‘Man plans and God laughs’: Rev. Dan Ross’ calling into Pauatahanui

Reverend Dan Ross was installed by Bishop Ellie as the Vicar in Pauatahanui on Sunday the 27th September, and reflects this week on the unexpected journey he and his family have taken from Leeds, England to the Wellington Diocese.

‘Man plans and God laughs’ is an old Yiddish proverb and sometimes, when we look back on our journey of life, all we can do is laugh too at what God has done in our lives. As I think back to this time twelve months ago it would have seemed ludicrous then that I would be writing this as a Vicar in Wellington Diocese – and all the more so given all that has changed in our world during that time.

At that point I was nearing the end of a curacy in the Diocese of Leeds in England and my wife and I were tentatively exploring the possibility of moving back to New Zealand. As we held this before God, reflected for ourselves, and probed the practical considerations we increasingly settled upon a course of action: pursue a move back to NZ and explore church vacancies in Auckland: the city where we both spent most of our schooling, where we married, and where most of our family live. The obvious choice – or so we thought.

All that changed when a friend (in Lower Hutt) inconveniently mentioned that we should consider Wellington Diocese. Now I mean no offense here but with my immediate response was ‘why would I do that?’ I have probably spent two days of my life in Wellington, have no family there, and dislike wind. However, I was persuaded that a conversation with the Bishop was harmless enough so I arranged a chat with Bishop Justin. ‘Man plans and God laughs.’ Suddenly I started to feel a slightly terrifying pull, a niggling voice in my mind, an increasingly discernible change in my prayers, processing and planning towards actually considering moving to Wellington. Yikes. I put in an application for the vacancy at Pauatahanui and held my breath.

Then Covid-19 happened. We went into lockdown in the UK; you went into lockdown in NZ; and I thought ‘what was all that Wellington stuff about; we’re clearly not leaving here for a while yet.’ But ‘man plans and God laughs’ and many Zoom conversations later and in spite of a global pandemic we have completed what must be one of the smoothest relocations of a family from the UK to NZ ever. The many potentially insurmountable obstacles that could have prevented us from leaving the UK or arriving in NZ have disappeared and we couldn’t be more delighted to be here. We know that much prayer has been given to both this discernment process and to our relocation and throughout the past three months in particular. Amy and I have both felt what can only be described as ‘that peace which passes understanding’ as we have faced this relocation.

A biblical take on the Yiddish proverb may be: ‘the human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.’ We trust that it could only have been God who would have been able to direct us on such a journey into this Diocese; we are now excited to see where God will direct us as a good news community of faith.

By Dan Ross