This last weekend we met as not quite a team (we missed you Ingrid and Sidney!) and did the things we normally do. There was business to talk about, copious amounts of food to eat (Mckinzie chili and tortilla soup rocks), prayers to be said, thoughts to be conveyed. It reminded me very much of what a family does over the holidays, except perhaps much more intentional. I always get that warm family-holiday feeling after team meetings.

It occurs to me that this is what we mean by the "celebrating" part of our vision. Ultimately what we are celebrating is the indomitable trump card that is salvation through Christ. Pretty soon there will be little ones running around bumping into each other and making noise. When we get to the field, there will be Peruvian brothers and sisters around us celebrating in new, Peruvian ways.

There will inevitably be difficulties. Conflicts, losses, persecutions, and all the other lamentables that come with imperfection. It is that same trump card that leaves me unafraid and bold to face a city of a million people with the assurance that in front of me stands a savior with uncloseable arms.

Thank you Greg for the phrase trump card.

There is a sound that accompanies God's interaction with the earth. It's like a sea of tubas just over the horizon, or that sound symphonies make when they are tuning and warming up but amplified a thousand fold and then thrown under a blanket. It is deafening yet hidden. I think this is the sound Lewis was referring to when he spoke of being reminded of it when listening to Wagner and thinking of Northernness, or when Tolkien wrote of the West beyond the sea.

If this sound is somehow generated through us as "instruments", then I can assure you in God's symphony I am but a piccolo, or a single string not plucked near enough. The word synergy was thrown around a bit this weekend. The instrument analogy fits in perfect with that word. I guess it's kind of like jazz, where our improvisations, iniquities, moments of harmony and dissonance all gel into something beautiful -- something that will hopefully move some Arequipeños to dance.