I sound like Obama with all this talk of change.

Thank goodness we are on a break because I'm struggling to put any effort into anything that isn't ministry.

On Monday night over 50 people gathered at our little church in Bossley Park and every single person was a young ministry leader from the South-West of Sydney. I still can't quite believe it happened. Only God could have pulled us all together and he certainly pulled me through it because I was having kittens over every little detail. For years I have heard from Peter Lin that something needs to change in the South-West, that we need to start smashing the idea that ministry cannot survive here, that we are not strategic enough. Not to mention the fact that nobody wants to live here if they can help it, Christians included.

WELL SCREW THAT.

Hello? God is sovereign. He is in control. He is watching over His people. So why shy away from an area, as though it could be impossible for God to use you and see His saving work done? How could those before me have had so little faith? Enough. God is moving, wherever you are in Sydney, but I'm going to say that the most exciting place to be in right now is the South-West.

Finally people are starting to share this vision and I thank God for Pete. He convicted every person in the room, made the needs of the South-West more real than ever before and we're getting a response. I am full of anticipation but am laying it all at His feet. If God chooses to use this movement, He will. If this is not the means then something else will reveal itself.

No matter what, I am desperate to see God glorified here, to make the most of the opportunities he has placed before us and they are boundless. If this one generation stuck it out so much could happen, so much could change.

Who are you calling unstrategic?

Right place, right time.

Connect09 is a brilliant initiative. Freddo's adaptation Love This Broken City is even better. I can't believe that it has taken us so long to make a decisive push to get out into the community. So many new ministries have started up this year and it has made Barneys in Bossley Park a really exciting place to be. From ESL classes, to Music Time for mums and bubs, market stalls, a mission week, scripture seminars, consistent evangelistic events, lunchtime groups at local high schools... God has been amazing. Our congregation has grown and is full of people who are gifted and are looking for new ways to use those gifts to glorify God. Ministry in the South West is not doomed to failure. There is so much potential here - if only others could see it.

And now another ministry initiative, possibly? A network of young leaders who are committed to ministry in our region and will meet together to pray, share, learn and encourage? It's exactly what we need and my brain is positively exploding with ideas...!

In the next ten years or so, God is going to make his name well and truly known. Awesome things are going to happen. I can just feel it.

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.