I hit my head hard today and it's late. Don't hold me to this one too closely.

Well that Northwood course was great. That bunch of boys have big dreams and a decent amount of potential to match them, I hope. It's so much fun running a course when you're an old boy of the school. That extra insight makes a huge difference. Every year we try to make incrimental steps towards a culture at that school of serving and developing the boys beneath you rather than lording it over them with your new-found power. We still had fun giving them the inside track on dealing with trouble-makers and anarchists. The role plays that followed showed that some of those prefects must have chequered pasts because their renditions of the worst kind of school boy were frighteningly believable...but hysterically funny.

It's raining outside the camp office and we've finished a long grueling day of training with some of next year's recruits. Their abseiling, kyaking and rockclimbing are starting to look pretty good and they are wrestling, pretty succesfully, with the fine art of reviewing and debriefing those activities to get real and inspirational lessons out of them. While working on the wall we were convinced we could here sounds of distress coming from the cliffs down the valley. They were pretty blood-curdling so I dashed off with one of the guys to see if any rescuing was needed. We tore down the stairs to the foot of the dam then ran through the darkened tunnel under the wall. Water was thundering down all around the exit to the tunnel on the otherside and we couldn't hear anything so we started combing the hillside. We dived into other tunnels that date back to the building of the wall (I cracked my head in one of them) and climbed the hillside but couldn't find anything.

In the end it appears it must have been a goat stuck on a ledge who either freed himself, fell to his death or got vaporised because, of him or any human, there was no trace. That wasn't the only excitement for the day, aside from all of the rope work high above lethal drops, we also ended up having an awesome and very deep conversation about God over dinner. We gave it full gas, from evolution to the end times to the infalibility of the Pope to how God will judge those who havn't heard of him. For those who aren't believers I trust I understood correctly because it felt like there were great questions asked and lovingly, accurately and well answered. Lots of exciting growth is promising to take place here next year, for everyone who was deep in theological contemplation over our chow this evening, both the Christians and those not there yet.

The final word on the matter was that God works and works and works to get hold of your heart and, if you let him, will change your life in incredible ways but, untill you've met Him, no amount of good-ness or religious effort will do you any good.

Not bad for a bunch fresh out of matric who have chosen to be here pushing through tough training instead of jolling it up with their co matriculants.

Untill next week
Cheers