December Dawns

I love this time of year where everything gets festive and it just feels like a good time to go out and catch up with people.

Last night I went to a leader's dinner with the churchies for the youth ministry. It's good to reflect and celebrate what God has done, and just enjoy the company of great people who I love.

Tonight I did the 1-2 combo unfortunately. I don't like doing that because it feels like I haven't done either properly, but it couldn't be avoided tonight. I went to my first SCARF volunteers night. It was an end of year celebration thing with core refugee community members and volunteers that have become involved in the community through SCARF. As this was the first thing I've been to with other volunteers (usually I just do stuff with core community members), I realised that I was a bit of an anomaly. Most, almost all, of the volunteers were 60+. It's wonderful that people who are at the post-work and post-family stage of life give their time to befriend and support newly arrived refugees in the community, and it's right for us to honour their committment. However, lots of the core members are young people, and could probably do with some peer-style friendships. I didn't expect there to be such an absence of young volunteers. I kept being introduced as "Jess, she's a girl, not a lady" by my African friends. Sometimes the women would point at or touch my chest to emphasise the point. It was pretty funny.

I also had this conversation over and over:

Stranger: "Who is the husband of you?" [scans crowd]

Friend: "No husband for Jess. She has no children."

Stranger: "Ohhhh no children! Still young, still young" [touches my breast]

Friend: "When Jess marries, I'm very old"

Me: Laugh. (What else can I do?)

Good prep for family Christmas conversations.

Of course, it could be that any young people who are involved just weren't keen to spend a Friday night in December at such an event. Maybe they came last year and were subject to the conversation documented above, and realised there was no-one else their age, and opted out this year.

Anyway, I wasn't there too long myself. It's my dad's birthday so I left early to have dinner with the 'rents and the sis. We had tapas at Diggies, and it was such a beautiful night on the beach. Still and warm, good food, good company. Mum and I only had one minor argument about my car and my money, so that's a pretty good measure of a successful night really.