Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Sabbath (Saturday) was a very full-on day, with meetings scheduled at 7.30, 9,30, 11, 2, and an evening concert at 7pm.  I was feeling very tired, since I am still recovering from the bronchitis and doing a lot of walking from the caravan to the tent and back again; from the caravan to the amenities (to save our toilet from getting too full too quickly); from the tent or the van to the dining room at lunch time and all the other incidental walking around I'm doing - quite deliberately I might add.  So I skipped the afternoon meeting and had a sleep, and didn't attend the concert either because my cough was freshening up in the cold air.  The group giving the concert is great - a group of 5 teachers from one of our schools at Avondale, here on the north coast of NSW.  They had given special items earlier in the day and I really enjoyed them but I just couldn't make the concert.  Peter and Nathan had a really good time though.

On Sunday I did manage to squeeze in two loads of washing between meetings - and got it all dry too.  The nights are really cold.  Saturday night was 2deg C

One of the Speakers on Sunday brought some artifacts along that he had brought home from a tour of the Bible Lands.  The first is one of the actual mud bricks made by the Israelite slaves as they were constructing a pyramid before the Exodus.  You can see the straw in the brick, and it is amazing to see something so relevant to what we read about in the Bible.

The second object came from the remains of the Israelite slave village nearby.  It's a small pot, still able to hold fluid.  And on its exterior surface you can see the fingerprints of the ancient Israelite who made it all those years ago.

It was a very moving experience to see these objects.

The workshop yesterday was on art, and today was on photography.  Both were very instructive.  The Art one was taken by artist Phil McKay, who once worked in  graphic design,  making a good living doing tattoo art and art for music albums and such, then went into then into painting murals on motor bikes and cars.  He was earning lots of money doing this but not feeling that it was what he really wanted to do.  In the end he started doing some Christian painting and he now does that full time.  He has moved from painting with a brush in the traditional way to painting digitally and you can't tell the difference with the finished product - his work is amazing.  I can't show you a photo  here because I don't want to infringe copyright but you can see  it if you go here .  He does inspirational and spiritual paintings and also does a lot of wildlife paintings for Australian Geographic magazines and others as well.

Today the workshop was on photography, the first part being on power point presentations.  That had nothing in it that I didn't already know, but the second and major part was of more interest to me, being on different ways of managing your photos, and keeping them accessible.  I knew most of what was presented in this part as well, but there were some very helpful links given so that made it worth while going.  While I was listening to the rest I made use of the time by deleting duplicate photos from our Western Australia trip :)      It was handy that we had been asked to bring our laptops with us if we had them here! There is no workshop tomorrow because there is a bus trip on - all the other meetings are being moved half an hour earlier to make time for that.  I am hoping to make use of the time to catch up with some things I want to do here.
Talk to you tomorrow
Blessings,
Sandie