G’day everyone,

My name is Paul and I used to blog here.

So sorry I’ve been off the radar, and thank you to those who have noticed and have emailed me to check if I’m not dead. I am indeed alive and around, and working hard. There have been some changes around the traps.

Firstly, I have decided to take a leave of absence from ministry. As of 1 January, I will not be a minister but an ordinary bloke. I’ve relinquished my magic powers for the time being to “pursue secular employment” and focus on my PhD. I am staying at the agency, but under a new role, and a new minister-type person will be taking over my role. I have to say I am really looking forward to the break: though I love the ministry, I am tired, physically tired, of dealing with people who give lip service to community ministry but in reality expect me to turn back time to 1953.

But God and I are still cool. We’ve just decided to see other people for a while.

The new role at the agency is exciting and challenging and scary. A couple of years back I gave a day each week to pilot a program in Shepparton called the Youth Referral and Independent Person Program (YRIPP). Its aims were to recruit and train volunteers to assist young people who are being interviewed by police, and facilitate a referral to a local support agency should they need support. The program was a success, not just in Shepparton but in all pilot areas, and the Vic government agreed to roll out the program to 103 stations around the state.

So I’m taking on the job coordinating the arrival of the program in police stations in Northern Victoria, from Merbein to Wodonga and down as close to Melbourne as Gisborne. So I am doing a lot of driving. I’m presently suffering from a really sore throat (I can only manage a whisper) due to the constant bad singing I do at the wheel. I wonder if I can get WorkCover for that.

The PhD is surviving, and I’m helping my supervisor apply for a grant to the Australian Research Council for a research project that he would like me to lead when I’ve finished the thesis. So I better get cracking.

And on Monday I’m heading to Vancouver for AoIR 8.0. I’m giving two presentations and I’m bloody nervous. But I’m looking forward to catching up with people I met at last year’s do in Brisbane, who can give me the extra kick-up-the-bum that I need before I present my last semester’s work to RMIT (two days after I return - eek!).