As you get ready for the start of the week, and we launch into the new year, let me bring you some beautiful imagery to inspire you. Get your coffee, load up your emails and take a moment to sit back and enjoy a little visual story. This is just the first of many.

I caught my breath when I first saw this photograph by Lisa Vanden Berg. I’d found many beautiful images from the Lote New Testament Dedication in Papua New Guinea, but this one perfectly captured the intimacy of the community celebration, and shows a little about life in PNG. How I delight in the brightly coloured skirts and the bare backs of the women, the soft fuzzy background of jungle, thatched roofs and smiling onlookers. I can’t help but wonder.. what are they saying? why are all the adults listening to the children? are they singing? chanting? telling a secret? See their hands clasped so tight, like a big family.
A Lote priest said of this day in January 2010, “This is not just any event. This is the Word becoming flesh in Lote today. This is Jesus now walking among us in Lote. …let it go down deep into your stomachs and change your life! …bring it to the spirit houses where you teach young men how to live. This is something true…”

Photo: Lisa Vanden Berg
Words: Elyse Patten

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