Trailer trouble and birthday party

I was writing an email to a friend of mine and realized I had a good story for the blog and I hadn’t put it up here yet.

One of our weekly ministry teams was on their way to a community to help out in the area and long after they should have been there, my supervisor received a phone call from their leader. When he hung up the phone, he turned to me and said he needed a favour. The team had a van (bus by Australian definition) pulling a trailer with some supplies for the day and the van had broken. Most of the team went on ahead without the supplies, but a few people stayed with the van and trailer. We needed to find a tow truck to get the van to a garage and I went out to get the trailer. Well, when I found then, we hooked up the trailer to the car I was driving (borrowed since mine doesn’t have a hitch) and checked the lights; only to find they didn’t work. We found the problem (blown fuse in the car) and fixed it. We tried the lights again and blew another fuse. The wiring on the trailer was not set up right for the car so there would be no way to use the signal or break lights; but we still needed to get it back home. So I started back with another car on my tail being my signal lights for me and shortly before we got back, I saw some flashing lights and found a traffic inspector who had pulled someone over. I drove past him with much apprehension and stopped at a red light just a short distance along the road. Next thing I know, the inspector is pulling up beside me at the same light. Now I had a dilemma. If he ended up behind me in the turn, he could see my signals weren’t on, and if he got in front of me, he could see the same in his mirror. So I prayed quickly that God would blind him to me for a moment (we’re allowed to pray that kind of thing right?), then I made sure I kept him beside me through the turn and then drove really slowly so he would get out of sight before I had to make another turn. It just barely worked, as I made the next turn only seconds after he was out of sight, and I was thankful to be off the road.

On another topic, I went out with a group for a friend’s birthday yesterday. Ate some good German food, had a good time, got home late and tired, and took some good pictures. Here are some highlights.




The famous landmark. I hadn't seen it in a while so I had to take a picture... We drove to a train station and took the train to this spot, then got on a ferry for the remainder of the trip. Betty, you'll be seeing this place and likely getting a tour of the building while you're visiting!




Here are some of the guys on the boat. We tried taking a picture with the background in it but it was blurry because of the dark.






After dinner, we went to another place and some of the people started dancing.








...While others watched








And on the way home, I got this great shot. I really liked the way the lights and the stars in the clear sky were reflecting off the water. It would have been romantic if...

Colour and Album Recording

Well, Colour Conference is now done. Like I thought, I would have been lucky to get 6 hours of sleep per night. Wednesday was an easy day, leaving at 7AM and being done my part around 2PM (home just before 3) while the choir stayed to practice in the evening. Thursday was 6AM to 12:00AM, Friday and Saturday were 6 to 12:30, then Sunday was “easier” again leaving home at 7:15, getting almost an hour at home between church and album recording, and then getting home just before 1AM. I spent somewhere between 14 and 17 hours per day on my feet. It’s definitely tough but knowing that almost 17,000 women were impacted at the conference and millions of people will be impacted by the album that’s coming out; it’s worth it. It felt good to sleep in as long as my body would allow this morning – waking up for the day after a long 7 hour night. Hopefully, I can get to bed earlier tonight and possibly even take a nap.

I spent most of my time at the conference doing venue control (similar to security but without the legal rights and liabilities of security people) outside the lounge where all the key speakers, pastors, and their guests went to relax – making sure that only a select few get in while the rest are turned away graciously. It’s the same thing I do for the weekend services at church. As you can well imagine, dealing with people who are known by millions around the world and keeping them free from disturbance and distraction during their breaks can be quite delicate. To make things clearer and easier to enforce, most people allowed into this area have a special pass. Yea, MOST of them – not all.

Even the best of us make mistake in this area. One person on my team asked one of the key speakers for a pass shortly after she got off stage; some of the pastors that are around the church every weekend were asked for passes; and I even had an interesting one. A young lady wanted to come into the lounge with a friend of hers. She had the appropriate pass but he did not so I explained this to her and she graciously told me it was alright for him to be there with her. This being a common line that I receive, I told her that I had orders from my leaders that meant I could not let him in. She kindly informed me that her mother was the person running the conference and the person with her was her boyfriend. Upon asking who her mother was, I realized she had a lot more pull than I do. Brian and Bobbie Houston’s daughter can take anyone she wants into any area of the building at almost any time. Oops. She was very good about it and my colleagues had a good laugh at me telling them about this. Despite this little error, I was greatly honoured when my team leader said he was going to specifically ask for me to be on his team in this position for Hillsong conference in July.

There were a few interesting experiences during the conference. One lady told me at one point “There’s too many women around here!” Excuse me, were you expecting something different at a women’s conference? I mentioned this to one of the girls on my team and she just looked at me with indifferent eyes and informed me that she had said the same thing only 5 minutes earlier.

We also had one man causing a minor disturbance outside the door so our paid security man came over to help out. This guy is a few inches taller than I am and built like a rock. He’s one of biggest men I’ve ever met but also one of the most gentle. Within 5 minutes, the man was sharing his life story on his way back to his car.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the event…



The conference started with a grand opening which was truly grand. I was able to catch part of it including some dancers on stage and swinging gracefully through the air above stage. A few people (including me) commented that the only thing we had ever seen that was comparable was the Olympic games opening ceremonies. Here's a shot of one part. A woman started singing in an absolutely heavenly voice and continued as her platform rose about 30 feet up and the audience joined in singing.



This is what almost 17,000 women in one place looks like. Amazing! The largest indoor facility in Sydney was filled with women focused on God!







Another team member and me at our post.









There was quite a rush for seats for the album recording. Here's the line-up 1 1/2 hours before it started.







I was only able to get into the auditorium for a few minutes of the album recording, but here's one picture of it. My guess is between 15,000 and 16,000 people were there. I was able to hear much of what happened inside and I can tell you there are some amazing songs coming out on this album.

Colour preparation

Colour Conference is about to begin and today we were busy preparing. It feels like it’s the calm before the storm since some of us actually had half the afternoon and the whole evening off. We worked too hard this morning and got the work done quicker than expected.




We got off to an early start. Here’s my housemates at about 6:45AM. Tomorrow through Saturday we have to be on the bus by 6:00 and don’t get home till midnight.







Opps, somebody didn’t count how many people live in my community before deciding how many buses to send.







These people all had to wait for a second bus that was hastily found to transport – it was sent from a different location where they had an extra one.








That’s fine, the other one was the same as a regular city transit bus. We got the better one.






I've got a few more pictures of the prep work today but I need to get some sleep before my alarm becomes my most hated possession at 5:00 tomorrow morning. Since I only have about 6 hours per day (or night) for the next four days, I likely won't be checking this blog for comments or posting updates until it's done. Please pray for us as you think of it.

Mormons cont.

I’ve had some questions about how my meetings with the Mormons have gone. After the first meeting with the Mormons in February, I received a phone call from someone else saying that because I had moved from where I lived before Christmas, I was in someone else’s zone, and asking if I would be willing to meet with them instead. I set out the same conditions as the previously and after a few questions and about 20 minutes of talking on the phone, they agreed to meet under them. Our first meeting was at a park and when I got there, I found three people and a dog instead of the two I was expecting. I guessed because I was now meeting with two women, they may feel safer having a man with them whom they trusted. They just said they had been talking with him before our meeting and he asked if he could come along. He is a member of their church. A second thought I had was that based on our phone call, the ladies were concerned about not being able to back up their beliefs and having someone else there would help with that.

Before our next meeting, I received a call asking if we could meet in someone else’s home (I’ve not bee receptive to letting them into my home and their rules keep them from inviting anyone to theirs). I agreed to this and we met there. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that in all of our meetings, the missionaries have not answered any of the hard questions; that’s always been done by the other person in the meeting. I found out at my last meeting with them that this man is actually one of the leaders in their church and what’s more, he’s one of the heads for this district! At this point, I’m left to wonder why we’re meeting in his home.

In our second meeting, I started by asking about something one of the missionaries had stated in our first meeting. She said that one of the reasons she didn’t accept the doctrine of the trinity was that she didn’t understand it. However, near the end of the meeting, she told me she didn’t fully understand the Bible but was learning more about it and gaining a better understanding of it. So I asked why she would accept the Bible although she didn’t understand it but reject the trinity because she didn’t understand it – using the same measure, but coming to a different conclusion. She had no response but the man whose home we were in stumbled to some sort of answer.

She later asked (very sincerely) if I could explain the trinity to her. I told her I couldn’t fully explain the trinity but I have to search the Bible and it tells me that Jesus was killed on the cross because He claimed to be God. In His days on Earth, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of gods being worshipped; and the Jews didn’t try to kill anyone because they claimed to be another god; but they wanted Jesus dead because of his claim to be God. If Jesus made the claim, either it’s true and I better believe Him, or it’s false and I can’t trust anything he says.

I also pointed out that Jehovah (“Father God” as they call Him) clearly says He is one God and there is no other; and we are to worship no other. The interesting thing here is that the Book of Mormon says to worship Jesus. So, they are told to worship both Father God and Jesus, but they are also told that Jesus is not God. So how can they obey Father God in worshipping Him only and obey the Book of Mormon in its command to worship Jesus unless Jesus is God? They had no real response for this.

Virtually all differences between Mormons and Christians hinge on the one question “Was Joseph Smith a true prophet of God?” I took a list of prophecies to our next meeting and asked them to explain the discrepancies to me. After only the third one, they realized they couldn’t explain them and had to admit that some of them appeared to be false. In the end, the missionaries took my list of prophecies so they could check into them and try to find answers for me.

Mormons regularly say to pray and ask Father God if Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God (misinterpreting James one where it says if any of us lacks wisdom we should ask God for it) and his Holy Ghost will confirm it for us by a feeling in our hearts. As we talked, I brought up the historical inaccuracy of the Book of Mormon (Another whole issue I won’t get into here except to say that the book tells of a people living at a certain time and history tells us they were not there and the place claimed was actually inhabited by a completely different people) together with the prophecy issues and some other stuff, and I stated that if I’m looking at something and everything I find goes against it, I’m not going to trust a fast beating heart and some goose bumps (two signs they have claimed); and especially when I’ve already prayed to God and asked him to show me the truth about Joseph Smith and He told me that the man is a complete fraud!

As many of you can well imagine, I’m shocked that these people keep meeting with me. From my perspective, it takes much time out of my schedule and takes much thought and prayer to be prepared; but as long as they want to keep meeting, I will do so. I’m convinced God has called me to a specific ministry of preaching “good news to the poor…and freedom for the captives.” All of Heaven rejoices for the salvation of one individual and I will do all I can for this. Although I can’t explain the reason, I have a feeling about one of the missionaries in particular questioning her beliefs and I’m praying that she will come to a true knowledge of God. As I left the last meeting, I knew there had to be seeds of doubt planted in their minds so I prayed that God will take that seed and make it grow like a weed. I also asked Him for the opportunity to bring these people to Him.

Caring Corner with the Crazy Cuc...

As part of one of my new responsibilities, I’ve been asked to provide an article to help people care for others better. I put together my first instalment and liked it so much, I thought I’d put it up here too. What’s wrong with liking something I’ve put together? Here it is (with slight modifications to suit the audience).


Take out a soda or other beverage of your choice, grab a bag of chips or some other snack, turn off the telephone and disconnect the doorbell. Relieve yourself in the throne room and put a "Do not disturb" sign on your door. Adjust the lighting in the room, and get comfortable in your favourite chair. Make sure you're ready to stay for a while. Then take out that book. It's going to draw you in and you won't want to leave for a long while. It may be a mystery, an action adventure, or maybe a love story. There may be history. It may touch on some present reality. It may even stir some great dreams for the future. But you know it's going to be good. Virtually anyone can enjoy reading a good book - although I have to admit I'd rather watch the movie - but the point is, we can sit and soak in what's coming our way.

My wife, who's now passed away and gone to the only One who loved her more than I, used to regularly say to me "You read me like a book!" and she was right. From the week after we met and she decided I was worth a second look, through our dating time, engagement, marriage, and on to her death 9 ½ years later, there was nothing she could keep from me for long - "surprise" birthday parties, valentines gifts, weekend specials. I almost always knew what was going on inside of her. And I believe that's the way it was meant to be. Only recently though did I realize why I was able to do this.

According to John Maxwell, one of the great leadership trainers in the world today, somewhere over 80% of people feel they are good listeners, but a much smaller percentage actually are. Apparently only about 5% of people are truly great listeners!

Now, I'm sure not many people would read a book and watch a movie at the same time expecting to get everything out of both. You wouldn't study for an exam while chatting with your friends about the party the night before and expect to recall much of what you studied. Most of us would agree it's not wise to eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast while behind the wheel on the way to work or school. Yet we continually let distractions in when we are talking with someone. We look around instead of at the person even though body language is at least 80% of communication. Something they say triggers a thought in us and we just have to get it out before we forget it and we interrupt the person to do so. We watch the dance class running laps around the Convention Center instead of focusing on the meeting at hand (ok, it was fun to see their response when you showed them the doughnut in your hand, but I just couldn't resist putting it in here). Some of us pay so little attention to others in a conversation that we don't even notice when they leave the room. That's right, a two person conversation with only one present. I tried it one day at work and the poor girl kept talking for almost five minutes after I had left - and there was no one else in the room!!! It was quite the interesting site through the window in my office. We ask someone a question about themselves but then don't give them a chance to answer; and the next time we ask, they won't.

Think back to the last conversation you had. Can you remember something significant about the person you were talking with? Who was the last person you met for the first time? Do you remember their name? Or where they're from? What about other significant parts of their life?

When we listen to someone we are placing value on them. We are saying we care; and we're saying it in a much more powerful way than we ever could with words. Have trouble starting a conversation? Ask the other person about themselves. For the average person, there's no more interesting topic. Don't know what to ask? Start with a pet. I remember a conversation I had with someone who didn't believe me when I told her this worked; so I asked what her favourite pet was. This led to more questions and discussion and even though we stayed on the topic of pets, 10 minutes later, I was able to tell her things about herself that she thought she had never told anyone before. The thing is she had; they just weren't listening.

I believe everyone is an open book waiting, and usually wanting, to be read; and someone with good listening skills is in a prime position to start reading. Problem is, too many of us would rather watch the movie.

Anyone like Colouring?

It’s now two weeks until the biggest event to this point in the year – Hillsong’s annual Colour Your World Women’s Conference. It’s the biggest one yet with over 16,000 women registered. Last weekend in church, it was announced that officially capacity has been reached but they’re trying to make changes to the venue and fit some more women in. There’s now a waiting list. Each day more is being said about the conference. The plans are moving along and the details are coming into place. Apparently it’s a very tiring time for those of use who will be there all day helping make it run as smoothly as possible. We (students) have also been told that we’ll find out on Friday what each of our jobs will be for the conference. It will be a great event – even though I can’t sit in on it. Men’s conference was so good for so many men and I’m happy to put in a lot of work to enable women to be fed in this way.

Brief update

Just thought I’d better put something up here since it’s been a week again. I can’t let anyone get the idea that I’ve forgotten about my blog; and I certainly can’t let anyone think they can forget about it because I’m not doing my part!!!

This week has been pretty “normal.” Classes started at the beginning of the week and somehow I managed to make it to all of mine. I’m still hoping that I’ll get my schedule soon. Yes, that’s correct; I don’t have my correct and complete schedule yet and we’re a week into classes. This adds a few extra challenges. The week has gone really well.

Together with the 250 new students coming and a new term beginning, there are some changes in church life with service times being changed. Growing pains. It really is amazing how the changes the church has gone through in the last couple of months have not caused any major problems. There have been a number of changes in staff positions with a couple new people starting and many key existing staff changing roles. These are things that could throw many churches into turmoil yet they’ve happened virtually without a glitch.

I got an interesting phone call last night. As you recall, late last year I put a post up here about some conversations I had had with a couple of Mormons…well, those two have left but they gave my name and phone number to a couple of new ones that came in. These new ones called me and wanted to meet. I agreed under the condition that we openly and freely discuss who Jesus is, who Joseph smith (their founder) was, the completeness and accuracy of the Bible and the accuracy of the book of Mormon. I told them that there are things in the Bible that Mormons do not believe and there are things in the book of Mormon that are incorrect. If they were willing to discuss this in an open manner, I would meet with them. Being keen to do the mission work they came for, the new men agreed. I even told them that the last ones had cut off contact with me because I was not willing to convert to Mormonism and I had raised too many issues they didn’t know how to deal with. I was somewhat surprised at the phone call, more surprised that they would agree to these terms, and even more surprised when we met today and they followed through with it. Then the real shock came when they asked if we could meet again! So I have another meeting set up with them in which they want to share more from the book of Mormon and I told them before I’m willing to discuss much about the book, they’ll have to come to me with some sort of evidence that it can be trusted. They handled themselves very well considering they could not follow their trained routine in the presentation; and as is easily done with most cults, they were found tripping over their own words, reading some passages from the Bible that were contrary to their own beliefs and admitting what the Bible says in those verses. Now the issue comes with the fact that they choose to believe something else anyways. At least they’ve heard some more truth and have said with their own mouths – even if they still deny it. I’m not sure of the details of the next meeting but I’ll keep praying about it and I know as long as I’m willing, God will guide me and make sure His truth and glory is revealed as we discuss things.

Now that this has become longer than a short post, hope you all enjoy and it’s time to sign off.

New Form of Transportation

Imagine the following scene…

A man is riding his bicycle down a sidewalk; the trail starts heading downhill and he picks up speed. He continues his enjoyable, effortless ride down the hill, trying to build up as much momentum as possible for the next leg of the trip in which he will have to work hard to make it up the next hill before enjoying the ride down the other side. As he nears the bottom, he sees a large hole across the entire path – construction!!! They’ve taken out part of the sidewalk and are in the process of repairing it. He looks for any alternative to hitting the hole but sees none, so in a last ditch effort to avoid a serious mishap, he hits the brakes – hard. To his horror, the hand that’s used for the front brake in Canada is used for the back brake in Australia; and the hand that’s used for the back brake in Canada is used for the front brake in Australia. The front brake gets hit hard and the bike stops very suddenly, avoiding the hole. Unfortunately, the man does not achieve the same result. Having hit the front brake too hard, he launches himself into an aerial assault on the construction site. As he’s flying through the air, he realizes that he hasn’t finished his pilot’s training and is not familiar with completing a safe crash landing.

That same scene – or one very similar to it – flashed through my head as I took my new bicycle home and realized the brakes are operated differently out here. What should be the front brake was actually the back brake; and vice versa. Fortunately, I realized this as I was walking the bike to my car which I was using to carry it home; so before I took my first ride, to ensure that scene doesn’t become reality, I switched the brake cables to bring them in line with my Canadian standard of normal. Right hand, back brake; left hand, front break.

Where I’m living now, it should be an easy, and hopefully safe, ride to school and church so I decided to buy a bike so I can get the exercise and save the fuel used in driving my car. By my estimations, I need only take the bike 20 times and the fuel savings will have covered the cost of the bike! (it was second hand).

Classes start today but I don’t have a schedule yet so I’m not going. There have been some big problems with the enrolment process so all I know is that I don’t have any classes today and I’ll find out my schedule someday.

Thought for the day – if today was “Someday,” how busy would you be?

short update

So we’re in the first week of school now. It’s been a great week but none of us knows our schedule yet. This week is the same for everyone (almost) so it doesn’t matter too much but for those of us who have a class tonight, this could be a problem. There’s been a problem with the enrolment process and this has been a bit of an issue.

That aside, this week has been great! We’ve been hearing from many of the church people and it’s been great. Today was the day for Christine Cain to input into our lives. It is such a privilege to hear these people who speak internationally – and I get to hear them regularly!

Living in my house here has been great! It’s so much different than the apartment I was in previously. We’re having a house meeting as I write this. Being a good man, I can multi-task so I’m fine doing this while we discuss other things. At this point, we’re in the process of planning our meals for the next month. We’re each planning to make dinner (or “supper” for my fellow Canadians) for everyone in the house one day of the week. Looks like it should work out well. We’ve got some furniture on order from someone who’s moving away. Hopefully we’ll be getting that tomorrow. We’re getting tired of not having a place other than the floor and kitchen chairs to sit on. This will also be important when I start my connect group in a couple of weeks.

Well, I don’t know what else to say, and I need to eat some food yet before going to class tonight but I thought I needed to put something on my blog.

Layover Pictures

I've been looking forward to this day for almost a year. The day I told my sister-in-law I was planning to go to Hillsong, I also said I wanted her at the airport so I could return the favour of handing over my winter jacket (with a big smile) as I left for a warm place. She was a really good sport.





If anyone has trouble with jealousy, look at this picture and stop here. This one shows just how normal Hawaii actually is.








After over a month of cold in the Canadian Prairies, this was a very welcome site.








My first morning. I had to pass quite a bit of time before I actually got to see this sunrise on Waikiki Beach.








After spending a day at the Polynesian Cultural Center, I realized dance is a major part of their culture. This is a small representation of what I saw.







I rented a Moped (also called a Scooter in some places) and went for a drive around the island. It was quite a weird feeling driving along the freeways with a chainsaw motor on wheels. I was told it had a top speed of 40 mph so I assumed with my size it would be about 35mph. On level surfaces, that was true but most of the road was not level so I had a top speed anywhere between 25 and 45mph depending on how steep the hill was and whether I was driving up or down. Fortunately, most of the roads have a speed limit of 35mph. This was probably my best day as I was outside seeing the real island - which I would say is much better than the tourist locations!




This was just another rock sticking out of the ocean but it looked neat.







Before my trip, I asked some friends who have lived in Hawaii what I should do and they both said "Go to the Northern Beaches." In case anyone is planning a trip to Honolulu sometime, I agree with them. Waikiki Beach is the most popular beach on the island and apparently is the most well known beach in the world. If you like to watch every step to make sure you don't walk all over someone; if you like to be able to get canoe or sailboat rides or rent surfboards and get some lessons along with the other thousand people in the water; if you like to have 500 hotels and 3000 stores within walking distance; if you don't mind a beach where there's more rock than sand under the water and what sand there is is course and was imported from another state; then Waikiki is the man-made beach for you. However, if you would rather have a enough room to lay out your beach towel without folding up the edges and enough room in the water to swing your arms in a swimming motion; if you want nice sand that's easy on your feet and a surface under the water that you can safely walk on; if you don't mind giving up some of the shops and hotels within walking distance and are willing to carry your surfboard a couple hundred feet from the shop instead of 30 feet along the beach; then the place for you is somewhere outside Honolulu. This picture of Sandy Beach was taken in the middle of the day and is typical of the beaches outside of tourist central. When I did the trip around the island, I finally saw why Hawaii is considered a Paradise. The man-made beauty of the tourist areas does not compare to the God-made beauty of the rest of the island.


Here's one of the best places in the world for experienced surfers. "Pipeline" is where a lot of international surfing competitions are held. Warning: do not enter the water unless you are a very strong swimmer and understand the currents. When the waves got to shore, they were still big enough that someone could be standing on the sand completely out of the water and be completely covered by a wave coming in.




Now after I said Waikiki (great as it is) is nowhere near the best beach on the island, this sunset photo was taken there; so judge for yourselves whether this is a beautiful place.





What you see centered in this picture is the top of the USS Arizona. This ship was the site of the largest number of soldiers lost in a single act in US war history. It was sunk by an armour piercing bomb dropped from 10,000 feet. The bomb went through a couple layers of the ship and exploded inside - right next to the ship's supply of ammunition. about 150 feet of the ship was completely separated by the explosion and another piece weighing a couple thousand pounds was lifted far into the air and caused a second explosion when it landed back on the ship. It took about 2 seconds to kill almost 1,200 men (almost half of the total losses in Pearl Harbour) on the ship. In the background, you can see white markers that show the place where some the other ships were sunk. remarkably, most of the ships were actually recovered, fixed, and put back in service; some in less than a year.



On a monument for the USS Arizona was a list of people who died on the ship. I couldn't get the whole list on the picture. I did not get a lot of good pictures of Pearl Harbour, but it was great to be there. It is very sobering to see the place of such terrible destruction at the hands of men and to hear, from some of the people who lived through it, what it was like and what happened.