I scanned the faces in the terminal nervously, looking for a glimpse of the tiny little avatars that streamed by in my Twitter feed. We were about to spend a week with each other, and here was the moment of truth. So many were “well-known” online and I was no-one, and I wondered if I would be accepted.

I spotted them, a trio of smiles making a beeline for me. Elizabeth’s smile was like sunshine and everyone laughed and hugged and we all talked at once and my heart exploded. Writers. Christians. My people.

We sat around a long table in the airport restaurant, eating our last American meal for a week and waiting for the rest of the team to trickle in from cities across the country. Very few had traveled overseas, let alone to a poor country like Bolivia. All of us left family behind. But we were a new family, an internet family finally together in person. I knew we’d be friends for life.

©2011 Amy Conner for World Vision

Five minutes is barely enough time to share even this small snippet of what swirled through my head when I read The Gypsy Mama’s writing prompt for Five Minute Friday this week, “Community.”  What do you think of when you hear the word “Community”?