On The Edge

Take the main road running north from here until it literally comes to an end in a pile of sand (about 50 minutes' drive), turn right, and you get to Hamo's place. Andrew, Danelle and their kids live on a block that was only built two years ago, surrounded by blocks being developed/to be developed. On the map, the main road continues north in a dotted line, anticipating the next phase of northern suburb growth.

We spent today hanging out with the Hamiltons. First we headed to the park, a temporary facility awaiting the completion of a shopping centre and further housing; then back to their place for lunch, and an afternoon of chatting over beers/coffee/tea. They are on a similar journey to ours: following God's call out from a secure position leading an established church, to pioneer something new - something on-the-edge-and-beyond of church, as well as the edge and beyond of Perth...So, it is great to network. I sense God wants us to become good friends!

One of the things that they are finding is that you can build a housing estate much quicker than you can build authentic community - something that is obvious enough to state, but, I am sure, much harder to live in.

As always, I had my camera with me. In the park, two things caught my eye. One was a piece of art, a fork sticking out of the ground where the path divided, literally A Fork In The Road (indeed, a fork in the fork in the road). It reminded me of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken* (Frost is my favourite poet; this is probably his most widely-known work), which spoke to me of Andrew and Danelle's decision, like Frost, to take the path "less travelled by, And that has made all the difference"...

...The other was the wall around one of the play areas. It reminded me of Nehemiah's call to rebuild the broken- and burned-down walls of Jerusalem, with each family taking a stretch of the wall. Again, it spoke to me of Andrew and Danelle, and the part they have been called to in rebuilding the broken church here in Australia.

And because our stories are in some ways similar, the fork and the wall spoke to me of where, and why, we are here too.

*Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.