waiting on a friend

our mate billy (our long time friend and co-worker with communality - pictured here on the right) is somewhere in route from our beloved home in lexington, kentucky to melbourne, australia. he is due to arrive to us thursday morning after passing through detroit, l.a., and auckland. the travel time to and from australia is always surreal. not only are we thinking of billy being in-transit continually for a 36-hour period, when he lands in oz he will have changed seasons completely and skipped a day on the calendar. today is the 4th of july and for us it is a cold wednesday in winter. for our family and friends in the u.s. it is a sweltering national holiday. billy won't have a 4th of july this year - he'll lose it somewhere in the cosmos over the pacific ocean.

anyway, we will have two weeks together and we've been anticipating this for months. billy is coming to see us (after a long six months away from our family and friends in lexington) and to participate with us in forge's second intensive. the three of us will share the story of communality on the saturday night of the intensive weekend. those of us who know communality will find it funny to think of our wee community featured on main stage for anything...we'll see. with billy, we will also meet with some fantastic leaders and workers in missional efforts around melbourne.

more importantly, however, geoff will have the rare opportunity to show a dear friend his city, his home, his family and his footy team. our time together will be short and packed. stayed tuned for photos of billy surrounded by the collingwood cheer squad (not exactly known for their sense of decorum). and, we hope our friends at forge actually get billy's name right for once. for the last month he's been referred to as "ricky bobby." he can thank kimmy for that.