June 27

This week I was able to go to a meeting with the chaplain for the high school. It is an interesting position as the government pays for his services two days a week and the churches in the Deloraine pay the other two. The second hand clothing store run by the churches is one of the main services of income. He is given special training in pastoral care for young people. His office is in the school and students drop by. He also helps with field trips or travelling with school teams. He is simply available to help students with their spiritual development. When the position was reviewed, state wide, it had the highest rating by principals, teachers, parents and students of any of the programs offered in the school system. I was fascinated as I don't feel this position would ever be accepted in our public schools. In one of the letters to the editor responding to complaints of teenagers at the mall in Launceston it was suggested that a chaplain should be hired to work in the mall with the teenagers. This program has lots of support from the general public

Today was another beautiful sunny day in Deloraine. If it is frosty in the morning you know it will be a beautiful day and it was very frosty this morning. We have moved back into the little suite we started out in. Bruce no longer has his fire to tend to. The suite is in a walkout basement of the home of a couple who are going to be working in Tonga for Uniting World. Uniting World does similar work as our M&S Fund. I was the Worship Leader this morning. I didn't do the sermon--I only organised the service. It is not a hard task as there is a scripture reader and always one of their members does the Prayers of the People. I used a similar format as Innsifail United and Bruce put the Powerpoint together. Several folks said they liked having all the words projected. This week the Uniting Church in Australia turned 33 years old. We celebrated in the usual church tradition of food and had a delicious chocolate cake at coffee time! After the service we showed a presentation of our life in Innisfail. Everyone is surprised at the amount of snow we have. This afternoon was great fun as we celebrated the 60th birthday of one of the church members with an Aussie high tea. I am not sure how it differs from other high teas but we had a fun time. The tea was on the veranda of a huge home built in the 1840s. It is called Calstock and is an exclusive bed and breakfast. After the tea we were taken on a tour of the home and the grounds. It is a very impressive place. When it was a family home they raised horses and had one horse called Maula that over a ten year period, in the 1800's, won all major races in Australia. We haven't taken a picture yet but there is a life size replica of this horse in front of the Deloriane Tourist Information Center.

I hope you all have a meaningful Sunday service and blessings to you all!!