Tuesday, October 4, 2011

NZ Day 17 – Monday 3rd October


Windy, wet, stormy day and they say it will be like this for the week.... I think I’ll stay in bed.  Picked up my own suitcase from the repairers all spick and span and returned the huge monstrosity of a thing they  had lent me.  Lunch in town and a bit of wander. The news that Dan Carter is out of the World Cup is hitting the Kiwi’s hard.  You would think that the All Blacks were out of the tournament! 

I have to confess now that the Scotland squad are out of the tournament I am feeling a wee bit in limbo.  Not quite sure what to do with a week to myself though I am sure some things will transpire.

Attended a meeting tonight with Cassie Carstens from the International Sports Coalition (amongst other things).  Cassie is from South Africa with a breadth of experience and knowledge in sports chaplaincy and leadership training. His “talk” was titled “Why Sports Ministry?”, but boy did he cover a lot more ground than that.  Why anything from a church point of view? Whose agenda? God’s or ours? That was the disturbing question.  Apart from that he covered the fatherless generation, the church is losing as immorality increases around us, the consequences of family breakdown, redeeming community be it sports, agriculture, business, family life and more. I found myself deeply moved by his talk and still filtering and assimilating a lot of it.  There is much I have to reflect on from just a 3 hour meeting.

In the room were some of the sports chaplains from the tournament, some pastors, some folk from ENGAGE and also a couple of sports agents. And yet again I found myself coveting my brother’s facilities.  All of these Churches seem to have cafe areas with proper coffee machines (Kiwis take their coffee seriously) and lots of space.  Perhaps I’ll just have to dream on.

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