Hello's (And Goodbye's)

It was great to see tChad & Andrea Western this morning. tChad & Andrea are members of the Order, who are currently living in Italy with fellow members Marco & Chinzia Basile, and they're back in sheffield for our Annual Gathering which takes place next weekend. tChad was enthusing about the rain - in Rome the rain is so full of sand you get filthy from it...We really appreciate their excitement and their regular prayers for our future.

Then this evening my friend Christoffer Perret phoned from Finland. While lots of people email me on a fairly regular basis for a catch-up, Christoffer is one of the few who calls. (Perhaps in part because the Finns have more mobile phones per head of population than any other nation, and I suppose you've got to do something with them!) We had a long chat, covering all manner of things going on here, there, and in other places; and, as always, it was great to talk with him. Thanks for calling!

Anyway, Christoffer's call reminded me that some of you aren't up-to-speed with developments with us: sorry! So, here's the story (with apologies to those already in the know):
I finish on the staff team at St Thomas' here in Sheffield on 31st July. Since we heard God say (back in the spring) to leave this place in the summer and go to the place he would show us, we've put the word out; but my increasing sense was that God wasn't going to show us the next place until I had literally left the current thing. So, we're not actively looking for anything, and don't expect to know where we will be next until August (at least). Which we're totally at peace about. What we do sense is that the call is to a nomadic life - not perpetual travel, but not staying in any one place for more than a year or two; and not owning a home, but living either in community with others who invite us in, or in a house provided for us, which will become a place of community. We have a buyer for our house in Sheffield, and that should all go through over the summer. If we end up temporarily homeless here, we've had various offers to stay with friends until we know where we're moving on to. Initially we had thought that that would be somewhere in the UK or northern Europe, because I have several relationships with people in Scandanavia; but more recently we've felt God call us to give that up - to widen our imagination of what he might do - and so, though we still think northern Europe is part of the big picture, it might not be part of the small picture, the next step. And so we could literally be anywhere in the world come the autumn. which is very exciting.