What's this??? Chris is alive and posting on his blog??? *Gasp* It can't be true! :-P

Was up on the sunshine coast for the christmas/new year week and spent most of my time playing network games with my bro and bro in law, so didn't get around to doing any blogging. Then i got back to brisvegas and "upgraded" my computer with my bro-in-law's old stuff... and it didn't work. Replaced various things and eventually got it working again, with all my old gear back in and his "better" stuff sitting back in it's box. I finally got it working again about a week ago and didn't get around to blogging until today! And that's mainly cos something cool happened today :-)

To Set the Scene: ... 'twas a dreary sort of day and Chris was having a somewhat one-sided conversation with his closest and most trusted friend, a fellow who is a little hairier than most, and generally very taciturn in nature. Today was no exception, so as Chris spoke, Nachmanke listened carefully, and with a knowing look, continued to look him in the eye while saying nothing.

There's sort of two bit of info important about today:
1: My relationship with God has been a struggle over the last month or two, just have felt very empty and very flat a lot of the time. He's seemed a long way away, and I hadn't been doing very much to get closer.

2: There's been a big restructure at work, my job has changed and yesterday (monday) i took over running the warehouse and a few other things. This means I have a lot of new things to learn, and need to keep things happening while i'm learning how to do the things I'm supposed to be keeping running...

This has made for a very stressful previous two days, and today about 10ish or so I could feel the stress really building up, and I just said a quick prayer something along the lines of, "God I know I haven't really been following you much lately, and I'm sorry, I need you, please help me through this."
A minute or two later my phone yells at me that i've received a message, and it's from a friend I haven't spoken to in a few years (I sent her a happy christmas sms on impulse but got no reply). Apologised for not replying earlier as she had no credit and how was my holidays and my job?
I sms'd back briefly about holidays and how work was stressful at the moment, to which she replied she'd be praying for me.

I put the phone away and thought that was nice, getting a message kinda random, then it clicked and I remembered the prayer. It had taken my mind off the stress, and seeing such a quick and really cool answer to prayer was a really good feeling. Knowing that God's still there, and still looks after me even when our relationship isn't where it should be. That really made my day and was something I felt that I needed to share.

Sorry it's been so long between blogs.

God bless,

Chris ( & the ever taciturn, Nachmanke)

Had a really fun day today! At BES, my admin, pretend-to-be-a-grown-up job, we're doing a big roll-out of the new lenovo laptops to a big client of ours, and they decided to use me as one of the trainers because of my IT background and good people skills. It means that they're trusting me to be one of the faces of the company to a lot of our important clients, which is pretty encouraging for me and means they have a lot of faith in me, which is cool. :-)
Also it means I get to spend a fair bit of time over the next month or so teaching people how to use their new laptops and getting them familiar with the changes instead of sitting in front of a computer for most of the day. Which is a huge positive in my books! I tend to get tired when I have to do all-day computer work, whereas today, when I spent a bit of time looking at the screen doing stuff but mostly moving around talking to people I have heaps of energy left. Even though it's still in front of a computer, it's not staring at a screen for hours on end doing things, it's more talking to the client, explaining and showing things.
And they have fingerprint readers too, which is cool! After you've set it up instead of having a username and password to log in to stuff, you just swipe your finger and you're in!

Also I finally got around to booking myself a driving lesson. Saturday morning I'll be hopping into the driving seat of a car for the first time in probably about 5 years! Tremble in fear Brisbane!

I went shopping tonight for pirate costume stuff! With one of my good mates from uni. He has a pirate party on saturday night and another of my friends is going to a different pirate party on the same night. She also knows of yet another pirate party on saturday! I think it must be national pirate party day on saturday...
speaking of which...
Tomorrow is National Cuddle Day!.
http://www.getextracuddly.com.au/content/cuddleday.aspx for all the info! Cuddle your friends!

Anyways, was heaps of fun. Me and my mate don't get to hang out that much anymore but we get along really well and generally have heaps of fun doing whatever it is we're doing at the time... and usually make a lot of noise in the process and tend to get other people involved in our discussions. It's interesting how you get some much more boldness when you're hanging out with a mate. In this instance we'll ask random shop staff their opinions about same random topic we're arguing about, or ask them which is the best colour parrot for pirates etc. Normally neither of us would do that sort of thing, just having the company creates a sort of rash boldness.

Do you have a specific friend that tends to increase your self confidence when you hang out with them? What sort of stuff do you do out of the ordinary with them? hmm, share some stories :-)

I got put on permanent at work yesterday! That means I get paid public holidays, sick days, and 4 weeks of paid holidays a year! Rate of pay went down a little, but the benefits outweigh that.

First One80 for the term on friday! It's gonna rock, new tribes, new names, new colours... And cool colours this term too!

Woke up at 4:30 this morning with an interesting thought... Instead of keeping a list of people who have wronged you, and what they did. Keep a list of people that you have wronged, and think of something good you could do for them. Maybe that would be something as simple as praying for them. Was a fairly random thought, but I thought I'd post it on here anyway :-) Comments?

Ok, Ok, I finally made it back to blogland! Huzzah!

Outbreak was great, but most of the stories only really make sense to the people that were on the camp. Was a good time though. I ended the week feeling pretty tired, but having enjoyed myself thoroughly, and also got to know some of the other one80 guys heaps better.

This week I've had every afternoon off, as it's vacation care at my second job, and I don't do vacation care as I'm only available for afternoons. This means I get a whole stack more free time which has been very nice. Granted I havent' really done anything with it, except for relax at home. But that has been quite nice and relaxing.

Got my new phone yesterday as well. It's very funky but really hard to get the back cover off. Eventually had to prize it off with a knife to get to the sim card (which I had put in wrongly so the phone didn't work). Then after much stress I finally got the sim card back in properly and the phone worked! And had to take the cover off again to stick the sim back in my old phone to get the phone numbers... But hopefully I won't have to take the cover off anymore! Unless I buy a bigger memory stick for the phone... but will see.

Got to catch up with kat and nut on the weekend, which was very nice since they now live out nearish the distant island of Longreach and I don't see them very often at all.

Ryan's party tonight... heroes and villains... I'm going as every cool teenagers worst nightmare... Muahahahah!

I've had a fairly adventurous past two days, lots of fun stuff!

Today I did a handstand at work, the kids were trying to get the other guy staff member to do one and he looked pretty uncomfortable about doing it so I thought I'd do one to show that it could be done. He thanked me, but I don't know if that was sarcasm cos then he had to do one or be shown up, or cos it made it easier. Either way, he did one too. Both of us had stuff fall out of our pockets and we had to cut the handstands short to grab them up before the kids nicked them. As soon as stuff started falling out they were in like vultures dosed up on 3 litres of straight caffeine! Zoom! Oooh, a mobile phone! Oooh some money! etc...

Yesterday was even more exciting! To start with, a water pipe to one of the bubblers came off and water was shooting straight up into the air and making a glorious fountain (yes, I know... level 3) So after bravely kicking the power switch off (it was one of those water cooling bubblers and the water was coming down on the powerpoint where it was plugged in) and hitting the water to make sure I wouldn't get electrocuted I stuck my thumb over the end of the pipe and got very drenched. Was a lot of fun :-). I tried to stick the pipe back into the rear of the bubbler and only succeeded in getting even wetter. Then we found the water mains for that area and turned it off. No more playing in the water, but also no more wasting of the water ... yes ... level 3.

That night was the last Outbreak meeting also, for the camp, not the disease or pimples, and Mike was gracious enough to give me a lift... We were chatting away in the car when we realised we'd driven straight past the exit we needed to leave the motorway from. So we thought we'd wing it and take the long way around off the next exit. So we took the exit and were going to turn right... Only to find we couldn't turn right at that intersection and there were too many cars around to change across 3 lanes and turn left. We decided we'd hang a left at the next intersection and circle around, so got into the left lane ... And there's this big sign with an arrow pointing left with a big fat ugly stupid red line straight through the middle of it, with a wonderful little caption that says, "no left turn". And we were back on the motorway and running out of gas. We had enough to probably make it to the meeting had we just gone the normal way and not mixed our exit.

Next exit was southbank with all the joys of one-way streets and silly roads with a severe lack of gas stations, but as we were attempting to manoevre our way back onto the motorway going south, Mike spotted a petrol station! We swerved across a few lanes and managed to make it to the gas pump with a bit of a cheer from both of us. Aaaannnnd then we reversed and drove over the other side of the gas pump so Mike could actually reach the nozzle to the tank. We managed to get back on the motorway and took the right exit, and with a bit of random driving around the rabbit warren of roads that Steve's house is located in the middle of, we found the house. (the meeting was at Steve's). Only about half an hour or so, and a bit, late. But the meeting went well, and Outbreak is gonna be awesome! :-D Can't wait for it. Leaving 8:30 monday morning.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, we eventually made it onto the freeway after some backstreet driving and home again. Mike was glad that I had the referdex, so we were both to blame for the shenanigans. Was an experience though, and good fun.

Reminded me that when we're going on the front foot and doing something good for God, and making a difference for His kingdom, then Satan notices and he ups the ante and looks for ways to slow us down. Granted that was probably just our silliness and lack of paying attention that got us lost in the backstreets of brisbane, but it still reminded me. If you are making a stand for God, and doing what you know He wants you to do, expect that satan will be there ready to do whatever he can to drag you back to mediocrity. And you can be assured that he knows your weak points and will be on the warpath. But no matter what satan throws at you, if you keep your focus on God, you'll only get stronger.

1 Peter: 3-9

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you, Who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."