Bringing you up to speed

Well, nearly everything has changed in the life of the Shepherds over the last couple of months so I've got some catching up to do!
If you want it in a nutshell, we've left New Zealand and are now living back in the UK, in Bristol! You can now skip the next couple of paragraphs and jump to the pictures!

If you'd like a few more details, here goes. In November last year we decided that it was time to leave our jobs in Rangiora as God was calling us to move on to explore new expressions of church. It was hard decision to make as we had made some amazing friends and there was much we were looking forward to seeing happen. Initially we thought we'd move into Christchurch, that Neil would work as a maths teacher and we'd work some things out with a church there. However, by mid-January we were beginning to realise that maths teachers were not as scarce in Canterbury as we'd been led to believe and that, with our job ending at the end of that month, our visas would have expired and we'd have to leave the country very soon! We looked at a few options but our 'fleece' was that if Neil didn't get a job in the next 10 days we'd take that as it being time to return to the UK. We'd previously considered moving to Bristol to work out life and emerging church with some good friends there so that was the obvious place to head for.
So, with no job, we booked flights, packed boxes, sold nearly everything else and three weeks later left New Zealand. After a week in Geelong (not Melbourne!), Australia, we arrived in Manchester and we're now getting settled into life in Bristol - still excited about exploring new expressions of church with some awesome people it's just the context, city and country have changed!

So that brings you up to date! More of the in between stories and photos to follow!