The Parting

June 15 - Yesterday was our last meeting with the friends on Samos.  It included the four who live at Pythagorio, Denita and I, and our two workers.  It has been a profitable year of growth for both Denita and I, seeing the work of God in a new land and perhaps in a new light.  We hope that others have benefited spiritually as much as we have.

A lot was said in the meeting about love, and we sang Hymn 216, a song that seems to symbolize our time here.  "May thy perfect love O Lord, burn strong within my heart."  Jesus said that love was the mark of his people.  It wasn't doctrine of any sort, but it was the love of God, the one thing that cannot be imitated or replicated by men.   Paul tells us in I Corinthians 13 that without love, we haven't attained anything spiritually.  I was thinking of John 17:12, which is the end game of loving God and our neighbor, the twin commandments.  "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one......."  Love is what makes us one in Christ, and love is what merges us into Christ and the Godhead.

Many cities and towns have a sister city in another country, a program designed to promote cultural understanding and economic ties.  The town of Boring, Oregon, which most of us have been to, has such an arrangement with Dull, Scotland, no doubt a play on their names.  The Samosians and us decided we would become sister churches.  And why not?  We are bound by the strongest ties known to man, the love of God.