Weathered

This week's mini comp assignment over at the Digital Photography School forum is 'Weathered'.

Here's my submission.

Recharge = 1 week away

Missed out on registering for the weekend? Don't worry, you can still come for the Saturday (22nd Sept). The program for the weekend is jam-packed. Here’s just some of what’s on offer on

Saturday….

Jumping Castle and Rockclimbing 2:30 – 5:00pmBounce your booty on the jumping castle and test your guns on the climbing wall.

JC Epidemic BMX Stunt Show 3:00pmJC Epidemic will take to the skies with their talented crew of BMX riders.

The Panel 4:00pm How can you change the world? Come, engage and find out about the opportunities to serve with SU, GiA, BCQ and Compassion @ the Recharge Café.

Live @ the Café 9:30pm ‘til late Relax and enjoy live music and good times @ the Recharge Café.

Footy Finals Replayed 9:30pm A complete replay of Saturday night NRL and AFL finals on the big screen baby!

Missions Night 9:30pm Could this be your mission? Sip on South American Hot Chocolate while listening to WEC, Interserve, NTM and Pioneers share cross-cultural experiences and opportunities.

So don't sit there and wonder what you should do next Saturday. Come check out Recharge at Mount Tamborine. It will be AWESOME!!Hope to see you there!

First Published Photograph

On the back page of the latest INTO Newspaper (Published by WEC Australia) is an article on this years WEC Highschooler Camps. The above photo is used in the article and is my first ever published photo.

I guess it's a bit of a cheat considering the work I'm doing and have done for WEC, but it feels good to see my photo in print.

My Spelling Sucks

Oh man sorry for that - the last post had so many spelling and grammatical errors! I was just re-reading it after I posted it, and had to edit it about 4 times.

Sometimes I can't believe I survived 12 years of schooling, plus university!

A Challenge from 12 months ago.

Looking through some old blog posts today, here's part of one I stumbled across that continues to challenge me.

It's a story I heard told, it packs a punch. So have a read and leave a comment.

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-All around the world these events happen at the same time.

Julia is in Brisbane, she’s 19 years old and driving into the Chermside Shopping Centre car park at around 8pm. Suddenly she starts praying to God with as much passion and faith that she can muster, because she has a situation that needs prayer.

At the exact same time Sara is waking up and getting her brothers and sisters ready for school. She is in Bulawayo Zimbabwe, and she spent all last night making some little craft items to take and sell at the now illegal market place just outside of town. She needs to make these sales to help feed her siblings, whom she looks after now that both her parents have died from AIDS. Sara is only 16. Before she leaves, she kneels and prays to God, please help me sell my items today, please don’t let me get arrested by President Mugabe’s police because he has tried to stop us from making money. Please keep my brothers and sisters safe while I have to leave them alone.

Back in Australia, in a Western Australian Aboriginal community, Lisa is sitting on her back porch. The ambulance has just left, taking her mother to hospital. Her father came home tonight, after going to a secret binge party. Lisa hid while her father beat her mother until some of the elders came and pulled him out of the house. The ambulance picks mother up, but her father has just returned inside and though Lisa has gotten use to the beatings, tonight her father seems even more violent. In fear she cries out to God to help her survive the night safely.

In a remote refugee camp in Somalia, Wilfred is standing in line. He’s been there for 2 hours already, and there are still so many people in front of him. But today may be the day. Today he might get to the front of the line and find out his name is on the list, the list of families granted asylum in a foreign country. Wilfred has heard Australia is a good place, and that is his first choice, but anywhere away from the war and hunger, anywhere where his 3 children can grow up safe will be fine. Wilfred stands in line and prays his name is on the list, he prays that God will save his family from all the troubles of his country.

Back to Julia, she’s still driving her 2002 model Hyundai Accent through the car park, and praying hard. You see she heard at church last Sunday that God wants to be part of every aspect of our lives, and tonight is Thursday. She’s meeting some friends for a quick dinner before heading to see a movie, and she’s a touch late. So she prays… Please God, give me a car park close to the entrance, I don’t like walking much anyway, and I’m already late. Please let there be a park, near Myers would be best, cause that’s close to the food-court… As she turns the corner she sees a white Magna reversing out of a parking spot, about 6 away from the door. “THANK YOU God!” she exclaims, waits for the space to clear, parks and walks in to meet her friends.....

What a Welcome

Also saw this on Rodney's Blog

What's the most amazing welcome you've ever received?

Well that's easy. When I arrived in Jarrol Village the response was just overwhelming. We had taken a gali-gali (African Bush Taxi/Bus) from the city and were about 3 hours late arriving in the tiny village, but the whole town had been waiting on the street since 2pm (so when we arrived at 6pm - suppose to be 3pm) they were still there and burst into spontanious song and dance.

Here's a short clip one of the girls was able to take as we drove into the village. Totally unbelievable!

Just Scraping in a weekly Thumbs Up.

Haven't had much to write about this week, it's been one of those weeks you just write off, have a break over the weekend and start again.

But tonight I headed down to City North Baptist and met up with a mate of mine who is heading out to Africa to work as an assistant cheif on the Mercy Ship.

Mercy Ships are a non profit organisation who have quite literally a floating hospital which travels the east coast of Africa. The perform free medical checks and surgeries from the ship.

So thumbs up to Tim who's giving up at least 12 months of his life to cross the world and feed the doctors, nurses and dentists who make this important ministry such a success.

Tim's been managing a McDonald's store these past years so I'm sure that experienence will be handy in a ships kitchen.

Not-so-Sunshine Coast.

It seems Thursdays have been my day to get out of the office. Yesterday I headed up the Sunshine Coast for a couple of printer swaps and helping out the Maroochydore Travel office.

Now it’s been raining in Brisbane and Ipswich, but nothing like what I experienced up the coast yesterday. I believe if this rain had been over the Wivenhoe and Summerset Dams we’d have headlines this morning like “Drought Breaks Finally” or “Dams Full”, because they would have had well over 100mm just in the time I was there.

Roads were washed out, and I saw the Maroochydore River just breaching its banks for the second time in 3 weeks.

It’s such a shame that most of that water will have no effect on the drought for farmers, or filling dams for Brisbane and the West.

It was a slightly strange experience though, I haven’t dealt with rain like that for a long long time, and driving through it was pretty tiring. I don’t mind walking in the rain these days, it’s a welcome change, but yesterday’s rain on the coast was so cold, and it was heavy enough that you were pretty well soaked by the time you walked from the car to the office.

I’m praying that today that rain will push a little more west and hit the dam catchments! Even better if it heads further west and soaks the Qld farming regions!

It Feels Different

Raining here in Qld today. It's only been 2 weeks since we've had rain, and it feels different to get some more so soon after. Usually we're hanging out for rain desperately so when it comes it's like this huge welcome relief.

This time it's almost like a continuation of a renewal. Everything was still a touch green from the last rain, and it's just getting more and more so this time. The ground hadn't hardened up again, so this time the rain is soaking more into it.

Praise God for his continued blessings.

Ouch

You pride yourself on how well you do your job. So how do you deal when you make a silly mistake that impacts a lot of people and leaves your whole section looking like a group of people who don't really know what they're doing?

Thumbs Up to Trent

Want to highlight someone making a positive difference?Is there a blogger who deserves a pat on the back or simply something that has you feeling thankful this week?The blogosphere can sometimes be a pretty negative place so I reckon it's great to make a habit of accentuating the positive.
(Rodney - The Journey)

This week I'm giving the thumbs up to a mate of mine who does some amazing photography work. I'm a pretty keen photographer as well, but I am always amazed at what Trent Rouillon comes up with.

Having photography as a bit of a hobby I look at a lot of Trent's stuff for inspiration and just some simple ideas.

I hope he doesn't mind me copying some shots of his over just to show you how amazing he is (all link back to his page).

Trent is great at shooting, but even more than that his photos always seem to display a positive attitude, either through the musicians he shoots or the landscape shots, maybe because I know Trent I can see his great outlook on life being reflected in the photos he chooses to take.

So check out http://www.trentrouillon.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/aka_music_photographer and if your in Brisbane and need a comercial photographer, Trents your man.

Sit Back, Hang on, and ENJOY THE RIDE!

It was Wednesday afternoon, and even now when I think about it I can't help but burst into a big childish grin.

Was chatting with one of the new guys from work the other week, and discussion turned to drag racing, he runs a 1985 Honda Civic.

Sounds a little boring, well it's a road registered drag car and he brought it into RACQ on Wednesday.

What a beauty - 85 Civic, but with a 2003 Integra Type R Engine modification, with a 6 speed Integra gear box. It's a pretty impressive engineering feat not to mention the other modifications (air boxes, custom CAMS, throttle off a HSV LS2 V8) and it's produces a unbelievably quick car.

An 85 Civic is a small light car, and Jason's done everything he can to make it lighter. With the engine producing 160KWs at the wheels that makes this one of the fastest road legal Civics in Australia, which is made even more impressive when you note this is NOT a turbo charged car.

His best down the quarter mile at Willowbank is an 11.6sec run. That's unreal!

So on Wednesday when Jas asked if I wanted a ride I jumped at the chance. A nice quiet road out the back of Eight Mile Plains allowed me to see just a small bit of what this car's capable of. With road tyres and not being on a purpose prepared drag strip there was no way we could take off like a drag run, there's no grip - but I was still pushed back in my seat and just lost all sense of the rest of the world as we took off. Certainly the fastest car I've ever ridden in


An unreal experience and a majorly impressive car.

He's competing in a couple of weekends time and I'm going to make sure the track chaplain will be on the start line to have a look :-P

AFL Star - Life Coach - Good Father.

James Hird.

I think everyone knows James Hird the football champion - however there are a few other layers of the man that people may not be as aware of.

I have seen (but not yet purchased) a slightly different 'biography' on James Hird. Reading the blurb on the back it doesn't seem like your typical sporting memoirs novel, but diving a little deeper into life issues, morals, good business sense and motivational thoughts. James owns the restaurant 'Red Mullet' and is renowned for his business sense and understanding of life's hurdles and how to overcome them. I'm planning on getting this book... soon.

If you've watched Essendon games on TV this season the other thing you may have noticed is whenever there's footage of Hird warming up you'll see his 3 kids, Stephanie (8), Thomas (6) and Alexander (4) either warming up with him, kicking a footy in the room or standing with 'Pa' (Sheeds). The Hird kids have pretty well free reign over the Essendon change rooms, and James involves them in every aspect of his life.

After the Richmond game on Sunday the Kevin Sheedy/James Hird press conference was delayed about half an hour. The commentators sitting in the media room at the MCG doing post game commentary suddenly realised why... after the 88 000 people had filed out of the ground, James Hird returned to the MCG goal square, with Stephanie, Thomas and Alexander, where they spent a good 25 minutes have a kick on Australia's holy ground of football. One TV camera remained active, and zoomed in on the young team having a great time with Dad.

The footage of a loving Dad, who minutes earlier had been honoured by 88 thousand people, taking the time to kick the footy with his kids out on the G was more moving than any of the other retirement tributes I'd seen.

Just have to wait 15 or so years to see another Hird pull on the number 5 jersey... there were some decent skills in those young kids...

Bye Bye Hird

Dissapointing loss, no finals chance... But 88 000 people were still at 'the G' to say goodbye to James Hird and Kevin Sheedy.

The post game footage of Hird and his 3 kids, and Sheeds walking around the fence is pretty moving.

Even during the game as they fought to not fall too far behind Hird was brilliant. That guy can do things with a football I've never seen anyone else do, he just always knows where the ball is, where his players are and exactly how to get it to them.

He's been my favourite player for so long. Right now seeing that guard of honour as the Richmond and Essendon teams line up at the tunnel is very fitting. A true champion of the game!

Seeing Double

This week's Digital Photography School assignment was 'Seeing Double'.

For the first time I decided to set up a white box and use some lighting to create a 'set' shot.

Here's my submission for this week - what do you think?

Christians should listen to Keith Green Music

Your Love Broke Through - playing at the 700 Club



Asleep in the Light - performed at Jesus Westcoast 1982. (I love his intensity in this clip! Also shows even the best and inspired can forget the words to their own songs (or mix up verses)).

Quote of the Day

"In short, Jesus moved the emphasis from God's holiness (exclusive) to God's mercy (inclusive). Instead of the message "no undesirables allowed" he proclaimed, "In God's kingdom there are no undesirables." Philip Yancey

Stranger

I'm part of the Digital Photography School Forum (http://digital-photography-school.com/forum) and each week we have a mini contest/assignment where we are given a topic or theme and have to go and specifically take a photo to meet the criteria.

For example a few weeks ago the assignment was music and I posted this photo.



And then the past weeks have been 'Transport' and 'Red' with these two photos.



This week the theme was "Photograph a Stranger and get their story", a challenge to get the nerve to actually ask someone to take a photo of them. I ended up doing something a bit different, and hopefully something that may have a touch of an impact on others reading the forum.

This was my submission and story for this week.

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I liked the idea of this assignment, went to a bakery to get some photos of strangers there.

But in the end I've come up with something a bit 'out there' and different.

Here's my stranger story.

Life goes by so quick, before you know it you're somewhere you never thought you'd be, doing something that really isn't you. I went on a work trip this week, and it was something different to my normal life. It was just enough to shake up my world.

I realised I'd fallen into such a rut of life. Wake up go to work, do my thing, talk to the same people, come home, crash in front of the telly, then go to bed just to wake up and start again. My friendships were stale, my life was slowly churning into a worthless mellow thing that wasn't doing myself or anyone else any good.

Now I believe in a God who created me and has a plan for my life. I truly believe I'm here on this earth for so much more than just doing stuff for me. Jesus taught 'Love your neighbour as yourself' and 'Go into all the world telling people about the Father'. God took the slight change in the life I'd fallen into and used my trip to Yeppoon on the Central Queensland coast as a bit of a wake me up.

I'd photographed the bakery, I'd thought about the stranger topic, but walking along the beach there... taking in the beauty of God's creation I realised that I was the stranger... I'd become a stranger to a plan thought out for me before the creation of the earth. I'd let myself move away from someone who loves me more than anyone ever could. I'd become a stranger to the one who'd given the very most, just so I could live.

I was sitting on some rocks, thinking about it all, praying as well - and I decided to take a photo. I was a stranger even to myself. My life is so not where I ever thought it was, and I have to introduce myself, my passions, my dreams and plans to me again... so I can live properly.

So with all that in mind this was the self portrait I took.


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I think that says it all, but I'm glad God took a moment to teach me a lesson, stemming from my thoughts about a photography assignment. He uses everything in our lives as a stepping stone to wisdom, and I love the way I can use photography to worship Him.

God's Own Country

As I posted before, last week I spent time up in Central Queensland. Work trips are usually hectic and crazy, this one wasn't too bad.

On Wednesday I jumped in my hire car in Rockhampton and started my drive out to Emerald. I didn't realise it was such a long drive (274km), but the whole drive was incredible.

Inland Qld is so amazingly beautiful... the whole time I was looking at the scenery, checking out the plains, the mountains, Australia's red earth and some great Aussie wildlife. I saw dingoes, emus, kangaroos (of course) and even an echidna.


So my positive post today focuses on God, and specifically the amazing he job he did when he created our great country Australia.

During the trip I sat and watched a sunset and rise over Yeppoon and some human created scenery with an intricate rail system from Rocky to Emerald, and the huge piles of mined coal in Blackwater.

God must have had a special creative moment when he came up with our sunburnt land. It's so unique, and I love it, 100% totally overwhelmed by our magnificent country. Africa's sweeping plans are beautiful, but there's no where else I'd rather be right now than surrounded by this amazing land.

Ramdom Blog Thoughts

I sat down here with nothing really in mind to write about, but wanting to sit and see what thoughts are processing in my head at the moment.

This past week has been a bit trying... I started it off by heading to Rockhampton on a business trip. To be honest I'm a little over travelling round the place, but I've always liked Rockhampton. I got to stay a night in Yeppoon as well - it's a quiet little place, I almost felt like I was staying in a retirement village :-P. The highlight of the trip was definitely sitting down to dinner and having a lady singing Mariah Carey covers to a CD all night. All the grannies seemed to like it though.

Being away from home is a good change, but after a while it just becomes problematic. It's funny how accustomed we come to the way we do things, and living out of a suitcase, having a different bed, in a different room, with a different feel just becomes unbearable after a while.

I got home really late on Wednesday night - Wednesday was the Ekka Show holiday here in Brisbane, but since I wasn't in Brisbane everywhere was open so I was still working. I'll get to take a day off sometime, but it's strange to be working when you know everyone else is having a day off!

We're rolling out new computers here at RACQ and I'm heading up the project. It's always a busy time, but with the travelling I've been doing it's made it slightly manic. So I spent Thursday and Friday installing software, testing, installing more software and testing some more. There's some pretty fiddly and complex software in this rollout and some software applications took 3 hours to install. It's amazing how much that can drain you, it's mind numbing and by the time I'd get home I was just ready to fall into bed.

Youth Group Friday night was interesting. We watched a video called "Facing the Giants" (I think), it's a film based in a Christian school with a pretty terrible football (Gridiron) team. The coach is all messed up and his life pretty well sucks. He finds out he can't have children, his car dies and he's about to loose his job cause the football team is so bad.

He consults God and decides that whatever happens he's still gonna love him. That he can't do it on his own and he needs to give everything to Jesus (very 'modern evangelical' lingo used).

He talks to his football team with a new passion. How not just in football but their life they have to give everything to God, that win, loose or draw they need to praise God. Then very next day the football team leads a revival at the school - groups of kids everywhere praying.

The next football training session there's a marked improvement in their skills, and determination - all the credit given to God.

They win their next 6 games straight!

One of the players makes up with his Dad, and the Dad is so thankful he buys the coach a new car.... the football team make the play offs and loose their first game, BUT, the other team is disqualified the next day due to playing some college aged footballers.

All the credit is given to God.

The football team then win their next 3 play off games and make the state final... the game goes bad in the first half until there's a big 'God-talk' at half time by the coach and they come back to almost win near the end... in the last play they back the new 'kicker' (who's a soccer player but trying out at football) and God performs a miracle and allows the kicker to kick a 51 yard field goal to win the match!

The same day the coaches wife finds out she's pregnant!

Now can God do all this??? Yes I think he can! But does God usually give people everything they want once they turn to him? Not usually… praying to God to perform a miracle 51 yard field goal sort of finished off a bad taste in my mouth about the whole film.

I showed it to my youth group boys because it was recommended as a good ‘life issues’ story. Even the boys thought it was all to good to be true, and didn’t reflect what God had done in any of their lives.

We discussed it a bit, me asking them how some of the missionaries I lived with in The Gambia would feel watching this movie, considering they’d been working 15 years in a village and only seen 2 converts?

Do we expect God to meet all our needs? What makes us think we know what our needs are? Do we expect God to hand us a State Championship just because we follow him? Do we expect him to let us kick 51 yards when we’ve only ever been able to kick 35 before that?

Or do we look at what we can do for others in our community and ask God to give us what we need to accomplish their needs?

I think I ask for the field goal too often, and forget my life is not about me, but about being Jesus to the world.