Our recent trip to Mudgee was a great success.  

We had two aims:

- to hang out as a group and get to know each other better,

- to encourage the people of St Paul's Presbyterian Church, Mudgee.

Both things happened, and were lots of fun.

Hanging Out: It was really good to spend some extended, somewhat unstructured, time with people.  That's the sort of context where conversations can be allowed to run their course without any deadline or home time.  To share life together, even for a couple of days, gave each of us insights into people which we can now draw on to encourage and pray for each other.  To include members of families who don't usually make it along to Wednesday nights was a joy too, even if the joy was shared by the younger ones at 6 am Saturday morning!

St Paul's Presbyterian, Mudgee: On Sunday we went to church in Mudgee.  The congregation there was much smaller, and a little older than we're used to, so it was a good chance to experience a different style, feel and function to church.  It was a lot quieter than we were used to, and the piano acordian accompaniment was different (and good).  While Ian Preached and Anna and Clayton presented a Kids' Talk, the main focus was to meet the regular congregation and encourage them over lunch afterward.  It wasn't nearly as scary as we thought, and people were warm and welcoming and appreciative of our visit.