Its been a busy week capped off by an overnight trip to Canberra - our National Capital. A drive of around 3 hours from home, we left on Saturday morning getting there around 11am. A visit to the Australian War Memorial Museum was our first stop where we browsed for a couple of hours. It wasn't the first time we'd visited but as on previous occasions, I have personally found it all a little bit depressing. Having said that though, the displays are beautifully put together, the diorama's, audio visual displays and whole setup are quite amazingly done. One wing of the museum was under renovation so we were only able to visit the WW1 sections. Some of the goods for sale in the shop though were rather quirky and some quite beautiful so picked up A13's birthday present to post off sea mail in the next week or so. Hope he likes it when it arrives.
After lunch at the museum cafe we found our way by map to the Best Western we had booked into. Took advantage of their cable TV (or at least the sport channel is what interested DH until he fell asleep) and generally just 'veged out' until it was time to get ready and go to the function we had come for.
It was a simply fantastic 'do' - beautiful meal interspersed with Ken Duncan's visuals of some of his wonderful photography, with his telling us of the stories behind the shots. He is certainly a very funny man and kept us both amused and enthralled. Leading up to the weekend, entries to a photographic competition had been received and the winners announced. What a talented lot of photographers! Even kids as young as 6 had entered their categories and some very nice work amongst them.
Sunday morning we were back at the same venue for a church service where Ken and a wonderful young soprano, Rachel Cunningham, were the guests. Ken blew us away again with his stories behind his photos from both Australia and around the world.
He told us how he was woken from sleep one night by God - the message was “If America removes the words In God We Trust from their currency, I will abandon them as a nation.” It seemed to Ken as though God was asking him to publish a book of photographs from every state in the United States of America, showing the wonders of God's creation there and and how much God had blessed that country. He had little idea of how he could achieve this and knew from his savings he would probably have enough to travel to about 5 US states however it would cost thousands of dollars to pull off the whole thing, both travel and publication. So strong was his calling from God for this project that he and his wife eventually mortgaged their home and were able to raise enough for him to undertake and achieve it. Finally he was able to present the copy to the American president the day before the tragic 'September 11'. (see full story at http://hubpages.com/hub/In-God-We-Trust-A-Panoramic-View-by-Ken-Duncan )
At the end of the service Ken made an altar call and a number of people took the walk of their lives and committed themselves to accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
An hour's drive from Canberra and we were at the home of very dear friends in Goulburn where we had lunch and a couple of hours to catch up with each other's news. Just before 3pm the dark clouds began to gather outside and we knew if we didn't make a move to the car, we'd get a drenching. So as the large drops began we made a dash for it and got on our way home. It was good to be home again but after such a full and enjoyable weekend I'm still reflecting on all I saw and heard. So many blessings!
Have a good week my friends!
Bless you!
