Month in Review - April

http://jarrolspot.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

April brought many highs and lows – most of those on the AFL field. The Bombers have had some great games, great success, but also had some really poor performances (The ANZAC Day Collingwood game was terrible, great fire at the start but come the second quarter they just decided they didn’t want to play football anymore).

ANZAC Day is always special to me. I grew up with a Dad working in the RAAF, so ANZAC Day always included watching him march or going to a dawn service. After the East Timor crisis I learnt first hand what it was like to have a father called away to active duty. Even though he never left Australia, he was called away from home urgently and was away for over a month.

The ANZACs are the true Aussie heroes in my books. What they did for us defies belief, and they truly deserve our respect and a whole day set aside to remember them.

Easter is always a special time as well. Tamborine Convention this year was brilliant. Definitely the best camp I’ve been on all year. I’m still getting stuff out of what was spoken on, and finding new applications for it in my life.

Blog wise I’ve been slightly sport orientated with AFL and Motorsport taking up a fair bit of time. Also I found some great short videos from when I was in The Gambia – if you haven’t seen those check them out!

We also said farewell to Audio Adrenaline – sad times – and remember some of the great music they’ve brought to the Christian music scene!

Check out this link to read all the April posts.
http://jarrolspot.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

How do you relate to this????

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

James 4:1-3

Adios Audio A

This weekend also marked the end of an era. Audio Adrenaline who have been around for as long as I can remember played their last concert!

Audio A were like the younger, cooler, sillier DC Talk - and they are part of what's made the Christian music industry what it is today.

I've had the privilege of seeing AA live twice, at two different Sonfest festivals. The second time they were the only band that could draw me back into the crazy moshpit! (But hey I'm getting old).

Actually talking about age - we had a Adios AA party on Saturday night, and I showed my age by claiming "Bloom" as my favorite AA album, when most of the other people at the party were too young to remember that one!

In that vibe though, here's the song that made them a hit - off the Bloom record I might add!!! Big House

Will miss ya guys, loved it all!!! Even The Hairbrush Song!

Time Off

ANZAC day on Wednesday gave a great opportuinty to take 2 days off and end up with a 5 day weekend. I'd sort of planned to sit down and write down some of the thoughts that have been swimming around in my head, but instead I just chilled out and had a real 'break'.

It was great, I watched a couple of DVDs, caught up with some friends and even went for a bit of a Hot Rod run, something I haven't done in a very long time.

Saturday was the National Tin Top Titles out at Willowbank, and this weekend was also Whitehill's family camp - which Dad went to leaving me as the sole chaplain at the drags. It went really well, not having Dad there gave me a chance to build my own relationships with the guys at the track, and we had a good day.

Maybe I'll write some of that other stuff up soon... but it's funny, when you think about a whole heap of stuff to write, sometimes it just doesn't fit the mood you're in when you come to blog.

Right now I just feel like updating you all - but I heard an amazing speaker - Dr Sookhdeo - at City North Baptist last Sunday and I want to tell you a bit about that. I bought two of his books as well so I might leave it until I've finished to delve into what he's on about.

Anyway catching up with people is great, so let me know what you've been doing - and on that note I read today a mate of mine in WA. Craig, has been pretty ill. So please just pray God with continue to hold his hand as he recovers.

Thanks

Off

Working in Towsnville and Cairns the next few days, catch ya on the flip side....

Old Videos ~ Good Memories

Was checking out some of my stuff from The Gambia tonight, and came across a couple of videos Phil and Erin took while they were there. I loaded 2 of them up, causeI remember each moment so clearly, and it was just such a great time.

Here have a look.


In the Banjul markets, these guys were trying to sell us a drum, they were pretty impressed when I picked one up and played with them... pity the video wasn't still rolling.




This was our welcome to Jarrol. The whole village had come out to greet us and were running along with the Geli-geli (Bush Taxi).

I miss The Gam so much!

Berry insightful.

Here's a story and some good life changing stuff I learnt from Ray Andrews over Easter.

Out in the African desert, there is a pretty primitive tribe. The land they live on is harsh, and does not produce food. The only food they can grow is a plant that has very bitter leaves. This is the only food that they have which is a good source of nutrients, but it tastes awful.

The tribe are forced to eat this unpalatable food, simply to stay alive. The key however is a small berry bush which will also survive the harsh conditions.

The tribes people take a small berry and with every meal they first place the berry in the corner of their mouth. The extremely sweet taste of the berry overpowers the bitterness of the other food and they are able to contently eat the nutritious leaves, which taste so horrible.

No matter how bitter the plant or leaves are, they take on the flavour of the small berry.

So here’s the question… what’s your berry? What is it that you can place in the little corner of your life, so that everything good or bad – bitter or sweet – unpalatable or lovely – takes on the flavour of that berry. The simple fact is that ‘unpalatable’ things are going to happen in life, the loss of a loved one, a frustrating day, an annoying child on the train… but if you keep a berry in your mouth all those things (though painful at the time) can be dealt with through the flavour of the berry.

Ray shared this, and then graciously shared his berry as well – which I like a lot – and it comes from Romans 11:36

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his
glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. (NLT)

Jesus is in everything, nothing can come without him knowing about it, or the ability to do something about it. He is in all, through all and by all… I plan to keep that berry in my mouth no matter what comes. Spitting it out at hard times is only going to make things worse for me, no one else.

What’s your berry? You can have mine if you want.

Catching up with Friends...

There’s 2 people I’d really like to mention that I just had the best time catching up with over the Easter weekend.

First off, for those who’ve read my blog for a while you may remember my mate Jono. Last year he had a motorcross accident and broke his neck. Doctors said he’d never walk again, but he proved them wrong in just over 2 weeks – it was amazing to see him recover so quickly and I was able to visit him every week of the 3 months he spent in hospital. But I’d only seen him once since then until last weekend.

If you didn’t know Jono, or hadn't heard about his accident you would have no idea that he’d ever broken his neck (especially in the last 12 months!) He’s back out in Chinchilla working as a School Chaplain and still loving it. It really was a blessing to get a chance to hang out with him, and even kick a footy with him.

The other person is someone I haven’t been able to see a lot of for the last few years because she’s been living so far away – for the last 18 months Wendy has been teaching at Hebron School in India, and before that she was teaching in Bowen. I grew up admiring and being encouraged by Wendy (who is 3 years older than me), she was always the girl at Youth Group everyone looked up to, and personally her Christian walk was something I always aspired to follow, just because she was such a servant-hearted person with a deep relationship with Jesus.

Wendy’s home just for 10 days, Carol, her sister, is due to have her first baby so she’s come home to hopefully be around for that. Just seeing Wendy is a joy, but to get a chance to sit and have a good chat, and a pretty competitive game of Taboo was probably the highlight of my weekend.

Something Rodney said over on his blog is so true…

After all the years I've been on this earth I'm still amazed by just how good it is to catch up with friends. We spend so much of our time trying to achieve things that will never satisfy and we leave less and less time to connect with the people that are important to us. I hope you took time out over the Easter long weekend to reconnect with friends.

Well Rodney I did, and I appreciate their friendship so much it made my weekend (and year!!!) to see them again!

Easter 07

Oh yeah what a weekend!

This year I went back to my roots, by passing Toowoomba and the Australian Gospel Music Festival and instead heading up Tamborine Mt for the Easter Keswick Convention.

Keswick’s ‘Convention Statement’ is “ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS” – and this weekend I really felt we lived up to that, it was the best time I’ve had in a long time socially, as well as some awesome teaching from two great preachers.

Eis Van Dijk from Austria (originally Dutch though) and Ray Andrews from Coffs Harbour (originally Irish) were the speakers. Simply – they were awesome! The messages were focused on Jesus, wanting to be part of our world, Easter was a great backdrop to these messages for the obvious reason of it being the time when he did actually become part of our world physically and totally change it forever!

Eis and Ray never compared notes, they’d come from opposite sides of the earth, yet their messages followed on from each others like a single sermon series – it was truly amazing, and God inspired! I think Ray missed his calling as a stand up comedian, because he had us all rolling off our seats in fits of laughter – his mannerisms, quick whit and funny accent (Irish :-p) were enough to make everyone in the meetings laugh till they cried. Eis was a funny bloke too – and the routine of them paying each other out became a bit of a highlight of the weekend.

To be honest my most enjoyable moments of the camp weren’t the speaking (though it was great), but just a real chance to catch up with a heap of people I don’t usually spend a lot of time with, and meeting a whole heap of new people. I didn’t go to bed before midnight all weekend – we stayed up singing bad 80’s songs and playing guitar, or playing Monopoly – or on the last night sitting up at the Beacon and being a part of the greatest prank I’ve ever seen!!!

A group of us had decided to go up to the Beacon (a lookout off over the inland plains of the Gold Coast and Beenleigh), a mate got there a little before myself and another guy – he was able to make the most awful animal in pain sort of noise I’ve ever heard. He had David and I for a moment before he showed himself and we had a good laugh – then we heard the group of girls coming along so decided to try the prank again on them. It worked a treat – mainly because of Grant’s commitment to the prank he stayed in the bush for over an hour, throwing his voice to sound further away and spending about 30 minutes in silence to make the girls think the ‘scary animal’ had gone away.

It all ended with a loud cry, rustling leaves and Grant running out towards us… and 4 terrified girls running up the road in panic. 20 minutes later these girls still had the shakes and Grant, David and I still had the giggles. It was AWESOME!

Anyway that aside – lots of fun was had, we led the youth in a Songs of Praise chorus night with old Sunday School favourites like "Father Abraham”, “Be Bold”, “Blind Man” and some other golden oldies – as well as some modern choruses like “My Redeemer Lives”.

Nothing like those old time praise songs though, sitting round singing those with a whole heap of old and new friends was better than any of the music AGMF could have offered me :-)

"Um maybe we should have studied..."

Well if you don't know the answer, you might as well use some creativity.


I wish I'd had the guts to do something like this at school...








Haha I love the hang man, how many times did I feel like that in the middle of a Maths exam!

Month in Review - March

http://jarrolspot.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Wow, looking back over my March blog posts, it's hard to believe I've packed so much into 31 days!

The one thing you've all been waiting to hear is the results of the RACQ Coffee naming Competition. Well after submitting some RACQ themed names I was cut down by the winning name of 'Fusion' - pretty lame if you ask me... maybe I'm just bitter I still have to pay for my lunches :-P

Dad and I had our first race meet of the year, and unfortunatly our first fatal accident. We are still working through follow up and counselling, so your prayers for the Willowbank team are still appreciated.

The sporting year kicked off with the V8 Series starting and AFL as well. The first 2 rounds of the V8s have gone to Holden, so not much to talk about there :-P - but I have been really impressed by the Dick Johnson racing team, their speed this year is a vast improvement - good to see my favourite team getting better! Same goes for the AFL with the Bombers notching their first win (though that was April 1st).

Camps have been a bit of a theme as well - and with Easter this weekend I'm off again to Tamborine Mt - can't wait. I think that's all prompted some really thinking on my faith, and just who and what we are when we're part of the body of Christ. I've learnt a fair bit - hopefully I've been able to share it in a way that you have too.

Again if you missed any, they're all right here - http://jarrolspot.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Good camp - and some blood.

I was waiting to get my photos off the camera before I mention the City North Baptist Young Adults Discipleship Camp.

That was last weekend, and I had a great time. However in true Deano style, I managed to have a pretty spectacular spill.

We were kicking a footy on the field, and the ball was heading towards the edge into the bush – I managed to chase it down and stop it just before it started down the slope… however I didn’t stop.

It was pretty steep, and there were rocks half sticking out of the ground. With my bad ankle all I could think of was avoiding those rocks. Suddenly the bush was all around me and I felt a vine grab at my ankle, acting like a trip wire, and I face planted…

… right into a heap of Lantana vines!!!!

My momentum carried me into the middle of the vines and I just couldn’t get up, everywhere I put my hands thorns dug in, and I couldn’t push myself up. In the end I half rolled, half crawled out of the vines and made my way back up the hill. It was only when I got to the top I realised I’d cut up my legs pretty bad.



I had 4 more grazes like that over both my legs. But worse was my hand, I’d put it out to stop my fall, and cut it up a bit. All my joints were cut, and it swelled up a bit, it hurt but it all got better pretty quick.

So all last week I was in pain cause my skin was stretching over the grazes or my pants were catching on it… this week I’m just itchy as they dry out and start to heal.

Apart from that it was an awesome camp (though the ‘accident’ allowed me to meet everyone… if you don’t know many people on a camp, walking out of the bush bleeding is a quick way to have everyone know you :-P). Ivan Bowden spoke on The Holy Spirit, and I enjoyed most of what he had to say. Sometimes I wondered how solid his arguments were, but that’s just prompting me to do some further study – which isn’t a bad thing I guess.

We also did a photo scavenger hunt thing, and I’ll throw a few photos just cause they’re funny.



The camp was at Luther Heights in Coolum Beach - beautiful spot. Here's the view I woke to each morning.