There is a tale of the power of sin and darkness, it is a tale of endless struggle, of victory and of the greatest friendship. Gandalf advises the hobbit Frodo,

“I don’t think you need go alone. Not if you know of anyone you can trust, and who would be willing to go by your side and that you would be willing to take into unknown perils.”

Frodo asked of no one to journey with him. Yet, unanimously, his three hobbit friends made his journey their own:

“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.”

A difficult year has been and gone, and we are eternally grateful that you, our BFA family, have been on the road with us.

This month will be our chance to open up to you – to share Where We’ve Been; we want to revisit the winding roads we have walked through in the past year, with you by our sides, that we may anoint every valley trekked, every ocean sailed and every mountain climbed.

Our prayer is that for the next 3 weeks you would journey with The Lord through 6 different roads, all different, yet beautifully intertwined; and that you would meet Him in your journey, wherever you’ve been.

“This year has been joyful and wild and loving and lost and worn out and worn soft and inspired and tender and run ragged and full of sorrow and gratitude and terror and grief and searching and being stubborn and listening and opening and opening and opening and this year has been finally finding and almost quitting and finally learning and this year everyone I know had a broken heart, everyone I know cried in private on their way home from a party, and not everyone I know woke up the next morning, and not everyone I know wanted to even though they did.

And this year I stood inside of a redwood tree and thought “this is the sweetest day of my whole life” and two months later I was sobbing in a parking lot thinking “this is the worst day of my whole life” and a few months later I was dancing in my living room saying “this is the best day of my whole…” Have you ever seen the seed of a redwood tree? So tiny. And all of that Everything inside of it. All of this Everything inside of us. Happy Lost Searching Tender New Year to your tall tall heart”

Thank you for staying even when we were not who we were called to be, and even when we were not the people you once chose to be friends with. We are grateful for all the joyful journeys you’ve chosen to accompany us through, yet we are equally grateful for the silences, the tears that we could never make sense of, and the holding of each other even when we could not hold ourselves.

Thank you family, for your courage to brave the light and dark with us. After all has been and gone, two things shine out the clearest:

God’s tender mercies never fail

Our souls are knit; we will always have each other

To whatever this year brings, we will love and we will grow, just like we have always believed.

Umantu ngumuntu ngabantu

“I am because we are” – Nguni phrase