It’s not officially a long weekend but I’ve organised one anyway.
This morning will see the start of the 2004 Bike for Bibles Ladies Only Ride. 15 ladies will ride around 100 km from Beverley to Toodyay over 3 days.
While the ladies do all the riding, I’ll be joined by a couple of other guys to lug the luggage, fix bikes, drive the support vehicle and do the cooking.
This means that I’ll be away until Sunday evening.
Have a good weekend and I’ll see you next week. 
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Croatian Frane Selaks has escaped death many times. He has been plunged into an icy river during a bus crash, dropped out of a plane and watched his car explode after jumping clear of it. He has had lots of other near misses and several other dramas in his life.
Now Smiths Snackfood has hired him to flog their product.
I was reading an article about him at news.com.au which also mentions that he won around one and a half million dollars with the first lottery ticket he ever bought.
Sounds like he’s had a very interesting life but I think I’d opt for ‘boring’ rather than swap places with him.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
I was reading Judges 6 today and was struck by the story of Gideon.
11 Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!’
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
How often do we do just what Gideon did? We have bad stuff happen to us or around us and so we asume that the Lord is not with us or that he’s abandoned us. We might not say that but how often do we feel that way? We can’t base our lives on our feelings which are so changable. We need to rely on God who doesn’t change and take him at his word.
I spotted a news article that talks about a US couple being kicked out of a buffet restaurant because they were eating too much roast beef.
Sui Amaama, who along with his wife have been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks, was asked to leave after he went up to the buffet at the Chuck-A-Rama in Salt Lake City, Utah, for his 12th slice of roast beef.
I have to say that the thing that sparked my interest was the name of the restaurant. Chuck-A-Rama.
I can only asume that ‘chuck’ doesn’t have the same connotation in the US. (For those wondering, it is used here as a slang term for vomitting.) Or maybe they know how bad their food is and they just want to warn their customers.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
As part of my job I’m trying to collect a number of stories about how The Passion of the Christ has impacted people and how it has been used as part of evangelistic strategies.
I sent an email to a number of church leaders yesterday to try to gain some responses. Here is some of what I wrote.
Over the last year much has been said and written about Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. The movie has had a major impact on public and private discussion as millions of people have sought to share thoughts and ideas on Mel Gibson’s interpretation of the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ.
I know that many people have been touched by the movie. I have already heard of many instances of lives being turned around for Jesus. If you have a story to tell, we’d love to hear it. We would like to collect a number of testimonies of how churches and individuals have used the movie and the impact it has had.
If you know of someone else who has a story to tell, please ask them to email me. We would like to hear as many of the stories ‘first hand’ as possible so that they can be verified.
Our aim is to share these stories to give God the glory for the way he is working through The Passion of the Christ. We are not wanting to lift up the movie but lift up the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We also understand that while reaction to the film by Christians has been overwhelmingly positive, there are some who have not been so keen to promote the movie for a number of reasons. If you are one of those people we also welcome your input.
If you have a story to tell please add it below in the comments section or email me.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
