On Monday I had lectures from 8am to 9:30am, and then I worked at The Mat Exchange from 10am to 3:30pm. I had more lectures from 4pm to 6:30pm and then in the evening we had a community meal and meeting. The community meeting happens fortnightly (alternating with homegroups) and is a chance to share news and pray with one another as well as bring up and resolve any issues that have arisen from living in community.
On Tuesday I had no work in the day, which we pretty good because we have lectures from 8 to 9:30, 4 to 5 and then from 7 to 9:30pm. It's a long enough day without having to work as well. We went to town in the day and spent some family time.
Wednesday followed the same pattern as Monday, but without the meeting in the evening. I did some work on an assignment, but Ruth and I will probably be using Wednesday evenings to spend some time with Laurie and Elvira, who are our mentors while we're here at Cornerstone.
Thursday saw me at lectures from 8 to 9:30. Every Thursday we start clean-up at 9:30am too, which means that the students spend half-an-hour or so (usually more!) doing some cleaning and odd jobs to keep the centre looking nice. It's this kind of emphasis on service that was one of the things that appealed to me about Cornerstone. I got off lightly this Thursday though because I was working from 10am to 1:30pm on The Mat Exchange. I then had a lecture from 3pm to 4pm. Ruth goes out on Thursday evening to ladies Bible study in Dubbo so I have the evening to myself.
There are no lectures on Friday, but I was at The Mat Exchange from 10 to 4:30. The weekend is free - which is something I haven't experienced on a regular basis for about seven years. It's good. The flexible element of a week usually comes with the work. If I was, for example, working for Pizza Runners I would probably be working on an evening.
Last Sunday was pretty good. We tried a small, local Baptist church in the nearby town of Narromine.
We also had to cook Sunday lunch for the students, so we were at church (the services here in Oz start at 9:30am) and returned to finish off the cooking. No-one could believe that we'd managed to go to church and cook a full Sunday lunch for fourteen people - with pudding. Well, I say "we" but I really mean "Ruth". She banned me from helping and also from taking any of the credit for the lunch. This Sunday we will try one of the Baptist churches in Dubbo and see how we get on. There are plenty of churches in Dubbo, so we should be able to find one where we feel it's the right place for us to serve.
As you can see from the photo above TCPWL has had an extreme effect. I weighed myself just earlier today and found that I have lost 5kg since leaving the UK. That's nearly a whole stone. I couldn't believe that I'd lost quite so much, seeing as my clothes don't feel any looser. "Where was I carrying the weight before?" I asked, shocked and without missing a beat my wife replied "Your chin.". Thank you dearest.
Eddie is alive and well. I've taken a photo of him in his favourite location - by our lamp. That seems to be his base of operations whilst living with us. I've taken a couple of photos so that you can see him in his new environment and get an idea of how big/small he is. Let me tell you that if my weight loss has been extreme then it's been nothing compared to his. He was much bigger when we first met, let me tell you.
And for no reason I'll end this post with a picture of one of my fellow students - Jun. He's from South Korea.
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