If you’ve seen Frozen 2 or been anywhere near Beth recently, you may already be humming the tune. ‘Into the unknown’ seems an appropriate song for the coming season!

Here we are in 2020. After a peaceful, healthy Christmas with no hospital trips, and special time with family and friends, we started the new year by mourning, as necessary, the fact that we weren’t a) in Mexico, like we were at New Year last year or b) anywhere close to going to Mexico as planned. But now that we’ve more or less got that out of our systems, we are a bit more up for dealing with what 2020 will hold instead of focussing on what it won’t.

So. We have news.

Matt, clever man that he is, put some hard work into applying for jobs and going to interviews and he has got a job. Hurray! What is even more exciting is that it seems the job brings with it a new life for all 5 of us, something we have been seeking since we knew our old life in Newcastleton was going to have to come to an end.

Matt is to be the new Community Development Worker for Oxgangs Community Church, a fairly new church that was planted on an estate in the south of Edinburgh. We visited the church together before Matt applied for the job and we loved it. It felt very ‘us’. We found it really moving to see young couples and families investing huge amounts of time and effort into faithfully serving the community in practical ways, offering the gospel to people that needed to hear it, and committing to being community together every day, not just on Sundays. All the more moving, I guess, because we know what that costs. We loved the chaos, the fun, the creativity, and the hospitality, the personal welcome. We loved the glimmers of their vision and purpose, their generosity and heart for the poor and the marginalised, and their commitment to being practical in living out that vision.

The strangest thing was that although we hadn’t met any of the people at Oxgangs before, it was all incredibly familiar. It could have been West Cross Community Church, Swansea, or Refresh Community Church, Newcastleton, to name but two places where we have given blood sweat and tears for a very similar cause, and received untold blessings in return. It was such an encouragement to see these strangers doing all the things we have always felt needed to be done, in a very similar way that we felt we needed to do it. God clearly does his thing in more than one place.

It’s also interesting to us that Matt’s new role will incorporate many of the elements we expected to be part of our intended life in Mexico, where we were also meant to Community Development Workers. So…God clearly does his thing in more than one place! And he can occupy us usefully in his work wherever we are. Location is just a minor detail. Phew.

Matt’s new job is part time, and we quite like that. Whether we can survive financially is yet to be seen, but we have got used to having Matt around a bit more and it will be nice to keep him a little longer. Maybe Matt will find other work for the remaining hours, or maybe I will, we don’t know yet. The flexibility appeals. For now though, we are just so pleased that the road ahead opens up, and that it’s a road we want to walk (or bike, for some of us).

In order to properly be part of the community, we will need to move to the Oxgangs estate and worship at the new church, Oxgangs Community Church. While moving again is an inconvenience, we want to do it. We miss that ‘on the doorstep’ sense of being physically surrounded by our community and church family, and we absolutely want to make sure we are ‘all in’ and as fully integrated as we can be into our new life and church. We need to give it our best shot.

The sad reality of arriving somewhere new though, is the need to once again be leaving somewhere current. Our cosy flat with the stunning view, a friendly school, a mixture of shops and cafes 5 minutes’ walk away, and a new habit of going for an evening stroll and coming back with a takeaway are all likely to be missed! We will also definitely miss Community Church Edinburgh (CCE), and the new friends we’ve made there. That churh has been such a haven of rest for us. It’s big and well organised and well established. It’s full of some of the friendliest, most generous, hospitable people we have ever met. We have received substantial anonymous gifts of money, a steady stream of home cooked meals, help with moving house, a place for Ben to play with an amazing library of toys without the risk of infection from other children, lots of prayer, invitations to social opportunities that stemmed the tide of empty loneliness, and lots of friendly Sunday morning chats. All this from strangers, strangers who welcomed us like family in the name of Jesus Christ. The worldwide church network is truly amazing and the wonderful people at CCE are doing a great job of showing how it’s really meant to be.

As the song title above suggests, we don’t know much about what we’re going into, and we’re ok with that. If God says this is the road to take, we’ll take him at his word. We look forward to finding out what our new life will look like. We’ve had a bit of a look around the new area, and it looks good. It’s more like the kind of residential areas we have lived in before, a bit more space, a nice big sports field, and a couple of options of schools. We will start looking for a new house.

So, we’re excited. We’ve healed just enough from the wrench of leaving Newcastleton that we’re ready to throw ourselves into a new opportunity now, and we’re encouraged that Matt has found work that not only brings in an income, but also way of life that fits our family values. He starts next week.

Good job too.