Tuesday 27 March 2012

Insane Carnival

 

Just wanted to share some of what Simon and I do or some of what we have been doing since the beginning of the year that has kept us so busy.

Simon is the Youth, Children and Candidates Secretary for The Salvation Army Northern Victoria and I work with him currently as the Youth and Children’s Ministry Assistant. This basically means that we oversee all of the youth and children’s work across Northern Victoria for The Salvation Army and a lot of what we do is run events and camps. In January we were involved with a youth event for the entire territory called Insane Carnival. This is for high school aged kids from all over Australia except for NSW and QLD…

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This is us on the way…

I’ve actually thought about doing my hair in this photo.

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This is Rowan Castle our Territorial Youth Secretary. He looks very scary in this pic. What was cool about Carnival this year was that we had a Big Top that was like a huge circus tent. This is where most of the action took place…

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This pic is very fuzzy but you can see the lights projected all inside the big top, very cool!

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Phil Laegar (famous songwriter in Salvation Army circles from Georgia, USA) was with us all week but we were so blessed we only needed him as keys and back up!

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Nathan Casey from SA lead worship the rest of the week.

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The second night we had Shandri from Sydney come speak to us. She said Rowan had only asked her to come because she was female (and that’s probably half true) but I really connected with what she had to say and thought she was really funny too. She had just had a baby and also had a toddler so it was really great that she could be there!

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This is me and some of my Northern Vic Ladies; Lauren and Melinda, as you can see by this stage any thought of doing my hair had gone out the window!

Oh yeah and it was freezing cold the whole week even though it was in January and we were all camping in marquees and there was a lot of rain and a lot of wet beds. Not much sleep though… Hmm, I wonder why??!

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By the third day Phil Laegar was sick of playing the same chord over and over for the same song so he let Simon have a go Winking smile

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Check out Nath Casey with those kids! Lovin’ it! Spot the onesie…

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And who’s this may I ask? A Groomsman?! Yes one of the highlights of the week was of course getting to spend time with Simon’s best mate Faz who pretty much has the same job as Simon now but in Melbourne Central. Wiv da kool kids…

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Oh yeah, we had wrestlers…

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This was Simon’s contribution to the event, no great surprise there…

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Most of the guys (and the girls) loved it.

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And for those of you that were wondering… NO Simon did not put his bright orange and green wrestling outfit on!

Thank you Jesus!

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Yeah there was some real audience participation…

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Oh my goodness this next bit was my FAVOURITE part of Carnival!

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We had a christian magician come and speak!

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Not only was he a cutie but he was a really good magician and what he had to say was really powerful too!

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This last part was just so effective and beautiful these photos really don’t do the whole effect justice.

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The confetti just kept coming from what seemed like nowhere and it just made this magical starry, snowy type atmosphere, incredible!

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The last day the sun finally decided to come out just a little bit…

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And Simon got creative…

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Seriously we get paid to do this…

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These kinds of events just make us love what we do for life… We are pretty lucky when you think about it but at the same time you can’t stay at the Carnival forever. At some point you gotta go home and do the paperwork, drink proper coffee and maybe even do some wedding planning…

Just want to leave you with my favourite thing that I was mostly in charge of the whole of Carnival…

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Loud speaker! LOVE it!!!

Smile Happy Day!***

Monday 26 March 2012

No Dogs Allowed!

 

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Hi!

It’s been a long time since I have posted coz we have been CRAZY around here and I told myself I wasn’t allowed to blog about anything until I got a certain number of tasks sorted!

So now they are…

Here’s a blog of some random dogs

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This dog speaks French. I found him here…

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The Shakespeare and company book shop in Paris (I was there last year) that surprisingly sells most English books which makes that dog even cooler coz that means he speaks French but reads English!

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And I had almost walked right past this dog before I even realised it was a dog and not a big fluffy mat that had gathered at the window!

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And back in London, a Bear with a dog sitting on a chair Winking smile

I love dogs.

Happy Day!!!***