Michael: Geography and Trick Questions

I'm in Las Vegas. Again.

Actually, I'm at McCarran's gate B26, waiting for my delayed flight home and looking out across the tarmac at the distant lights of The Strip and wishing I was already home.

I've been at a marketing and research event presented by JD Powers the last two days. Between sessions and client meetings and the obligatory hobnobbing I've many times had the opportunity to say that I'm leaving for Swaziland in a week. (This was always done in the context of, "Ohh, can't call you then -- I'm going to be in Swaziland.")

Each time this happened the person I was talking to blinked and asked politely, "Where's that?"

Where is that? Where is that? There are two ways to answer that. I always chose the easy way.

The easy way goes: "Swaziland is..."

A country in Africa ... As far south as the Great Victoria Desert in Australia... As far south as Rio de Janiero... As far south as Tahiti and French Polynesia

The easy way goes: "Swaziland is..."

As far east as Cairo... As far east as St. Petersburg... On the same longitude as Paul's Galatia...

The easy way says: "Swaziland is..."

Only 30 miles from the Indian Ocean to its east ... After South Africa, Lesotho, and Namibia, one of the southermost countries in Africa ... One of the places in the world with the highest incidence per capita of lightning strikes on people...

After saying these things many times I began to reallize there was another way to describe where Swaziland is and what it means.

For us at Columbia Ridge, Swaziland is where God is at work. It's where our hearts are centered.

Swaziland is where our faith becomes action. It's where the world becomes bigger than Troutdale and Corbett and east county. It's where we join God's dream.

Swaziland is where children suffer the loss of their parents and where AIDs rends families, homes and communities apart in its mute brutality, but where redemption and peace might also be found.

Swaziland is one of the many places Jesus would be if he were among us now. Swaziland is sacred ground.

But these are hard things to say to strangers.

I think the next time someone blinks and politely asks "Where's that?" I'll just say,

Swaziland is where our family is.