Faith restored

So was going to blog about an experience i had Monday with some local police officers after we assisted a female involved in a D.V. situation while i was at work... i wont go into now but lets just say i was less that impressed with the interpersonal skills displayed by the officers (or lack there-of). Not to mention the lack of assistance in retrieving her young baby who was still in her house, as she had literally fled onto the street to get help and therefore technically left him in custody of the child. Apparently a child cannot be removed from custody of a parent without court order unless there are welfare concerns... i have welfare concerns for a child in house with a violent man who is very angry at the mother of the child... would YOU?

Previous to that day, police could do no wrong my eyes. I know quite a few cops and they are all good people too. I could give you a list of the things these particular officers did do wrong that day but i will just settle for praying my husband is never so busy being a cop he forgets to be a human being, as i am now well aware is possible.


So here the story was to end... except for the fact that I had an unusually dramatic week as by Tuesday I had phone emergency for the second time in as many days. This time a distressed client had attempted suicide just as i was starting my shift... The police arrived FAST (might help that we are 30 seconds from McD's ;) . After the initial drama settled down and the client was physically ok, the Senior officer started taking my statement and the other officer started talking to the young person, showing empathy, listening skills, reassuring body language (moving to eye level, open gestures etc) which I witnessed while I was in and out to check on the client. All in all the client was kept calm and distracted (necessary, for reasons i will spare on the details) for over 45 minutes it took for the ambulance to attend. Comparatively the previous days officers had made no attempt to 'help' or comfort the victim, hardly even assisting with her requests and definitely showing non of the interpersonal skills demonstrated by the following days officers.

We were so impressed by the officers genuine concern for and generosity of time with the young client we wrote a commendation letter to the commissioner.

Long story short... faith restored, maybe not to believing that all cops are saintly superheros, but at least that there are some that are.

Some belated photos

For some reason I couldnt get these to download the other night so i had to save copies elsewhere on my harddrive and it worked.
These photos where taken by an officer who goes to our church(the uniformed officer in the group pic below), who happens to do a bit of photography on the side. Many thanks to him as my camera had nither the zoom or resolution to get good shots where we could actully pic D from the crowd.

I have not included some shots as too many other officers where visable. I have also blurred any other officers in close view and some details for obvious privacy reasons as although you would really need to be directed to find this blog it is technically a public forum.

Funnily enough in our fairly small church there are 4 regularly attending cops, i am yet to decide whether our church is appealing to a particular personality type that includes alot of cops or if there are just alot of christian cops out there.

Academy days are over...

I cant believe about 2 years ago my husband, then a qualified tradie started throwing around some talk about joining the police. 6 months of think about it, more than a year of tests, exams and qualifying, appointments and tryouts, and 6 months of academy you think i would be used to it right...well no, i still cant believe he just went and became a cop...

The Gradution was great...although the newly appointed constables were very hot out on that parade ground. Our girls watched their daddy march and even tried a bit of marching themselves much to the amusement of those seated around us. A few guys from church turned out too which I think D really appreciated.






We had the celebration ball that night which was nice...

we landed up on a fairly quiet table, but the table next to us, the younger recruits more than made up for our table. D made a great speech for his squad and the high ranking officers and supervisors made a point of coming over to tell him their table were placing bets on how long (or not) it was going to to take him to be promoted to their ranks.
While i am on a boasting role, D picked up 2 out of 10 awards distributed over the 2 squads, the good samaritan award and the professional conduct award.

So we were stuffed and so keen to get home at the end of the night and we pulled into our drive way and D slows down to make sure a couple who are fighting, shouting and pushing and shoving each other are Ok, and because we were driving slowly (thank God) i noticed something on the road. It took me a second or two to realise it was a girl face down in the road. So the couple are really screaming it out at this stage and the girl is sounding very frantic so Duncan and I quickly figure the girl is passed out, get her to respond and move out of the road and he heads over to check if the girl who is screaming needs assistance and i do my best to keep the girl, who is absolutly tonked, off the road. Long story short the two things were unrelated, everyone on our street just had a bad night at once.
I just praise God we had slowed down because of the couple because we would have otherwise probable turned into our garage just short of where the girl was lying, leaving her exposed to anyone driving down our street.

Oh and my apologies to the call centre, as i had dialed 000 when i noticed the girl in the road and we had trouble waking her, but once i was talking to the dispatcher she had responded and was adamant about not wanting an ambulance, but at this point i though the female screaming may need assistance, so i started to outline that situation, and then things there calmed down and they went their separate ways so i sort of had to explain that while i had half described two potentially emergency situations, i actually didn't need anyone to respond. I wonder what she thought, maybe that i was just reporting things for my own entertainment or something, at least that was what her tone of voice suggested.

I am pretty sure D enjoyed "having" to tell the girl that he was an off duty police officer and couldn't just leave her in the street as she suggested we do. (not that he would have left her regardless of his occupation).

movin to the country...gonna eat me alot of peaches

i dunno if they were an Australian band- they were called the presidents of the USA or something like that but they sang this song
wait let me see if i can find a clip...
PEACHES
there you go. So this song has been in my head for like the last 2 months.
So this is how my life took a dramatically different course, leading me to be unable to get this song out of my head. 5 years ago i married i man...a tradesman with a pastoral gift and leadership abilities. We served in the youth group and we ran the youth group. We became the youth pastors and I figured we would pastor eventually, full time. Maybe he would pastor a church and I would use my social science degree and social work experience to set up a ministry for the down and out, maybe teenage mums, maybe drug rehab clients maybe all of the above... this was my plan.
Well since we got married anyway. My original plan was to serve with the leadership of my old church in a paid ministry role, but then we got married and he didn't feel right about moving to my church...in hindsight I see that That was my comfort zone, not Gods plan, but i left my friends and spiritual family and everything i was aspiring to then, and well 5 years later it is like de ja vu(figuratively speaking, coz I don't really believe in that kind of thing).
I have a job and a plan and dreams, and i really don't see how any of it fits with where we seem to be heading now. I am discovering what really is meant by walking by faith. I have a peace about all the decisions we have made leading up to this point. Now we need to decide where we are going in just 12 weeks time.

When D signed up we(I) was convinced we would do country posting MUCH furthur down the track and D would work local to our church, my work,family, friends, our lives. Then came the nearly perfect compromise, a country posting just 45 minutes from where we live now. i could still be involved in ministry and wouldn't have to work because of the country pay perks. Then that did not work out as they are not going to take on a Probationary officer. Now i cant seem to backtrack with D and country seems to be the only thing being considered...hence...this song.

I am quite emotionally attached to my church, my ministry and youth group. It is such an exciting time and I am finally finding the time to connect with new leaders, i know that leaving is going to be devastating for me...again. All the reasons i have to stay though are my own selfish ones. I don't feel like we are meant to stay, in fact i think God has been very deliberate about moving us out at a time when others will HAVE to step up and out of their comfort zones. I just doesn't seem to make it any easier though...
I will part II this post later with my thought about where we are going.

Career Move

and this time its not me... although now in addition to being a youth pastors wife i am a police wife, which i am quickly finding is like its own little club. So our kids are not only pks (pastors kids) but cops kids too. I dunno if this makes him Constable Pastor Duncan or Pastor Constable Conradt. so far so good, seeing as he is still doing the training, and very good when it comes to the uniform, there is something Quite interesting about a policeman getting dressed/undressed in my bedroom ;) i dunno about two of us doing shift work but here goes, we will see how it pans out!
I would post a picture but he has issues with internet pictures in the uniform or something, so I guess I can keep him all to myself...