"I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded. And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better." - Calvin Trager
It's late and I'm still jet-lagged, so even though I was going to start posting photos and talking about the trip, I'm going to bed so that will have to wait until tomorrow. But I wanted to post something, so I figured I'd start with the picture of our team.
So here we are -- left to right that's me, Reynolds Whalen and Bishop George Wayne Smith in the back; Lisa Schroedter, Susan Naylor, Peggy Harris and Emily Bloemker in the front.
I've been thinking about the process of posting photos and telling the stories through them ... and it's pretty much the best and most straightforward way to do it on a blog. But it also runs the risk of breaking this trip down too much into a series of photographicable events ... and this was so much more than that.
What none of these photos will be able to catch is the beauty of the hospitality or the depth of the gratitude we all felt for being present there. They won't capture the palpable sense of relief of a people who have lived with war for 21 years (and many years before that in a little more distant past) who are just 3 months into peace.
If I could figure out how to rig an mp3 file onto this thing, you could hear the music and the singing ... but even that couldn't approach the stirring beauty and soulfulness of being in the midst of a community singing and dancing.
But the pictures tell part of the story ... and tomorrow I'll start posting them ... probably trying to do one day at a time starting with Wednesday, March 30 ... our first day landing in Lui.
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"Christ's example is being
demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy,
which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here.
If it wakes up to what's really going on in the rest
of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn't,
it will be irrelevant."
- Bono