All heart, all courage, all spirit. Number Eight.
Shaun is to have testimonal luncheon held in his honour on Sunday 18th at the Burswood Ballrooom, hopefully after we smash the Geelong Cats at Subi the day before.
Shaun is the heart and soul of the club.
Who can forget him fronting up to press conference after press conference in the dark dim “Drum” years?
Who can forget his courage in backing into a running Wiirapanda, taking the mark, and then getting up and kicking the goal?
Who can forget the game this photo was taken from? When we kicked a massive winning score over the Bulldogs, with Shaun Best on Ground by far?
He will never be forgotten in the history of the FFC. A true icon.
Shaun intends to play on in 2007, and I hope he does.

Our church is selling our pews, and you are very welcome to buy one!
I shared with our people on Sunday that the reason we are selling them is not for our own comfort’s sake. In fact our pews are comfortable. The problem we are having is that Toddler Jam (Our community program for toddlers) is growing so quickly and well, that we are having problems fitting all the people in. We have gone to three days a week now, and the Friday session is filling up. Because we meet in the church, we have to push back the pews every Tuesday, and reposition them in place for Sunday. Its not only a big job, but also does not really leave enough room for the 35 or so jumping toddlers and mums to move to music.
Our Thanksgiving Sunday went very well, better than I expected, on Sunday, yet we still need about $6000 more. Hopefully we will get a bit for these pews. If you want one, give me a call or email.

Here it is, my prediction for prosperity.
Brett Peake will win a Brownlow, you heard it first here.
He wont win it this year, but he will win it

Blistering runs down the field, long booming kicks into the foward line. Accurate, confident.
Yesterday he was the one who sparked the team in the third and fourth quarter particularly.
Brett was the first player to be drafted by Freo under the father son rule at the 2003 . He did not play for Freo during the 2004 season, but had his debut against the Roos in 2005. His father, Brian Peake played 304 games for the Sharks, and 66 for Geelong. Brett is of a more slight stature than his dad, but definitely quicker, and some might say, more skillful.

Great win by Freo yesterday.
Despite what the commentators are saying, I thought Freo showed real grit and determination to keep going despite the Roos tactics of flooding and tried to bottle up the game.

It is a little sad for me to see Leigh Brown in Roo’s colours. He was one of my favourite players at Freo. A real workman, lots of grit and courage.
Can’t find it in myself to boo or wish him badly, even if he is in oppositon colours.

Great win, and will be a real fight next week against Brisbane, who are playing much better with a thumping win over Port.

Good to see Matthew Carr in the side, who played his best game for the season yesterday.

Just one little whinge. Here is the umpires decisions for our games this year.
Frees for us listed first, against listed second.

Rd 1 Hawks: 14-15 (away loss)
Rd 2 Blues: 15-21 (home win)
Rd 3 Port : 17-22 (away win)
Rd 4 Crows: 17-17 (home loss)
Rd 5 Saints:15-27 (away win)
Rd 6 Weagles: 16-23 (home win)
Rd 7 Melb : 16-19 (away loss)
Rd 8 Roos : 12-21 (home win)

Appearing at Bedford Baptist Sunday May 28th 10am
Should be great.
Andy is an authentic artist with a great testimony to share.
He is bringing along a whole multi media production,
should be awesome!

There is something about Henry Blackeby’s work that has always troubled me, and I haven’t known why.
Henry says, in a nutshell, look and see what God is doing and go do that. Fair enough. Yet although I cant disagree with it, it doesn’t ring true. Now, thanks to Erwin I get why, its because Blackeby does not go far enough.

“Yet I think its important to add that while God has been working in human history since He breathed life into Adam, there are many things yet to be done, and beyond this, many things yet to begu. There may be another question that needs to be asked beyond, “what is God doing?” and that is this: “what is God dreaming?” Is there something that God wants initiated and He’s waiting for someone to volunteer?”

Blackeby’s take on vision and leadership has also troubled me because of his basic premise. How do we discover what our vision is, if we are just doing what is, rather than dreamin what could be? As Erwin points out, we need to dream, to be inspired, to see what could be, rather than only what is. We need to move from being observers to practitioners.

A recent forum discussion had me thinking about forgiveness and bitterness again.
How trapped are we, how silly are we, if we allow people who have hurt us in the past to keep us in captivity.
We do this if we don’t forgive them
I am not saying we need to get them to say sorry, that may be impossible. They might not think they have done anything wrong, they may not admit they have done anything wrong, they may be dead! You know what else? They may not have done anything wrong. We may be wrong.

What I am saying is this. Forgiveness is about letting go. Letting go of the pain, letting go of the rejection, letting go of the hurt. Its not easy, but Jesus said we are to forgive those who hurt us 70×7. In biblical terms, this means we are to keep on forgiving them. Not easy to do, especially if they are self righteous, and still hurting us.

But if we cant let that hurt go, if we cant forgive them, set them free, they hold us captive. Even if they dont know it.

Job 42:10 (NLT) – When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!

Ephesians 4. 26 “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Bitterness and unforgiveness are the quickest and most effective way of introducing negativity into your life.