State Youth Games Launch

Saturday 20th March - Sunday 21st March

Saturday: In the morning I did a radio interview at Good News Radio. This would be my fourth now on the radio station. I have really enjoyed all of my experiences with this radio station. This was a particularly good interview. All of the questions were great and they played a number of my songs. I also got to promote the State Youth Games Launch a little.

That Night was the Ballarat State Youth Games Launch. The irony is that the other launches were at Frankston and Blackburn, the places where I grew up and lived as I did my study. However I ended up at the launch in a place I had never been before this year. The launch itself had three sessions including the main event in the middle and hang out time before and after. It was set up really well. During the hang out times there was a variety of things to do. These ranged from a jumping castle, Nintendo Wii, dance party and live music. I was the live music. It was really great to be a part of the event. There were tables set up in a café-like style and people wondered in and out. There were generally a few people sitting and listening at any one time. It was a really cool, chill out type of atmosphere. Still feeling a bit sick my voice struggled a bit but I made it in the end. The main event itself was great. The SYG band did a great job, one of the youth got displayed on stage getting the "State Youth Games" treatment and the main speaker was a guy name Phil Cann from Vancouver. All in all it was a great night and as a representation of SYG itself, has shown that the camp is going to be fantastic.

Sunday: In the morning we went to York St Church of Christ. We really enjoyed the service, as always, and we got to hear Phill Cann speak again. It was good to hear the difference between his sermons to youth and adults. I went up and met Phil after the service. He is a really great guy but definitely a little bit crazy.

Sunday night I had been invited to play a song and introduce communion at One2one Church of Christ. It was really nice showing up to the church and knowing a number of people. Some of the youth were especially excited to see us and greeted us with big hugs, exited shouts of joy and exaggerated waving of arms. I have to say we really love these guys and it is so cool to be their role models. Thanks Laura and Michele for the encouragement notes, you guys are great, along with all of the one2one youth. I jumped up on stage and joined in with the band for the duration of the service. It was heaps of fun. For communion I played "Hope in You" and gave a small message throughout the bridge of the song. The remainder of the service was really good and in particular I found the sermon really profound. It was about Judas and what brought him to the point of betrayal. After the service we hung out with a bunch of the youth. We will definitely miss these guys.

Tomorrow we take the long drive back home, aware that this will probably be the last time we come back to Ballarat for a while.

Lakes Entrance part 2

Monday 15th March - Friday 19th March

Monday: This week was mostly about getting used to a routine. Sarah was working and so was I. I have decided to split my time between doing 3 hours of admin stuff and 3 hours of practice. Admin stuff incorporates everything from doing the blog (which takes a lot longer than you may realize), contacting churches and schools, meeting with people and a whole lot of other stuff. Practice is fairly self explanatory, however I have written up a practice routine to make sure I utilize my time as well as possible. I believe it is important for everyone to work and even though my work is technically unpaid our ministry won't run by itself and takes a lot of organizational work. Also I believe I owe it to all the people who have supported us so generously.

Monday night we moved to another house up the road where there is a little more room. The family we are staying with has two kids. They are all lots of fun, very generous and hospitable. We were greeted by the words "make yourselves at home, what’s mine is yours."

Tuesday: The family we are staying with got a kitten last night. It is so cute and so distracting. Both Sarah and I are doing work. As we get absolutely no reception here, the family have very generously said we can use their wireless internet and their computer. Of course the computer is in the same room as the kitten. I still think I got a fair amount of work done, it was just interspersed with playing with and cuddling the kitten.

Sarah is doing really well with her transcription and has been told that if she does ok today that tomorrow she can move to paid work. All of her files will still be proofread by someone else which means that Sarah will be on a lower rate, however it's worth it for the peace of mind.

One of the wonderful things about the house we are currently staying at is that not only can you see the ocean but you can hear it occasionally, especially as you go to sleep at night. We have been and will be frequently visiting the beach, going for relaxing strolls. Oh yeah, life is good.

Wednesday: Sarah started work today. She is doing really well. Trying to adjust to some of the various challenges but she's getting there. We will be picking up a package later today with some programs that will make various aspects of her work much easier. We are both really grateful that Sarah is finally able to start working and that we will have an income.

We went to a bible study tonight. We got to fellowship with a bunch of people from the church up here. The study was about tithe. We heard a lot of amazing testimonies about how God had come through for people just when they needed it. At the end of the study I shared my song “Surrender” with everyone.

Thursday: I finally began the process of putting my songs up on iTunes today. They will be processed in two to four weeks, so keep an eye out. One of the biggest issues I have had is playing somewhere and having people wanting to buy a CD but not having any money on them at the time. It will be such a relief to be able to say to people don't worry you can get it later on from home. In a number of situations I have just given the CD's away, especially when it comes to youth.

That afternoon we helped out with an event the church was running. The event was an Easter workshop. I helped out as a leader and Sarah started out as a leader but then suddenly got delegated the role of photographer. The workshop was great. There were a number of songs which the kids really got into, unfortunately leaders also had to attempt to dance and be silly, not massively my forte but I gave it a go. They also had a play and then some activities. My group’s activity involved colouring in these really cool fold-out things which told the Easter story. I took great pride in my colouring in. It was wonderful to see Sarah hovering around taking photos, she did a really great job.

That night the kids convinced us to go out riding with them. It was a lot of fun. They showed us around some of the paths and where they like to ride. Of course we came inevitably to a massive and steep hill. So I did the responsible thing of riding down as fast as I could, setting an excellent example for the kids. Don't worry I told them not to try what I was doing, because that stopped them. For the record I managed to get up to 59kph. We all had a lot of fun.

Friday: Today mostly involved a nice little seven hour drive from Lakes Entrance to Ballarat. Sarah was wonderful and did most of the driving as I was still feeling a little bit sick and needed to do a lot over the weekend. We arrived in Ballarat and were really grateful to have somewhere to stay. We chilled out that night and went to bed fairly early, ready for the big weekend that lay ahead.

Lakes Entrance part 1

Friday 12th March - Sunday 14th March

Friday: Today was the day that we would finally set off in the direction we had always planned on going. We were both exited and there was a great sense of anticipation as to what lay ahead. We packed up the camper, said goodbye to parents and set off for Lakes Entrance. We arrived at about 5:00 to a very full house. Including us there were ten people staying at the house at once. The people we were staying with were old friends and it was wonderful to see them again and catch up on two years of happenings. We knew we were only able to stay there for a few days and would need to find somewhere else to set up, however by this stage we had experienced enough of this sort of thing and we were not even remotely worried. We have learned to trust God and know that he has prepared the way for us, including were we will rest our heads at night.

We were invited along to the youth group that night so we went along. It was heaps of fun and Sarah and I spent much of our time connecting and meeting the youth who were running around and being generally crazy like youth are. I got asked to play a song so I played "Hope in You." It went down really well and everyone seemed to appreciate the song. After we heard a brief sermon I helped lead worship and was blown away watching all of the youth really get into it. We both had a great time.

Saturday: This morning I went to a men's breakfast. It was at a floating restaurant which was a very different experience. Again it was great opportunity to get to know a number of people from the church in a different environment. The meal was really nice too. One of the men got up and gave his testimony, it was really powerful. Sarah went and had breakfast with the women. She also had a good time getting to know everyone a little better.

We both chilled out on the beach for the afternoon. We did that because the beach is practically on our doorstep, oh yeah. Sarah had fun playing in the waves and I collected some really cool shells, mostly smooth broken ones with really strong colours. Later on I made some necklaces out of the shells and gave them to the young girls from the family we were staying with.

Sunday: This morning we went to Lakes Community Church. The first thing we noticed was that the seats were really far away from the stage. The reason being is that during worship everyone comes up the front dances around, sings and really gets into the worship. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness and be a part of. After the service everyone stayed and we all had lunch together and fellowshipped. When I say everyone stayed I’m not talking about five or ten people but more like around 50 people. It was a wonderful example of good community.

Visiting Home

Thursday 4th March - Friday 12th March

Thursday: After a few more days in Ballarat, spent mostly catching up with people, saying goodbyes and preparing to travel again, it was finally time to leave. We packed up the camper and began our journey onto the next destination. We were planning for this to be Lakes Entrance however we got a phone call that very quickly changed that. My brother and his wife who were expecting to have a baby in about two weeks had decided to induce the baby due to some complications with the pregnancy. I was going to become an uncle, a prospect which I was quite excited about. For this reason we decided to go back to Somerville first.

At this stage I was feeling sick, with a cold. We drove home only to have to stop five minutes away from our destination because the car had overheated. We made the last tiny little leg of the journey on the back of a tow truck. I should probably mention that we did one of those things that you know you just shouldn't do but you just don't think at the time. After the car started overheating we pulled over and had lunch to give the car a chance to cool down. After waiting 15-20 minutes I had the thought that maybe the car needed more water. I went to check and Sarah having heard the cars can spurt a bit of water suggested we put a cloth over it before we open it. I was having difficulty opening the water cap so Sarah had a go. It certainly opened or rather exploded everywhere. It was like a volcanic eruption of water and coolant as we ran away from the car as quickly as possible to a safe distance. Sarah got a little bit on her hand and although it stung it didn't leave any scolding. I had to improvise pulling the lid off one of my toolboxes to put water in it for Sarah to hold her hand in. The man from RACV was very kind and drove Sarah to the doctors where they gave her an ice-pack. I stayed with the car waiting for the tow truck. We are very grateful that neither of us got more seriously injured. My advice is: don't ever remove the water cap off a car that has just or recently overheated, just don't do it, it's stupid.

To end the day on a better note I got a call back from Wes Jay who I had sent my CD to. He said that it was great and that he had listened to it twice, which for someone as busy as Wes definitely means something. We proceeded to talk for close to an hour. He basically explained that he believed that I had enough musical training, songwriting ability and talent to make it as a professional musician. He said that I had a good voice but that he believed it could become much better and that he wanted me to get some high level lessons and focus on improving my voice. He exclaimed that he felt I was not ready yet for his level of promotion and that he wanted me to acquire more performance experience and learn to bring out myself in my music. He also said that I needed to work on my appearance. Not for self centered reasons but because the reality is that people will judge first on appearance and I shouldn't allow this become a stumbling block to people hearing the heart of what I have to say. Wes explained that if I can work on these things and improve that in a couple of years he would be interested in working with me. This is a massive encouragement to me and positive confirmation that I really could pursue a career as a professional musician, something that I had been seriously questioning for a while. I now feel that I have something to work to. I should explain that I will never be a career or money driven person, my life is committed to following God and loving others, but this has presented a whole new direction and forum for me to be able to do that.

Friday: At 2:30am Lila Kate Charlesworth was brought into the world. I have a little niece, daughter to my brother and it's the coolest thing ever. We went to the hospital and met her. She is so small and so cute. I really hope I can be a good uncle. Both parents and baby are healthy and it is wonderful the two doting parents care for their baby like they are long time naturals.

Sunday: We went to church this morning at St. Andrews. It was good to be at our home church seeing familiar faces. We were even lucky enough to back on the Sunday when some good friends of ours were having their baby baptised. We got up later in the service and shared some of what we had been doing in our time in Ballarat. After the service we had many conversations with friends as there was much to tell and much to catch up on.

Monday - Thursday: I spent most of this time catching up with friends and family, getting the car fixed and attempting to recover from my cold. We have come to realize that in future when we come back we definitely need to allow for two weeks as one week is nowhere enough time to catch up with all the people we want to see.

Sarah has spent most of this time working really hard at her new job. She is still in the mentoring process however it is going really well. Most of the issues she is coming across are specific formatting requirements directly related to the company she is working for. Otherwise it’s mostly computer related issues. It will be great when Sarah can be paid for her work.

We are both exited about getting back on the road and seeing what lies ahead on the journey.

Ballarat part 5

Monday 22 Feb to Sunday 28th Feb

Monday: The start of a new week. Things are rolling along quite nicely. In the morning I gave a guitar lesson to one of the musos from the Delacombe Uniting Church. In the afternoon I met with one of the pastors from York St Church of Christ to discus playing in the service on Sunday. In the evening I got in contact with the family I stayed with in Eden. They are living in Lakes Entrance now and are happy for us to stay with them for a little while. This means that we are definitely going to make Lakes Entrance our next destination. Beyond all this we are simply trying to recover from the camp over the weekend. It was fantastic but very tiring.

Tuesday: I went to do a radio interview this morning at Good News Radio. The interview was conducted by an amazing man named Jonathan Jones. He is both partially blind and deaf, as evidenced by our first meeting where he stood about a foot away from me to see who I was. He serves the radio station diligently and has a book about his journey which I am looking forward to reading. The interview went really well and I even played a few songs live on air.

Later in the day I spent some more time working on the water tank, we can get it to pump water but it still leaks. This has become a major frustration and we have tried a number of things to fix it. Today I got Adrian, who we are staying with to help me with it. We ended up threading a new brass piece with a bigger thread and surrounded even that with silicone. If that doesn't work I don't know what will. We will need to allow the silicone about 24 hours to dry so it will have to wait till tomorrow to see if it worked.

Wednesday: In case you are wondering what Sarah has been doing, she has been working hard at a job interview for a medical transcription company for the last three days. The interview is more like an exam and involves a number of different sections. Sarah must maintain a 95% or higher average. They take accuracy very seriously when dealing with the transcription of people's medical reports. Today Sarah has completed all of the tests and she is feeling confident that she will have passed. They have said it can take up to five business days to find out the results.

In other news for the day: THE TANK WORKS!!! It has finally stopped leaking!! This means that we can finally have running water in the camper. There are still plenty of other things to fix between the camper and the car but this was a big one and it feels great to have finally done it.

We went to Ballarat City Church at night to see more of the seminar "Laugh your way to a better marriage." Again it was very funny and insightful.

Thursday: Up to five business days my foot, Sarah got an email from the medical transcription company already offering her a job! She can start as soon as she has read through the paperwork. From there she will move into a mentored position. This is where she will be typing up real reports however a mentor will check over all of her work. Sarah can also ask her mentor any questions regarding the work. The work is unpaid however and they have said that this process can last between 1 - 3 months. Basically until Sarah's mentor decides that she is ready.

I got up early in the morning had some time of prayer, reflection and bible reading and in the midst of all of this a song began to form in my mind. I instantaneously had a concept, a few lyrics and a melody, however I proceeded to spend the following two hours of intense concentration trying to write all of the lyrics. It did not come easily. I was worried that it was going to be just as hard to put music to... five minutes later I had worked out all of the music. I am very proud of the song and it is the first one of the trip. The song is called "Without Excuse."

Today I bought a new pair of shoes. I'm sure this doesn't sound like much but for me it is a rare occasion. I only buy shoes about once every three years and that is only when my previous pair of shoes is so worn that they are on the verge of falling to pieces. I find that there is only one kind of shoe that is comfortable so I always buy the same ones. The lesson I learned today is that prices go up in the course of three years, significantly. In short the shoes were very expensive but hopefully they will last another three years. There you go you all now know one of the more strange facts about my personality.

Friday: Tonight we had been invited to play at Ballarat Christian Fellowship youth group for their "Godspot." We had a lot of fun watching them play a bunch of different messy, youthy kind of games. We even got included in a couple of the games. I am the "eating a donut off a piece of string without using your hands" king. Later in the night I got up and played for half an hour. It was difficult playing over a bunch of rowdy youth without a microphone or P.A. but I managed. I tried to get everyone into the songs with clapping along and singing along where possible. The reward of a free CD went a long way in holding everyone's attention. Victory Song went down the best. I also told a few stories and spoke some, hopefully, life imparting words. All in all it was a great night.

Saturday: Today I had the privilege of doing a photo shoot with a very talented photographer I have met up here named Buzz. We went mostly around the outskirts of town looking for good locations and we found a few. Unfortunately the weather was not ideal, showers and overcast made for really difficult conditions. Still we managed to get a number of great photos. Buzz will need some time to touch them up on that amazing program called Photoshop, you know, make me skinny and all that. Only kidding. I can't wait to see the end result.

That night Sarah and I went to Delacombe Uniting Church again. We shared some music and some fellowship. It was a good night and a great church, we will miss them lots. I also gave them the piece of artwork I had made from the log we cut off the branch that was overhanging the prayer labyrinth. It was a cross made out of slices of the oak log with three surrounding blocks of wood with "faith hope and love" carved into them and a small dove. They really appreciated it.

Sunday: Today was all about playing at York St Church of Christ, which is one of the biggest churches in Ballarat. It was also the last church I would play at in Ballarat, this time around anyway. I showed up in the morning to the church and they didn't have a bass player or guitarist so I ended up jumping in with the music team and playing guitar with the band for the morning service. Later in the service I got up and played "Hope in You." I spoke a little in the bridge, relating the song to the sermon. We got an excellent response, meeting a number of people after the service and selling a number of CD's. I will never cease to be amazed at the generosity of people towards what we are doing.

We came back for the evening service to play again. Concerned about time, it was a very full service, and being at the end of the service I tried to be much more brief in questions I was asked and I didn't talk throughout the bridge. I have learned a valuable lesson in this, as we didn't receive the same kind of response after that service as we did in the morning. It is so important to convey the heart of what we are doing as that is the thing people will most respond to. The service still went great and we met more people after the service.