Its been 3 weeks since we moved house, (one of which we spent over East), but I’m now starting to feel somewhat settled in the new place. Settled enough to be able to appreciate the environment and feel grateful rather than lost.

Actually I’m loving it here and I’m aware that I actually feel more alive in this place than I have for a while. Most people who have come and visited here tell us that the house and area is very ‘us’ and while I’m not sure what means exactly I would have to agree. It feels right. It feels like a place where we can come alive.

I’m very conscious that I have come here with a very different mindset to that which I went to Butler. I haven’t come here ‘on a mission’, yet I’m very aware that I am indeed on a mission – every bit as much as I was back there – but perhaps with some knowledge and experience that I didn’t have at that point in life.

So how does a ‘backyard missionary’ do his thing 8 years on? (That’s how long I have been blogging on this theme!)

Well I guess the big shift has been in ‘waiting for the wind to blow’ rather than attaching a 215HP outboard and hitting the throttle. I don’t mean that in a passive way – not at all. But I do mean it in the sense of sniffing around and trying to tune into what God is doing and who he may be bringing across my path. I mean looking for the wind and setting the sails to catch it rather than driving full steam in a direction because I can.

As the wind has blown there was a surf at the local beach with a bloke my age and a good conversation to boot. I’ve wandered next door and across the road to meet the neighbours when they have been out gardening. And then today the phone rang and it was a local bloke seeking some labouring work. He had found my card at the local hardware (another place where my face is now getting known) and called me seeking work. If enough work comes up then I’ll be giving him a call.

Its honestly not very exciting but these are the networks that form as we live our ordinary lives – as we surf, shop and work – and my guess is that God is just as capable of using a vessel with sails prepared for the wind as he is able to use a bloke with a huge outboard. In fact my choice to live this way is because I am sensing that it is a truer way to live and more sustainable.

So the journey begins and we’ll see where it leads but for those who may still be interested that’s the deal thus far.