Greece 2 Team – Update #5
Pictured: across the bay looking at part of the refugee camp
A few weeks prior to leaving Oregon, I, tOdd, wrote the lyrics for an artificial song (i.e., AI) and called it “Your Name Alone (When In Rome)”. I prompted “the machine” with my genre preferences and the result can be heard here.
It was a personally fun way for me as I sought to process and galvanize what I was learning about this work and this need. Being able to creatively communicate what I desired for this trip and for this team as we prayed, prepared, and planned to serve and minister to those who are so utterly and “desperately displaced”.
The lyrics say, in part:
Lord, we love you
And adore you
May our praise
Be ever ‘fore you
Lord, fill us up
And pour us out
May we worship
As we sing about
Your Name alone
Above all others
Making you known
Jesus Oh, Jesus (Jesus)
Throughout our towns and
For those with no home
From Madang to Lesvos
From L.A. to Rome
[bridge]
May our faith be more than a trace
Of all those that follow and
Are desperately displaced
May Your comfort be what they feel
As they grieve and hope-to-heal (in)
Your Name alone
Above all others
Making you known
Jesus Oh, Jesus (Jesus)
If “When in Rome” is as
“When at Home”
Imagine when it’s Him
We worship alone
Lord, we love you
And adore you
May our praise
Be ever ‘fore you
Lord, fill us up
And pour us out
May we worship
As we sing about
Your Name alone
Above all others
Making you known
Jesus Oh, Jesus (Jesus)
~~~
Nothing has changed since we’ve been here: We desire to make Him known above all others. Not to make us known or our church known or the organizations we’re working with known (a lot of very sweet and talented people here, by the way) but to make Him known. Jesus alone.
We’ve been serving and working for one week thus far and have two to go and the bridge lyric of ‘May our faith be more than a trace, of all those that follow and are desperately displaced” is being reflected in our efforts as a team as we strive to provide capable assistance for a short duration (three weeks) while knowing an ever-undulating amount of refugees continue to come and are often being served by other “short-termers” like us. It’s an honor to pass that baton as the first Greece team did to us in being here five months ago.
The verse containing “When in Rome” was designed to take a common idiomatic expression and express when we’re ‘doing as others do’. The “when at home” lyric alludes to the ‘do as I do’ sentiment and, as such, just imagine when wherever you are is different, weird, foreign, etc. but despite that you’re still able to exist and live and function as if it’s ‘home’. Now imagine that both are the same and then imagine all of us worshipping just Him. That’s heaven.
No more language barriers, no worldview differences, no trite disagreements over unimportant matters. Just Jesus (and Jesus is just, by the way). His Name Alone – from Madang, Papua New Guinea to Lesvos, Greece, we desire as a team to make Him known.