the howie

Remember when i used to blog more often

Yesterday I turned 28

Today I bought some T-shirts and a TV receiver for my mac.

Tomorrow I have to clean the turtles tank.

no hope….

voting results for my electorate

I voted GREEN

Oporto’s tag line is ‘Just Gotta Go’

It seems one customer was very committed to this.

Is it just me or are jars and bottles getting harder and harder to open.

I find myself ripping my hands to shred trying to open soft drink bottles, jars of pasta sauce and other condiments.

Sometimes I even have to abort the mission and either try a different bottle / jar or give up and have something else.

Or am i just getting weaker and weaker???

Day of redundancy - avoid headaches, drink lots of water, have lunch with a good friend.

Day 1 - Eat cake for breakfast in the park with good buddies, have hot chips for morning tea and a chicken burger for lunch and donuts for afternoon tea. hat with others who got redundentarized too.

Day 2 -  Eat lots of chocolate, ice cream and chicken. Chat with others who got redundentarized too.

Day 3 - have a small piece of chocolate for breakfast without wife noticing, have a healthyish roll for lunch then take advantage of rail workers strike and take son for a free adventure on the train.

Being made redundant for doing a good job is strange place to be in.

It was my dream job, I had wanted to work for this organisation for 8 years before I finally got a job with them. Then I got a job and spent the first year thinking I wasn’t good enough to be working for this organisation, that I didn’t have the skills and that everyone else was much smarter than me. The next year and a half I found my groove and enjoyed almost every minute of it. I was learning, i was working with amazing people and most of all I was seeing young people stepping up and fighting for the injustices of our world.

Then suddenly on a winters friday I entered a meeting room to find out about some structural changes.

The new structure didn’t include me and many of my colleagues.

I didn’t really show any emotion in the meeting, I was pretty hurt but felt that showing that hurt was not going to change the situation and would just leave me with a headache. I quietly finished off some transitional work and left that afternoon.

The thing that is causing the most discomfort at the moment is that I think I was doing a pretty good job, I’m sure I wasn’t amazing and I know i definitely   had some ‘growth areas’ but on the whole I fell that I was making a valued and help contribution to the mission and goals of the organisation and also the kingdom.

I really don’t want to be bitter or have hatred towards the organisation, the reason I wanted to wrok for them for so many years is because i believed and appreciated the way they went about doing their thing. And I still have those same feelings, they are still the organisation that I think has the best approach to community development in poor communities, they still have a great way of doing education in Australia.

I was a victim of a structural change that was the result of a refocus on the organisastions strategies for operating.  I don’t agree with all the changes and not just because I lost my job but I would defiantly still love the opportunity to work at this organisation again in the future.

But to be honest being made redundant is still not a good feeling no matter what the reason, So i’m going to take a bit of time to lay low and think and pray about what the future holds.

that is all.

Our only hope….

I turned up at work this morning to find raw sewage flowing down onto the footpath from the first floor of my work building.

it didn’t smell nice.

I went back down 20 mins later and it was still flowing. People in this building must go to the toilet a lot, not me, I find the toilets scary.

A Parable written by Mike Dicker from Salt Youth

There were some there who wanted to stop the boats of refugees coming in Australia so Jesus told them this parable:

Jesus said “There was once an orphanage that housed many children. Some orphans would find a new family in a new place if they went through the official adoption process that took many years.”

Jesus continued “One day the orphanage came under new management by evil men. One night the new managers set fire to the orphanage saying ‘we will destroy the building, kill the children and rebuild’. And there was a great and terrible fire. That night the children tried to flee the flames and seek shelter with a new family in a new place. Many children perished but some managed to escape and reached a new place of shelter that was open and spacious with many empty rooms, but the people who lived in that place said to themselves ‘Who are all these children? They have not come to us through the official adoption process. Surely they will fill up our empty rooms and spacious grounds! We must turn them back from here and ill treat them that they may warn others not to come to our land.’
So the people of that place turned some of the children around and sent them back into the fire where they perished. Others they locked in small cages for many years before also sending them back into the great fire where they too perished.”

Those standing near by were outraged by this and said “Teacher, why tell us this parable? This is a terrible and monstrous act! May the Lord bring judgment upon those wicked men and the people of that land for this injustice!”

Jesus said “Truly I tell you, you are the people of that land! You brood of vipers, you evil snakes! You enjoy this spacious land with many empty rooms!”

If you like this parable why not email it to Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au and Julia.Gillard.MP@aph.gov.au

Today we decided to go on a family outing to the beaches, the noobs came a long too.

We went to some park at some beach that didn’t have any shops. What’s the point of going to the beach if you can’t get hot chips????

Anyway we went to some park and Oscar had fun walking around and playing with his aunty and uncle. He spent a lot of time just staring at other people, maybe living on the north shore is bad for him, he looks down on the bogans from the beaches.

I have to admit it was a pretty good park even if there was no hot chip access, but it was a strange park.

At one end of the park was this sign.

As you can see the bottom left shows all the prohibited activities in the park, the bottom right shows all the permitted activities.

It is the second permitted activity that got my attention.

After receiving a low pressure system for his birthday, Little johnny has been complaining to his parents that he has nowhere to play with it. But on a recent trip to the beach his parents found a nice park tucked away from the temptations of hot chips where Johnny could unleash his minor sized natural disasters.

or is minor flooding just a result of lots and lots of little kids in one place?

I don’t understand this focus on the people smugglers.

As long as there is conflict there will be refugees, as long as there is refugees there will be people smugglers.

Sinking people smugglers won’t stop people wanting to escape their horrific situations and find refuge in a safer environment where they can raise their children in peace.

What Captain Ranga and first Mate Abbot are proposing is basically refugees are not welcome, if you have risked your life, fled from war, poverty, death ,in the hope of gaining access to Australia you have made the wrong choice, we only like rich Asian people who can be doctors and engineers.

I don’t understand why we need to keep our aid at a distance, we are happy to hand out the monies overseas but not happy to take a personal role in helping those in need if they knock on our door.

Gillard and Abbot you both disappoint me on this one.

Being Sunday again, it was time for a father son adventure.

Last Sunday Oscar and I went to Manly on the ferry, today we went to darling harbour, or asOscar called it ‘Hubba”.

To break up the journey a bit we caught 2 trains, first an all stations train, then an express into Central.

As we pulled out of our station Oscar noticed all the lights on the platform were on so he raised his pointing finger and told me about every single one of them as we went past. “on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on”. Bloody cityrail, turn your lights off I’m going insane here!!!

We walked down to Darling Harbour from Central and on arrival discovered that Darling Harobour has been transformed for the world cup FIFA fest and all we could see was orange fences.  no park, no view just orange FIFA fences. so that was a bit dumb, but the dumbness continues..

Oscar had been drinking water pretty much the whole trip in, I think saying ‘on’ so much had dehidrated the poor little guy. Anyway i figured his nappy would be close to overflowing so needed to find a parents room to re-pant him. We eventually made it through the maze of orange fences to that shopping centre. Inside I followed the amenities signs to the parents room. After dodging tourists buying stuffed koalas and harbour bridge snow globes for a few hundred metres the signs disappeared, now they just had toilets and no mention of a parents room. I back tracked but still couldn’t find them.

I decided to try the next level up, maybe the signage up there would be more helpful, It wasn’t.

I found the parents room after much sweating and walking fast. And it definitely said ‘Parents Room’  not ‘Mothers Room’. I’m paranoid about that sort of thing so I read the sign on the door several times before entering.

I pushed the door open and Oscar’s pram around the tight corner but then it bumped into another pram, there was a lady sitting in a chair with her baby on her lap. I tried to get Oscar’s pram past but there wasn’t enough room unless she moved her pram a little. She didn’t so i gently moved it a bit to get Oscars past. Then the woman spoke.

“this room is not for men its for mothers only”

I cam up with the following response:

Excuse me? But this is a parents room, And I am a parent, my son has been filling his nappy with urine for the last couple of hours, and my wife is at home because i’m spending son quality time with my son,  we have come into this room to change his nappy in a suitable environment so we don’t offend people by whipping out his bits and pieces on a food court table or bus stop seat. I really hope he has a juicy poo in his nappy, actually I don’t hope he has a juicy poo in his nappy because that will make me nauseous. I hope he has a reasonably sized solid poo that on release from the nappy fills the room with such a stench that you pass out and then while you are passed out I can put his poo filled nappy in your handbag!!

But what came out of my mouth was a little more sedated “Oh sorry, I’m just going to change my son’s nappy”

Which I did, he had a little bit of poo but it didn’t smell too bad and she didn’t pass out so i had to just put it in the supplied nappy bin!

On the way out I had to move her pram again so Oscar and I could leave.

I thought Oscar might enjoy going on the monorail, he is still young enough to think the monorail is a fun little train on sticks, not a useless, expensive, adult sized toy that doesn’t take you anywhere helpful.

So we went to the monofail station and waited for one to come, one came and Oscar called it ‘bubba’ I think because it’s like a little train and he calls all little things bubba, like in his bath he has toy turtles and the little one he calls bubba.

Anyway the first bubba came but there was no room for us and the pram, the second one came, same thing, the third one came, same again. who would have thought the monorail would be full???

the 4th one pulled in and a man in one of the carriages saw that Me and Oscar wanted to get in, so he came and grabbed the front of the pram and pulled it into the monorail, he then told his kids to get up so i could sit down. I tried to convince him I was happy standing but he insisted, So I sat and Oscar had a grand time.

On the train on the way home from our city adventure Oscar dropped a seriously bad fart, at first I thought it was funny so I laughed, and he laughed too. But after 10 minutes it was apparent it was not just some friendly fire, he had dropped a bomb.

I’m not making it up when I say that people moved away, I thought maybe they where just getting off, and they did get off, but then back on again in the next carriage.

Eventually we made it to our home station and headed for the lift, a man that was sitting near us earlier in the journey but later moved was standing at the lift too, when he saw us, he for some reason turned and took the stairs instead.

The lift ride was short, but it felt like a long time in that gas chamber.

We arrived home just in time for jenny to change his nappy before dinner!

On Monday morning, as my last posts shows, I was in the great hall at Parliament House listening to KRudd, Abbott and others talk about fighting global poverty. I then spent all day Monday and Tuesday wandering the back corridors of the building taking photos of politicians meeting with everyday aussies who want to see the government and opposition do more to see that poverty is reduced.

It’s quite weird that the day after I got home the PM was no longer the PM.

And the new PM didn’t take part in any of our events, or meet with any of the people I was with. I hope that’s not a sign of things to come.

Now you may be wondering why the title mentions pants down, well let me enlighten you.

On Tuesday, around lunch time I needed to pee, so I went to one of the public toilets near the marble foyer. As i walked into the toilets the urinal was straight ahead, so if anyone was doing a wee their back would be towards me.

There was a man doing a wee, a man wearing a suit, well half a suit. He was wearing a suit jacket, I’m not sure you could say he was ‘wearing’ the suit pants as they where around his ankles whilst he pee’d. It was a very odd image to see, a grown man in a suit with his pants at his feet standing at the urinal.

Canberra really is a a strange place.

This morning I had to be at Parliament House at 6:30am, So I could set up and get a good spot for taking photos at the unveiling on a giant scroll that was a snap shot of over 112,000 signatures collected by Micah challenge, of people who have signed up to the Micah Call.

The captain of Australia got up to say some words,

It looks like he is saying something like ‘It’s ok, I know the Micah Challenge banner looks terrible”

The Opposition captain also took the stage for a response.

Then it was time for Cameron Semmens to sing us a song as this picture shows.

But ladies and gentlemen there is also a serious side to this flight, We now ask for your full attention.

This mornings event was a chance for pollies to see that making poverty history is not just a desire of a select few, it is the desire of many Australians and it’s time for us as a nation to step up.

Normally leaders of NGO’s and vocal advocates who are passionate about seeing change in the way we do aid and development weaken their message when they are actually in the presence of decision makers, but this morning there was a beautiful moment when a international guest from a developing country got up and addressed all in attendance and very clearly stated that Australia is doing a pretty crap job and we need to lift our game.

He closed with a very simple and powerful image,

The last harry potter book was distributed in such a way that 9 million people had instant access to it when it became available, but we can’t even get instant access to the 2 million people who need 12cent medicine in developing countries.

Today was day 2 of Voices for Justice. for me the day began with a taxi ride into the city where I chatted away with the driver, he asked why I was in Canberra and I told him all about who I worked for and why I was here. He was an Indian man and only been in Australia for less then 12 months, I asked him his perspective on foreign aid, and helping the poor in this way, his response took me by surprise. He said not to worry about giving aid an concentrate the governments money on putting extra lanes on the main roads around Canberra.

I don’t have a nice segway for that story to this next bit. As you can now tell.

The rest of the day was filled with a few meetings, corridor conversations, A poor attempt at leading a quick workshop on climate change for the young ones and a solar light lit service on the lawns of parliament house.

The service on the lawns was a chance to get together and pray for the upcoming days of meeting with decision makers, repent for personal blunders that have contributed to the abuse, hardships, and disrespect of the poor.

I have to say that it was freezing cold!!!

On a deeper level it was also a great time to put aside the last 2 days of data and policy and a chance to stand alongside one another and pause before we hit the corridors of power.We do live in a pretty amazing country where crazy Christians can turn up to a place of power and just have intimate chats with politicians and advisers about issues we are passionate about.

Now it’s bed time. I have to be up at 5:30am,

I’m in Canberra as part of Micah Challenges national gathering ‘Voices for justice’

300 Christians from around the country have converged on the worlds boring-est city to lobby the people in suits we sometimes call leaders.  We are here as ambassadors and voices for the poorest and most marginalized people on our planet.  We are hear lobby, to put forward a radical idea, an idea that poverty could be drastically reduced if governments like ours gave more and better aid.

I may or may not updates of how things are going.

If I do you can read them, If i don’t you can read someone’s blog who will.