Sharing Joy and Germs.

Hello all. This week has been interesting for two reasons.

Reason 1: It was Reid's birthday on Monday. We had the party on Sunday, which was a lot of fun. We played a few games of hide and seek, during which we found a variety of uses for a trampoline. Note to self - trampoline is not a good hiding place when you really want to hide.



Reid enjoyed his presents, including various pirate, superhero and Steve Irwin related action figures. He managed quite a good haul for his third birthday.


He also got a few DVDs. The Curious George one didn't play properly on our DVD player, so Ruth took it back to the shop. Those of you who know Ruth know that this was her bread and butter in the UK. Well, it's a bit more of a challenge here. She got knocked back the first time that she tried to exchange it. I say 'the first time' because she took up the challenge, went back and this time...she won. Undefeated World Champion - Ruth Webb!


Reason 2: There's been a nasty cold going round the community over the past couple of weeks and it was finally our time to be included. At the time of writing four of us are suffering with runny noses and general coldiness. The only one who has not succumbed is Ruth, who is highly resistant to cold and flu things. The children have suffered the worst, with Reid getting ill on the afternoon of his birthday. On the Tuesday he even fell asleep on the floor, so run down was he.


So the highlights of our week were a birthday and an illness. That's kind of the best and worst of community in one week. You get to share special events with lots of other people - you have a ready-made party for your birthday - but you also can't get away from the less excellent things about groups of people living in close community, such as illness. One of the best things is that you have to make people a priority. You'll never know when you might get a knock at the door and it's someone wanting a chat. At that point you have to make a decision about whether you're going to resent it or decide to be used by God in it. As a moody introvert I've been really challenged by this since arriving at Cornerstone. Before coming to Oz I remember reading something that reminded me that Jesus was constantly being interrupted by people and yet every time he viewed it as an opportunity to serve and be used by God. There are plenty of times where Jesus is trying to get away from people to get his own space, but he often gets thwarted in one way or another. Or there are times when he's on his way to do one thing and, along the way, people keep grabbing him and adding to his work-load. I'm sure that there were moments when Jesus' heart sank as these things happened, but his responses never betray anything other than a willingness to serve. Along the same lines, one of the things that I've heard a few times since arriving at Cornerstone is that 'you can't love efficiently'. I've been trying to take these things to heart and resolving to view interruptions in a positive light as opportunities to put people before tasks. It's been good for me. Community is great if you really are serious about having God work on those unpleasant, dark sections of your life. But it's easier to keep God out of those parts than really let Him go to work, isn't it?

Have a great week and thanks for keeping in touch with what we're up to. See you in seven days!