NTE Day 1: Journey to the centre of the nation... or a dwelling place of rather odd people...http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

(Warning: this post is long and all of my NTE posts will be.. as well as backdated)

Had a reallly early start today, where I woke up at around 5:55am (actually really got out at 6am, but 5 something sounds better :P), rushed through breakfast and extra packing, and was ready for Alan to pick me up at 6:30am.. I then had to wait about 20 mins because he was late. Hehe, funny since I was actually on time for once!

We had to then go down south to pick up Jenna on the way, and when we got there she was just a little (read:extremely) agitated about the fact we were late but after much plugging of ears, we finally got on the M5 then onto the Hume, putting us on our way to the nation's capital!

After a session of singing along to U2, Pete Murray and U2 (again), we found ourselves at Canberra with Alan and Jenna trying to remember how to get to our rego spot, based on their knowledge of last year's NTE. After rego (and running into Glen, James, Graham and Dave.. well, waving at them), we raced to drop off our bags at Canberra City, a backpacker's hostel in what is (apparently) the centre of Canberra... this was all amid continual complaints from Jenna that we did not get allocated Fenner Hall, where you are given individual rooms. I personally was quite happy at Canberra City, as bunks and dorms are allll part of the camp experience!

We ran into Becca and Rene outside Canberra City (CCA), and after check in and stuff, we made our way over to ANU's Llewellyn Hall for the first meeting/talk of the conference.

When I got in to the hall, it was so cool just looking around and seeking over 900 other uni students just gathering together in a place and praising God! It was quite different to what I'm used to though (but expected), as both the style of the songs and the mood of the students quite sombre compared to my church, hehe. But it didn't matter of course and it was so incredibly good!

We had the welcome and all that stuff, and then a talk from David Cook on 2 Timothy 1, on loyalty to Jesus. We then went back to CCA for lunch, which consisted of a wonderfully delicious bread roll.. (note: some details in the previous sentence have been extremely exaggerated) After lunch, we had free time! I spent this going to the shopping mall which was really close to CCA, with Kate, Becca, Kat and Jono. This was a short free time, and before you knew it, we had to go off to strand group, which met back at Llewellyn. But I still had to time to get some sunscreen and socks from Target... which also are the same pair that Jono got as well.. heehee

If you don't know, strand time is the main chunk of NTE, and we study a bible passage intently, then have to give a talk based on it! My group members were Matt, Ruth, Kathryn, Cindy, Virginia and Jono from Credo, Prue and Sam who came later, and of course our awesome leaders Rowan and Tim! Hi there guys if you're reading this!

After a few get to know you games, learning such crucial things as what was wrong with Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne (all members were from one of these places) we got stuck into the teachings, and the passage we had was Micah 4:6 to 5:9. I knew it was going to be tough to understand, with it being OT, but when we started it really did hit me, as just trying to read the whole book of Micah was tough enough to understand!

After strand we went back to CCA for dinner, and had some half fried fish and chips.. I won't comment on the merits of that meal.

A REALLY odd thing happened as we just left CCA to walk towards Llwellelyn (LH from now on) for the evening meeting. Outside CCA there are like two blocks, I think they might be gas line or fire hydrant related. Well, these two concrete blocks are about 2 metres high and about 3-4 metres apart. Anyways, while walking past, a teen about 17-18 was trying to leap across from one block to another. For no particular reason whatsover. Needless to say we were completely shocked, with Becca especially shocked and pretty much screamed as we all witnessed this guy nearly axe himself, and barely land on the other side with one leg! That was Canberra is odd moment #1.

The meeting was quite good, as Phillip Jensen spoke about the future of AFES, which actually turned into a past of AFES, or Uni evangelism in general. At first I was confused as to its relevance, but by the end I found it really cool how so much of the growth of Christianity over the years is due to Christians around my age! Truly inspiring stuff.

Afterwards, a large group of us were waiting around for Jono to purchase a book (on femanism funnily enough) and as a result were really late for our first Credo meeting for to discuss issues and mission. Actually turning around the corner in sight of CCA, Paul was waiting for all of us and I actually thought he would bite our heads off! He didn't, so it was all cool :)

The meeting went good, and it was funny when we split into mission groups, as Kimmy (who is leading the Narraweena team) wasn't at NTE yet, so Rene just told us what sort of things would be happening, without really knowing what was going on! :)

Afterwards we just hung about in the cafe area, talking and all that sort of stuff before going to bed around 12:30..

-d

Next: NTE Day 2

Guitar tune: Hillsong "Perfect King"