Late Sunday night an earthquake hit Peru outside the jungle city of Moyobamba. For some, that's about as much useful information in English as it might be in Spanish. But for those of us who have spent time in Moyobamba and the outlying villages, it's like learning of tragedy striking your family. Most of our friends in Moyobamba are safe--there was not a lot of damage. But the hardest part of all the news in the emails back and forth over the last few days is one short line from Noe--"Those who have worked in yantalo a little girl there died."

Yantalo is a small village--about 1600 people--outside Moyobamba where folks from First Pres helped put in a floor of the Presbyterian church--where we played with the school children--where we handed out hats and taught colors in two languages (rojo red, azul blue....)--where we took turns staking claims on precious brown-eyed girls and boys ("Janess is mine." "Then I get Marilena...") who would run up to hold our hands and sneak peaks of their own faces in our digital camera windows (giggles are the same in English and Spanish). "Those who have worked in yantalo a little girl there died."

September 11 slips by again. The hurricanes have arrived. And the earthquakes strike. God's grace and peace to all who grieve lost loved ones. 

You've gotten the advertisements in the mail--the oversized postcard promising the answers to all your theological questions in a five-sermon series at the new community church down the way. Christianity 101, How to be a Better Christian, The Real Truth About God.

The real truth is the answers aren't easy, and faith is far more of a journey than a lecture series. However, it would be handy for us to take a good look at a few pieces of basic theology along the way--something shorter than a sermon, something more frequent (I'm aiming for weekly) than a Presbyram lead (my every 4-6 week spot in the bi-monthly newsletter at First Presbyterian Church, High Point, NC), something less scheduled than a Sunday morning Sunday school class, something a bit more theologically astute than some of the junk you can surf through on the web, something more laid-back than an official piece of doctrine. Something sort of, well... bloggy.

So here it is, a blog from your Associate Minister. My goal is to provide a place for folks to be flexibly theologically connected, where perhaps high-minded theology might coincide with common thoughts, where every so often you might learn or better understand a theological term or two, where every now and then we could reflect on the seasons of our faith.

Feel free to comment or even offer your own thoughts for future topics.

Grace and peace,
Jess