Interesting study

"Oxford University researchers are spending £1.9 million ($4 million) investigating why people believe in God, examining whether believing in a higher being is a result of nature or nurture."

http://www.theage.com.au/oddspot/

Now it will be interesting to see the result of that study because we all do have an inbuilt (nature) desire to worship something/someone.

Trip to Kenya now later this year

Hi all,

I apologise in advance of not informing you of news about my trip to Kenya but have been unable to provide a definite statement until now.

I was supposed to fly out on 7th Jan but due to the election turmoil there with violence, etc it was put back until the week after but that quickly changed to being Feb. So we then aimed at going Feb until March but that fell through and then there was the option of going for 2 weeks in Feb but due to several circumstances the decision has been made to cancel the trip until Dec/Jan (decided last night).

However the majority of our mission team (7 of 10) are still planning on going from mid-March to mid-April but I am unable to do that due to uni, work and other commitments.

This is disappointing but there is the hope of going later which makes it not so bad. Also Jeremiah 29:11-13 has been challenging and encouraging me through this whole process. I can already see reasons why He didn't want me to go now as somethings have happened, are happening and going to happen, which show His faithfulness and proves his promise in Romans 8:28. (Proverbs 16:1-3 as well)

So they are the reasons I was unable to inform you because what we were planning on doing changed nearly every week.

Please pray for Kenya that peace will be restored as there has been quite a lot of violence with over 600 people dead. Pray that God will elect the right guy for Prime Minister and that the people will get sick of the fighting, etc and start showing love - even for opposing tribal groups as God asks to love one another and even more so our enemies. Lots of innocent people are caught up in it too, pray for their safety.

Thank you for your prayers and may you give God glory for who He is,

God Bless, Aaron

Philippians 1:3

Procrastinate no more...

October 28, 2007

I Don’t Feel Like It

READ: Matthew 21:28-32

He answered and said, “I will not,” but afterward he regretted it and went. —Matthew 21:29

Have you ever faced an unwanted chore and felt as if it were the last thing on earth you wanted to do? Mowing the lawn, doing the wash, cleaning the house, or even preparing a Sunday school lesson after an exhausting week can make us feel like procrastinating.

When this happens, my wife and I have a motto we repeat to each other: "I don’t feel like it—but I’m going to do it anyway." There is something about recognizing our lack of motivation and then choosing to be responsible that helps us follow through.

God’s value on faith and obedience can be seen in the parables of Jesus. Christ spoke about two sons who were asked to work in the vineyard. The first said no, but "afterward he regretted it and went" (Matt. 21:29). The second said yes but did not follow through. Then the Lord asked His listeners, "Which of the two did the will of his father?" (v.31). The obvious answer is the one who finished the task.

Our Lord’s illustration underscores a key spiritual principle. God is interested in our faith and obedience—not just our good intentions. Next time you are tempted to shirk your duties, why not say, "I don’t feel like it," and then ask God for the grace to do it anyway. —Dennis Fisher

O help us, Lord, to heed Your Word,
Its precepts to obey;
And give us strength to quench the urge
To do things our own way. —Sper

Obedience is faith in action.

Towards Kenya

As it gets closer to my trip over to Kenya on a mission trip, I am getting more excited and looking forward to it even more. We have practically reached our target of $14,000 to build fish ponds and any more that is raised will contribute towards another project. Praise God for how it has all come together, He is at work!

I thought a good way in the lead up to my trip over to Kenya is to let you know a bit more about it. Here are a couple of the facts:

Capital: Nairobi
Official Language: Swahili, English
Government: Republic
Population: July 2005 estimate = 34,707,817
8 Feb 2007 census = 31,138,735
Currency: Kenyan Shilling


Here is the flag of Kenya...


and this is a map of Kenya...

Been busy

Over a month and I haven't made a post on here *shakes head* - not good.

In the last month a fair bit has happened including uni holidays coming and going. During these holidays I directed a kids holiday program in which we had 50 kids come along to by the last day. It went really well and the team of leaders was great. It was a growing time in our faith and a lot of fun was had.

Uni and work has definitely been taking a fair bit of my time as well.

I have been using facebook a fair bit lately too so my 'spare' time is used on it now rather than this.

Let me know if you want me to continue using this and having more worthwhile content than this post on here.

Listening to God

Gone are the days when a real person greets you on the other end of a phone call. It seems as though whenever we try to “reach out and touch someone,” we are greeted with a computerized voice.

I’m glad this isn’t true of our Father in heaven. He is always there. No voice-mail boxes, no “press 2 for more grace” and no “call waiting” interruptions. Thankfully, “Call to Me, and I will answer you” (Jer. 33:3) has not been replaced by, “All lines are now busy. Your call is important to Me. Please stay on the line.”

Yet I wonder what kind of access He has to us?

Communication with God is a two-way street. He speaks to us through His Word when we come attentively before Him in prayer and through the clear voice of the indwelling Spirit. He paid a great price to keep the lines open so that we can experience the joy of being still long enough to know that He is God (Ps. 46:10). As my grandmother’s favorite hymn “In the Garden” says:

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known. —Miles
© Renewal 1940 The Rodeheaver Co.

The joy of hearing His voice is a call you don’t want to miss! —Joe Stowell

Is God getting through to you?

http://www.rbc.org/odb/odb-09-05-07.shtml

My name

I got a key ring from a family friend and it was about my name and the meaning, etc. This is what it had:

On one side it has:

Aaron

• Meaning: "High Mountain or Exalted"
• Origin: Hebrew
  

On the other side it has:


~ Aaron ~

• generous
• understanding and wise
• gives of himself to all who need his help
• his openness and honesty lead to good friendships and lasting relationships
• can be counted on in a tough situation not to lose his cool or panic
• one of those lucky people
• things always seem to work out for the best

What do you think? Does that describe me well or not?

40 Days of Purpose

A friend of mine is doing the 40 days of purpose and is sharing what she learns and what God is teaching her through it on her blog. I recommend reading each post and then thinking about the question or point that it leaves you to think about or make a change to your life

Check it out at: http://scrapmezza.blogspot.com/

Blackle.com - Saving energy one search at a time

At IBM, we got sent this link about Blackle and I recommend checking it out just to see what it is about but I will give you the heads up anyway.

Blackle is a Google search engine with a black background instead of the normal white one, which saves power as the screen doesn't use as much power to display the page. It has a stat on the front page saying how many watt hours have been saved. Now I am not sure if it really does save power because it still has to display black but it may true in that black is the most energy efficient colour.

What are your thoughts and are you going to start using Blackle over Google?

The Wii Phone

...or in my case "Wee Phone" (just so you know that Nintendo aren't releasing a competitor to the iPhone).

This event took place about 2 weeks ago now in the bathroom. I was going to the toilet, as everyone regularly does, and then my mobile in my front pocket of my jumper decided that it needed to go for a swim. It fell straight out into the toilet! It took a second or two before it sank in that it was my mobile in the toilet and then came the look of astonishment (yes Jono, astonishment, I will show you the face one day).

This called for action so I reached in and grabbed my mobile out of the toilet. I am glad it was only Number 1's otherwise it would have been messy or would I have written it off and bought a new one instead??? Now comes a really ironic thing, I took the dripping mobile out of the toilet and rinsed it off under the tap which sure felt wrong because electrical devices and water don't mix. Of course by this time the water was in there, the screen had gone black and then it started vibrating because it was short-circuiting so I ripped the back off and pulled the battery out.

I then dried the outside of it and placed it on a heater to dry out as much as possible. I then bought a set of small tools to pull it apart to dry and clean it. It now has a little bit of a black bit on the bottom-left of the screen where water is in the screen and the 3 (DEF) button is a little worse than it used to be. Apart from that it still works fine.

Recommendation: Mobile phones should not go swimming - as they can't swim.

Why Aussie Internet is behind the times...

This article from The Age talks about why our internet is measly compared to other places in the world.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/wireless--broadband/why-does-our-internet-cost-so-much/2007/07/23/1185043035992.html

It comes down to money and the distance we are from others in the end...how can we get the Prime Minister addicted to the internet so that he will spend lots on infrastructure?

What a week!!!

I have been away since last Sunday (8th) doing several activities which is why I have been unable to create new posts.

Last Sunday afternoon I travelled down to Melbourne with friends and stayed the night at a friend's place. The next morning we left to go to Adanac camp at Yarra Junction as we were leaders on the junior camp that was on by OAC. It was a great camp from the Monday to Friday with lots of fun doing an amazing race, dramas, canoeing, studies, flying fox, stories, games, etc with the kids who we got to know during the week. It was great to hear about how some kids had changed perceptions as to what Christianity is, how they can live for Jesus and more.


After the camp I went and visited some relatives for the Friday night which it was nice to catch up with them including my two young cousins who sure are growing up.

On the Saturday and Sunday I was at Belgrave Heights for the SU Director's training weekend which went well as we now have some more ideas of what to do for RSK and how to improve in some aspects, i.e. using the Bible more in the program and team life than we already do.

I then came back to Ballarat for church last night and heard Brad speak about how it is important that we should be careful what influence our friends have on us and that it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be friends with non-christians. Ballarat Family Church did a great job leading the worship with band and singers, etc.

Last night I went to bed about 10pm which was nearly normal camp bed time and then woke up this morning at 6:30 which was wake up time on camp. I think my body clock needs to sort itself out before uni goes back next week...

All in all a great week of serving God and seeing Him at work. Now time to RRR - Rest, Recover and Relax.

Lifehouse - Who We Are

I have just been listening to the new album by Lifehouse and it is another good album. I thought I had heard about a new album being released and now I have heard it, some good songs. So here is a track listing of Lifehouse's new album called Who We Are:

1. Disarray
- A traditional Lifehouse style song, good

2. First Time
- A nice catchy uplifting song, their first single release from this album.

3. Whatever It Takes
- A little slower relaxed song.

4. Who We Are
- Another traditional style Lifehouse song.

5. Broken
- A nice melodic song, one that could go into a tv episode...

6. The Joke
- This song is a little different, old style beat but 'funky' - well done, especially the earlier part of the song.

7. Easier To Be
- Another slower song but perfect for background music.

8. Make Me Over
- Again a traditional Lifehouse song.

9. Mesmerized
- I like this song and not just because it has moments where it sounds like Coldplay.

10. Bridges
- A grungier style song at points, slower paced.

11. Learn You Inside Out
- Almost a ballad this one but a nice gentle tune.

12. Storm
- A different song compared to the rest is about all I can say about this one. It has strong, almost chilling, vocals and definitely is a ballad.

My blog rating

Just for your interest, my blog is rated G and only contains one word of kill. Want to see what rating your blog gets:

Blogger adds polls

I think this is a great new addition to Blogger, the introduction of polls. It is currently only available in draft blogger but it shouldn't be too long before we see it in the full Blogger system. A lot of people have wanted polls on their blog for quite a while, I know I have, without having to use a third party polling service.

You can vote: Is the glass half-empty or half-full?

RSK Team Weekend 1

Fancy no posts in the last couple of days...anyone would think that I may be busy and yes I have been.

Last weekend, Rock-Solid Kidz, had its first team weekend which went really well. We had about 10 people there for most of the weekend and they learnt about what RSK is, the vision, program, etc. We also learned how to be relevant and interesting to kids when doing the program and to recognise opportunities to talk to kids about God. We had a great weekend, filled with lots of fun, including making a McFlumpy (8 litres of ice cream, pack of M&M's, pack of marshmallows, two blocks of Aero chocolate, 1 chocolate topping bottle and 2 Violet Crumbles all mixed together. Yummy!!

The team got along well together and is looking like a great core group, good job each one who is reading this.

Upcoming Movies

There have been some pretty big movies released recently like Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, etc and there are more on the way like The Simpons Movie, Evan Almighty, etc.

This website at imdb has a listing of the movies that are being released in Australia in the next year or so. So if you want to find out when your favourite sequel or a movie is going to be released, check this link out.

Reward and Recognition

I went back to work today as I haven't been for about a week and a half due to exams (which I have finished!!!) and upon getting back to work was given two movie tickets! I was given this as my team leader had received feedback from at least two users I had responded to after fixing their problem. It was a pleasant surprise and although I didn't think I did anything special - just doing my job - I was not going to say no.

I previously posted about an email reply I received from a guy and talked about encouragement at work and he was one of the guys who sent the big email back as well as another person who sent one in. It is a challenge to encourage others to do their best in their job as we don't recognise the hard work and dedication a lot of people put into their work/job, etc.

Who can you encourage by giving reward or recognition to, today?


Ephesians 4:29

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Latest World Earthquake News

I found this website on the internet which is quite good in showing the lastest earthquakes in the world. It is interesting to see how many earthquakes happen and where because we only ever hear of some of them but there are some quite big ones that aren't being reported which can be understandable if there is no damage or lives lost, etc because the news reports are all usually bad things that have happened....but that is another topic.

I have checked back on this earthquake website a couple of times now, so if you are interested follow the link below.

http://www.earthquake-news.net/index.php

Interesting to note, you can see where the fault lines are usually and then get an idea of what tectonic plates are moving.

New Australian Monopoly

Monopoly has to be the most popular board game ever because nearly everyone has at least one version of Monopoly or more. Parker Brothers have now released a new Australian version of Monopoly and there was voting for which places in Australia would get a place. Each state has a winner or two so check it out and see what you think.

As cool as it is to have a new Australian version, it is after all the same game so it doesn't really matter which board you play on.

http://www.monopoly.com.au/