The Pookwife's Escape

My one true Pookish love has left me alone for four days with the pooklings while she goes off and has a good time with a bunch of other females at an annual retreat. I dropped her off in Launceston (65km away) last night where she was meeting her lift to Ulverstone, then went to buy clothes for the kids at K-Mart, which took three times as long as necessary and involved unplanned purchase of toys. Got home after ten, put them to bed then finished my sermon. Got up early and finished my sermon, got breakfast and took number three pookling to a birthday party about 15km out of town for three hours. Number three and this kid have the same name and were born on exactly the same day! Ours had his party on Tuesday, and his friend today. Came home and finished my sermon. Cooked tea then finished my sermon in between demands for food drinks and comfort, including a cut knee. Gave in to kids' request for video that they stayed up too late watching. How will I ever get them out of bed in the morning so I can give them breakfast and drop them off at honorary aunty Elsie's place by 8:30am to get to Bridport by 9am and then pick them up for Scottsdale on the way back? Think I'm getting the flu. She won't be back until Tuesday. I'm sure she only does this to make me realise how much I take her for granted!

New Blog - The Spirit, The Word and Us

I have just started another blog to review the book The Divine Spiration of Scripture (in America called The Divine Authenticity of Scripture) by Rev Dr Andrew McGowan, address some of the controversy that has surrounded its publication, and discuss the issues it raises, including the debate over things like whether we should use the term Inerrant or Infallible of the bible; the relationship between the Spirit, the Word and us as recipients of the Word; our theology of Word, Church, and Tradition; etc.

http://spirit-word.blogspot.com/

The Big Freeze Hoiliday

The Big Freeze Holiday

Unfortunately not here. Our kids are still having school today.

Poor Pookling number two for the second year running is missing out on his school excursion because he has the flu. They are going in to the museum, and then after lunch to hear Andy Griffiths the children's author speaking at Storey's bookshop. He is a great Andy Griffith's fan and devastated at missing it, so we're hoping he'll be better by lunchtime and we can take him in ourselves. If I do it, it will be four times out of the last five days I've driven to Lonnie and back.

Tonight Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys, will be speaking at the RSL club here.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

The Big Freeze.

A blast of Antarctic air today and tonight, it's freeeeeezing!

Riverside Refresh Conference

The Holy Spirit was more than just the topic of today's conference. Far from Him being merely the object of our study, as we learned from God's Word together, He made us His objects, teaching us, filling us, giving us understanding, changing us, and equipping us.


It was a fantastic time of teaching and learning and fellowship, as visiting lecturer and preacher Dr Andrew McGowan, principal of Highland Theological College, led us in three addresses on:
1. The Holy Spirit and the Mind
2. The Holy Spirit and the New Birth
3. The Holy Spirit and Evangelism

Here is Andy doing his best to look like a dour Scot! He was usually more cheerful than this, I just have a knack of catching people at the worst moment...


A very diverse group from all round the state attended to hear Andrew speak. Represented were old and young, Pastors, Ministers, Elders and lay people, men and women, Presbyterians and others, Australians and foreign visitors. All agreed that we were mightily blessed with the Word of God opened to us in a very meaningful and helpful way.

During the day we shared refreshments and lunch together, sang to God's glory and prayed together.

Here is June and Andy enjoying their lunch...

When I get time I will add links to MP3s of Andy's talks.

Welcome to Prof Andy

On Saturday we welcomed Rev Professor Andrew McGowan from the Highland Theological College in Scotland to Tasmania. He and June flew into Launceston in the morning, bringing the Scottish weather with them - see photo above! After lunch with their billets, Andrew and June were able to indulge their passion for birdwatching and photography at the local wetlands information centre, where they saw their first Black Swans, and other endemic species. Andrew was particularly taken with the White Face Heron and Chestnut Teal, as well as the mounted Wedge Tail and Sea Eagles in the information centre.

Andrew spoke at St Andrew's Launceston on Sunday. On Tuesday he will give three talks on The Holy Spirit at our one day Refresh Conference at Riverside.

Report on the conference and more photos to follow.


Above: White faced Heron


Above: Andrew with some local fauna on his mind.

Above: Andrew & June enjoy some hot soup after the service on Sunday night.

And are you the Minister?

Visited a member of our church in her 100th year today. She turned 99 a couple of months back. She suffers from short term memory loss. In the half hour or so I was there she asked me about ten times who I was and did the same for her carer who was bringing in her washing for her. Alzheimer's is very economical. You only need a few sentences. And you can re-use them many times. In fact you have to.

This nonagenerian an amazing woman. She still lives at home and cares for her 63 year old developmentally disabled daughter who is nearly blind. She played the organ at church for decades and still plays when she goes to day care at the hospital nursing home. Lately she has been a bit down. She feels that God has given up on her. I shared with her those scriptures that talk about God never leaving nor forsaking us and Jesus Christ being the same yesterday, today and forever, and can only hope that she at least retains the feeling she had when she was reminded of that even though I had to repeat it several times. She probably doesn't remember that I was ever there by now.

Olympic Glory or Olympic Shame?

I'm ambivalent or even mildly antipathetic towards Australian sporting achievements at the Olympics. (Okay, I admit it, I cheer for our athletes, but then I feel guilty about it).

At Athens, Australia came 4th in the medal tally, behind the three superpowers - USA, China and Russia. Japan was 5th. In fact none of the others in the top ten have a population less than 50 million. What a stupendous achievement for a nation with our population of just over 20 million. Or is it? Doesn't it just mean that we spend relatively far far too much on sport?

I saw something on TV last week about the $17million high tech pool at the Institute of Sport. Wired up like a Christmas tree. More sensors and high speed cameras and computers connected to it than a ride at Disneyland. It's the best in the world. Even the Americans don't have anything like it!

Yet, every state in Australia has a shortage of doctors and nurses in public hospitals and ambulances banking up outside the emergency door. Indigenous people still have a life expectancy 20 years less than other Australians. Bright young Australians, thanks to Messrs Hawke, Keating and Howard, no longer enjoy the free tertiary education they once did but instead start their adult life with a HECS debt hanging around their neck. But hey, we might win more medals than ever at the Olympics!

Wasn't it the Roman Emperors who figured that when things got worse the best solution was to put on more games? That was not long before the Barbarians came I think.

And as for the Chinese Olympics, there are other even more troubling implications. See Gordon Cheng's blog at Sola Panel - http://solapanel.org/article/beijing_olympics_and_persecution/