Father Dave’s Monday Missive – July 9th, 2012

Hi Fighter,

It’s Dave again, back with another ‘Monday Missive’.

Actually … my clock says it’s one minute past midnight as I start this, so it’s not really Monday any more, but it is in lots of places in the world, so …

I’m actually still in hospital as I write – still at the bedside of our old friend, Morna. She continues to cling to life, so we who love her continue to keep vigil as best we can.

She is asleep at the moment, and it seems like a good time to write.

Incidentally, before you start thinking I’m some great saint, let me assure you that I haven’t been here all day. Indeed, I ran my regular Monday Half-Marathon earlier tonight.

Sadly, I ran alone tonight. Normally there’s at least one or two others who join me, but everyone seems to be down with the flu this week! Sydney winters can be miserably cold!

Boxing, Boxing, Boxing!

One man who has both joined me and literally run rings around me over the last few weeks is Australian and Oriental Junior-Welterweight boxing champion, Solomon Egberime.

Sol is fighting to defend his Australian title on Friday night, so he’s toned down his training this week. Last week he ran most of the last ten kilometers backwards so that I could keep up with him!

My fitness is good but his is phenomenal. I’m confident that he’ll put in a strong display against Joel Dela Cruz at the Melbourne Pavilion on Friday. It will be my privilege to once again be in his corner.

Speaking of corner-work, you may remember that when I wrote last week I was preparing to fly to Auckland to support our other Solomon – Sol Haumono – in his fight against the big New Zealand Super-Heavyweight, Joey Wilson.

Big Sol ended up with a draw, even though he knocked his opponent down (and almost out) in the second round. All credit to Wilson for surviving Sol’s punching power and coming back. Hopefully the result will motivate Sol to work on his fitness and not to rely on his knockout right-hand next time.

You’ll have to forgive me if you’re not a boxing fan. I appreciate that this is not of interest to everyone, but these bouts have been a major focus for me over the last few weeks.

Both Solomon’s are a part of our church and Fight Club, and I know that a priest’s pastoral responsibilities don’t normally extend as far as the corner of the ring, but Holy Trinity is not a normalparish!

And before I let go of the subject of boxing, I must also mention that we actually have three highly-credentialed boxers in our parish, and the third member of that trinity (so to speak) is Lovemore Ndou, who now also has a fight coming up!

Those of you who are boxing fans will know the name of Lovemore Ndou. – two-times World Champion and all-round champion human being!

Lovemore will be fighting another former world champion – Gairy St Clair – at the Southport RSL Club in Queensland on August 10, and he’s forwarding any proceeds from the event to our Youth Centre in Dulwich Hill. That tells you plenty about the man!

Of course, all three of our boxing champions share a common commitment to helping young people, and all three are involved in the work of our Youth Centre. All three are also deeply spiritual men, and it is indeed my privilege to be their pastor.

The Competition

I must get off the topic of boxing and talk about ‘The Competition‘, which is not really off topic, as the winner of the competition gets a personalized Boxing Game!

Let me put this as bluntly as possible: I’d really appreciate it if you’d join the competition!

The competition promotes the eCourse, and the eCourse has the potential to equip a lot more of you guys to go out and become virtual spiritual warriors in cyberspace!

I really believe that my eCourse can make a difference, and so I am asking you to help me promote it by sharing it with your friends, and win a prize for doing so!

This is how the competition works.

1. You download your special links to the eCourse here
2. You start sharing those links on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
3. The person who has shared the most links by the end of the month wins the prize!

The reason you need to get special links is so that we can track those links as you spread them around. Be assured that we will be able to track your links every time they get Tweeted or Retweeted or put on somebody’s Wall, etc.!

You can sign up for the competition at http://how2changetheworld.com/contest/

The Ezine

Of course all the info about the contest is in the eZine, bundled in with all sorts of other goodies – videos and sermon podcasts, etc.

You should have received an email from me over the weekend about the eZine already. Even so, if you haven’t had a chance yet to look at it yet: http://www.fatherdave.org/news

I won’t keep you any longer today.

I had wanted to share with you the latest I’ve been hearing about Syria and the ongoing disinformation campaign, but that will have to wait. It’s getting close to 2am here and Morna isn’t going to wake again tonight. I’ll need to head home before I get too tired to drive.

Please put in a prayer for Morna. She is a dear soul, and I believe she is aware of all the prayers of her many friends from around the globe.

And please do join in The Competition! I’ll see you on the leaderboard!

May the Lord bless and strengthen you for the work to which you have been called

Dave