This week has passed in a flash, and there are only a couple of days remaining until we leave. Tomorrow, we'll be commissioned for the trip during the service at church and then on Monday we'll hit the road by 9:00am.

It's a good thing I found the list of things we're supposed to bring, because I discovered that we need a sleeping bag or bed linens which gives me the happy excuse to pull out the Sleeping Diva! Why, you ask, do I need a fuchsia fur-trimmed sleeping bag for a summer mission trip? They asked the same thing when we went to Mississippi two years ago, and Diva and I managed just fine.

I also rounded up some devotional materials to share during our quiet times. Among other things, I'll be taking along "Psalms for a Pilgrim People" by Anglican priest Jim Cotter. These aren't new psalm translations or even paraphrases but are what I would call 'poetic renderings' that maintain the meaning but speak in a fresh language. For instance, the well known opening to Psalm 8, "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth" becomes:

Creator God, Source of all life,

how gloriously does your name resound,

echoing to the bounds of the universe!

Beautiful!

(Jim Cotter. Psalms for a Pilgrim People. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1989.)