Sliding Doors

Ever had a sliding doors moment? If you hadn’t made one small choice then bigger more significant choices would not have presented themselves? **

I am sitting on the 14th floor balcony of a hotel room in Hotel Kazakhstan, Almaty

I am still marvelling at what has happened around me in the last 6 weeks. There are sliding doors at every turn.

This entire adventure stems from one conversation with Anna at a party in Churchways Avenue at the end of June. I almost didn’t go because I was feeling tired. That conversation lit a fuse in me which quickly exploded my life in the most exciting way.

Having decided to take the job, I have happened upon numerous contacts who either used to work here or know people here whom I should meet. I have three or four contacts already but one stands out as bizarrely pre-ordained.

The new lodger in Sheffield arrived a couple of weeks before I left. One day last week she had male friend over for breakfast who, when told about my plans to leave for Kazakhstan, remarked that he has a friend about to leave to be a teacher in Almaty. I remembered his name and looked him up on Facebook. It turns out he is at a different school but we’ll meet up at some point- not least because Facebook already detected we have 2 mutual friends, one from Sheffield (not surprising) and one from Birmingham (jaw dropping).

During my trip to NZ I met ten individuals who knew someone I know in the UK. This made me feel better connected and less a stranger when arriving in different places. I don’t expect this to happen too often in Kz.

However, out of all the passengers in the plane I managed to sit behind a guy called Jason Marshall from Epson who used to live in Bristol in the mid 90s. He was on his way to Bishkek to do some work with streetkids. Thirteen years ago he had turned his life around from drugs to Jesus after meeting with Pete Culliford, Dan West, Nicky Bloor, Mel Squire and a load of other I guys I know well from Woodlands church. He was in touch with Dave Mitchell only last week. Jason shared some words of encouragement about what he suddenly sensed might be the bigger picture behind these sliding doors –he used the image of an ice breaking ship, talked about destiny and connecting people. All I know is that this whole thing feels right and it’s an enormous privilege to be part of this new project from the very start, to be immersed in Russian language once more, and to be on the edge of adventures which will change my life.

There were 14 out of 41 team members on the plane. A good rapport is already forming between like minded adventurers- I am not the only one with plans to explore on a motorbike. We arrived at about 3am local time to 21 degree heat. After battling our way through a scrum of taxi drivers touting for trade, we were met by the Headmaster and taken by mini bus to Hotel Kazakhstan through well lit streets, every one lined with trees. The view from my room takes in some of the mountains and a famous telecoms tower.

My first task today is to find a hack saw or something similar. I intentionally left the key to one of my suitcase padlocks in Bristol. I tried it in a padlock but it didn’t work. I thought it must be for the lock which security cut off in Canada last year. Turns out it was the key for the other suitcase. Oh well. What is the Russian for ‘bolt croppers’?

**The concept was brilliantly portrayed in the film of the same name where the story of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character is split by a chance occurrence. Simultaneously two different possibilities are explored, two different outcomes portrayed based on whether or not she managed to make it through the sliding doors of the London Tube train. One small delay changed her life forever because of what she discovered when she unexpectedly returned home, compared to what happened if she arrived just a few seconds earlier.