I wish I had sweet skills

From the same site that gave us the animal hand paintings, these are origami creations that are ridiculous. It'd be even more impressive if someone told me they were all done with one piece of paper. Go [here] to see them.

Where are the leaders?

I always talk about this, but it's something I think should be talked about. So we started the Garage yesterday, and I am so excited about it. However, afterwards, I had a parent ask me, "What about my boy? Why can't he come down?" This was really confronting for me, because I didn't want to say, "He's just too old." The problem is, if we were to allow that boy in, then we'd have to make an acceptance of all boys his age, and the small group would become a huge group.

Another reason I felt bad was that I started the Garage with the intention of supporting the boys through the year pre-VCE, because those were the years I had nothing. But the reality now is that the boys in Year 9 and 10 are still stranded with not much. The problem is that while Matt, Jono and I are leading the Garage, there's nobody to lead a group for the left-out ones. It's not that we're the only young male leaders at the church, far from it. The problem is, the other males (including parents, who are more than capable of runing a small group and much more experienced than us) are either leading other projects at church, or just don't see themselves as leaders. That's something I always try to point out to people in my Africa Aid speeches - that they can lead, and most people can make fantastic leaders if they realise than can be.

One of the vision points for the Garage was to help the boys realise their potential as young leaders in church and outer community. Hopefully by the time they get to my age (making me sound old), or even earlier, they know how useful they could be, and show the next group of boys the same thing.

The first Garage

We had the first Garage session yesterday. The morning started with us leaders turning up, and finding out someone at church had gone into the garage, saw our couches, didn't know about them, and therefore thought it ok to just throw them out. Super. However, Mr. Albury, being the top youth minister and guy that he is, arranged for some new chairs to go in. (They're probably not staying though, so if anyway wants to donate furniture...)

When we came down with the boys, they seemed genuinely excited to be there, and I was pretty excited too. I think it will take a while for them to understand and embrace the kind of openness we're looking for, but that's fine, I wasn't that open at their age too.

We needed to clean up the garage, sweeping, vacuuming, window washing, etc. We paired the boys up, and let them get to separate jobs, but during this, they had to do something like the activity in Remember The Titans, when Coach Boon makes the African-American students pair with the white students and learn three things about them. After the cleaning, the boys came back with mostly surface-level things, but hopefully we'll keep getting deeper as the year goes. It was only the first session after all.

Anyways, I'm really excited about the Garage. It's going to be fun, and hopefully meaningful too. Next week we're going to a toboggan/waterslide park in Whittlesea, just for something cool to do.

I start my internship today as well, am quite looking forward to it.

Blessed to be a witness

One of my favourite songs ever. Awesome music, awesome lyrics, everything's good. It's a song I want played at my funeral. Make that wedding as well.



Here's the lyrics too:

Corcovado parted the sky
And through the darkness
On us He shined
Crucified in stone
Still his blood is my own
Glory behold all my eyes have seen

I am blessed to be a witness

Some have flown away
And can't be with us here today
Like the hills of my home
Some have crumbled and now are gone
Gather around for today won't come again

I am blessed to be a witness

So much sorrow and pain
Still I will not live in vain
Like good questions never asked
Is wisdom wasted on the past
Only by the grace of God go I

I am blessed to be a witness