Gathering at East Geelong Uniting

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Today we had about eighty women and a few men at East Geelong Uniting Church for a gathering of people from the UCAF groups in our part of Victoria. Guest speakers were both animated and informative - Kris Zerbst President Victorian UCAF Council and in the afternoon Rhonda Douglas chaplain to Lara and Little River Primary schools who brought her marvellous puppets.  Kris is a down-to-earth person and told a story about a box of sandals given to an op shop with the price tag of about $450, then she took off her rather ordinary brown shoes and said they were $3 from the op shop. What kind of people are we?  Go with the flow of fashion, extravagance, or are we down-to-earth, practical and sensible.  (Counter-culture I would say as Christians ought to be.)I hope the latter. The women in the fellowship groups over a hundred or more years have been strong in the church - nowadays guys can join the groups too which is fine. Kris told us about the twenty or so organisations that are linked with the Fellowships. One service I did not know is that volunteers can meet a train e.g. at Southern Cross station, and accompany a person to a medical appointment in Melbourne and get them back to their stations afterwards. Free.  I played the music (as usual) trying to rock the piano a little. I was expecting to be sleepy after lunch but Rhonda told us about the life of a chaplain - certainly not to be confused with some of the rare occasions when religion in schools has gone awry such as at Torquay with a strange Bible which has information pieces that want women to go back to the 50s. Rhonda's puppets were gorgeous and I told her I want to be a friend to them if they are on facebook!  Altogether it has been a lovely day of meeting up with friends as well as new people.