2016

At what point did I think it would be a good idea to walk off into the bush on my own in the dark with a headlamp whose batteries were running out?

It was 7am this morning, and I had to choose, as will happen more often now, between the main route along a highway, and a scenic cross country route which might be one or two km longer, but much nicer walking. 

I chose well. After just a few minutes in the scrub I emerged onto a paved country road which wove through a couple of small towns and farmland, much like some of the initial days of the Camino did. And the gathering dawn kicked in before my headlamp gave out. 

It was a very quiet day though. I spoke to only one other walking pilgrim the whole 28km. But I had an animated conversation in broken Spanish with an old Spanish man who was riding his pushbike towards me. At one point in the conversation he was listing place names and pointing in different directions, to which I would reply si or no for whether I had been there or was going there. Or he may have been asking me for directions, which would not have been so good. At no point in the conversation did we understand that the other was saying. 

I walked along the flat, easy roads due west, drawn inexhorably towards the mountains which are looming in the distance to be climbed in the next 3 days. 

I soon arrived in the beautiful little town of Hospital de Orbiga with this historic bridge. And most wonderfully, finally a river clean enough to swim in. I was joined by Josh, a young Canadian backpacker who was adventurous enough to aslo jump in. 

Back at the albergue - one of the best with these comfy little sleepign pods - 

I met two Australian women Liz and Debbie with hand crocheted koalas on their backpacks - a sure give away of their Australian-ness. Liz works in wound care for diabetics and is an expert on blisters and ulcers, so she brought a kit with her to give back to the Camino by helping fix people's feet. Despite some improvement today I was very glad of her services to fix a couple of my blisters. 

Lots of time to remember the year 2016. During 2016 (and maybe 2015?) I welcomed several new priests from overseas into the diocese. 

I have seen too many times that a new priest arrives from overseas and that the parish priest (often exhausted and waiting for relief) throws him in the deep end, often going on long awaited holidays and leaving him to fend for himself in his initial weeks. So, knowing there were some new priests soon to arrive, I offered to Bishop Peter that I'd been willing to take them for a time of of orientation.  

So over a couple of years I had Fr Baby, Fr Tomy, Fr Sabbas and Fr Leonse stay a couple of months each at Kincumber where there were spare bedrooms and no pressure to perform too soon. They concelebrated Mass with me, then celebrated solo. They visited parishioners, did driving lessons, speech & pronunciation lessons, and got to make any mistakes they needed to in the safe space of Kincumber before moving on to their next appointments. A few weeks in, Fr Baby spoke at Mass about his work with disabled children and his love for them, and people were capitvated. Baby & Tomy are now doing good work in Toukley Parish. 

The other significant thing from 2016 was employing a wonderful parishioner Dionne in a newly created role we called "New Parishioner Engagement Coordinator". As the parish grew, and we finally had enough money to employ someone for a few hours per week, a question emerges: if you can only pay for one pastoral worker in your parish, what role should they have? Sacramental program, youth, catechists, pastoral care? There's no perfect answer. But something which most parishes don't do well is that we fail to capitalise on how many young families have their babies baptised, and how many families have children starting in a Catholic school, let alone just new people who move into the area. We crafted this role to be deliberately evangelising and inclusive of new people. Dionne, herself a mother of four children in the school and a recent convert to Catholicism was the perfect person for the role and she quickly made it her own. It's a role I've wanted to have in every parish ever since.