The future I never expected.

It is very easy to resent living in Fairfield. I have done so ever since I realised that the further West you go, the more 'disadvantaged' people are perceived to be. Even though I've come to terms with the fact that I am a 'Westie' and have more or less embraced it, a part of me still cringes when I tell people where I'm from. I just assume that they think the worst and let's face it, they probably do.

International Studies was a dream come true: a year overseas in France. You couldn't get much further away from Fairfield than that and like everyone else, I really just wanted to get out. Money, success, a life worth living was not synonymous with Fairfield. My heart was so blind.

It amazes me how much God has changed the way I view the city that he has placed me in. Two years ago I would never have professed to love Fairfield. I wouldn't have bothered. Suddenly, I can't imagine being anywhere else in Sydney. Almost weekly I think about moving out, about trying to find the means to do so but the idea immediately floats back out of my mind as I remember that I need to be serving here.

I would love to be closer to UNSW. Words cannot express what it would mean for me to be able to get to uni in half an hour. Not to mention the fact that so much more is happening on the other side of Strathfield, I'd be able to go back to Oaktree with ease, I'd have independence, all of these wonderful things... (yes, I know I would have bills to pay but can we just ignore all that for a minute?)

But Fairfield is where I'm needed so Fairfield is where I'm going to stay. Goodness knows how this is going to affect the rest of my life's decisions: career, a relationship, but the words 'this life is just a bus stop' come back to me and things are put into perspective once again. It's so nice to just trust God and to live by faith rather than worry about idiotic things like socio-economic status. I was born and raised in Fairfield city (apart from a year stint in New Zealand when I was 4), so I'm basically screwed even if I happened to have some kind of prodigious talent.

I wish that the Christians in the Eastern suburbs would see the need here. People are so comfortable in their white anglo circles. People are so ready to go to deepest darkest Africa but would flinch at the idea of moving to Cabramatta. If I wasn't in Sydney I'd leave the country for, I don't know, Yemen (99% muslim population) but I don't need to get on a plane to find a cross-cultural mission field. I live in one.

Fairfield is far away, dull, and er, kind of unsafe but there are hundreds of thousands of people here who don't know Jesus. While everything and everyone else is telling me that the grass is greener on the other side (of the Harbour Bridge), my heart is exactly where it should be - committed to loving a broken city.