often happens. And in the midst of this very personal journey, this very personal encounter with God breathing life into these dry bones, I was asked the question several times over: "But what is it really like...underneath the veil, beyond the video trailer, the postcard and the website? What's it really like?" And the honest answer is, it's messy. It's messy for those of us in North America. And it's messy throughout our international federation. It just is. Life in community always is. It's worthwhile, absolutely, but let's be honest, life in community is hard. I remember returning from Kolkata seven years ago. Months later, I picked up Shane Claiborne's "The Irresistible Revolution," which had just been released. It resonated in some deep ways -- not least of which because his stories of adventures in India resonated so deeply with my own. It made me wonder what it was about white North American evangelicals that requires us to go hang out with a bunch of Catholic nuns to hear the voice of God anew. And it reminded me of the messiness of community. That the long, slow, hard, work of being in community with one another is the long, slow, hard, work of dying to self. Of putting others at the centre. Of putting others' needs before mine. And that's not always easy. Ego creeps in, selfishness, all of it. Yet in the midst of community, as we grow more deeply in relationship with God and one another, we're caught