Highways, Byways, and Bus Stops

'Master,' the slave said, 'what you ordered has been done, and there's still room.'Then the master told the slave, 'Go out into the highways and lanes and make them come in, so that my house may be filled.' - Luke 14:22-23

The second week at Pilgrim Dinners was an instance of God’s sovereign grace. 

At 7 of the clock, when dinner was meant to start, we had zero guests. Seven happy team members doing last minute prep, one happy team member playing lovely live music, but zero guests. ‘It’s ok, it’s only 7,’ thought I. 

Fast-forward all of five minutes, to 7:05, and we had… zero guests. At this point, hope flagged. “Praise God we had people last week,” I thought, “maybe God gave us those folks to encourage us to endure a week with no one?” Not much of a pump up. 

Jump with me forward another five minutes, to 7:10 on the clock, and... zero guests. We had some very tasty food plated and ready, a great vibe to the room, and I’d prepped a talk on Faith which (rarely for me) I was feeling I’d really nailed in the writing, but… we had no guests. We had our posters up across the valley, we’d fliered backpackers, and sent cars to shuttle guests from the two hostels, but… no guests. None, zip, zero. 

“Ok,” thought I, “let’s sit down, and I’ll give the talk to the team. It’ll be good for us too."

And then, out of the nowhere, praise to God, 12 people appeared: 8 Japanese travellers, a couple from Korea, a guy from the Netherlands, and an Aussie youth. And the twenty of us + kids sat down and did Pilgrim Dinners, with a great discussion after. 

Now where did these folks come from? Very much God’s sovereign grace through one tenacious team member, who did not lose hope but like the slave in Luke 14 kept going out asking folks to join us, long after we were meant to start. She even braved the local bus stop and asked some hoodied youths to join us (hence our lone Aussie, who was more scared of us than we of him, considering his friends had to dare him to come, and they kept checking on him to see that he was still alive). 

It was a great night, for which we praise God and have learned a good lesson - keep asking. And so we pray and ask again for guests to come each Thursday to Pilgrim Dinners, so that one day they would fill our Father's house at the Great Banquet.

At the Gates

Enjoy the community artwork on the walls!
Did they have this in OT times?

"Fellowship is having your church friends over, and that's great, but hospitality is inviting the stranger in. ... Hospitality by definition means meeting the stranger at the gates...and bringing the stranger in."
- Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, in this interview

In the world of the Old Testament, the community gathered at the city gates. Elders and judges sat and heard cases. News and current events were shared. Strangers arrived here, looking for hospitality. (In Genesis 19 and Judges 19 you can read two stories of strangers arriving at the gates and being offered hospitality. Things don't go so well from there on, but the horrifying developments of these stories are partly why they were included - hospitality was a very solemn duty and violating it was serious.)

So where or what are the city gates in Huonville, Tasmania? I suppose you might make a case for a local pub, or perhaps the visitor information centre. But for us, it is the public library, where many travellers come to read the newspaper, check email, and glance over community notice boards.

On October 30th, we took ourselves and our hospitality to "the gates". We laid tables, heated up pots of curry and chili con carne, prayed, and waited for the strangers to come.

And they came. 

Yes, those are baby legs on my lap.

On the first night, five of them came, from Taiwan and Hong Kong. They shared a meal with us, they listened attentively to Peirce's talk on God, and they discussed it with us. 

They asked questions. They listened. We asked questions. We listened. I talked with "A" about her fear of the supernatural world and the fact that she hasn't carried on her family's traditional ancestor worship. I shared with her that as Christians we are free to both acknowledge the reality of the spiritual world, and not live in fear of it. Another guest, "M", claimed his only belief was in naturalism, but admitted during our discussion that naturalism offers no explanation for the origin of all things.

So please pray for us every Thursday, as we go to the gates, and welcome the strangers in Jesus' name.

Thanks

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. Proverbs 16:33

We'd filled out all the forms, consulted the experts, attached the required reports, but we knew in the end that the result was with God alone. 

Praise, praise be to God.

In His providence, the Huon Council has given us development approval to go ahead with our plans for the complex of buildings that comprise Pilgrim Hill.

In fact, the Councillors not only approved it, they voted unanimously to do so!

I'm not sure I can overstate the importance of this step, which means we now have the permission of Australia's southernmost local government body to pursue our plans for a hostel and artist's residency on the beautiful 25 acres that God in His graciousness created and has given us to tend.

Four years ago, we committed to pray regularly for favour with local government and for wisdom in successfully navigating the complex application process. We are humbled and awed that we've been answered so kindly.

Good news

Back in March, we let people know of our first definite need for funds: $30,000 to get the plans for the Pilgrim Hill complex finished and submitted to our local council for approval. 

In April, we decided to use our frequent flyer points to visit the Baehr family in the US before Baby Baehr number 3 makes her presence known too largely (she's due in September).

To be honest, we were feeling a bit discouraged about the fact that up to that point, we'd been given only a very small amount towards our appeal, but we were certain of this: God knows our needs better than we do, and He supplies them in His timing, not ours.

While in the US, we were very blessed by the generosity of Dr. Ted & Lili Baehr (aka Peirce's parents), who asked us to address their church fellowship and some invited guests at their home. 

Happy snap of Peirce preaching

Peirce preached from Acts with some insights on Philip the Evangelist (who had 4 daughters - we're getting close!). Later, he explained the vision of Pilgrim Hill and answered questions. I spoke a bit about the spiritual/worldview climate in Southern Tasmania and also played some of my Tasmanian music on a rented harp.

But what exactly is the good news? God graciously moved these precious Christians in California to donate the full $30,000.

We are awed, stunned and blessed.

If you're a Christian, it's hard to read the words "good news" without thinking of the gospel - the Euangelion (in Greek). Here are two little episodes of God's goodness in opening people's ears to that other much better good news.

• A couple at one of our Support Dinners brought an elderly relative. The discussion question we used to open the evening was about how only in Christianity can we find a solid basis for caring about the oppressed and marginalised. We found out later that this lady was not a believer and in fact was very hostile to Christianity. However, afterwards she told her family how surprised she was by what Peirce explained about the position of different worldviews/religions towards caring for the marginalised and that she "couldn't stop thinking about what he said." Please pray that this precious lady's heart will be drawn to the God who made all people in His image.
• Peirce was invited to address a group of thinkers in LA with our so-called 'altruistic project'. Also on the bill were a young couple who were Objectivists, presenting the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who rejected altruism and proclaimed selfishness as the ultimate good. God enabled Peirce to have a very cordial discussion with them, during which they admitted major flaws in Rand's system. They ended by volunteering that they would be interested in looking more deeply into Christianity. Please pray that this young man and woman are increasingly disillusioned by the false self-god of Objectivism and won to the loving lordship of Jesus Christ.

We were not endorsing this or any soft drink at our Pilgrim Hill presentation at the US Baehr home.

The Launch - in photos (courtesy of Anna)

We had a lovely, lovely launch.

I played the harp.

Joe prayed for us and afterwards served Hartzview wine and Lucaston Park Apple Juice to the guests.

Peirce told a choose-your-own-adventure story putting the audience
in the shoes of a future visitor to Pilgrim Hill.

Will interviewed us urbanely.

Luke gave a TED talk.  (Actually, it was about our Association and the financial needs.)

Margaret made amazing food. (Honey-caramel apples, right here.)

Shiloh did all the graphic design and served food with visual aplomb.

Over 100 people came. They listened, laughed, prayed, feasted and filled in response cards. 

Pilgrim Hill friends, old and new.

God is good.

Thanks, everyone.

It takes 5

Last year, Peirce was spending a lot of time praying for someone else - maybe another couple - to commit to Pilgrim Hill full-time. The ever-resourceful Mikey Lynch, on our board of advisors, made the helpful suggestion that we tap on the doors of people who might be willing to donate some time now, rather than lots of time later.

So, thoughtfully and prayerfully, Peirce began to talk with some brothers and sisters in Christ who had expressed a keen interest in PH and had skills which would complement ours.

Not too long later, the Group of 5 was formed. We meet with them every five weeks for a lunch at our house. Here's a photo of them looking serious (sorry about the poor camera work).

And here's a photo which shows that they listen attentively to Peirce.

I'm going to introduce them all individually over the course of a few blog posts, so stick around.

Here are some of the ways in which they've contributed to Pilgrim Hill so far:

• Praying
• Setting up this blog
• Organising work days on the Hill
• Working at our work days
• Aiding our incorporation (writing paperwork, checking paperwork, etc)
• Designing the new website (release date: October)
• Managing the PH promo video shoot (more on that soon!)
• Planning our Pilgrim Hill launch
• Encouraging us
• Getting others excited about PH

Designing Pilgrim Hill

Finding the designers for the Pilgrim Hill buildings has been a journey that went right around the world.

First of all, we fell in love with this graceful building by 1+2 Architecture, profiled in a coffee table book found in a Los Angeles bookshop.

...only to discover that it was on Bruny Island, just a ferry-ride away from Pilgrim Hill!

At the time we were praying that we would find an architect who would be willing to do some designing for us 'pro-bono'. We found our answer in the wonderful Craig Handy, a Canadian who had put his career on hold for theological studies at Regent College, Vancouver, and was intrigued by our vision for PH. He gave us invaluable help in crystallizing our vision for life at PH and drawing up an inspiring set of conceptual designs which helped us and others to understand the scope of the project.

At the conclusion of a visit to Tasmania, Craig felt it was time for the project to transition into the hands of someone with local know-how, given the complexity of the site. Meanwhile, we had met architect Michael Verdouw (it's Hobart, so of course we had about a million friends in common) - none other than the "1" of 1+2 Architecture!

After several meetings (and a lot of prayer), this team of award-winning architects -indisputably one of Tasmania's finest - offered to design the entire complex "on spec". (This is huge: they are willing to work unpaid until we can raise enough funds to both build and pay them.)

We're so thankful to God for this partnership, and for 1+2's enthusiasm for PH.

Prayer points:

1. For openness, integrity and understanding in all of our dealings with the architects.
2. For designs that reflect the glory of the first Designer.
3. For a smooth road to Council approval. (Are you laughing yet?!)