...way too long.
And I'm sorry.
I came here several times before to try and let you know how it all went down, I promise, I did, but...I just didn't know what to say.
Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?
I have. Actually, I've had several. Actually...I've had one particular mountaintop experience where I was literally on the top of a mountain.
see?
Just me and the besty, climbing rocks in CA. Four years ago...
Anyway, the mountaintop. A mountaintop experience is something beyond memorable. You certainly will remember it for the rest of your life, but it is so much more than that. It changes who you are, how you think, what you do. It's something that you have to work for, it includes the grueling climb and the glorious view from the top...and the let-down and release of having to walk yourself back down to flat land. It is specific, and definitely your very own--someone else may have climbed a mountain before, but they did not climb what you climbed, or how you climbed. They did not see what you saw. Your mountaintop experience is your very own...and that makes it dreadfully precious.
It also makes it dreadfully difficult to talk about.
My trip to El Salvador was certainly a mountaintop experience. I spent two weeks in Zacatecoluca, El Salvador, at a Palabra de Vida camp facility. During the weekdays, our team went into public schools and performed skits and songs for the student body.
After that we were allowed to go into the classrooms with a translator to present the Gospel on a more intimate basis.
I could give you details...so many details...and the names of team members, and of the schools, and stories and jokes about our time there...but I could not do it justice. I could try to reproduce the situations and moments that meant the most to me, the times when I knew I was learning, when I knew I was climbing...
But you still wouldn't be on my mountain.
The big stuff, the stuff that has to be shared, that which must be shared in order that it really gets fleshed out, that will come out in later posts. You can pretty much count on it. There are things that I have got to write about...so I will. I won't do it here, now, because I would be writing forever. And you would be reading forever.
Here's what you should know right now, though:
We were able to share the gospel with over five thousand people.
Over two thousand of them claimed to accept Christ as their Savior.
I've never before been more struck with how unworthy I am to be involved in the work of sharing the Gospel.
Neither have I been more aware of the fact that sharing the Gospel is the only work in which I should really be involved. That's my identity. It should be, anyway.
I'm not a numbers person, at all. I'm a cynic by nature, and who knows what people are really thinking or committing to when they make commitments.
That being said, though, those numbers rocked my world.
It was my mountaintop.
Thanks for taking part in it (if you did...). Thanks for praying, thanks for supporting....Thank you. It changed my life.
And again...sorry it took so long.
