लेखक: John Paterson

John is a son, husband, father, grandfather, brother, and friend. He describes himself as an ordinary bloke but knows there is no such thing. He grew up as a country boy in coastal Whitsunday area of North Queensland, Australia where he gained his love for the ocean. At seventeen he ran away to sea. Closer to the truth he says that he joined the Navy to escape the confusion, anger and lostness he felt as a teenager. In the navy he specialised in hydrographic surveying and enjoyed a thirty year career carrying out surveys in mostly uncharted waters. In 2001 he believes he heard God calling him out from his security blanket and he left the Navy a year later to take up a new vocation as a counsellor. Now he is sailing in a very different ship”- civilianship – and he is a self-confessed `struggler”, and pilgrim trying to navigate a different journey these last 17 years, re-learning life again, endeavouring to understand what it means to be a Christian man in our times. It”s been a hard, messy, and sometimes lonely journey, he says. But he hasn”t been alone, because he has been an avid searcher committed to his pilgrim journey alongside others as a counsellor and guide. With an inbuilt desire to know where he is on the journey, along the way he has read the spiritual classics, walked with, observed, witnessed, shared with, and learned from others who are an inspiration and encouragement for his own walk. Well, let”s face it; we are never alone John says, yet each of us has our own journey to go on, and, since it is our journey, no one is going to walk it for us, though they may walk some of it with us.