Katanning Retreat

Welcome to Katanning, in the Great Southern district of WA. I'm here for the chaplain's retreat being held at Kobeelya, which is the large old building pictured in the centre of the banner above.

I was late getting here, after my meeting yesterday morning, and packing, and dealing with domestic duties, and picking up last minute things from work, but I got here just in time for the first session. The theme for the retreat is REST so we are being encouraged to do just that, and there's plenty of free time in the program to allow it.

I've been painting for the last couple of hours so decided hitch a lift into town to take a break, and blog! I haven't got wheels at present because both mufflers on my car have passed their use-by-date and the noise my car makes is starting to attract the wrong sort of attention. I found a place in Katanning that fixes exhausts and they were able to get the necessary parts shipped down from Perth over night. Hopefully some time late this afternoon my quieter car will be ready for pick-up.

Last night there was of course the traditional game of Trivial Pursuit played. Andrew, Nathan, Steve and Brent took on Rowena, Nicole, Ben and I, and lost! They made much of me "chastising" them for being long-winded and obtuse when accepting answers, and seemed sure that I would blog about them. I don't want to disappoint them, so I have.
There followed an amusing discussion in which various chaplains and Youthcare employees were cast as characters from The Lord of the Rings. Andrew Nathan and Brent were the casting agents and they saw fit to give me the roll of Tom Bombadil!!
Before going to bed a couple of the girls barricaded the Area Chaplains in their room with tables chairs and assorted furniture. This escalated further throughout the morning until at lunch time there was a "request from the management" not to move the furniture which was met with laughter and taunts all round!!

I was awoken this morning by the loud blaring of a television. Thinking it was 7am and that the morning option was for prayer and communion I was a bit annoyed and confused so went and requested they turn the tv down. They were happy to oblige but did look at me a little strangely as I headed back to bed.
The reason for this became apparent shortly after when the announcement was made that the first session was starting and it dawned on me that it was actually 9.30!!
The tv watchers had all been up, had breakfast and returned to the lounge, it was me who was in the wrong place, or time!

Chaplain's Retreat at Fairbridge

Some of the people I spent the last three days with. No time to blog now but I had a great time, lots of good things, great stories, much fun and laughter.

Update:
Fairbridge was built as an orphanage for British children following the war and is now a conference and tourist accommodation centre. We stayed in 2-3 cottages which have several bedrooms and shared living areas, there were about 15 of us in our cottage, all blokes except for Dave's wife Nicole, they are both chaplains so got special co-habiting privileges.

I roomed with Birchy and Cam so there was plenty of talk about football, and many noxious emissions. I was beginning to think Birchy had some serious intestinal problems by the third day. In order to prevent further air pollution we hid his second can of baked beans in the freezer. When I went to bed on the second night I discovered it had been sabotaged with sugar and foreign objects. After cleaning up the mess I was forced to mete out some discipline with my pillow, but failed to notice the light hanging in the way of my first swing! The resultant noise reverberated throughout the house and drew questions the following morning. I went to bed grinning, only to burst into raucous laughter moments later when the air was split by another thunderous fart. This all followed a marathon 6 hour sitting of Trivial Pursuit. Abandoning the traditional battle of the sexes we adopted random odds and evens teams based on our birthdates. The odds won the first game, after which a number of people retired for the night. The second game became a City v Country chaplains contest with the City team narrowly winning. Nearly all the remainder went to bed after that, leaving just the die-hards to fight it out in a 3rd, modified game with a piece of pie for every correct answer. Cam and Birchy took on Justin and I and it was a close battle, with the good guys emerging victorious amidst much complaint and derision from Cam and Darren citing "easy questions" on the winning card. We then duelled it out over a few more cards before finally retiring at about 2.45am.
I love Trivial Pursuit. It's not a game everyone enjoys but I can't get enough of it and big games with big teams and lots of argument and discussion and laughter are a highlight of the retreats every year.

It wasn't all fun and games though. There were some great worship and singing times. Nick played guitar and a couple of people led the singing. That's always my favourite type of worship, simple, accoustic, strong voices, in a camp hall somewhere with a bunch of friends and like-minded people.

Geoff Westlake provided the teaching input and it was fantastic. He is one of the best speakers going around, he's highly intelligent but eminently practical and further adds to his credibility because he puts his theories into practice in the community development project they call Cheers in the perth suburb of Banksia Grove. His stuff makes great sense, reflects the different needs of this post-modern community, and resonates with people both Christian and non-Christian. On the last day I organised an offering to give to Geoff for his family and ministry and people responded very generously.

I spent some of my time painting, working on three different pictures, and Cam also did one.

On the last day as we were saying our farewells I invited a couple of people to share their stories with the group and it provided a very special and emotional finale for the retreat.
Doug told us he was leaving the next day on a trip to Thailand for an ANZAC Day pilgrimage to the Burma Railroad and Hell Fire Pass where his Dad had been a prisoner of war. His Dad died at age 52 so it will be a very special trip for Doug to go to the places where his Dad fought and suffered. He will be helping to lead the dawn service on ANZAC morning in one of the places where Australia soldiers helped establish the ANZAC spirit and tradition.

Then Gary shared with us about his impending trip to England in October to meet his birth-mother for the first time along with 2 half-sisters and a brother he's never met. He wants to make connections and tie up loose ends. By the time they finished speaking I was in tears, and I wasn't alone. Afterwards another chaplain came up and introduced herself and told us about her own experience and that she has never met her real father. She was touched by Gary's story and looks forward to a day when she too will be reunited and reconnected.

There are so many people with so many stories, we seldom know what goes on beneath the surface and it's only when we have the time and opportunity to really listen and get to know people that we find out. The retreat gave us just such time and opportunity.

On Friday night in the cab I picked up a couple of young ladies and one of them, Melissa, recognised me as the chaplain. She no longer goes to the school but while she was there her Mum had died and she had come to see me to talk about things. She thanled me and spoke glowingly to her friend about the help and support I'd offered to her at the time. It was good to see her and affirming to hear the things she said about me and my work at the school.
Later on I picked up a young bloke and his girlfriend and he also recognised me from school. He was pretty drunk and not feeling very well but he asked for my number and whether he could ring me to talk about stuff because he had a few "issues and problems".

This afternoon I was called to go round and visit a family I know because their grandmother died on Friday. Their son Kori was killed in a car crash last year and I did his funeral and now they've asked me to conduct her funeral service too. I spent a couple of hours with Rhonda and 4 of her siblings (there are 9 kids in the family! 22 Grandkids, 19 great grandkis) planning the service. It will be on Tuesday afternoon.

Coming on top of the highs and emotional experiences of the retreat both these encounters were helpful in reassuring me and confirming that I'm in the right place and doing the right thing. At times I have struggled and had doubts about whether I should still be a chaplain but these incidents encouraged me to believe in myself and what I'm doing.

Glass and Wood

Today was my last day working for Dave in the glass factory and in honour of the occasion I got my first glass splinter! I punctured the tip of my right ring finger and spilled blood, darn it! I spent afternoon cutting metal frame material in preparation for making flyscreens and had to dodge sharp pointy flying metal that the saw sometimes flicks out at high speed after cutting the mitres!I had ear muffs and goggles on for protection.

This inspired me to use the mitre drop saw when I got home to start making a frame out of some old jarrah for Sophie's mirror. It has been standing against the wall in her room, broken and jagged, so I took it in and cut it and bevelled the edges to make it safer. After cutting the timber and cleaning it up with the electric plane Dad gave Carolyn for her birthday I got inspired to try out my router and router table for the first time.
Hmm! Not so simple! I had to take it apart in order to work out how to attach the blade, not once but twice. I finally managed it just as it was getting dark and I was about to leave to take Jordy to Margaret River for his rehearsals so I only had time for one go at it. I worked it out but the router bit is not the shape I need. I'll have to look for one at Bunnings so I can put the rebate in the frame before I put it all together.
This will have to wait another few days now because I'm off in the morning for a three day chaplains retreat at Fairbridge, near Pinjarra.

Not sure about internet access at Fairbridge so blogging opportunities may be limited, we'll see.

I'm rooming with Cam and Birchy so I'm guaranteed to have a good time, plenty of fun and sport in between the serious bits and the annual Trivial Pursuit Challenge Battle of the Sexes to look forward to. I'll be taking my paints as well although I'm a little short of canvases. I may need to stock up in Bunbury on my way through.

I can't sign off without mentioning the shooting massacre in Virginia this morning. It is hard to comprehend these sort of events. The fact that there have been so many and that they continue to happen is damning. How the gun culture and gun lobby can continue with such power in light of these tragedies is astounding to me, unfathomable.
If you haven't seen Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" and particularly his interview with Charlton Heston, president of the NRA let me recommend it to you as both enlightening and chilling!
Why these sort of people want to take out a whole lot of people as well as themselves is too hard to understand. I pray for comfort for the victim's families.