Hi Friends,

Well, here I am today with my leg up on the table next to my computer, recovering from surgery to my knee. This is the second knee I've had operated on, and I've only got the two, so I'm hoping that this will be the last operation for some time.

Yes, it is a kickboxing injury. This particular one came courtesy of my friend Zac Taumafi, whom I sparred with on our June 14 show earlier this year. It was just a single kick to the inside of my left knee, and I've probably been hit there a thousand times, but then one hits you in just the wrong spot at just the wrong angle ...

Anyway, I'm certainly not holding it against Zac. Not only is he a mate, but he's looking to help us out with building the gym down at Binacrombi, and a bung leg is a small price to pay if it cements the relationship.

In other news, we had our last Fight Night on October 10th and, despite the fact that it turned out to be on the same night as the opening match of the Rugby World Cup, it still turned out well. We had a decent number of people, raised a decent amount of money for our Youth Centre (a couple of thousand) and the venue was terrific (thank you Petersham RSL).

And as an extra bonus, two out of three of the boys fighting for our club won this time! In fact, our boy Jay Johnson scored a knockout 10 seconds into the second round. It was a big morale boost for our club.

This new month begins with a big concert from our community choir (the 'Jubilate Singers') who perform Faure's Requiem this Saturday night (November 1st) in the church building. It should be a big night and all proceeds go to the church. If you're free and you're in the area, do yourself a favour and come along.

This month too our new Binacrombi on-site managers move in! Please pray for Chris and Roz and for their two young ones, Tamara and Baden, as they make this enormous adjustment.

Thanks for all your prayers. Please continue to uphold before God our church, our campsite, my fight club and my family.
We're still in need of a few miracles.

Yours in the Good Fight,

Thanks be to God. I believe that the publicity that has been given to all the material about 'Strategic Management Works' on the site has had a good effect.

During September www.fatherdave.org recorded 296,220 hits, and most of them were reading up on SMW. As a result, I'm told that about a dozen people have now had their money refunded! This is good news, as some of these people seem to have been truly financially ruined through their dealings with SMW.

Even more importantly, it seems that our government is now moving to investigate the operations of 'get-rich-quick' schemes across the country. There was, at any rate, a motion to that effect recently carried in NSW Parliament. This web site even received a mention in the Parliamentary debate! Most encouraging.

I've added more SMW 'testimonials' to the site as they have come in, but I'm conscious of the fact that external pressure is growing to have much of this material removed. I'll keep it all up for as long as I can. I've also uploaded both a graphical and a text version of the Sydney Morning Herald article from September 13, in case you missed it. I've also uploaded copies of the Parliamentary Hansard transcript of the above-mentioned motion. Links to all this material can be found on the SMW 'rave page'. Click here.

The other recent event of great personal significance for me is that Morde Vanunu just celebrated the 17th anniversary of his kidnapping and imprisonment. In case you've forgotten, Morde Vanunu was the Israeli nuclear technician who told the world about the Israeli nuclear armaments stockpile. For proclaiming the truth he was hit over the head and drugged by the Israeli secret police, secretly shipped from Italy back to Israel in the bottom of a cargo ship, and then put on trial for treason and espionage. In 1987 Morde was sentenced to 18 years for his 'crimes'. He spent the first eleven and a half of these years in solitary confinement - the longest prisoner in solitary confinement on record.

On the anniversary of Morde's kidnapping, I wrote a bit of a 'rave' about my friend Morde. Click here to go there now. I've also put the 'Letters from Solitary' book on sale in the shop, with half the proceeds going to the 'Free Vanunu Fund'. Click here if you'd like to purchase a copy.

If you're on my mailing list, you're probably getting sick to death of my rabbitting on about this program, but please excuse me while I give it one last plug here.

Corners is your PC's Cornerman, and if you haven't heard me explain it in detail let, please click this link to go to the sales page.

What, you might ask, is my favourite aspect of Corners? The answer is 'the ability to customise the Greatis Super Menu, so that my most commonly used programs are always readily accessible'.

Like most of you, I suspect, I have about 100 programs installed on my PC. I use about a dozen of them regularly. I have shortcuts to my two most commonly used programs (Outlook and Word) on the Windows 'quick launch' bar that lives near the 'Start' button. But what about the other 10 programs?

The obvious answer is to set them up as shortcuts on my desktop, but the truth is that I've always got the desktop cluttered up with windows when I want to access one of these programs, and when I do minimise all the windows, I regularly have to search for a while to remember where I placed that shortcut.

Corners solves the problem every time for me. If I want to open my 'Password Protector' database, as I do about every five mintues when I'm web surfing, I just move my cursor into the top-left corner of my screen, scroll down the Greatis Super Menu to Internet and open the program. Likewise if I want to capture a screen image, I move the cursor, open the menu, and move to Accessories to open 'Dave's Screen-shot Image maker'. Likewise, if I need to open a Windows Control Panel applet (eg. 'sound and audio control'), I move the cursor, scroll to Control Panel and scroll down the list to open the applet - so much easier than the traditional Windows method.

If you need help configuring your 'Super Menu', just ask me. If you have't downloaded your free trial version of Corners, click here to grab it now. To read more about Corners, click here.

This month's sermon is a reflection on Chapter 28 of the book of Job.

One thing I've found in Christian ministry is that while some people might have quite a cynical view of the Bible as a whole (and of the teachings of St Paul in particular), everyone seems to have respect for the Old Testament book of Job.

Even those outside of the church altogether seem to accept that there is wisdom to be found in this ancient book. And I suspect that, despite it's length of 42 chapters, Job is one of the most widely read Old Testament book amongst regular church attenders!

What makes Job such a popular and respected book? The fact that it
deals with the question of the suffering of the innocent - a problem that has perplexed people of faith since time immemorial.

Why do the innocent suffer? If you'd like to take some time to think through this question with me again now, click here .

If you've read my sermon entitled, "The most import- ant things I learnt in life I learnt in the boxing ring" then you might recognise this as the crowning point of my homily. Yes, in the ring as in all of life, having the right guy in the corner is all important.

I remember as a young kickboxer, reading the autobiography of Jean-Yves Theriault (one of the greatest kick-fighters of all time). He devoted a whole chapter to the subject. I thought 'why is this so important? Isn't it just like finding the right mechanic for your car? There are lots of good mechanics out there. Surely you just find one who is honest?'

I've probably still got a fair bit to learn about mechanics and cars, but when it comes to ring mechanics, I learnt my lesson early on.

Never underestimate the importance of the man in your corner. He is a guy you have to build a relationship with. He is someone who has to know the fight game and, more importantly, has to know your fight game.

A good cornerman will read the fight far better than the man in the middle. He'll see the other guys weaknesses when you can't see them, and he'll see the misktakes you're making when you're blind to them.

I had my friend Kon Pappy work my corner for all of my fights. Even now, when I do an exhibition fight, I won't enter the ring if Kon's not there in the corner.

As a fighter, he knows me better than I know myself. And the most significant fight I lost was when I didn't listen to him (vs. Michael Dwyer, August 1996) .

Kon told me to kick for the inside-leg when in the clinch. I thought I knew better and was determined to drop the guy with my left hook. I got it wrong. OK, I might well have lost anyway but that's not the point. The point is that I failed to perform at my best because I failed to listen to the man in my corner.

I won't labour the spiritual analogy but it should be clear enough. As Kon is to the ring, so is the Lord Jesus my cornerman in life. I can't include a picture of me with my divine cornerman below, so you've got a picture of me with Kon instead.

click for an enlargement