Double Seatbelt Duty

It is 9:30am on Thursday now.
The first thing that I did yesterday was attend an Occupational Health and Safety meeting representing the Magill office. The other staff members that I went with complained a bit about the meeting and laughed that I was attending since it will be SO boring. I was excited, though, to be sitting in on a meeting, especially representing our office. The meeting went well and it was interesting to see the different interactions between some of the other staff in the meeting. After the meeting we went back to the Sefton Park office, which is the administrative office. Helene was in a meeting there and was quite excited to get back to Magill when it was finished. We left Hilary at Sefton park so she could work more with Andrea on her Foster Care proposal. Back at Magill I was able to sit in on a presentation that Yvonne and Helen were giving to a group of Seminary students on Lutheran Community Care and find out a bit more about programs and the history of the agency. What I found most interesting in the course of the presentation, though, was the reactions and comments made by the Seminary students. There was one who very pointedly said that because of the way that Australia's economy is set up the people who are in poverty are there by their own faults. I struggled greatly with this comment, but I didn't feel it was my place to comment. For a little bit after the comment I would swear you could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Eventually we moved on with the presentation and the tension calmed down. I spent the rest of the afternoon putting the final touches on the newsletter that I was working on last week since there were new additions for me to add. Since Yvonne was there she checked it out and gave it her stamp of approval. At the end of the day we headed to CitySoul which is a very new church that is starting in the city. It is above a Death Metal concert venue. The group was really welcoming and it was a great time. They had food and after eating they gathered up and one of the pastors did some business type thing and talked about the events that they have going on. A DJ gave a presentation about mashing music together in connection with their series theme about mashing the faith and culture together. The other pastor gave a message about the different perceptions that Christians have in regards to other religions. This part was information that had been presented in my World Religions class sophomore year so I was able to file it quickly. It made it easier to talk about when the group broke into conversations about the topic. Overall it was great. Morgan went home with Helen because she is traveling with Helen today. Andrea brought Hilary and I home. When I got into her car I was unable to get her seat belt to stretch (since it wasn't normal) to the clasp. We all quickly broke into laughs, and I finally was able to pull the middle seat belt through the over the shoulder one to make a make shift harness. Andrea said I looked like I was harnessed into a race car. We got safely back home around 9:30 or 10pm. Hilary and I were excited that we don't have to go into work today until 11am, but we still have other things we want to do. We are heading out right now to catch a bus to a shopping center quick before heading to the office where there are lists of things for us to do waiting. Sadly the picture adder isn't working right now so I will have to wait til another blog to try to add pictures.