Click here to view the photo slideshow from the PAT I in Adelaide Australia in May, 2005.
A milestone was passed late May in South Australia. It was the first Peace Awareness Training I (PAT) there and was set in a beautiful conference center in the rolling hills of Adelaide in view of the Great Southern Ocean.
Most participants hailed from Adelaide but a goodly number came from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Our facilitator was Judith Norfor from Sydney, our team leader Keith Parris from Melbourne, and sound controller supremo was Vonnie Van Wyk from Brisbane. Our Adelaide team members were Ilus Osborne who donned her running shoes to keep the bell ringing audible through the extensive grounds, Beverley Voigt who ran product sales and gifting etc so excellently, and last but most important Wendy Brooks whose tireless efforts made the training possible. It would take pages to list all of Wendy’s inputs. To mention just two, at the training she assisted as trainee facilitator with Judith and showed constant thoughtful concern for everyone insuring we had enough blankets and providing hot water bottles for all in case we had difficulty with the rather cool night temperatures.
One is not permitted to say much about the actual training of course and it has to be experienced by each one; except to say that for me it really isn’t necessary to wait for the Living in Grace (in 2007) training to be able to realize a deeper inner peace. Each PAT training seems to be so exactly right for where I am at that time.
The conference centre is a modern one built by the Latvian community with solid brick buildings in spacious grounds. The sleeping quarters had a thermal quality built in so that even on the coolest nights the temperature remained stable. Our daily 3 meals were shared in the warm community dining room, all abundantly prepared by the most friendly cook with heaps of salads, snacks and nice choices for vegans and the rest of us. We even had an outdoor church — no walls or roof — a lovely setting with amphitheatre seating and a masonry altar. A great spot for our group photo in the late afternoon looking out across the ocean.
The conference centre was a separate building with its own little foyer and adjoining toilets. We started the day with spiritual exercises (SE’s) at 7am. Good timing was one of the guidelines. Our bell keeper Ilus seemed to keep her best running shoes on as she moved around the spacious grounds and hustled us together with perfect timing for the full daily program.
Some participants experienced challenges before the training began. Two participants had problems with arrival times at Adelaide airport and relied on patient and loving Adelaide people to “get them to the church on time”. Vonnie Van Wyk had arrived a day early at the centre and hustled to get out and hire vital connection wires which had somehow been mislaid, so the sound equipment could operate. The sound system by the way was operated beautifully under her expert and dedicated control despite its being antiquated. Dearest Vonnie had very little sleep during the 5 days having to absorb and action a detailed program using old fashioned tapes and tape players etc etc. We are hopeful that next year will see a big improvement in both equipment and its programming so that our sound person will have a reasonable amount of sleep.
For the writer, an audit, it was pleasant observing, as the training began, the sharings and wonderings of first time trainees on the Wednesday afternoon. Then as we all moved further into the training and experienced the profound blessings being dispensed into the small community, and shared the oneness and peace, the days passed all too quickly. Sunday afternoon arrived as we graduated and got our feet back on the ground, cleared our rooms and loaded equipment onto the large trailer Wendy had hired for its return to Adelaide. Some of us stayed overnight in Adelaide due to limitations in flights back home and were offered the extraordinary pleasure of staying in the lovely home of Wendy and Paul Brooks.
Our love and thanks to the Travelers, to the team, and to Wendy for making this wonderful event possible. Most of us will be back no doubt for the PATs II and III next year.
