AACC Tusmore – Alisha Thiel – speaker Seth Emery
Nearly 100 people including over 40 leaders
On Friday we all went to O’Halloran Hill Conservation Park, where we pulled of triangular tree guards from not-so-newly planted trees and chopped off artichocke heads. A big storm was coming, so we kept an eye on the radar and were ready to leave when the rain arrived.
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Eric’s story – Brian and the broom.
At Westcare they cook lunch for anyone who comes, homeless or city workers. Six of us went there to help serve lunch and do some cleaning. I wasn’t feeling that well, I was a bit tired and sunburnt from the day before, so I didn’t really want to be there, but it turned into the most memorable of the many BWO events I’d done. The water wasn’t working for a while. One man came to wash all his clothes and sat covered by a blanket while he waited. Later I heard him in the chapel playing the piano. I got talking a man who’d come on his bike and found he was into programming like me.
The six of us were sitting at a table in the courtyard when Brian appeared, greeting us with “Shalom!”. He’s a mystical sort of man whom I’ve seen at various Christian events. He came and started talking to our group. At the same time, another man had come to the building across the courtyard looking for his phone, which he had left on a charger there. He couldn’t find it and became very upset, shouting and kicking a pot plant. Brian was leaning back against a pole, facing us, saying things like “Don’t listen to the noise coming from the world. Look to Christ… “, just when the upset man threw a broom in our direction. It struck the pole Brian was leaning against and broke in two, with one piece somehow ending up in his hand. He proceeded to lean on it and with his long hair and beard he looked to us like an Old Testament character leaning on his staff. “God’s timing is perfect”, he said at some point in this sequence.
I’ve gone there for lunch a few times in the years since.