Now, when I start writing, it is almost 1am here in Cape Town and I am exhausted after a very full day and not enough sleep last night (blame it on the blog 
. That is why this post will be very short.
I have started the day with about an hour in the congress hall, but I have left there around 9.30am, because I had decided to worship that morning in an Anglican church, together with my friend Fr. Tofana. I have so rare occasions to worship in a church of my own denominations, that I did not want to loose such an opportunity. Besides. St George Cathedral is a famous place for the fight against apartheid.
To be fair, I don’t particularly like the speaker of the Day, Ramez Atallah, from Egype. He seems to me aggressive, pushy and arrogant, but maybe I am wrong. I never talked to him personally, so it may simply be a false impression. Nevertheless, those I have asked told me that I did not loose anything. I will put here the link when the videa is posted on the web site and you can decide for yourselves.
The liturgy at St George was great: incense, British and African songs, eucharist. The sermon was quite dull, but bearable. All in all a very pleasant experience.
After the liturgy, we went to see the famous memorial clinic dedicated to Christian Barnard, who did the first heart transplant and then decided to skip for once the lunch box at the Convention Centre and we opted tor a tiny Kurdish Restaurant close to the famous Green Market.. We had a delicious three course meal, including desert and coffee, for less than 40 euros. It was great.
Back at the conference, I had to rush to a meeting of World Vision staff present there, where we have shared our impressions of the conference and the implications for our organisation. I was way too tired for the multiplex after that, so I slept part of the time if the comfortable chair, in spite of the loud sound.
Next thing was a series of regional meetings. We met with the group of Romanians (with the exception of Criznic, who never joined our group). We have discussed about Orthodox-Evangelical relations and about what we should do in the future in terms of making the benefits of Lausanne known among Evangelicals in Romania. Vasilica Croitor took extensive notes and he will share them soon on his Lausanne blog.
This brought us to the closing session. I expected it will also include some technical staff, but, to my delight, it is nothing but worship. Unlike most of the other evenings, we were spared the cheap charismatic choruses and we had some of the most beautiful music during this event.
In fact, the whole closing ceremony, a majestic celebration of the uniqueness of Christ and of unity of his body, the Church, was in its entirety an extended liturgy (of Anglican inspiration) that ended with the Eucharist. To my delight, no Zwinglian mere memorialistic gibberish was included. The sacramental language was explicit. The whole celebration was led by the Anglican Archbishop Henry Oromby, who lost his voice at the beginning of the service and the rest of it was read by Doug Birdsall.
I am too tired to say more now, but I strongly encourage you to watch the closing ceremony when it will be posted on the Lausanne web site. I hope to have some day a video copy of that service. I would treasure it as a great memory.
Lausanne III ended with a bang. We shall see what this movement has in store for us in the future. May God have mercy!
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