The picture you see here is what is hidden under, and what holds up, the pointed, slate roof of one of the towers at Brézé Castle. What looks like a simple conical profile, from the outside, is no fewer than 56 wooden beams that come out from a central wooden key and which form the structure… the skeleton on which the slate roof rests. The slate stone ‘shingles’ can only serve their purpose effectively if the frame beneath them is solid.

So it is with missions and missionaries.