Doo Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo…

Inexplicably, at 7:17 am in the Hotel Selene, I break out in a Herman’s Hermits song: “Singing doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo….” What?!?

I blame conference overdose, and hanging around with my friend Linda too much!

We are coming to the end of our two conferences. Eyes are at half-mast, waistlines are a little wider, dreams are a lot bigger. Songs are being sung in the hallways, brains (right and left) are full to explosion with new ideas, contacts, information, dreams, visions, plans and ruminations. Where do we go from here?

Having worked through our ‘stones’ and stories, having build a mosaic table, unity and friendship, having learned some cultural cues and our favorite flavors of gelato, we are about to scatter to the 22 countries of the Mediterranean. We will attempt to love God by loving its many people groups. He alone knows what we’re in for!

I have a new cell phone, loaded up with Italian emergency numbers, and a team looking at me with fear and trembling—single women from Canada, Hong Kong, Finland and England, one married Swiss man who lives in Austria, here without his family, an American man married to a German woman, living in Germany, here with his family, and a young man from Bryan College. As I write that list, the words of Ezekiel 37:3 come to mind, “Can these bones live?!” As Ezekiel answered, “You alone know, Lord!”

I’m optimistic. I’ve seen it happen over and over: vision cast, people as diverse as it can come uniting over their passion for art, and passion for Christ. I expect to see it again: God moving through artists making themselves available to Him.

Ten artists coming to Italy with their five paint tubes and two cameras, asking the Lord, “What good are these among so many?”—knowing God loves to multiply!

Soon we climb in a van, to be transported to L’Aquila, about one hour from here, in the Abruzzo Mountains. Let the outreach begin…