Our missions trip was scheduled for September 2001. We’d been preparing all summer. But 9-11 intervened, and the trip was postponed.
We were an unusual missions team. The mission we’d be visiting had specifically asked for it – a small team devoted to communications to help the mission tell its story, produce a short film for a building fundraiser, and interview missionaries who could use videos and stories to send reports to financial supporters and home churches. We were a team of three: team lead/logistics guy/organizer/general factotum; the videographer, aka the guy with the camera; and me, the writer, the guy with the laptop who would be typing away in airports, planes, homes, offices, and in the car.
We’d be in central Europe for a week, with a schedule so packed I thought we’d need slotted times for breathing. Four countries, five languages, cultural shocks, and no time to detox from jet lag.
I could probably write pages about that trip, story after story, detail after detail. But what sticks with me were a few examples of how communication didn’t depend upon language.
Photograph of Dresden by Lukas D via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Some Thursday Readings
Poet Laure: Going Fishing with Dad – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.
“Casey at the Bat,” poem by Ernest Thayer – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
“In School-Days,” poems by John Greenleaf Whittier – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
