Taking steps...

I love books. I wish I had more time to read these days, cause sometimes there's nothing like sitting down to read a really good book.

There's a lot that makes a book stand out from the rest. The characters are relatable, and easy to understand, no matter how complex the story becomes. A great book will make you laugh, cry and experience a whole range of human emotion before the last chapter. A great book gives twists and turns that you didn't see coming. Characters you love suddenly die, other characters find redemption, and sometimes the bad guys get away, just like in real life. What makes a great book great is that it causes us to pause and really think about our own short exsistence on this planet. Great books contain love, heartache, defeat and triumph, and when you finally put the book down you know that on some level, you've been changed.

That was my experience the first time I read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien when I was 17. I had the unfortunate accident of dislocating my knee, and my doctor signed me off work for two weeks to let the swelling go down. To pass the time my dad and I would spend evenings after dinner to read the trilogy out loud to each other, each taking a chapter in turn. Never before had I been drawn in by such a great story, and few books since have reached that standard in my opinion. The story is dynamic, and I love the way events flowed from one chapter to the next.

And funny enough, life is like a great book. Each year is filled with hopes and dreams and some years we find that our hopes and dreams are met beyond what we thought, and some years we find that it's just like reading a difficult chapter in a great book.

I'm looking at my life now, and in an odd way I'm happy with where I am. I'm in a difficult chapter, but as with a great book, things have a way of getting better. And from a Christian standpoint, I know how the book ends.

After weeks of praying over my situation and my future, I've come to see that if I stay in England, it would be to please others. I would probably find some work (if I got the visa to do so) where I wouldn't be very passionate, and I would probably define my success by how others thought of me. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened since my arrival. It's kind of hard to keep going as well when you feel that hope has proven as good as wishful thinking. I need to get my sense of hope and direction back, and the only safe place I know of is with people back in Oak Park.

I love the people here. It has been a real hard year of growth for everyone, and yet my heart is calling me home. After the ups and downs of this year I feel I need a safe famillair place to recharge and "de-brief" as one of my friends here put it (I wanted to get rid of baggage this year, not pick up more of it! :-)

Change is happening left and right these days. We have two new DNA students, both very different from the one's we had last year, so they should be able to branch out in new areas as well as help lead some more "solid" aspects of church life. The youth are soon to be taking on a new leader, as over these past few weeks one of the other leaders in the church as stepped in to build a core youth leadership team.

I will continue to play out my role until December when I return home. In that time we've got one last major event called Slum Survivor (Soulaction.org to find out more) which is a weekend designed to build faith and raise awareness of the 1 billion people living in slums around the world. We're doing that at the end of this month, and we are very excited at the potential.

Leaving here is not easy, and I know some here won't like it. But it's the end of a chapter for me, and I think signs are pointing to moving on. So many wonderful memories I'll take with me, and I hope I can return again to Bognor and have the experiences here that I wish I could have had this year.

Thanks for reading, and all your support :-)

Till next time,
~Paul