When not paying attention makes big statement!

Went for the first time, with the whole family, to the footy last night. It was a good time! For a half it was great until the littler girls had enough of football catching their attention. All Kirrily wanted to do was see if she could kart-wheel the whole length of the oval! So a good night but that's not what I'm writing about.
A couple of Ports new players were signing autographs in the Planet Teal area for the kids. One of those players, a bit of a hero in Brod's eyes(and mine on the quiet)was there. I asked Brody if he wanted his autograph and Brod's, while nervous, was pretty keen. I even asked him if he wanted a photo and he was keen on that too. So we walked to the table where they were sitting and Brody handed the player his hat to sign on. The player didn't look at Brody as he was talking to his team mate, but he, like on auto pilot, took his hat, signed it and gave it back without giving Brody the time of day, continuing with his conversation.
Needless to say that Brody didn't want a photo with him and that the signature on the hat is now pretty worthless to him.
It makes me think of the impact that we, even though we're not all hero's, have on others. The not looking people in the eye, the wanting to do something else coz we're busy, just being involved in ourselves more than we are with others. It asks the question what really is important and I have to say it, that Jesus, I believe, really gave people the time, looked them in the eyes and cared. I believe that in reading scripture that all who met Him never went away empty. I don't know how but I don't want to leave people empty, somehow I want them to know Jesus through the interaction that I have with others and Jesus has through me.

Everyone wants to leave

Well it seems that it's not just the Dog who wants to leave the Munyard fold of love and care, the horses also think that they have had enough!
As you may be able to tell, the horses in this photo look kind of tired, they would, at this time of the morning (approx 7.30am!), usually be fighting to get to their portion of feed. Not this morning as they were probably feeling tired and fat!
You see Glenn (sounds better in second tense) gets up at 5.45am before a day of manufacturing the magnificent Timbercrete blocks, so that he can feed the horses. This morning as per usual (well sometimes not usual) Glenn drives to the horse property at about 6.15 to give these lovely animals their morning breaky. Where we keep the feed is at the end of a gap in the fences which is a walkway through to the yards the horses are in. Glenn walks past the the walkway and looks to see the horses, hmmm he says to himself, they must be down the bottom (sometimes the view to the horses is obscured due to other sheds) 'nothing too unusual' he thinks. Glenn gets all the feed ready and walks to the tap to water the feed down where he can see the yards a bit better, hmmm he thinks to himself, they must be in their shelter, (things are starting to get little unusual now, they would normally be at the fence waiting to get their hay). Glenn pushes the barrow to the yards and still there's no sign of darling little horsey's . . . . 'oh crap!', Glenn says to himself, THE GATE IS OPEN! Although Glenn didn't say that about the gate he just thought it in is head. 'Oh crap' was definitely audible however.
So, not being the man from snowy river type horse handler, Glenn rings his horse handling wife only to find that his horse handling daughter picks up the phone and says that his horse handling wife is in the shower and can't talk right now! 'Well', Glenn said, 'tell her (the horse handling wife in the shower) that the gate is open to the horse yard and the horses are gone and I can't find them anywhere!' (that got her out pretty fast!)
Glenn knocked on the door of the home of the place where the horses live, the bleary eyed owner came to the door. Glenn said 'sorry to wake you but you haven't seen four horses by any chance coz the gate is open and they're gone!?' 'Mmmm . . . nup' came the reply, 'let me get changed out of the pj's and I'll help you out'.
So Glenn walked off to do some serious tracking. The concern was twofold, first that maybe they'd been flogged, second they've found there way on to a main Rd somewhere. The concerns were settled pretty soon by the evidence of multiple hoof tracks leading off to the back of the property. Now in the 4wd, Glenn sets off with his tracking buddy to find the lost herd. Glenn called the police to see if 4 horses had been reported around the area, the copper said 'nup only a case of someone hitting a kangaroo'. (sure it wasn't a dog hitting a kangaroo, Glenn thought)
So off over the vineyards and far away they are driving and tracking. After stopping many times to regain the hoof tracks they spotted them on a hill, a k or 2 from their home. Glenn and his tracking buddy drove up to them and found that they were actually in a backyard of someone else's property. They looked at them as if, 'what . . what's the trouble?'. All Glenn had in the car to lead them was a snatch strap 4wd. So he grabbed the leader and led them home. Hence the end of the story of the escaping horses.
We're still not sure what would've been more interesting for the people at which home the horses finished up, seeing four horses in their backyard or seeing a 4wd left there. Funny. . . . . . now.

Eco Living Expo

If you're interested in helping our environment and want to see products or be informed on being more eco friendly then come along.
We have a Timbercrete exhibit there, so if you're coming, let us know! If you let me know early enough I might also be able to get a 2 for 1 discount for you as well. Should be great! Also doing a talk spot on alternative building products - Timbercrete :)

Time flies when your just flat out!

Well, haven't had much time to think or write lately. Up to my eyeballs in bricks and study and kids sport. All good though. Some good orders in for bricks and some good fun watching kids do well at sport.
The big bosserooni came over from the big smoke and he kept us busy. Such a humble, Godly man. You know the type of people you love to be in the presence of? Well he's one of them.
Brod's is playing for the South Adelaide U/13's Country Development squad at the moment as well as for his school team. He played a ripper on Tuesday night against west although the team were pummeled. The school team he plays in and I coach is going great guns. We haven't won a game by less than 10 goals yet. Last week was 147-20. The team is really gelling and they all seem to be really enjoying each other's company and are learning a fair bit about life and footy.
Girls had gymnastics comp last weekend and they all did well. All of their teams came first and Kirra's has had an approach from an elite team but we don't think it will be happening.
Big week ahead of more sport and more bricks and then we're off to the Eco Show.

Teenscamp April 07

Camp was all about I love . . . . . ?
I spoke on passion:
- What is passion and the passion God has for us.
- The leeches of passion
- Being the passion

I blogged about passion no too long ago Here. I guess my heart for passionate followers of Jesus has been strong for a long time and see this as probably one of the biggest attributes to the view that most people have of Christianity, that it is not alive and stuck in it's religious format of Sunday worship.

My heart is that the younger generation will defy the past and look beyond religion and follow Jesus wholeheartedly wherever they find themselves and not get too caught in some of the, often fruitless, religious avenues that the institutional church finds itself.

I didn't go into that too much but concentrated on a personal relationship with God and my prayer is that everyone who heard stuff over the weekend will focus on that more than anything.

I'm hoping to podcast mp3's of the messages here soon but for now I have a link to my notes on the first session. Feel free to copy it and do whatever with it, even use it for your own speaking if you want and change it around etc.

So here yah - Session 1

Feel free to comment on it as well - session 2 soon

Phew!

Ok, feeling a lot better now, thanks for asking.
I dunno if life is like this for everyone but you know when you get these times when there's not much happening and then everything happens all at once in a really short space of time. Well that just happened.
Here's the last week and a bit.

Large brick order came through woo hoo!
Found out that a lump on my groin (no a bit higher than the other lump) was a femeral hernia. (docs and us thought it may have been lymphoma for a while until an ultrasound, bit scary)
Wedding for Michelle and Bean
Making bricks
1 whole day's of brick manufacturing no good due to an off ingredient, grrr.
Family arriving from Perth and US for mums 80th
Finishing exams and assignments for building study
Preparing for Teenscamp
Groin sore
Family week-long party begins amidst preparing for teens and kids finishing school.
Started teens camp just down the road.
Session one at teens in the morning, Birthday bash in the arvo, party goes on into the night - much fun is had by all.
Teens for session 2 on Sunday and the fam comes along so that T can take an ellective to horses, home late after grumpy and tired kids get the better of us.
Teens session 3 and teens finishes - awesome! (not that it finished, the camp was great!)
Pre admission at Hospital for surgery tomorrow.
Family party continues at our place tonight.
At hospital at 11 am Tues and I'm sitting in bed and everything has stopped. Suddenly from everything going nutso and then nothing - weird.
Surgery around 4.30pm.
Flying with the fairies on general antisthetic and morphein. 6cm slice on upper groin with some stainless mesh in there somewhere.
Nurse accidentally punches me in the stomach! Of all the places!
Morphein wears off - NOOOOOOOO! Can't hardly move, feels like they used my stomach as a trampoline!
Home recovering and playing video games with Brod's.
Nearly fixed, will be back into it Thursday.
The end - Phew!

Teens Camp then Pain!

For now all I'm saying is that teens camp is way more fun than having a hernia fixed! I'm in pain and am not sitting here any longer. Teens camp wrap soon. AAAAHHH!

Off to Teens Camp

Who said I was too old?

Fresh Switchfoot Vid - Nice

Footy's Back!

You Beauty! Don't worry I'm not going to post all the time about footy but this win over the Dockers was totally sweet! The Dockers, one of the favourites for the flag this year, beaten on home soil by the mighty(young)power, yeh, that feels good!

This made me crack up!

Join our Dreamteam league!

Hey all. Dunno who's interested but I sent an invitation around to some people a little while back to join an AFL dreamteam league. If you're interested then go HERE and this is my league number(988039). There's only a few days to go so join up and join some people from around OZ in some fun and footy.

The song you're listening to.

The song your listening to is a Switchfoot song (of course). It's called Faust, Midas and Myself and has an awesome message of the struggles / choices we make everyday. The final words are 'what direction, what direction'. To me this is saying we have a choice that is offered to us everyday. A choice to do what is right or not, a choice to be obedient or not. It makes a huge difference and could be life changing. You can find words Here (they're too long to print. :)

New PS3 . . . . Woo Hoo

More than $20 million worth of stock had been ordered by retailers in anticipation of large initial sales similar to when the PS3 went on sale in the US and Japan five months ago
Another example of how the consumerism of western society gloats in it's 'stuff'. $20million! Imagine what could be done with that in nations without food and here we are blowing it on a game. Come on. And they say it should still have a place in the living room for another whole ten years . . . . wow!? So then we'll spend another 40 million coz of inflation. How much would it cost to give a child a life for another ten years. How far would 20 million dollars go to support a family. Considering that 1.3billion people in the world live on just $1.00 a day 'http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/gates99.htm', that would mean that this money could support about 55,000 people for a year. Real lives. Not virtual lives on a TV screen.
C'mon Australia - let's get a grip!

Readers, sit up and read this . . . . .

This would have to be one of the most controversial and important blogs for the church and people to read. Have a look.
Scotts Blog

Nooma - RICH

I listened to this (in part) a few weeks back via the downloads at marshill.org - it's really good teaching and there are some awesome things to be thinking about!

Butter wouldn't melt?

Well, you'd think that with a face like this that something this cute could never hurt a fly. Well . . . . . maybe not a fly . . . . . . . how about a chicken? . . . . . . . . . or maybe a kangaroo?
I guess she (Lara the family shepherd x ridgeback dog) kind of thinks that if we can have chicken and roo on the barbi, she can have it rare.
It all started when one day we came home and couldn't find two of our chickens. If you look at the 'My Pics' link, one of them, rest its soul,(if they have one) is in Hannah's hands as a chick. Well one of them is still nowhere to be found to this day, just one clue of a few cute chicken feathers over the fence. The other one came back, well actually not the whole one just half. One leg, one wing and no head. There is a hopping chicken around, also flying in circles, somewhere in our vicinity. If you see it let us know coz it owes us some eggs. But wait . . . . there's more to the tail of Lara the not so farm dog. On Sunday the family is in the car ready to head to our gathering of people who follow Jesus, I refuse to say 'going to church', it's a bit of a thing in our fam at the moment, and I called out to see where our wonder dog was and . . . nowhere to be seen or heard . . . . . . Great! So off we go. After a short drive, by now about 20 minutes has gone by since we noticed she was gone, we stumble across some quite stressful looking ladies walking their Rhodesian Ridgebacks among the vines. Totally identifying with their stress I asked them if they'd seen a dog. Yes was the reply 'we saw them,(I thought, them?) a dog chasing a kangaroo in that direction' (south east) and 'you need to get a bigger fence!!!!'
Oh NO!
So we drove on a 100 metres and looking to the left of the road was an awesome sight. Down an isle of vines was the biggest kangaroo I have ever seen, standing on it's back legs and tail as tall as it could, 8-9 feet tall, no joke, and Lara was just laying down panting at it's feet, paws, whatever they are. They were both stuffed. Obviously they had been hopping and running for some time, long enough that they couldn't go any further and the kangaroo had decided to turn and fight rather than run. This didn't suit Lara as she didn't care about anything that wasn't running/hopping anymore. I called her over to the fence, one of many that the two had just scaled, and she just flopped down and couldn't be bothered getting over. Her mouth was covered in slobber and she was puffing like I have never seen her before. I carried her to the car, took her home and TIED her up.
New fencing soon.
Dog not so cute anymore.
Don't let chickens out anymore.
Had roo on the barbi the other night.

Great Lyrics

Been listening to a song on life fm for a while and I love the lyrics. Found out it's a 'Mercy Me' song.

'I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel
Just trying to be real
Trying to be real
I'm not trying to say follow me
I'm not the one who leads
I'm not the one who leads'

A great philosophy for life, being a follower of Jesus and for the church!

Helping out a Coffee Blogging co-blogger

Grendel, met him while blogging elsewhere, is in need of a hand. So if you love coffee and can help him out then that would be huge. He's raising funds to assist the Autism Association's Early Intervention Centre. If you have any ideas of how we can assist him here in SA,(grendel's in WA), that would be great.
As a starter I'm devoting the $ of all my iced coffee cartons to Grendel and his cause, if you have any iced coffee cartons then save them and get the cash and send them on or cans etc If there's any other ideas you have then lets hear em! Getting even more serious I may put aside all $ that I think of spending on Iced Coffee or that other nasty black n bubbly stuff and donate that towards beans for Grendel and drink water instead. If you'd like to join me then let me know.

This photo is amazing

Check this out! It's on Scotts Blog but I wanted to share it here coz it's so cool! This is a comment about it on the blog also;
"Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught continues to move out from the Sun and dim, but should remain visible in southern skies with binoculars through the end of this month. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework."
God rocks! ps Hillary's was a special place for Teresea and I when we were in Perth, it's a great spot.