If you have ever asked yourself what it would feel like to be part of a team of caring people who travel to a distant land and engage with members of an economically depleted community to assist with basic goods, simple services, and sincere fellowship, this story may help answer that question.

Early Wednesday morning, August 4, 2021, a small band of believers from Texas and Oklahoma gathered in Austin to launch a most memorable journey. I was about to fly farther south than I had ever flown, to a country I had never visited, to observe landscape features new to me, surrounded by people I mostly did not know. Before I got there, I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do when I got there-and then I just sort of did know. I knew we were going to paint a church, among other things. I like to paint. I didn't end up painting much.

It seems to me that the mission we were on revealed itself incrementally. The mystery and beauty of our bond with these beloved new-to-me brothers and sisters unfolded moment by moment, mile by mile, word by word, and smile by smile. And it is unfolding still.