On the road... Again.

So after many months of deliberation, conversations, and generally thinking 'What the chuff am I doing?' I have come up with a bit of a plan...

On Tuesday next week, I will leave the house bags packed, staff in hand and hitch my way back to Germany. After a bit of travelling about catching up with friends, Christians and Anarchists alike, I will reunite with my beloved tricycle and start out on another epic journey cycling from Meissen in Germany to Prague, Munich, then to the coast of Croatia, through Montenegro, Albania and finally to Skopje in Macedonia...

Why? ... Erm... I've not really got that far yet.

I'd like to say that I feel like this is part of my 'calling' or that I just know that this is what God want's me to do. Or even that I have some kind of plan or vision behind it. But to be honest all I can really say is that right now it just seems like that most... logical... thing to do. It may seem strange word to use, I guess what I mean is that it just kind of fits, with where I'm at now, with the questions I have, with things that I feel are somehow unfinished, and dreams that aren't quite realised.

Also I've got to get my bike home somehow and I have a bit of a thing against going back the way you came, so it seems... logical... to carry on.

I keep joking about meeting my sister in India in January too... But i'll see how I go after 2000k and take a rain check on that one.

So yeah the plan is to cycle from place to place making shows, running workshops, meeting friends and making new ones. Sharing life and stories, hopefully somehow being a blessing to the people I meet. And preferably staying alive!  

So that's it... Plan sorted!

About Summer, Winter and a thousand Questions.

It has been many months since I last wrote. My last post describing the eventful journey back from Albania seems like a dream ago now... 

And I guess it was. 

So much has happened (and not happened) in the last 5 months that I scarcely recognise myself. 

You see is it's all about questions... 

Big questions, the kind of stop you in your tracks questions, keep you up all night questions. those kind of... life changing questions, that really you don't want to ask, but some how they just keep finding you, like some long and boring game of hide and seek.

After 8 months of cycling, fire dancing. learning, listening, travelling, performing, preaching even - every now and then looking over my shoulder to realise that yes those questions were still following me... I guess a kind of weariness took over. It seems almost ironic now that in those last days of our tour we were being chased relentlessly by the rain. 

As I made my way slowly home, tired, confused, and full of a thousand questions all I knew was that I needed to stop. 

The thing is I stopped writing too, because my questions had finally caught me up and I had to find answers.

I thought, I can't move until I know where I'm going, I can't write until I know what I'm saying. 

So I didn't. 

And it's been a long Winter.

Over 5 months have passed since I returned home. And many of those 'thousand' questions still remain unanswered. At first it really troubled me, I felt like I had lost my way, I didn't know what I should do (or even what I wanted to do.) But as the months went on I began to realise that it's OK not to know, to question, to re-think, to re-examin. Yes questions are scary sometimes, and inconvenient. But questions create opportunities to look, to feel, to think... they spark change, force us to be real...

I had planned to be back in Germany by now, starting my new life as a full time missionary - I have been living out of a suitcase all winter in expectation. Questions kind of stopped my in my tracks.

My brain is fried, my heart is beet.

I have a thousand questions - still 

Many of my questions are about the God I love, but I love him - still

I don't know where I'm going, or how I'm getting there.

But I know this for sure...

I'll start where I left off, Back to the beginning and beginning at the end.

Summer is here. And I'm going on an adventure!