refreshed attitude and state of mind made me realise that despite yesterday, I really do enjoy being with them. The funny thing was, there was a class I thought I was just going to go through the exam with, but within 5 mins of walking in there I realised that I had already done that with them previously! I had nothing prepared to teach! So quickly I skim read the textbook for a couple of minutes, jotted down some main points and then improvised a lesson on australian culture and values - I can't believe I managed to pull off that 2 hour lesson but it went surprisingly well!

Thats just like life isn't it? You have your up days when you feel like you have the world at your feet and then you have your bad days where you just want to curl up and cry. Like what Pastor Gerad says "never get off the train when you're in a tunnel" - never give up when the going gets tough because tomorow is going to be brighter and pushing through just builds in me more character. And when we still don't know what to do, we just stand and refuse to be swayed.

Its an amazing feeling when you know you are walking in God's Will for your life :)




6/25/2006


The Mercy Ministries Gala Ball 

It was such a wonderful night!

I felt like a fly on the wall watching the beautiful beginning of a fairytale for my friend... ahh, hopes and dreams :)

Not only did the night end there though... from ballgowns to ugg boots we went to another friends house to watch the soccer at 2am, Australia vs. Croatia! Nothing like going to bed at 6am, waking up at 11am and having Tim tams for breakfast!


The Mercy Ball 2006 + Me, Cazzie and Ruthie


The Girls: Me, Reeze, Ruth and Carrie + The big band


Gaz and Reeze + the beautiful table centre pieces


The audience + Caz and Robbie


I'm loving this season at the moment :)




6/22/2006


Princess for a night 

What is it about preparing for a ball that makes everything seem so beautiful? From the hair, makeup and the dress to the anticipation as you walk through those doors. When you're going to a ball you just know its going to be a beautiful night. I suppose its something in every girls heart to want be a princess, or at least look the part if only for one night.

Tonight Ruth and I are going to the Mercy Ministries Gala Ball and though we are not attending as guests but are there to serve the night, its been exciting just getting ready and getting all dressed up! Its also an exciting night for my friend whos been asked to go by a great guy at our church! I'm so excited for her! Theres something so beautiful and nice about being chosen, especially by a great guy! She so deserves this blessing and more :)

I'm feeling so priviledged I can be a part of tonight, to be an active part of making this Mercy House happen. We need a house here, there are so many girls who are hurting and the eastern states is just so FAR to go to get help! Tonight we are helping to serve the vision of a bigger picture, to know we are a part of this adventure too - its such a great feeling!

Tonight: I'm feeling like a princess and playing a part in an big adventure... I almost have all three! My friend much deservingly will have the third: to be treated like a princess :) Yay!




6/19/2006


5 church services later... 

I fell asleep on the couch before the Soccer World Cup even started at 12am last night. Carrie and Ruth being the troopers they, are managed to stay up and watch the rest of Brazil beating the Soccoroos 2:nil. Just as well I am backing England too!!

This weekend has just fully caught up with me. After going to about 5 church services and organising bits and pieces, its no wonder I passed out on the couch at the stroke of 12! This Sunday's service was great - convicting and challenging. It really made me think about where I am right now and how I got there. Because I really don't know how in the world I got to where I am, and many times I just think about how in over my head I am with this whole leadership thing. Pastor Gerad talked about the time when Pastor Brian Houston asked him to be the regional leader over all these influencial people and how he went home totally freaking out. He wrote a list of why he wasn't the person to do this and planned to share this with Pastor Brian the next day. I just had to laugh when I heard that because that is so me, I thought the 'I can't do this because..' list was something only I would do! My life is such a demonstration of God's Grace, its crazy.

I just love how real Pastor Gerad is, hes so relateable, honest and funny! He doesn't beat about the bush at all and yet he and Pastor Sue are soo lovely! On the way home all Ruth and I could talk about was how excited and grateful we are to be a part of Sunset Coast. There is something so sweet about the DNA of it, its so welcoming and feels so much like home. Its the sort of church that I know that if you were standing there alone for 30 seconds I would assure you someone would come up and talk to you! Yep, I love my home church!

Sunday night was fun! I dragged Ruth along with me to help out with a Furnace prayer meeting at City International Church. Before I got there I didn't really have any idea on what the night was about, only that I was there to 'carry the wood' whatever it may be! The night was a success and powerful (plus a tad challenging for me with the public speaking - but hey, its all character growing stuff!).

The amazing thing is I think for me is that I've found that the more I spend time with God down at the Furnace the more I'm starting to feel my heart line up with God's heart. For example me having a heart for missions - which is totally crazy because a year ago I would of told you with a definite 'no' to going on a missions trip. But more than anything my heart for people to get saved. There are so many people who just have no idea what a relationship with God is all about. There's always something ecstatic about the altar call at church where I just feel my heart beating faster knowing there are going to be people responding to God. Where people are beginning a journey to have their lives transformed! Its just so exciting!! Its amazing how we start getting a heart for that which we pray for.

This week is going to be another full on week. With Club180, Powercell, the african dinner and the Mercy Ministries Gala Ball, I just calculated I'm out every night for the next 11 days straight!

Life's busy - but its so good, exciting and challenging!




6/12/2006


Club180 

I've proberly mentioned it many a time how much I love serving in our new christian department. Robbie and I have joked about how its 'where the rubber hits the road', where spiritually it is the frontlines of battle and effort wise its a 24/7 job! Some days are just plain hard but the fruits of it is so rewarding.

This weekend in church I was watching one of the girls I've seen discipled through club180, and just seeing her flourish in God on her own now; passionate, committed and serving. Seeing that just makes every heartbreak and tear worth it. Wow, God is so good! We have such a great servant hearted team with a 'whatever it takes!' attitude.

I just wanted to share with you a blurb from our Club180 women's meeting we had recently that really just captured the heart of what it means to be a daughter of the King:
Her heart knows her value to the King
Her heart knows her value to others
Her heart knows her purpose in life is Big
Her heart hears the call to rise up and overcome
Her heart loves her Creator with abandon.

Serving in Club180 is so inspiring.




6/10/2006


Sunset Coast CLC's grand opening 

Amazement - I think that's the only word I can use to describe how I am feeling right now. Privileged comes a close second.

Tonight was the grand opening for my church and the night was for me something beyond my wildest imagination. I think its finally caught up with me the magnitude of Gods hand at work in my life and in the life of my church family. I am still reeling at how far God has brought us. I wished the night never had to end.





I was sitting there in the service thinking about how the DNA of Sunset Coast is something so unique, its so sweet. The faithfulness of the people in the house and the friendliness and love. Even as Pastor Brian Houston gave a word to Tony our worship leader I just felt so proud of him and I just thought "Wow Tony, good for you!!!".




The other day I was in the car with Ruth and I just turned to her and said "thanks", she laughed and said "for what?!" and I replied "for inviting me to church!". Sunset Coast is my church family, I love it and I am so priviledged to be a part of it!

Feelings right now:total amazement.




6/07/2006


Buzz buzz 

This week is a HUGE week in the life of my church and tonight was buzzing. Everyone was there climbing ladders, hanging cables, cleaning and sound checking, all in preparation for tomorrow's Just For Her woman's conference. Boy, was there an excitement in the air. I just love how Sunset Coast just does everything with excellence, the whole go hard or go home attitude. From the decorations, to the gifts and care to which everything had been done, it was all so beautiful. I know the women tomorrow are going to be so blessed by it! We have some awesome guest speakers coming to the conference, and not to mention our official church opening this Friday with Brian Houston from Hillsong Sydney. Wow, such a priviledge, so much to be grateful for!

Something else that is totally crazy and totally made Ruth's day (because she loves this) is that we are getting a Gloria Jeans Coffee in our church! How CRAZY is that?! Wow, Sundays mornings are never going to be the same again, I'm going to be bright and perky on that information desk!

Friday night is going to be HUGE. We had a meeting for the Club180 team and its both nerve racking and exciting to be preparing for the alter call. We just don't know what to expect, my stomach is all jittery just thinking about it! Gods hand is going to move powerfully that night and I hope that we can do everything we can to be flexible and accommodate.

I am totally in awe at God for how our church has grown from the handful of people that used to meet in an ECU lecture room to what we have now. And its not because we are anything great or have had it handed down into our laps but because we have laid that foundation. Week in week out, rain or shine faithfully setting up church and pulling it down every weekend in that ECU gym. Faithfully picking kids up, dropping them home, someone even getting a mini van to do this. So much blood, sweat, tears and much prayer has gone into this. It is such a testament of God's faithfulness.

I'm not saying we are there yet, but we are definately birthing into a new season. :)




6/06/2006


Softness. 

It is so beautiful. How I love softness. I could fall into softness.

Instead it should be your innerself, the unfading beauty if a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth to God.

~ 1 Peter 3:4




6/02/2006


ECU IBM Advantage photo mission - Part 2 



The Mt Lawley Megalab has so many IBM Advantage posters scattered on the walls its almost embarrassing. But what really made me laugh was that in one of them someone drew a moustache and glasses on my face! Ahh.. gotta love it!:















6/01/2006


The Vision 

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this:
The vision?

The vision is JESUS - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.


Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

~ 24-7Prayer.com





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