after many pleas and requests, i'm finally givin in and updatin my blog again..
FOCUS Church Camp (aka Easter Long Weekend Retreat) first of all, australia's great.. they give us a 4 day easter long weekend.. (this would never happen in canada unless u worked for a bank, the gov't or called in sick on monday.. lol) i spent the long weekend at Church Camp.. we went to a place called shoalhaven.. it's about 3 hrs south of sydney.. we took this really ramshackle old coach bus which would slow down vastly goin uphill and the windshield wipers would conk out every couple minutes. thankfully, we made it there in one piece. my first reaction to the place was wow.. the place was very expansive, lots of space, had very lush greenery, a soccer field, an outdoor pool, a lake and cows. it reminded me a bit like the le geant course in tremblant actually. i'll find some pictures of the camp later..
anyway.. so about the camp.. the theme was "Love is..." it was very similar to what we do back home.. we had sermons, bible studies, free time, group prep/presentation, q&a.. the only thing different is that we also had workshops and a missionary sharing night
some interesting things i learnt from the sermons.. God's conditional love.. u must be thinkin what?? I learnt that once you become his follower His love becomes conditional.. u are expected to obey His commands and stay in his love.. if you become a Christian, understood what it meant, fell away and ultimately decided to reject Him altogether He will let you go. While He still loves you and it hurts Him to see that you rejected Him he will let you go. In response to this, we as Christians, should not dwell on how we can fall out of God's love but instead focus on how we can keep following and loving God.
I also learnt that if you are Christian, he gave you the faith and chose you to be in his family. We, who are Christians are chosen by God. Sadly, not everyone will be a Christian. Basically, hell will not be empty.. scary thought there. This would bring up the question of fairness. It wouldn't be fair for the people he didn't choose. To this, the pastor gave this illustration. In the States, at the end of a presidential term, the outgoing president is able to grant a pardon to a handful of convicted felons. Now he can pick and choose as he pleases, but ultimately all the cons wouldn't deserve the pardon because of their convicted crimes. The same goes for us humans, none of us deserve to be with Him. Those of us who are Christians are chosen by Him. For those of us who are Christians, we should be very grateful and be askin why he chose us.
some pretty heavy stuff.. ok, onto some lighter stuff.. saturday night of the camp we had a dance competition.. basically all the fellowship groups split up and did their thing.. we had some really nice choreographed stuff, some boy band stuff, some biblical drama and then there was our group.. 30 mins before the competition we were frantically tryin to think up somethin to do.. we were runnin thru tons of songs from one of the group member's mp3 player, tryin to come up with a song for our routine..we then settled for the YMCA.. quick and easy.. we came up with a routine, practiced it a couple times and went to congregate in the hall. when our turn came, we did the routine and blew the roof off the place.. lol.. it was quite the spectacle.. it was mainly due to the 2 dudes (my housemates btw.. lol) that were leadin our group. they did their thing, shakin parts that aren't meant to be shaken, we did our thing and we ended up winning.. lol.. im sure theres a video floatin around out there.. i'll dig it up and post it later
at the end of the camp, we took a huge church photo.. after the photo, some of the organizers of the camp got the traditional throwin into the pool.. i think a record number of ppl got thrown in this camp.. must of been like close to 10 ppl.
300 all i can say was wow.. it was pretty explicit.. in every sense of the word. gore, sex, violence.. it had it all. the cinematography and editing was put together real well.. story was ok.. ive read some of frank miller's stuff before (ie. sin city) and i think the movie has the same edginess.. it pulls no punches in terms of blatant violence. jus one very important question.. weren't those dudes cold at all? all they wore were capes and wrestling attire
music new linkin park! sounds more rock-y and less yellin but it's distinctively still linkin park.. one thing i noticed from the video.. scenes of poverty/pollution.. seems the trend nowadays is to do be more socially/environmentally aware.. pretty cool
silverchair - straight lines.. apparently they are australian (which i had no idea) this song is all over the radio here and i think it's pretty good.. have a go.. *i hear u snickerin, beej.. heh*
the lead singer is all grown up now.. last i heard of him he was that skinny teenage kid who sang "anthem for the year 2k"..
something funny i never expected so i was at work last week flattenin some boxes outside the warehouse and this indian dude comes up to me and asks, in his thick indian accent, if he could come in and use the washroom.. he then goes on and rambles about how he has a job interview next door and needed to go to the bathroom really badly.. i was like ok, ok.. come on in.. after he does his business he leaves and he says (in his thick indian accent) thanks, mate.. i almost burst out laughin.. it sounded pretty hilarious.. in all fairness, it does make sense though.. u come to a new country.. u adopt their language/slang.. it was jus unexpected and sounded funny
this wasnt actually the first time.. ive heard some fobs here use "mate" too.. and it jus sounds really strange to me.. haha
im out like bj ryan.. (crap.. gotta find a closer for my fantasy team now..)
it sounded pretty hilarious.. in all fairness, it does make sense though.. u come to a new country.. u adopt their language/slang.. it was jus unexpected and sounded funny
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