It has been good to have our dear friends Wally and Gwen Odum with us for a couple of days. I first met Gwen in 1983 while she was vacationing in Scotland with a mutual friend and it was in April of the following year that I flew to the USA for the first time where I met Wally and spoke at a conference at his church.

In 1984 Wally was pastoring First Assembly of God in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a rapidly-growing church that he had seen develop from 150 attending on a Sunday to over 3,000. It was an exciting place to be.

For my part, I was pastoring Cairnbulg Assembly of God in the north east of Scotland, a well established church with a lot of great people that I was trying to bring into the 20th century. We were packed on Sundays, the place was buzzing, but change was not going down well in some parts.

So here we are a quarter of a century later and Wally is planting a church on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Currently he ministers to an interesting group of pierced, tattooed people meeting in a school every Sunday morning. And me, I’m over 3,000 miles away from Scotland, in the commuter belt for New York City doing church in movie theater(s) every week.

Neither of us would have pictured this and neither of us would want it any different. Thankfully we’re both finding pastoring more fulfilling now that at any other point in our lives.

Did we ever forsee this? – Of course not.

It’s God who planned the route and for us to walk it out. Thankfully while its twists and turns may  bring us plenty of surprises, the journey gets better all the time.