Last week we went over to Pittsboro Christian Village to shoot photographs for some brochures and a website. It's a pretty amazing place. The average age of the residents there is 85.

We started the adventure with shots of a group of ladies grading Bible correspondence courses from inmates at prisons around North Carolina. They were in a room with windows on three sides, around a folding table, which was covered with test booklets, paper, pens, and, of course, Bibles. One lady was fresh off the mission field (after something like 60 years). They had Bibles with the covers worn thin...pages softened and grayed with use...margins covered with notes...Bibles that looked like they were older than I am. They moved through the pages like a gardener moves through his garden...fluid from plant to plant.

Their conversation was light, sweet, and soft. A little giggle over an answer that was almost right...a shared smile at an insight from an inmate as his hard life was softened by his new-found savior...a word of genuine concern over a response that indicated that "this one isn't there...this one needs prayer."

Later, we photographed a blind man as he worked his vegetable garden, feeling his way along. He harvested two cucumbers for us to take home. "I garden because I enjoy it, and I like to give away my harvest," he said. Then, we took his dog, Gabby, over to visit the care home, where the residents enjoyed the company and affection.

We got a photograph of three generations of women...mother, daughter, granddaughter...sitting in the sun in the courtyard-a little picture of faithfulness. And we finished a long day with a romantic shot of a couple, married for 60 years, holding hands in candle light beside the pool in the magic light just past sunset.

The photographer wrote us a really nice note afterward. He said that he had a hard time keeping his emotions in check as he went back through the pictures...and that the experience had changed him. I know it changed me.