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!