Cooma part 2

Monday 3rd May - Sunday 9th May

Monday: We got the opportunity to say goodbye to some friends that would be heading back to the South Coast today. We are not sure how long it will be before we see them again. It was sad but we are excited about what lies ahead. That night we made dinner for the household we are staying with, we all ate together and fellowshipped together. We are really enjoying the company of the family we are staying with. They are all very kind and generous, plus they are a lot of fun. Being the pastor of the church the father of the household is very wise with much life experience. Both Sarah and I are really enjoying lots of deep conversations.

Tuesday: Sarah went into the church to work. I stayed at the house and spent most of the day setting up Sarah’s new laptop. Unfortunately with anything new like a laptop it takes time to set up all of the necessary functions as well as sorting out little bugs and issues. It would be nice if everything worked straight out of the box.After work Sarah went walking with a group of girls who meet up once a week for exercise. She had a really nice time catching up with some old friends and also meeting some new people. Once they were done I came and picked her up we went home had dinner and relaxed after a long day.

Wednesday: Today Sarah and I decided to go into the church together to do our work. Her laptop is finally set up so she can work on hers and I can work on mine. I should mention that one of the issues I had spent hours trying to fix and couldn’t Sarah stumbled upon the answer after trying for a minute. This happens more often than you’d think. -sigh- To be honest I don’t really care I’m just glad it works now. Sarah got to work transcribing and I took the opportunity with my own laptop to catch up on my admin stuff. The first priority was to get this blog up to date. I was a month behind. One whole day and 5000 words later I had finally caught up. It was a very draining task and it reminded me of the ways I had once complained over 1500 word essays at Uni. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

Afterwards we went to a couple of small groups. The first was the youth small group of which we are friends of the leaders. We watched a video which we discussed afterwards. We all told various stories out of our various life experiences and it was a powerful night. After that we went to another life group which started later (life group junkies we are). It was about praying in the Spirit. The teaching was good but the most amazing part of the night was when we prayed for one of the people in the life group and the Spirit really moved. It was a very emotional moment for everybody and the man we were praying for broke through some really big stuff in his life. Anyone who has experienced a moment like this when the Spirit moves will know what I am talking about when I say there is nothing else on Earth like it. It’s breathtaking and truly awesome.

Thursday: At the moment we are struggling with our purpose here in Cooma. Sarah is really enjoying being around the church we are currently involved with and really wants to spend our time in Cooma committed to that church. We are also faced with the issue that once we get past Canberra we have no idea what we will be doing. We have had an invitation to do some ministry up in Newcastle and we are not sure what to do about Sydney as it is so big and we are not really sure how much of an impact we can have. Also we are trying to work out what we should do about our advocacy with Compassion. Due to all of these conflicting thoughts I decided to go for a walk and pray. I figure if I don’t know what’s going on maybe God does. For me going for walks is one of the times I feel closest to God. I committed all of these things to Him and declared that I trusted Him. The answer I received blew me away. I felt God saying to me two things, first was that our role at this point was to knock on doors and go through the ones He opens for us. This will not always be the way and one day there would be doors (situations) placed before us and we would need to discern the right ones to go through but we were not nearly there yet. The second thing was that as we had been showing ourselves faithful with a little that He was going to increase our ministry but that we needed to take some time in preparation, growing in our faith, understanding and skills required for the ministry. That we should take some time and work on growing towards what He has for us. Kind of like David out in the fields with his sheep wrestling the wildlife learnt the necessary skills to be the leader of Israel. I cannot say for sure exactly what all of this means and I am not sure I am supposed to but it helps me make some decisions now. We will reach out with our ministry and see who responds. In terms of what we will do whilst we are here, we will commit ourselves to growing. For me this means reading my bible, and working on my material to present in Churches.

I sent out an email to Compassion and they are keen to have us involved in what they do, in particular making presentations in churches. This now means that I need to spend some time preparing what I will say and researching to make sure I have my facts right. Possibly one of the most exciting prospects imaginable to me is being a part of getting a child sponsored and having them and their family freed from extreme poverty. I sponsor a child but am not in a financial position to sponsor any more. This is another way in which I can help. Compassion is an incredible organisation and if you want me to tell you all the reasons you should sponsor a child email me at matt.charlesworth@hotmail.com and I would be more than happy to explain. Otherwise go to www.compassion.com.au and check it out for yourself.

Friday: We spent today working at the church again. We figured that seeing as how we were already there we would hang around for Youth. The youth night is separated into two parts. The younger kids come first. For them we watched a video, had some discussion and did some activity. The activity was making jewellery out of pasta. I mastered the art of sucking a piece of string through a curly piece of pasta. Ahhh the things you do only ever at youth group. After that the rowdy teenagers came. Their night started with some hangout time. After that we watched the Quest DVD and had some discussion time. All in all the night was really good. It was interesting experiencing the difference between the two age groups.

Saturday: I got up really early this morning and went into the church. We were holding a breakfast for the women for Mother’s Day (even though Mother’s Day was the following day). A small group of men put on an incredible feast for breakfast. I cooked the bacon for the bacon and eggs, and might I say there was a lot of bacon! Of course once we had finished cooking and serving for the women we had our share of the food to. And being the wonderful men that we were we then cleaned up afterwards. The women were all really grateful and from what I hear they got to have some really good conversation.

When we got home I got set up to do an interview. The interview was with an old friend for a Vetamorphus retreat. We did the interview over Skype. It is the first time I have ever done anything like that. It was quite an experience. I quite enjoyed it and I think it will be quite a valuable resource in the future. It was something we had certainly never thought of before but it means that we can still do some forms of ministry over great distance without actually being there. It was strange though talking to a group of people that I knew could see me but I couldn’t see them.

Sunday: We went to church this morning. I played with the worship team which I really enjoyed, as always. The service was a special Mother’s Day service. Some of the women in the church shared about their favourite women of the bible. It was a really nice morning. We had some good old extensive fellowship after the service, chatting and eating with everyone. After that Sarah and I went home and relaxed for the rest of the day. It was a really good day. Unfortunately Sarah is starting to feel sick. We are both hoping that it will pass quickly.

Cooma part 1 (inc. Gippsland Youth Alive)

Sunday 25th April - Sunday 2nd May

Sunday: We made the trip to Cooma. Anyone who has done this drive will know what Brown Mountain is. For those who don’t it’s a really steep and winding road. We do so love torturing our car, needless to say it did really well pulling the camper up the mountain. We got into Cooma that evening and set up the camper. We weren’t quite prepared for the change in weather. That night as we slept in our little camper it got down to -1°C. It was so cold we turned off the fridge and opened its door. It was a real struggle feeling like we were going to freeze to death. But alas we survived.

Monday: Sarah and I began our work today. We are a bit of a way out from town however by some miracle we have managed to park the camper in the one spot for a 10km radius that gets phone reception. Well at least if you go onto the bed there is reception you just have to fight the temptation to lie down and have a nap.

Wednesday: Today was a momentous day. We went into Canberra to buy Sarah a new laptop. We did a bunch of other stuff whilst we were in there but that was our primary purpose for going there. Of course getting something that important that we would be investing into, for anyone who knows me knows that it was going to take all day. We went to every shop that sold laptops compared stock and prices, found the best store and proceeded to meticulously go through every laptop there. Eventually we made our decision and after a little bartering we left with a brand new laptop. This is a really significant thing for us, it means that Sarah will have an effective, reliable and up to date laptop to do her work on and I will get her old laptop which means I will have a computer to do my work on. It means that I will actually be able to start typing this blog again. Yes that’s right this blog is being typed up on Sarah’s old (and my new) laptop. Both laptops are an invaluable resource for us and this ministry.

When we got back from Canberra we went to small groups. We got to catch up with a lot of different people. For those who don’t know Sarah lived in Cooma for a number of years and she is really enjoying being back and seeing everyone again. At the youth small group we were asked to share about what we were doing and also our testimonies. It was really cool being able to share in that setting and Sarah and I probably listened to each other more intently than anyone else. You get to know each other so well but when you hear each other tell your own stories sometimes you remember things you had forgotten or you realise things you didn’t know. It was a special moment.

Thursday: Today we departed Cooma for a brief time. We had been invited to the Gippsland Regional Youth Alive. I had been asked to play out in the foyer as one of the pre-event items. So we made the trip back to Lakes Entrance. We decided that we would still work the full day so we left in the late afternoon. We were both very tired by the time we made it there.

Friday: Whilst Sarah was busy typing away I had a burst of creativity and I wrote a new song. The song is based on the book of Ecclesiastes. Although rather than making the song sound solemn I wanted to show people that there is life in the words of this book. The song basically explains that all of the stuff that you strive for in life, work, house, car, possessions, etc, really is meaningless. The words of the chorus are:“Everything is meaningless when all said and done, History is empty if it can’t change the heart,Everything is meaningless if it’s not done in loveTomorrow will be a memory but today is where it starts.”Hopefully it will be a song that inspires people to live a real life.

That night was the Youth Alive rally. My main job was to play before the event as background music, creating an atmosphere. This is essentially what I did. It was lots of fun and the atmosphere was relaxed but also very alive. I occasionally had some of the youth come and pretend to sing along or dance around, some even just came, sat and listened. It was really nice. I played for an hour straight and then the event started. Sarah and I had offered our services in the altercall room. The event was great, the band, the music and the speaker however I do have a pretty serious issue with the altercall. Most of the kids we met out in the altercall room either had no idea why they were out there or they just didn’t care. There were a few who seemed genuine in their desire to make a commitment or a re-commitment however the choice to become a Christian is not something you should do in the heat of an emotional whim. It is supposed to be a lifetime decision, one whereby you choose to accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and choose to live a new life in Him. This decision cannot be properly made from an emotionally driven message designed to get you to join a club. I know these are strong words but that’s what it felt like to be in that altercall room. It is my hope and prayer that each youth who legitimately made a commitment will realise that it’s an ongoing commitment and they need to seek out those who will disciple them i.e. youth leader/pastors. I have seen many youth make a half-hearted commitment to God only to give up on it never realising what it’s all about and the value of what they will ultimately miss out on because it was never properly explained to them.

Saturday: Once again we said goodbye to our friends in Lakes Entrance and made the trip back up to Cooma. Now that we know we are going to be around in the town for a while we really feel like we can effectively sink out teeth into whatever it is God has for us to do in Cooma. It is quite an exciting place to be.

Sunday: We went to church this morning and it was great. I joined in with the music team and there was other people visiting who played in the team as well. Apparently it was the first time the church has had a full worship team in a long time. Sarah was quickly volunteered to do the sound once it was discovered that she could do it. We both really enjoyed the service and also the fellowship afterwards. For Sarah it is especially wonderful to be back as she has and I imagine always will have a great fondness for this church.