Friday, April 25, 2008

Samuel Hill 5's trial

The Samuel Hill 5 had their trial in Yeppoon yesterday, for trespassing into a military training area during the Talisman-Sabre Australia/US war games, so they could play frisbee with the soldiers, and encourage them to play peace games instead of war games.
While we were doing lunch in Credo, there were people handing out free frisbees around the city and telling people about the Samuel Hill 5, and after lunch we met at Alexandra Gardens to play frisbee.





I got this message from Simon Moyle at about 2 o'clock yesterday:

Unbelievable. 6 month
good behaviour bond
only! Commended on
our "exemplary lives".
Many thanks 4
prayers & support!
Had a great hearing -
judge was fantastic.
There is more info about the Samuel Hill 5 here.

The rest of the Sydney trip

Been back from Sydney for just over a week now, but haven't blogged about the rest of the trip. I've been a bit distracted. (Mehrin and I are going out!)
Anthony Venn-Brown (founder of of Youth Alive, now a gay ambassador) came and spoke to us at Hope Street's centre in Darlinghurst (where 35% of people are gay) came and shared his experience of being a gay man in the church. One thing he said that impacted us a lot was that Christians think the GLBT community are conspiring against the church, trying to undermine Christian values and trying to make it harder for Christians to practice their faith in our society. Anthony said that the GLBT community has pretty much the same suspicions about the church, and that both groups need to be in dialogue, so that they can realise they're not out to get each other.
Took these pictures one night when me and Dave went for a walk around the Botanic Gardens and Circular Quay:

And these are pieces of a puzzle I found that had been dropped in the street in Glebe:

Monday, April 14, 2008

Mostly the aquarium

Been at the Hope Street centre in Darlinghurst today:

And tonight I spent about three hours at the aquarium, which was very relaxing.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

I'm in Sydney

Got up early yesterday morning to catch the bus to Avalon Airport with Sarah (from Seeds in Bendigo). When my hand luggage went through the scanner, they said they weren't sure what was in it, and they wanted me to open it up. So I opened it up, and asked me if there was perhaps a binder in there, and I said there wasn't, but I realised I had a steel ruler in my pencil case, so they had a look in there, and there was a craft knife in it, which I hadn't realised when I packed my pencil case. So they had to chuck that out. Oh well. It turned out that one of Sarah's friends from uni just happened to be on the same flight as us, which was a pretty big coincidence.
Bryan picked us up from Sydney Airport, and drove us to Surry Hills, to Lauren's place, where Sarah is staying this week, and we dropped Sarah off there. Took this picture near Lauren's place:

Then Bryan took me to his place in Glebe to drop off my things (I'm staying with him and Heather). We had lunch there, and then went out to the Hope Street centre in Woolloomooloo.

We met up with Dave (my housemate) and the other people who are visiting Hope Street for the week. It turned out my friend John (from uni in Ballarat)'s sister Kim is also visiting Hope Street this week.
In the evening Colin (the director of Hope Street) showed us around Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst a bit, including Kings Cross.

Late in the evening we went to a food van in Woolloomooloo, to see what it's like eating there. It was really different to what i expected. In my first year at Urban Seed some of us spent a fair bit of time hanging out with people at the food van at Flinders Street Station, and generally there weren't heaps of people, and it seemed like everyone knew each other, and there was often a kind of boisterous atmosphere. At the food van we went to last night there were heaps of people, and there was a really long queue, and everyone was very quiet and serious, and not many people were talking or even making eye contact with each other.
I was really surprised to see that there were a lot of people sleeping out in Woolloomooloo, in fairly big groups, just out in the open. You don't really see that anywhere in Melbourne. Most of the others slept out with them last night, some of them under the railway bridge, some of them at a library, and some of them at 'Kiwi Park' (a lot of New Zealanders sleep there). I slept in Hope Street's Backshed Cafe, which was still outside, but it was enclosed. I was pretty exhausted from working all day at Urban Seed the previous day, and then doing my cleaning work, and then getting up early yesterday morning to fly to Sydney. I still didn't sleep much. Some of the neighbours were playing Pokémon very loudly, and there were trains going overhead regularly. At about 1 am someone outside was shouting very loudly, 'WAKE UP YOU F***ING HOMELESS PEOPLE! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!'
This morning we went to the free breakfast which Hope Street runs, in Tom Uren Place, just outside the centre, and then hung around for Street Church, under the jacaranda trees. This afternoon I'm just having a rest. Might visit Café Church in Glebe later.
Tomorrow we're going to be at the Darlinghurst centre.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Dirty mo'

Tonight we went out for dinner with Andy, for his last night with us. I gave my self a dirty mo' for the special occasion. (For Movember last year Andy had a pretty ridiculous mo'.)

(Don't worry it's gone now.)

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Easter, Footscray, Mission Exposure...

I haven't blogged for ages because too much has been going on. Easter. Via Crucis. House sitting in Footscray. Mission Exposure week. Earth Hour. Working on art for Pentecost.
Here are pictures:

Me and Dave and Sarah (she's from the Bendigo mob) are going to Hope Street in Sydney on Saturday. We'll be there till Thursday.
And Andy's decided to move out.