I am writing this from the Asuncion Airport.
The main conference ended with a great final day. Again I will number my observations
- I have never been to an event at which the last workshops were as well attended as the first ones. My experience and general observation was that workshop leaders had to work to close down the events that were expected to end by 5:00. Many workshops were standing room only. I, and others, seem to have recovered from the mid conference energy lull.
- I was particularly interested in a workshop that attempted to lay the groundwork for an Anabaptist Wiki. What that actually means is not clear. The huge Mennonite Encyclopedia is already on line at a site with the acronym GAMEO. There was a lot of interest in creating a less structured ongoing data source that might also contain stories. There were a number of techie Germans in the crowd.
- I think that there was a lot of work being done in public and behind the scenes sorting out issues related to the proposed restructruring of MCC. There are approaches and assumptions that are being rather extensively vetted. I think it would be good to talk about this at First Mennonite.
- The Saturday evening service was the end of the formal conference with communion and much recognition of workers. For me the most notable thing was that the group that did all the on-site coordination had an average age of 24! The Paraguayan church is young and multi-ethnic. We would be lucky to do this well.
- There was a mass Paraguayan choir at the service. I am getting watery eyes just thinking of the singing of Kyrie Eleison .(Sorry about that spelling but spellchecker is not helping me out.) There were short solos from the major ethnic groups in Paraguayand then we sang it together as a whole group. It does not get any better than this. I don’t usually respond positively to the “this is what heaven will be like” language but last night it seemed right on target.
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