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This blog is actually about a dream I had. In my dream I was driving at night and the speed limit was 100 kilometres per hour. I was driving at 103 kilometres per hour when I noticed the speed camera parked on the side of the road.

Last week I took time during my school hours to ask 6 young people the following 5 questions. 

1. Is religion/spirituality important to you and your friends? Explain…
2. What is your greatest concern in life?
3. Who inspires you and why?
4. What is the one thing that adults really need to understand about young people?
5. What does the word “church” bring to mind?

Last Monday the 8^th of March, my wife and I were blessed with the arrival of our son, Xavier Patrick Alley.  He was born 7lbs 6oz (3475 grams) and was 49 centimetres long.  The Lord answered our prayers and he is cute, smart and strong. 

He is named after both Francis Xavier, the famous Jesuit missionary to Japan and many other places in Asia, and also St Patrick who was a English Jew who went to Ireland two hundred years before Catholicism got there and converted the whole nation to Christ.  Both Xavier and Patrick were remarkable men, remarkable missionaries and we think remarkable names for our handsome son. 

My wife is doing well and we are happy and thankful to the Lord for all He has done for us. 

The world was horrified one month ago seeing a hundred thousand casualties in Haiti. 

Haiti was a slave nation that revolted against the French and dedicated itself to Satan and has been heavily involved in Voodoo for the last two hundred years. 

In the book of Matthew – chapter 5 – there is a whole discussion about things that will make a person happy (blessed), and these are called the beattitudes.  This is because these are the “attitudes we should be like.” 

One of them says “Blessed are the peacemakers because they shall be called Sons of God.” 

Essentialist thinking is basically seeing a behaviour in a type of person and assuming that the whole group is like that.  We all do this kind of thing without realising it - we all think men or women or a certain way.  We all think arabs, greeks, turks etc are all a certain way.  We know that God has created each person uniquely and that whilst there will always be some things that individuals or groups hold in common, no two people are the same.  In the same way that no two fingerprints match, so we cannot assume that Indigenous people are all cast in the same mould.&n

A few years ago I was in India on a church trip. One of the issues that kept coming up was that I was continually offered more and more food. Each time they would ask if I wanted more and I would say "no" and out would come more food.

Jesus says something extraordinary in the Bible.  He had just finished visiting a town called Capernaum where He preached and did miracles but the people of that town didn’t care and it didn’t move them or change their hearts towards God.

Do you remember what happened to Saul of Tarsus – he was a man who hated the early Christians and persecuted them.  He was personally responsible for the murder of St Stephen who was stoned to death. 

One day Saul was on his way to Damascus (modern day Syria) to arrest Christians when he was arrested by the power of God and converted.  Saul’s name was changed to Paul and he served Jesus Christ wholeheartedly suffering many times for the name of Jesus and setting a great example for us all.  We refer to him as St Paul.