It was just a little glass triangle. The late morning sun filtered through the large schoolroom window and we watched, mesmerized, as our teacher carefully placed a prism in the stream of light. A rainbow leapt from the glass, dancing, elusive, beautiful, the white light diffused into all our favorite colors. Mystery and wonder. There was something at work here we couldn’t understand.

“Again, again!!” we cried, touched with the magic of perfect creation, unsated with the brief moment of incomprehensible beauty.

It seems shadows of that day still lurk in my soul. Only that in some glorious, divine mystery, the prism is not of glass. It is a prism of men and women, standing in the beam of the Light of the World, diffusing His glory from city, to town, to village. It shines out across cultures and colors, a brilliant, wonderful display.

And like those shouts of yore, I find my heart lifting to God: “again! again!”

Show me again the beauty of a new town reached with the gospel. Show me again the wonder of souls lost and found. Give us again a glimpse of your new children striving to serve and worship on mountains of redemption.

It never gets old.

Is it hard work? Of course. Is it often slow-going and discouraging? You got it. Do you occasionally want to give up? Yup.

But the widespread diffusion of the gospel of the grace of God is so glorious in it’s totality. My shining corner, no matter how small, simply adds one more pixel of light to the rainbow beam.

So when believers an hour and a half away invited us Easter weekend to help them, we went joyfully. A new place, a neighborhood needing Christ. Believers, willing to be a prism for God, desirous for His light to be dispersed in their community. They invited, set up their front patio, made up their invitation to go door-to-door. Drinks and meals were prepared. Phone calls of reminder were made.

This couple have been exercised for a long time about starting a work in their neighborhood. Cancer and other personal obstacles delayed their plans even as they continued to share their faith personally with family and friends. They know well what it is for a couple to share the gospel with those around them. Were it not for a Canadian couple that came all the way to Carmen who daily, relentlessly, pointed them to Christ, one wonders how God would have reached them. They have felt their love for years, seen their love for lost souls. They have stepped into the prism beside those faithful ones, desirous to be part of the spread of the gospel.

And so they are carrying on. Sunday and Tuesday. Inviting in between. They actually don’t really need us. It is a privilege to be included.

That’s part of the beauty of this diffusion. God doesn’t need certain people present. The light falls upon all indiscriminately. It beams through any willing child of God to any willing hearer.

Another pixel, needing our prayers.

Bicentenario.

San Antonio Cardenas, Magdalena Apasco, Nicolás Bravo, Paraíso, Santa Rita, Ciudad del Carmen, Emiliano Zapata.

Some day Nuevo Progreso, Lerma, Nuevo Campechito…..

Gospel of light, of hope, of Christ the Lord, through the foolishness of preaching, diffuse your beauty across this land yea, throughout the entire world.