I was beside myself, and more than a little ticked off.  As a young pastor, I had just discovered that a man in my congregation was going around to other church members and telling outright lies about me!  (Imagine that! 😊)  I sat at my office desk for most of the morning doing a slow burn before finally realizing I needed to talk to someone about this.  I called David.  David was an older and much wiser pastor who had a penchant for befriending and mentoring younger pastors like me.  “David, something is going on here at my church and I really need to talk.”

We were in a strange land. At least it was to us.  My wife and I were in Rome as part of a 2-week vacation visiting several different regions of Italy. Because we both prefer exploring at our own pace and leisure we chose not to travel as part of a guided tour, which meant we were pretty much “on our own”.