Gary Grant

It's boxing day in Melbourne, and I have just surfaced from a good nights sleep. Still feeling pretty tired, Its been an amazing month, simply too busy I think. Every December our church wraps gifts at a local shopping centre, we use the opportunity to build relationships with the locals and of course, raise some funds for our work here. It's very tiring but also very enjoyable. This year has been particularly challenging, people have let us down, some have not shown up when they said they would, others have simply had their own agenda, and then of course there were the faithful loyal workers who helped, selflessly, and these people I admire. The world is filled with diverse people of all kinds of personality traits, some you groan from, others you grow from. I love those people who serve without complaining, who just turn up even when they are exhausted...the ones who see that something needs to be done, and they just do it....people like This are rare. If any of you a

It's Christmas and its very busy. We are helping hundreds of people right now through our church ministries. And I mean hundreds. It actually may even be thousands. It's busy. I want to share this little story with you, that happened to me the other day... I was at Broadmeadows shopping centre, Christmas wrapping, we have been doing this for around 7 years now... I had taken a break, and was sitting in the cafe watching the people meandering past. There was a lot going on. A young girl had collapsed behind the counter of the cafe, the medics were with her and were taking her away on a stretcher, people had crowded to watch, as they do. All sorts of people, are at Broady shops, and a large amount of them are Muslims. Because of this...over the past years, no Christmas carols or music was ever played at these shops....but this year it has changed. As I sat there, pondering life, and amidst the drone of the noisy shopping centre, the words started to filter in