We’d like to invite you to think a bit harder this Christmas.

It seems to me that there’s a part of the story of Jesus’ birth that we seldom dwell on, and we’d like to help your community enter into it.

If you’re willing.

A few weeks ago I participated in a conversation that gave rise to the thought that when Herod ordered the mass killing of the boy’s under two Mary, Joseph and Jesus wouldn’t have been the only family who tried to escape the genocide. They couldn’t have been the only ones who got word and tried to get out of town as fast as they could, parents, mothers, fathers and children, many of them would have grabbed what they could and have tried to make it as far out of the reach of Herod as they could.  The thought that there’d be this kind of event without such a response is ludicrous, what would you have done?

The image of a sea of donkeys, all carrying mothers with children came to mind, all of them escaping to Egypt or beyond… anywhere they could to escape this evil act.  And I wondered how the leaders of Egypt would have reacted to such a surge of refugees, all seeking to escape an evil leader who was killing their children in a jealous fit of rage.

Would they have responded in a similar way to our political leaders who seem to have a unnatural fear of boats carrying asylum seekers onto our shore (remember this?)?

Or, would they have responded differently and opened their arms?

And if they responded similarly what would their political catch phrase be?

What about “Stop The Donkeys”?

And another question to throw into the mix, who are we in the story? Are we parents fleeing for the life of our children, are we the children, are we the soldiers following orders, are we community members who help sneak the children out of town and hide them from the evil that is seeking them out, or are we people of Egypt? And if we’re people in Egypt are we welcoming or refusing the acceptance of these families seeking our hospitality?

What we’ve created is a list of resources that we hope will grow over the coming weeks to help your congregations enter out of Advent and into Epiphany and to delve into this question.  You’ll find that there is definitely a political lean here, but one that comes to us out of a biblical narrative that is at the heart of who we are as people of faith which tells us that after Jesus was born Herod ordered the killing of all the male children under two and that Mary and Joseph were warned to get out with the baby and escape to egypt where they lived for many years.

This idea is here for you to poach, steal, use, borrow…

And we’d love to invite you to add to the resources if you’re able, just shoot me an email.

Images:

Here are a few images that you can use over advent, have them pop up around the space and build some anticipation around the community, buy some stickers and put them on cars, capture people’s imagination.  One worship idea is to create a sea of donkeys with messages of hospitality to those who seek our generosity and love, or perhaps your community would like to create a sea of donkeys outside your church and invite your community to write letters to our government? Imagine your local member’s face when they receive 100 donkeys in the post…

Let us know what you choose to do with the images…

• No Donkeys Allowed: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Stop The Donkeys 01: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Stop The Donkeys 02: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Age at MorePraxis has created his own image and sticker: jpg file or purchase stickers or shirts at RedBubble.com
• Flight to Egypt by He Qi: Flight to Egypt

Narratives / Reflections:

Here are a couple of reflections to help you enter into the story of the flight to Egypt, once again feel free to use, rewrite, bounce off of or add to these if you’d like.

• RefuJesus, the babe that sought safety from a king that wanted him dead. (download as pdf file)
• What If? (download as pdf)

Liturgical Resources:

• Poem: Mary’s Question by Alan Stanford
• Poem: Somebody Stole My Christmas (pdf file)
• Liturgy: God Became Human (pdf file)
• Liturgy: The Down Side of Christmas (pdf file)
• Call To Worship: Christmas Letter 2002 (pdf file)
• Poem The Flight To Egypt by Godfrey Rust (pdf file)
• Poem “Herod’s Last Request” by Godfrey Rust
• Prayer And the Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulder (by Roddy Hamilton)

Commentary:

• Commentary: Let Them All Come by FirstDog
• Commentary: Leunig – If I Were a Refugee
• Commentary: Border worship has produced an inhumane people trade by Elenie Poulos 

Resources Exploring Refugee Issues:

• NCCA Resource – Me As A Refugee (this is a great resource for helping people to put themselves in the shoes of refugees)
• The Heart of a Stranger – Ben Thurley (pdf file, thanks to Ben Thurley and TEAR Australia for allowing us to use this)
• NCCA What is a Refugee?
• Refugee Council Advocacy Kit
• Australian Catholic Migrant & Refugee Centre Refugee Kits

Two of our wedding presents were tagines… yes, we were given two tagines, one was a traditional clay tagine, the other a Microstoven tagine. At first we both thought “what the bugger will we do with TWO tagines”!? And, after last night, I can tell you what we’re gonna do.

We’re gonna cook a lot of Moroccan food!

Yesterday I cooked Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios, the recipe we got from the book “Tagines & Couscous” by Ghillie Basan (Author), Martin Brigdale (Photographer), Peter Cassidy (Photographer). It’s a book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone, I have a sneaking suspicion that a number of the Lamb dishes would have traditionally been Goat dishes, (they say to use a lean cut of lamb which is unusual for slow cooking) so it’s on my list of priorities to give them a go with goat soon.

The Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios kicked off by cooking a couple of onions in a frying pan with some ghee and some cinnamon, ginger and tumeric before browning off the lamb, adding some water to cover and then pouring into the heated tagine in the oven. I left it in the oven for about 2.5 hours overall on 150 degrees, stopping about 1.5 hours in to add dates and a fair whack of honey and leaving it in for a while longer. I finished it all off by reducing the liquid on a higher heat for a bit and then served with a lemon and butter couscous.

Can I say…

YUM

Tonight I’m planning on cooking up another onion with a small selection of the spices and a few dates in order to help warm up the dish again…

Found the recipe on the Food For Thought Blog if you want to give it a go.

A couple of tips re using clay Tagines:

a) Make sure you know the instructions as to how to use the tagine, every clay tagine is different and should come with easy to follow instructions.

b) Season your tagine properly. I followed the tagine’s instructions which was to soak in water for an hour or so before taking out and allowing to air dry for a while. After which I placed in a cold oven and brought it up to 150 degrees and allowed it to sit for ten minutes. I then applied a generous amount of rice oil to the inside the tagine and allowed it to sit in the oven for another hour before allowing it to cool allllllll the way down.

c) Soak the tagine for a couple of hours before cooking in it. A lot of people suggest soaking it for 24 hours, but seriously my tagine had stopped soaking water into it within the hour.

Here’s my end result (it looks a LOT like the recipe in the book!)

I can’t help but thinking of the scene where Dorothy enters Oz, her house in tatters, (having been picked up and thrown through the air by a tornado) she climbs out of the house to find that she’s killed a woman, her house has landed smack dab on the body of someone wearing some remarkably groovy slippers.

Initially distraught Dorothy meets some munchkins who explain to her through song that this was a “Wicked Witch” and she ought not be worried, they’re so convincing infact that they sing a song and the now-not-distraught Dorothy joins in on this really catchy song with dancing and celebrating and new smiling faces and brass band and…

And she quickly forgets that she’d accidentally killed someone, that there’s a shriveled up body under her house, she forgets it so much that she doesn’t really have any issues walking away with the witch’s shoes on her feet after all the singing and dancing has faded away…

I know that in fantasy, like the story of Dorothy and her companions there has to be characters that are black and white, good and evil, and I’m aware that very rarely do either of these characters practice means of non-violence, after all, what kind of story would THAT be? but, it should leave you cringing a little that you’ve clapped and joined in on the singing after all the commotion has finished, surely having joined in on the celebration you’ll realise… perhaps a little down the road that you’ve just sung about the killing of a person? Or are you distracted by yet another song session that makes you feel a little better about your previous accident?

I find it interesting that at any point in time during the story where you may be able to sit back and think “did I just sing about the death of another?” another song pops up and commands your attention, distracting you from that nagging thought…

It distracts you so much that the final scenes of the killing of the witch’s sister brings you back into song!

And here we find ourselves today, the 3rd of March, 2011, not even a day after President Obama announced to the world that they had killed Osama, and buried his body out to sea, and everywhere I turn there are songs being sung and bands a-playing and cymbals a-clashing and whistles being blown and firecrackers being lit and our governments are all joining in on the song “the witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead…” and many of us are tempted a little and many of us are tempted a lot to join in. Granted, some people didn’t need much encouragement at all, instead they grabbed the closest bottle and whistle and started to sing along immediately… some it took a bit of nudging and a couple of choruses to join in… and some find themselves feeling a bit ill in the stomach…

And someone needs to ask “Are we only a bunch of munchkins? Is that all there is to us?”

Are we so blinded by the media that a person’s death, no matter how “evil” or violent or how much damage they’ve done can be celebrated by so many in such a manner?

Have we not forgotten the sick feeling that people had when the media fed us images of people celebrating the falling of the Twin Towers? (And have we not forgotten that many of those images were not what the media had told us they were?)

I’m not wanting to become a monster, even if it’s a singing and dancing one (especially if it’s a singing and dancing one) because another “monster” is dead…

So… today, two songs, side by side.

One for the Munchkin in all of us, may we see who we really are, feel ill in the stomach and seek forgiveness. The other for the human in us, may we be confused, appalled, disgusted, upset and uneasy about the events of these last few days, may we once again be reminded what it really means to be human and what it means to love… even when love hurts… even in the darkest of days…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fire in the Sky
By John Butler

Fire in the sky outta the blue and into the red depths,
Time for you and I to try to fall asleep in the bed they’ve made us,
All came crumbling down tears in our eyes as it rained confusion the whole world has changed
But I don’t understand how one can kill a man in the name peace, that’s ridiculous
But I understand that I will defend my family, from both sides of misery.

Fire in the sky outta the blue and into the red depths,
Time for you and I to try to fall asleep in the bed they’ve made us,
All came crumbling down tears in our eyes as it rained confusion the whole world has changed
But I don’t understand how one can kill a man in the name peace, that’s ridiculous.

They say I colonize, so they fire from the sky and they come outta nowhere
Time for you and I to turn on the big screen see what’s happening’
And as those children die, pawns in the game of collateral damage,
The whole world goes mad,
Standing your on quick sand, the more we fight we sink
And vengeance gives us hope, at least that’s what we think, at least that’s what we think. As we make amends on getting our revenge, We solved nothing now, to sad to look down
but with God on both sides, death is justified, wateva the name, then wer’re all to blame.

As those spirits fly,
to honor those who have past,
we got to get along, while the time still lasts
Burrying this has to be so we all can grieve
and feel all this pain and so we can live again, so we can live again but
as we make amends on getting our revenge, We solved nothing now, to sad to look down
but with God on both sides, death is justified, wateva the name, and we all feel pain.
But I don’t understand how one can kill a man in the name peace, that’s ridiculous
But I understand that I will defend my family, from both sides of misery.

Adrian re-posted a reflection by Michael Leuinig from this weekend’s Sunday Age

It says what no-one in the media or anyone in our political leadership seems to be saying at the moment, and oh how much it needs to be said…

If I were a refugee
What a nice one I would be.
Not in need of gliding.
My traumas would be character building.

The wars that overturned my life;
Atrocities and endless strife
And persecution hateful,
Would have taught me to be grateful.

I’d have no breaking point at all.
Lock me up against the wall
And I would sit and wait
And smile and say “no worries mate”.

Standing in the “inner circle” under the claw at the second Melbourne as Bono walked past (no, not bragging, just projecting an image heh heh) I looked around at the sea of iPhones and cameras around me, everyone had one, a couple of people never seemed to put it down, many pulled them out every time one of the band members came close. Adam Clayton stood over us almost playfully, shiny bass in hand, a wry grin over his face in a rock-star god pose and out came the phones, and it got me wondering. A little while later the same thing became almost annoying, and as I noticed a few people almost recording the entire event while watching it through the shiny lit up mini screens only to occasionally look beyond the screen to catch a glimpse of the event that was going on in front of their eyes.

(Tangent – many people took the time to turn their camera phones away from the event in front of them in order to turn away and take photos of their friends, or in most cases of themselves. As I watched this happen over and over again (and later was informed that the same thing was giving my fiance the willies) I wondered how much narcissism is needed in order to spend $100 on tickets to an event that you would turn away from in order to take photos of yourself… perhaps there’s another thing to talk about in a little while. Tangent over… )

Hundreds of people in front of me, behind me, around me, all with their retina displays and small cameras in hand watching the concert through a screen that presented only a small image of reality, for the stage, the people and the music was too big to capture in this way, to see in this kind of way. The image would only capture a small part of the reality as the stage was so large that I had to regularly look around in order to gaze at the “bigness” of it all, the music recording would only capture a pathetic representation of the concert that they were experiencing, the bass alone distorting any hope that you could listen to this on the way home in the car, the sight of the people blurred and over exposed due to movement and bright lights would never give you a realistic image of the person as they walked by.

Then I wondered, (and here is where my fiance tells me that I read too much into these things, or that I really should stop reading philosophy and theology books and get into some good old fiction).. I wondered if what was going on before me was what we speak of when we retell the stories of the call of Moses and other Prophets in the Old Testament.

In the story of Moses God appeared and spoke through a burning bush, his true image and voice inaudible to anyone God had to find new and different ways to meet with his creation. In this story the burning bush was a necessity, a way that God and Moses could connect, could commune with one another. It was a way that Moses was able to see God but not see God, to hear God but not hear God, without it the meeting would be impossible and the friendship would not have developed.

Perhaps the people around me were holding their phones up, watching the band as they walked by through their screens for a similar reason, all-be-it a distorted and ill-conceived reason, for, as you know Bono is not a God, Niether is Edge or Larry or Adam, they’re people who are great at their art and at sharing their music in new and interesting ways… but they’re only people. We don’t need to see them via a screen, no burning bush is needed, no alternative ways of connecting need to be developed. What’s more important is that Bono and the crew are not interested in a one on one relationship in the same way that we’re told God wanted from Moses, instead their relationship with us is a once off, never to be repeated again experiment in mass communication, occasionally interrupted and inspired by a mass response Bono would touch his heart, but that’s it people, nothing more.

Perhaps we’ve lost the understanding of what is holy and what is celebrity, what is beauty and what is orchestrated and marketed…

When the celebrity becomes holy perhaps we need magazines and televisions and iPhones in order to not be blinded by their holiness?

Maybe it’s just that people can’t simply be present anymore, perhaps we’ve lost the ability to put the connections down and to enjoy what’s in front of us, instead turning our heads and minds to our next thing, whether it be watching this in a cafe or pub with friends saying “this is where I was” or “this is me and my friend at the U2 gig, (sorry you can’t see the stage, our faces are more important)” or perhaps “this is where they sung my favourite song so instead of just being in the moment I recorded it to share it with you”

(Tangent – last tour I was front row when Bono sung “Miss Sarajevo.” The girl next to me picked up her phone to tell a friend that “he was singing her favourite song ever and how awesome is that, it’s so beautiful, yeah, I know, his voice is just so…. blah blah blah” and hung up from speaking when the song was over. What about the experience of hearing your favourite piece of music or viewing a stunningly holy piece of art have we lost when our response to something beautiful is to phone someone to tell them that you’re watching something beautiful happen without really paying attention to it’s beauty?)

Perhaps people are just weird like that…

Or maybe there’s something else going on, perhaps the iPhone has become a quasi burning bush, an artificial and self-imposed way to distance ourselves from those around us, whether they be Bono or other celebrities or the friend that we meet in the cafe. Perhaps these types of personal connections are just too holy for us to understand to connect with anymore, perhaps their voices are too much for us, their being too bright to stare at for any long period of time, their voice too beautiful to listen too with un-sheltered ears, their friendship too special for us to truly embrace…

Then again this could be one huge wank…

Sorry, I said wank, I know it demeaned everything that I just wrote.

And if you’re reading this on your iPhone is it because my words are too holy for you to read on other monitors?

And I know that I wasn’t going to brag, but check this out…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steve Taylor and Rob Hanks have mentioned these little cubed pieces of goodness before on their blogs but I’ve been wanting to talk about them for a while now.  I’ve got a few fantastic resources to help with creativity, and the Story Cubes have been a great addition to the collection.  The Creativity Hub sent me a couple sets of the original sets as well as a copy of the Actions set before I bumped into them locally, since then I’ve been playing with them lots.

Rory’s Story Cubes are a collection of cubes, each side with an image of an action or an item. Roll the dice and once all of the dice have stopped you’re invited to use the images to tell a story, it’s as simple as starting with “once upon a time” and going from there.

I’ll admit, at first the going was a little difficult, but after the fourth or fifth time you get used to the process and it’s a lot less frightening. I cannot wait until I find the space and time to use this with a group of young people, but I’ve played it with a few adults and had mixed results. I’ve a couple of friends who are counselors who, upon seeing them jumped for joy.

Personally, I’ve found them fun, enjoyable, simple and creative.

The Creative Hub have started to put together a list of ways that people can play with the cubes including people in education, with groups of kids and at home, their youtube site has a few more ideas for those of you who want to play with the storytelling game even more.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With Christmas on the way, these would be a great family oriented present….

Oh yes, there’s the Rory’s iPhone App as well for those of you who want to take the cubes with you everywhere, I’m hoping that an update with a voice recorder may be added to the app sometime soon so people can record their stories and share them in that way.

I was interviewed a month or so ago by Emma Halgren who was writing an article for the Insights Magazine on Technology and Worship, she was interested specifically in me sharing my thoughts on what technology is indispensable in worship and what some of the pro’s and cons of using technology in worship may be. There was a feeling that some people see technology in worship as a distraction, detracting from the primary focus of worship. Also on the table for discussion was wanting to explore the ways in which technology has changed and is changing the way that we relate to one another, especially when concerning young people.

I won’t go into the bits n pieces where I was quoted too much, if at all, but I did want to write down some thoughts that I shared in the conversation that didn’t necessarily make it into the article, primarily for my own benefit, but also because from my perspective the most interesting parts were not used in the article.

One of the things I spoke about was the way that the church has been obsessed with, if not addicted to the technology of “print.” I know that some people may not view print as a technology, but it was a technology that ultimately changed the way that we communicate with each other, it changed the way that we learn, the way we teach and it ultimately changed the world that we live in and it has never been the same.

The church has taken to print in such a way that it seems to think that it is indispensable and, for the most part it’s primary means of communicating, relating, teaching, learning and worshiping. When you think about it worship for most churches has been surrounded by 101 ways to transmit print, from our bibles to our hymn books, our overhead to our digital projectors, our preaching to sunday schools, our church newsletters to our websites are all ways that we transmit print. it’s all words, words, words… and we’re addicted to them. It may not be indispensable, but if our actions are anything to judge by we certainly believe that it is something that we simply cannot do without.

One of the things that I’ve come to realise is how much this has benefited adults and dis-empowered young people, a world surrounded and drenched in print, in words and letters those who can read have the power and all the information. It follows then that a church that relies on print has very little space where children and youth can be empowered and participate. Print, especially a lot of our theological and liturgical print favours the literate, and it REALLY favours the intellectual literate.

This is reversing with the rise of a culture that relies heavily on images, a change that the church is struggling with just as much as the adults who have become so reliant on being the primary source of all wisdom and the only ones to be able to read and “understand” the print culture around them. But this change has meant that it’s the children and young people who are able to understand a lot which has previously been hidden or out of their reach.  Tolstoy’s trilogy TLOTR for example, a story that had been too far out of the reach of your average 13 year old is now a movie trilogy that can be watched by anyone with the patience enough to sit through the 12 hours that it takes for the series to complete.  Radio, movies, television and now the internet, podcasts, iphones, laptops and mobile phones are opening up a world that has been dominated by adult reason and knowledge hidden in large books to a world of young people who seem to be reveling in having the ability to understand and interact with it in a way that most adults struggle.

Obviously these issues mean a lot for us as a community, and I won’t go on (I’ve already written enough for tonight) except to ask some of the questions that I think we are facing, or need to face if we take all of this seriously.

• What does worship look like for a community who no longer relies on print?
  
• How does a worshiping community change the way that they share their christian tradition and story if not but through print?
• What does this mean for Christian education?  In particular how do we move beyond a system that relies on the ways of print (Sunday school in particular and also SRE, bible studies etc) to a way that uses a number of different mediums, and that also includes young and old learning and sharing together?
• Are we being called to a way of worshiping and communing that is more aligned with the old oral traditions of communities than the written culture that we’re still moving from?

I think the way that we answer these questions will define the type of community we become, I’m excited about the changes and a bit frustrated that these questions still remain to be asked or recognised in many of our churches.

What other questions would you be asking?

Link to complete article: “Technochurch” on the Insights Magazine website
Link to complete article: “Technochurch” on the Transit Lounge website
Image Source: Collide Magazine

And we’re back…

It’s been a while since I’ve “Blogged” or added anything to this site, or to the Alternative Hymnal, I’ve needed the space and time away, I’m not sure why, but the time’s been good, I’ve become engaged, my position here in the Riverina has been extended, my fiance has been offered a year in a position at a school locally, I’ve had some time to read and to listen to a lot of music, I’ve been walking regularly and think I’ve got my stuff together enough to be confidant and relaxed with the amount of work ahead of me…

Although, we’re planning the wedding for April 2011 so that’ll be something else for me to focus on.

But I think that I’ve found enough time and space now to get back into the swing of this thing.

You’ll notice that I’ve done a bit of an update, it took a lot of time and patience to move from one Content Management System (imagine copying and pasting every single post and entry over one by one… there are still 200 broken links to repair!!!) so that I’m now 100% relying on WordPress, I’ve combined the old “Lectionary Blog”, the “Youth Ministry” Site, the “Youth, Culture and Mission” site into the one site, as for now I’ll leave The Alternative Hymnal and Downstream (which is currently down) as separate installs and will hope to get time to update them pretty soon also. I hope to have the Hymnal up in the coming week or so, and I’ve got a few plans for that, for one I’ll get back onto the Paul Kelly song project and then I’ll start to post about songs that are currently on the shortlist for the Wedding in April and, I’m thinking of sharing some songs from my Funeral Play-list as well.

If you do a bit of a wander you’ll see that because I’ve had to upload all entries again the old date system is a bit, well… let’s face it, it’s been destroyed, so unfortunately it’s a bit of a mess, but the search function still works and all posts from now will be stored chronologically.

I’ve started a major update in the children’s book section by adding a huge list of books to my reviews, I’ve still got half of my library to go through still and add to the list, so be patient, but feel free to wander around and check out some of the new additions to the reviews, especially with Christmas on it’s way you may be looking for great present ideas and want a hint for books to keep an eye out for….

I’ve also put a lot of work into the Links section, let me know if I need to add anything to the list…

Anyhow, I’m back and I’ll try and get back into the swing of blogging and developing resources for people in Youth and Children’s Ministry as soon as I can…

Hello, my name is Darren, and I’ll be your host for a while…

Title: The Hidden Forest
Author: Jeannie Baker
Illustrator: Jeannie Baker
Publisher: Walker Books UK
Publisher: Greenwillow Books USA
ISBN – Hardback: 0-688-15760-2 (trade USA)
ISBN – Hardback: 0-688-08918-6 (lib. ed. USA)
ISBN – Hardback: 1-85681-010-0 (UK)
ISBN – Paperback: 0-7445c7876-0
ISBN – Big Book: 0-84428 518-9

Themes: Wonder, Environment, Conservation, Forrest, Diversity, Nature, Beauty

‘When you see kelp forest under the water and you’re looking up, the sun is like the light of the sky, it penetrates the water’s surface and shoots rays down as in a rainforest. The forest is very magical and mysterious and fish, appear at times, like birds flying through the trees’. Jeannie Baker

The Hidden Forest is another unique masterpiece from the author who brought us titles The Forest Beneath the Sea and Window.

In The Hidden Forest Baker once again combines her passion for conservation and extraordinary talent with collage with an endearing story of discovery and wonder. The story follows Ben, a boy who, after getting his small fish trap caught in an underwater kelp forest, sets out on a snorkelling adventure to unhook the trap. Led by his eco-conscious friend Sophie, Ben discovers the beauty and diversity hidden beneath the surface of the bay.

Wonders such as the multi-layered, multi-textured kelp forest, the many different types of fish and even a whale are all part of Ben’s journey to discover that the underwater world is a place where everything has it’s purpose and needs to be respected and valued.

This story is, like all of Baker’s creations, a visual smorgasbord of colours and textures, inspired by the kelp forests on Tasmania’s Tasman Peninsula. Baker used a multitude of natural materials including seaweeds, sponges and sands in the construction of her illustrations and reader’s can find illuminating information on the endangered kelp forests and Baker’s creation process on the final page.

This book is again, a beautiful and inspiring encouragement of valuing and respecting our natural environment and a wonderful tool for educating the generations to come.

Review written by Holly Lobb, November 2010.