'It only took six years....'

'It only took six years...' lines from The Shawshank Redemption movie, spoken by the character Andy Du Fresne, an inmate at Shawshank prison serving two back-to-back life sentences for murder, wonderfully played by Tim Robbins. It's a great film, one of my favourites.
The line in question is spoken by him after he has been writing letters to the state authority responsible for prison financing, asking for books for a prison library. After six years of weekly - yes weekly - letter writing without a response, he receives a large shipment of used books and a cheque for $200.

'It only took six years...'
That's how I feel sometimes - optimism over good changes, tinged with an awareness that change is slow. (And not that I'm comparing living in God's Own with being in prison!)
Within TSCF, I've assisted with ordering of resources for student conferences over the last couple of years, and during that time we've built stronger relationships with 3 or 4 NZ distributors, and have pleasingly managed to start breaking even with the sale of books. This is good. And yet the vision is greater - I want to provide a first-stop shop for TSCF staff and students nationwide for resources to help them think deeply about their studies and about their true witness, undivided life and global reach for Jesus. (We also aim to expand that to graduates and interested public by the end of the year. This is to be called 'Catalyst'. More on that as 2008 progresses).

'It only took six years....'
I thought of this quote recently when two colleagues came to me as their first stop to supply titles that they needed in their job of discipling students. I was so happy I nearly jumped for joy! I've been pushing my colleagues to source books they need through me and our NZ suppliers, rather than through the off shore sources such as Koorong or Amazon, for a while. My aim is that together we can change the book buying habits across NZ! I agree that its hard to get great titles at decent prices in reasonable time frames. I've got used, for example, to ordering titles for student conferences 4 months ahead of time, and being unable to source titles published in the US or UK in the preceding six months - that's just the way it works in a small market in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In addition, it's been hugely frustrating when not all the order arrives; one time only 50% of our order arrived and at best it's been 75%.

Yet we persist, as the best way for NZ Christians to be exposed to excellent Christian resources, is for distributors to see a demand for more and better theological resources. If the meatier titles begin to flow through NZ channels rather than just being imported direct to this or that isolated reader/student, this will, in the short term, be slightly more expensive for individuals, and will certainly be slower. But in the medium and longer term, the church in NZ could be transformed by a generation of theologically savvy, deep thinking, whole-of-life Christians, who have used their minds to engage with the wonderful good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and who have been able to thoughtfully apply biblical truth to the workplace, family and culture in which they find themselves. This is exciting, and one of the reasons I'm so happy to be involved with Catalyst.

'It only took six years....' - for Andy Du Fresne, and for me it's only been four to get to this point.


'It only took six years.....from now on I'll write two letters a week.' Andy Du Fresne's second stage was extra letter writing; for us it's the launch of Catalyst.