Life on the home Front…
Well, this Wednesday puts me back in Australia for two weeks, after just over five months of riding the Middle East to visit some of the work the good Lord is doing there, of meeting and enjoying the hospitality of Australian friends, local Chrissies and Muslim people…
Its all surprisingly pretty normal back on the home front; kicking around my home town of Glenbrook, hanging out with the church crew and spending time catching up with my beautiful girl.  Sometimes my eyes glaze over a little and I’m back with Jules on a bike in the East - ridding past a vibrant array of people, sights and smells but for the most part its good to be back.
I took a test to get my motorbike licence the weekend I returned.  The class opened with a time where we had to share, one by one, our learner riding experiences. It was a laugh, and perhapes a testimony to God’s provision to watch people’s expresions as my turn came :)
I remember first getting on the Royal Enfeild in India, two up and overloaded with our gear and building supplies for the earthquake effort in Kashmir.  The confident ‘she’ll be right’ attitude that had underpinned our trip planning had left me as soon as J-low and I stepped out of the airport and saw the manic traffic of New Dehli.  One missionary likened it to a school of fish - chaotic but somehow flowing - to me it was something more like a massacre waiting to happen. And the concept of riding in it, especially for one who’s riding experience consisted of a few afternoons in a paddock at Jindabyne, really did strike fear into the soul…  In a way it ended up being kinda good - it was an act of faith getting on that overloaded bike with bad brakes and taking on trucks, animals, scooters and masses of people on roads where anarchy is law. It taught me to rely on God in a most practical way…perhapes by default it also extended J-low’s faith while he was ridding pillion…
Also in the front of my mind are times spent with Aussies and other westeners in that part of the world who are committed to the spread of the gospel.  I remember chats about the hardships and joys of living in what are often totally foriengn and politically volatile cultures.  And spending time with local Christians with whom there is such an immediate brotherhood in sharing a common faith yet such a vast gap between their experience of Christianity and ours. There a faith in Jesus isn’t something you play by halfs because often it carries the risk of serious persecution, even death..  With these memories comes a challange - a challange to remember and not forget these shared times, the inspiration they were, and the prod to think about my possible role in the work the good Lord is doing in those parts of the world.
Before we parted, as we shared our first beer in months at Damascus Airport, J-Low and I pondered the path we’d travelled and the concept of how we’d made it through the hectic traffic of India, the militants of Pakstan, the governemt in Iran, the snow of Turkey and the closed gates of Syria.  We think that together we rode about 8500 kms through what are some pretty polically crazy parts of the world.  And rather than ending up on the six o’clock news we’d met and been looked after by so many wonderful people.  As we looked back we were confident that it was not two but three that rode our path - that the good Lord went before us, with us and in us. There’s just no other logical explanation for the road we travelled..
Cheers to everyone that opened a home, gave us a cuppa or pointed a direction. Thanks for riding with us and thanks for your prayers
nb
PS: There’s going to be a slide night on at Glenbrook in the next couple of weeks. If you’re keen to catch some of the tales and have a peek into the lives of Christians in the Middle East,  come check it out + keep watching syd. ang as JLow rides on east…