Well this week has been a good up-ramp. I’m feeling better about things, and accepting more and more things that I can’t change…

On Monday night our Growth Group was almost at the point of being called off, but we eventually met a quorum and gathered to look at listening, answering and following up.

Tuesday we had the last senior staff meeting with James and Kara, followed by lunch afterwards. We (the office staff) managed to pick up a bunch of gifts for the pair. For Kara we gifted her with a plastic cactus, purple pens and a purple box of tissues. For James we gave him 5 cakes of Palmolive Gold Soap, a bottle of 15+ sunscreen and some magnifying glasses.

Wednesday morning was a chance for the ladies to farewell Kara. I was invited along to take some photos of the occassion. During morning tea I got to speak to Rach which was really refreshing, and something that I don’t often get to do. It was good to just be able to talk, and be listened to; it was refreshing.

On Thursday morning I purchased and started my download of Mountain Lion. During the day, I backed up my 2010 Macbook Air, with the intent to format the hard drive and do a clean install of the OS.
On Thursday night Geoff came around for dinner: garlic & rosemary roasted potatoes, BBQ chicken, peas and gravy and some more Diablo 3. This night we were able to play a four player game with Marcus and Diren.

On Friday morning I proceeded with the OS install and then started to get my system up and running again.
At Touch the numbers were up a bit, and I had a fun game, scoring a bag full of tries; a combination of well timed turns, and a great deal of supporting runs.
Post SALT I got started on the setup for the farewells taking place on Saturday night. It was encouraging to see some of the younger guys coming up to me and asking what they could do to help out, I was refreshed by it.

Saturday morning was just a time to relax and not do much, given that the evening was going to be fairly hectic. When 4 o’clock rocked around I had to start getting ready, and then it was off down to the church for final setup. The night ran fairly smoothly, with the exception of food coming out slower than anticipated due to some spacing issues. I thought that it was really great to see so much of CROSSWAY coming together as a whole church. It will be interesting to see what/if we do in the future. The mixing of young and old was pretty good, though I would have liked to have seen much more of it; the breaking up/out of cliques is so difficult, but something that we must be mindful of. After the serving of food, it was time to gather into the main auditorium for speeches. The ~300 people that stuck around for the speeches mostly filled the space. There was again a good mix of serious and light-hearted, including a song for Kara by Mike, and an oddly jestful adapted version of Rohl Dahl’s Cinderella recited by Bruce.

This morning after an extended sleep in, I had my one-to-one with Nic; the first in about 3 weeks!! We polished off Romans 1, chatted over that and other bits and pieces, and prayed together. At graceat6 Mike finished off his 2 part series on Philemon, covering not only verses 8-25, but also giving us a bit more context around the book, trying to place it with Colossians and giving us a recap of last week. This half of the letter is much more practical, building on the foundations of the first 7 verses. Paul, and Mike highlighted how loving leadership is to look: it is to be gracious in authority, profoundly relational, persevering under pressure and sacrificial; that God’s sovereignty works ALL things for good, even suffering and evil; that we are to be united in Christ; we are to continue to to inspire joy and refreshment; pray.
There was a point in the talk where Mike spoke about accepting and forgiving people, rather than holding grudges and harbouring ill feelings towards people. This is something that I’m not particularly good at, in fact, I’m horrible at it, and not only do I harbour grudges, but I stew on them. It is my prayer that God would continue to change me so that I would not do this…

After graceat6 I, and a bunch of people, headed back to the Trevena household to farewell Alex as he prepared to head over to the Netherlands for 6 months on exchange. It was a bit of a sad affair, to see him go, but it’s encouraging to hear and know that he is so gospel focused that the people of the Netherlands will hear the gospel. I also got to have another good conversation with Jack; to impart some wisdom on him, and also to hear how he is doing and his thoughts for the future…

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