Q: What do you call a man with a shovel on his head?
A: Doug

Yes, I know everyone's heard that before, and so have I. But I got such a funny mental picture when I heard that read out today at a Christmas lunch.

Back to NTE....spiritually it was awesome. Most of the time during the Canberra part, I was feeling physically dodgy but spiritually excellent! Both Richard and Phillip gave very challenging but reassuring talks (I love it when talks are both simultaneously). Although, I *still* don't know why Richard is so against portraying images of Jesus. He brought it up last year aswell (fair enough, when he was talking about Deuteronomy) but I didn't really understand why he thought it necessary to bring it up again. For me, it's a secondary issue. But anyhoo, other than that I liked the talks. God is completely awesome...and we are living anno domini...the year of our Lord. I loved the distinction between BC and AD...it really showed how different we are to the rest of the world, and how we *should* be different.

I was really inspired to pray...for the world, for IFES around the world, for missionaries, for churches, for AFES campuses...prayer is such a beautiful thing because we can make a difference, we can talk to God, *anywhere* and anytime. I don't pray enough, though.

Mission in Blacktown was a very good experience....at first I was kind of sad that the team was split up, but really, i thought our Blacktown team was full of awesome people, and we all worked together really well. Ben Johnson is an absolute legend, and so is his wife, Louise. Just to see their genuine compassion for the people of Blacktown, especially those who are disadvantaged, and to also see their faithfulness to the gospel in all of this, was really encouraging. I was really impressed with everyone, especially people who gave talks and testimonies eg. Rohan, Lauren, Tiff and Chris telling a story to the Sunday School creche kids.

One thing that has challenged me from this mission, for stuff with my own church, is to be more explicit with the gospel. It's great to sing beautifully and God can really minister to people through music, but then its also really important to have the gospel presented clearly in words. And there are also a lot of disadvantaged people around my church....lots of opportunities to reach out to people.

It's not even Christmas and i've already been having so many Christmas dinners. Yesterday was the church fellowship annual dinner, and today was the retirement home dinner. Me and my friend Lupe sang there so we were invited to the dinner. And tonight is my dad's birthday, so there will be a dinner tonight aswell!