latest goings on?

hey all

i haven't been posting so much lately as there's been lots of stuff going on but it seems i've got some stuff to type about.

on the weekend Esther and i went to this camp called the 'School Of Discipleship' that was run by the Uniting Church down in Canberra. it was an interesting weekend, thats for sure.
essentially, the days went: talk, food, small group, food, something else, food.
the talks were a bit weird, and i didn't really like them. the guy giving the talks seemed to focus too much on theologians and didn't reference the bible very much at all (which i didn't like) and i also disagreed with lots of things he said. the good thing about that was when it came to the small groups where we discussed the talks, we had a whole bunch to talk about. for most of the small groups, i just sat back and had a good listen to what people thought of the talk, and after a while i'd pipe up, say what i thought (which was usually very different to everyone else), which spurred the conversation on to a different path.
they focused a lot on Social Justice (which i thought was great) but (to me) they seemed to place more emphasis on justice for people in this life rather than salvation for the next, which also bothered me.
i also found out that the uniting guys LOVE the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. i could imagine some of them having posters of him plotting to kill Hitler on their bedroom walls (i can be very imaginative sometimes). i went to a talk to hear more about him, but unfortunately the guy giving the talk was told he was meant to be talking about something else so didn't have stuff prepared which was a bit annoying.
one great elective i went to was called 'Project Green Church' and was run by Maroubra Uniting Church. basically what they've done is made their church environmentally friendly in really simple and practical ways. it has inspired me to hopefully get some stuff like that going back at Panania.
there was also lots of wildlife. kangaroo's everywhere, and i almost ran over a wombat in my car.
good parts about the weekend: i got to hear alternative views on the bible i hadn't thought about
bad parts: i was quite lost most of the time because all the uniting traditions were new and confusing to me and the talks moved very fast

i also have some exciting news. esther made it in to Manchester Metropolitan Uni! that means she's going to go there in early september (boo, i'm gonna miss her) and i'll go over and visit in december (yay!) and then we're going to travel around for a couple of months on a sweet holiday before we both come home! yes!
today we booked flights and are now VERY excited about it all.
current dates (for once i'm over there):
manchester 3rd-15th dec
london 15th dec-3rd jan
brussels/amsterdam/luxembourg 3rd-12th jan
dublin 12th-19th jan
london again 19th-23rd jan
new york 23rd-29th jan
salt lake city 29th jan-5th feb
san francisco 5th-9th feb
home again: 11th feb

so yeah, looks like i'm going to be getting another job so i can afford it all!

i'm getting sleepy now and i know i was going to mention something else, but i've forgotten cause of sleepy. night!

wow

so, it's been one heck of a week.

last thursday some stuff happened to some friends of mine, which has really sent some shockwaves through me and the rest of my friends.

i'm not sure what to say about it, but it wasn't good.

anyway, if i'm feeling a bit weird over the next few weeks and say a few bizarre things, please understand that it's going to take me awhile to deal with this. it wasn't something i wanted to ever have to deal with, but it's happened and so i need to sort things out. i haven't done anything wrong, like i said it's happened to some friends of mine, but it still affects me and many others pretty deeply.

anyway, some prayers and understanding for my friends and me would be appreciated.

there was also some upsetting news about another friend (one of my best friends) which will hopefully have a happy ending. that needs some prayer too. i hope he's going to be okay. i'm scared about it.

saturday i went to the Live Earth concert. it was pretty fun. thanks to Richard Bow for taking me along. i got to see quite a few bands, and enjoyed it very much. highlights were Crowded House (of course), John Butler Trio, and Ghostwriters. Wolfmother bored me to tears. seriously.

sunday was a sporty kinda day.
Esther and i headed off to see the Swans beat Freo at the SCG. it was very very cold, but i was happy because we won.
that night, church was pretty sombre (as everyone was dealing with what was mentioned above) but it was really nice.
after church it was off to Alex's house to watch Oman va Australia and the score was a 1 all draw (O-man! tee hee). i got to see Alex's train sets (two of them!) and be VERY jealous of him and his dad.
next it was to my house to watch the Formula One. in poll position was Hamilton (1st) and Raikkonen (2nd) with Alonso (3rd) and Massa (4th) close behind. Massa stalled his car so he had to start at the back (sucker). the rest of the race was excitig, cause Hamilton led the first third, Alonso the 2nd third and Raikkonen the final third and went on to win. nice to see him get another win! Alonso came 2nd with Hamilton in 3rd.

today i got to hang out with one of my best friends (different to the one mentioned earlier), John, down in Gerroa. it was good because we haven't hung out in forever. we sat around playing each other cd's we've bought and we watched the movie The Good German (it was a good movie).
it was nice to sit around and talk about todays newspaper headlines with him.

anyway, i'm gonna go listen to new cd's i bought.
bye.