Fuel

It is now Tuesday March 10th, 9:30am.

The picture above is blurry, but it might give insight to how packed in we were in the car when shifting from Hosanna Heights last week. I left off talking about Thursday in the last blog. The rest of the day was spent getting settled and trying to catch up with various things, as well as just gather wits I think. I was super excited to get to watch Pirates of Penzance, but it was a bit cheekier than the version I remember doing in 6th grade. There was a visit from Claire (Helen's daughter) and her boyfriend Alex, who were picking up some last minute things from Helen's house. Claire was on a mission to find some Strawberry Shortcake dolls to use as a "cake topper" on the wheel of cheese that the couple who is getting married has opted to use rather than a cake. She was able to find what she needed and off they went.

It is really interesting to compare differences in the way the airport is run here in Adelaide. The airport is a much smaller airport, but it is still very different from any small airport in the US. I probably mentioned, for example, that Helen was able to meet us at the gate when we arrived here, and apparently that his completely the norm. Claire talked with Hilary and about how long one needed to arrive at the airport before their flight. She mentioned that people will arrive as close as 10-20 minutes before the flight after having checked in on the Internet from home. That seems ridiculous compared to the 2hrs that a person should be at the airport in advance in the US, even for a domestic flight. Now, having checked with someone else on this later, they did mention that this isn't really something that everyone would do, but that 2hrs would be a bit long to be at the airport before a flight departed.

Thursday evening Hilary made spaghetti and we feasted on that. We watched TV and relaxed before it going to bed. There is one show that we've seen called "Farmer Wants a Wife" which I found quite amusing. It is a reality show where 5 farmers from various locations have (at the stage of the show I saw) 3 persons of the opposite sex living on their farm trying to prove their worth to be the farmers chosen spouse. I say spouse because even though the shows title is "Farmer Wants a Wife" there is a female farmer looking for a husband. It was quite silly to me, but then again I don't understand why someone would look for true love through a reality TV show. We also caught a bit of Beauty and the Geek. It is truly exemplary that there are a lot of American shows that run here, but there are definitely some uniquely Australian ones.

On Friday we started to get packed up for our weekend retreat, Fuel. Fuel is actually a ministry for young adults (ages 18-30) which holds a couple events yearly. Every year during the March long weekend (Monday the 9th was a public holiday) they hold a retreat somewhere in South Australia which is open to young adults throughout the state. This year it was held at Mylor Baptist Camp, which is just outside Adelaide in the hills.

http://www.lysa.asn.au/fuel/index.htm is the website if you're curious for anymore information that I provide about it.

We were able to catch a ride to the event with Jeremy and Simon who were also attending. Since we have been invited to their place many times, we invited the boys to have tea with us before having to leave on Friday night. I was really excited to have a real chance to cook. I made up some chicken breasts with asparagus and squash. We also had our leftover pasta as well as a sour cream and chive pasta side dish. I was impressed and it really seemed to turn out alright. At least I don't think anyone got food poisoning or anything. After supper we did most of the dishes and I quickly packed up for the weekend. We packed in the car and headed for the hills...haha.

It was actually a fairly short drive. The registration was located at the Town Hall of Mylor, whereas we were staying at a campsite just outside of the town. We registered right away and mingled for a little bit. It was exciting to see Gabby again and also to meet a couple new people right away. Before hand I had been asked to be a small group leader, which I agreed to do. Hilary had received an e-mail asking if we would come up with some ice breaker activities. We gave our suggestions to the organizer that has asked us for them, and she said she would think about it. Right before we went in she said that someone else had volunteered to do some and so maybe we would use some of ours later in the weekend. You can imagine my amusement when we ran into Jazz, who is the camping ministry person for the Lutheran Church of Australia (and the new person who was doing the ice breaker activity) and she told us straight out that she had been asked to do it because the organizers thought that our activities were to energetic. I had a little chuckle to myself over the politeness that had been extended through the organizer. Jazz ran a wonderful ice breaker and then there was a welcoming and we heard from the first of the 2 guest speakers right away. His name was Sheridan Voysey and he is a writer/speaker/broadcaster from Sydney. He does a radio show that airs Sunday nights on the Christian radio station. His talks on this occasion, and throughout the weekend were very organized and really well put together. The other speaker who came on Saturday and spoke a bit was Mark Gladman, a comedian. It was interesting because while he didn't use any visual aids or anything really eye catching, he was actually a little easier to relate to. I have to admit I enjoyed his talks a bit better than Sheridan's, but I know that a lot of the people at the retreat enjoyed Sheridan's talks quite a bit too.

After Sheridan's talk we had our first small group meeting. It was kind of daunting to stand at the front of the room before all of these new people and have to find my small group. I was excited when Karina was in my group, who is someone that I had met before. She was at the Cricket match that we went to earlier in the trip. She was also and organizer and made me feel a bit more at ease with the group.

This photo is of the group and is only missing 2 of our group members who had to leave a little early before we took the photo on the last day before leaving. I am really glad that I did the small group leader thing and I think I really benefited from it. After our small group time finished we all went back to the campsite to do a little socializing or sleeping depending on the personal choice. I spent a little time socializing in the dining hall before going to bed. I slept pretty well, but definitely could have used more sleep.

My day on Saturday started with a small group leader meeting at 7:45am before breakfast. Breakfast was simple, there was a huge line to get some toast and/or cereal. After breakfast we went back to the town hall for a worship service followed by another session from our speaker. The worship service had its ups and downs. I was really excited to be singing music I recognized, but a little put off by the worship leader who I just didn't get the right vibe from. She was very evangelistic in her transitions, which she used before and after EVERY song or piece of the service. The pastor who had been invited to do the service only made it worse by using a rather offensive stab at Americans in the intro to his message. I would really have felt differently about it if he had realized we were there and been trying to be funny, but he didn't and was very surprised not to get a very warm reaction to his comment. He was trying to tell a blonde joke, which is a rough start to a message anyway if you ask me. The way that he tried to get the message through about just how dumb these blondes were was to tell everyone that they were American dumb blondes. It was unfortunate that it went that way because I know that I was tainted from really getting anything else that he said. Afterwards we heard from Sheridan again. His talk did get me thinking, but again perhaps not in the way he intended it to. He talked about our identity as children of God and that we are not defined by what we have or who we know etc. He spent a big chunk of time reflecting on some of the ridiculous things people spend money on. Now, I agree with him on the majority of what he was saying. I really don't think there is anyone who needs a $700 pair of sunglasses. He also talked about flatulence tabs for dogs, which I actually have to say I disagree with completely. I think those are a great product and really are not a problem. I did get what he was trying to get at though. I think that the most troubling aspect of his talk for me, though, was that we spent SO much time talking about the way that other people spend their time and money. We really didn't address shortcomings of our group directly. Its also hard to honestly say that a person's identity isn't formed at all by the things that they have (economic status) or who they know (relationships and roles that they play). In fact, I'm pretty sure that these things can play a significant role in the character and identity development of a person. We had small group time after the speaker and then headed back to the campsite for lunch. There were hamburgers (I had a veggie patty) for lunch. I found myself very intrigued that there was no type of side to go along with them at all. After lunch we had our choice of a series of workshops. I chose to do a photography one which led me to be at the Mount Lofty Botanical Gardens. I've uploaded a series of pictures that I took while on the expedition. I can't really say that I went along to learn much about photography, but more to have a chance to see the Botanical Gardens and maybe have a little time to myself. The time to myself aspect was not meant to be, though, since we ended up staying together as a group the whole time.

I even made some of my own artwork on a path.


We didn't really plan out the route well, since we walked down hill all the way, and ended up having to climb back up Mt. Lofty rather quickly to make it back in time for supper. I was glad that I had brought along my water bottle. I was a bit sad that both of the cameras I had along had died though. My usual camera has a Lithium battery which I cannot recharge until I get my adaptor back with my computer. Thankfully I do have batteries to use in the camera I've borrowed from my mom, but I didn't think to bring them along on the weekend.

Saturday night's activity was a 70's night. I borrowed a dress from Gabby at the last minute, which was actually more of a mu mu. There are a couple pictures from the night on Hilary's camera which I hopefully will be able to add at a later time. After supper we went over to the town hall for the activities. There was a comedy show by Mark Gladman first, which was really quite funny. And, best of all, there were no cheap shots at Americans. After the show there was a 70s dance and with all the participants in costume it was really quite funny. I didn't stay too long since I was tired and I knew I would have to be up early again the next morning.

Sunday morning started the same way with the small group leader meeting. We went to breakfast and then to town hall for a worship and praise time, the last message from Sheridan and then for some small group discussion. After that we went back to the campsite for lunch. It turned out that the meal today was the other half of Saturday's lunch, a baked potato. Some of the locals loaded theirs up with coleslaw and beans and beets (everyone eats beets here!). I just had a bit of cheese and sour cream on mine. I did try some beans, but they were cold dry baked beans. Sunday's afternoon activity was the Amazing Race. I was really apprehensive about this because I am not necessarily and athlete and therefore anything with the word race in it freaks me out. It turned out it was actually really fun. We had to do various tasks which included getting disks with words on them from the bottom of the pool to put together a bible verse, drive to Mt. Barker (about 30 min away), do sudoku puzzles and a word search to put together the location of the next clue, find that place, throw cricket wickets (outs), drink blended coke and happy meal, and even a couple others. We came in 5th out of 12 teams. I was pretty proud. Most of all though, I was happy that it had been fun. We went back to the campsite for supper and then to Hahndorf, a nearby town, for an evening worship.

This worship was really interesting to me because it was in a brand new worship center with ridiculous amounts of technology and equipment. Mark Gladman was set to give a message titled "you aren't what you have" or something like that, which I also found quite amusing. His message didn't quite go down that path though. It was really good, in my opinion. He talked about the fact that sometimes we can be the answer to our own prayers. He gave the example of someone praying fervently for someone to bring a meal to his neighbor, when he could do it himself. After the service there was a coffeehouse/cafe open and a bookstore that we could browse. I visited with Jess, who is one of the organizers, and actually also from the Glynde church that we've gone to a couple of times. I have to say that I really enjoyed her company throughout the weekend. I also met Emil (pronounced A-mil) who is a farmer. I talked to him a bit at the church and then again later with Simon and Jess. I asked a lot about the farming here and things like that and as a result it was offered that I could come out with Jess and Hilary to his farm and see how it goes for a weekend. I am excited about this and think it could be quite humorous.

I got a little sleep before Monday, which started in the usual way with the meeting and breakfast. The only difference was that we all needed to be packed up before leaving for town hall. At town hall we had worship time and a talk by Mark followed by some small group time. We had sandwiches for lunch and then a commissioning service. We were finally done for the day at 3pm. This was a little challenging for me because the schedules said we'd be done by 12:30pm and that obviously did not happen. We exchanged a couple e-mail addresses and things like that and then were on our way back to Helen's house. Almost as soon as we got back I heard from Helene and was able to get in touch with the man who takes care of things at the new house and get they keys to move in. It was pretty easy since it was down the block. Helene, Klaus and Katarina came and checked in on us which was great. They also helped a little with the move in. Anyone who is interested should go to Hilary's blog when she gets hers up about the move in because she has done a video tour of the new house and will be putting it up there.

I am so glad to be in our new house. It is huge and will be very comfortable. There are a couple challenges though since we don't have a working phone there and our current mobile still does not allow us to call out. It is sounding like Morgan and I will both need our own Mobiles We also don't have Internet there so my mission for today is to at least find out where we need to go and what we need to do to get cards for our computers to use internet. The next step then will be to find out whether or not my computer is ready to come back to me. In about 10 minutes I will get picked up to go on my 2nd home visit and then finally down to the Calvary site to check out their shelter and the services they provide there. Yay!