Wednesday 24 August 2005

We're heading to Sydney again after an amazing month of ministry. The Seasons Womens Conference in Toowoomba saw many women reconnecting with God in powerful ways. One of the things I did was to connect with technology in a powerful way.

The church has a brand new 1500 seat auditorium, very nice. I sat down the front waiting for the place to fill up ready for the second session. As I waited, I could smell something burning. The woman next to me (one of the event organisers) could smell electrical burning also. I looked up to see dark grey smoke pouring out of one of the brand new data projectors. "Fire" I thought and got up calmly but quickly to alert the tech guys. My tone was urgent as I explained what was happening to them, at the same time I didn't want to cause alarm with the 650 women gathered. It felt like a bit of drama with me as the heroine, minus the wonder woman boots.

I went into the foyer to tell Rob what was going on, since this may affect our multimedia component and my message. He left quickly to run down the front of the auditorium. A few minutes later the guys were waving me down to the platform. They stood in a circle under the offending hardware... I was amazed that scaffolds and fire equipment hadn't been brought out yet.

The group of A/V technicians looked at me as Rob calmly asked "On what basis do you say the projector is on fire". I couldn't believe my ears... are these guys stupid!!!

"The smoke!" I urged "Can't you see the smoke pouring out?".

They all looked up and tried really hard to see what I saw. Eventually, one man replied "I can see reflections of the glitter ball moving across the projector". The penny dropped for us all. My smoke was an optical illusion. After turning bright red...and vowing them to secracy, the guys looked down, shook their heads and went back to their stations.

The burning smell? New lights... new paint.. new wires.... Oh well...