Writing About Writing About Jesus... and some other things too

foxhole buddies, theme parks, & thrill rides

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 20:30:32 -0600

Usually January is our month to spend a week in some sunny place with our friends Ed and Janet. We call them our “foxhole buddies” and they refer to us the same way. These are the people you would want in a foxhole with you... friends you can count on to defend you and “have your back” if the need arises. If you have friends like that, you know how important and precious they are.

Can a week be relaxing and exhausting at the same time? Ours was. It was pretty cold and very rainy for the first three days of our stay. So on Saturday we played Mexican Train and saw a movie—It’s Complicated. Although I don’t like Alec Baldwin AT ALL and frankly, I saw a whole lot more of him in this movie than anyone should ever have to see, all in all, the movie was pretty good. When it came down to the end, I thought it showed pretty well how cheating (even when it results in all kinds of movie hilarity) ends up hurting everyone, especially the innocent bystanders. And really, can watching Meryl Streep act ever be bad? I think not.

Sunday morning we spent in worship... just the four of us, reading some Scripture, praying, and having some great conversation about trusting God in everything. Ed and Janet have had some great experiences in the last year in seeing God’s mercy and watching His plans fall into place int their life. It was neat to listen to their story and to share some of our own.

Sunday afternoon while John and Ed froze to death on a golf course, Janet and I sat in a Starbucks at a mall and watched the people.

More rain on Monday sent us to a movie... an I-Max showing of Avatar. Visually, this movie is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and the story is hard to resist even if it does stretch all credibility toward the end. Still the special effects... holy moley! And one thing that will always suck me into a movie is a section where the “fish out of water” manages to adapt and learn and even excel in a totally different life than he’s known before. Avatar sure does satisfy on that score.

If our first three days of vacation were low-key, we made up for it on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which we spent at The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Universal Studios. We walked and walked and walked and walked. And ate. And rode things. And saw interesting, strange, and outrageous people.

I love roller coasters. I’m scared to death of heights, but I love roller coasters. So I got a big healthy dose... first on Space Mountain and the Runaway Mine Train at the Magic Kingdom, and then on three different crazy coasters at Universal Studios. The most intense one—The Incredible Hulk—gave me a big surprise half-way up the first hill. Instead of climbing slowly to the top, all of a sudden, it accelerated and shot us out of a tunnel over the first crest, and didn’t stop until the very end.

Scarier than the coasters was Dr. Doom’s Fearfall, where you are rocketed 150 feet straight up and then free-fall back down. I have this nightmare about once a year that I am in an elevator that goes through the roof of a building and just keeps going up, and I’m afraid Dr. Doom’s Fearfall just made that a whole lot worse.

The scariest ride of anything we did... the one I will never go on again... the one that made me truly sick... was Mission: Space - Advanced Training Lab in Epcot. Oh sure, there were all kinds of warnings... no pregnant women or people with heart conditions, yadda, yadda, yadda. They just say all that stuff to protect themselves against lawsuits, right?

Oh my gosh. I don’t know what they did in the darkness of the little car I was in, but when the five-minute “ride” ended, I felt like, to quote Brian Regan, everything on the inside of my body wanted to be on the outside of my body. I had to lie down and close my eyes all through the 45-minute Universe of Energy show and ride and just pray that I didn’t throw up. I’m not a wuss, but I wouldn’t recommend Mission: Space to anybody.

Our favorite things at Epcot:

The Test Track
The American Experience
Voices of Liberty
the French restaurant
the French bakery
the China Pavillion and movie

So... I’m back in Nashville this week, excited and ready to write. I met someone today who is just getting started writing. He asked if after all this time I still love writing.

Yes. I still love it. Can’t wait to see what I write this week!

time to leave (my India story, part 9)

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:44:39 -0600

Our week in Mumbai had gone by so fast. I was ready to head home to see John, but there was a part of me that wanted to stay and just keep going out each day to sit on the floor of people’s homes and tell them about Jesus. Our flight was scheduled for about midnight and so real taxis, not autoricks, had been ordered to transport all of us to the airport about 8 p.m.

Tuesday had originally been set aside for us to do some sight-seeing and shopping in Old Bombay. I wanted to go. I really did. But when I found out that it meant another long train ride, I told Susan, “I would ride the train again to tell someone about Jesus, but I don’t want to ride the train to buy souvenirs.”

It turned out that every person in our group felt the same way. Instead of the long train ride, we caught autoricks to a nearby area called Herindani Gardens only 15 minutes away. We had been there the previous Thursday evening, and that’s where I had found the little shop where I bought the “salwar kameez” that I wore to church on Sunday. Ever since then different guys in our group (who were feeling the pressure to take something good home to their sweetie) kept asking, “Now where did you get that?”

The folks at Jackpot Clothing should’ve paid me. I returned there with more customers for them at least three more times!

We ended up having lunch at Chilis. We had all enjoyed Indian cuisine, but I think we were all ready for something a little more familiar.

The day was good... relaxing and fun. When we got back to our hotel in early afternoon, some of the Indian pastors had stopped by to see us once more. We sat outside at the little tables and visited and heard follow-up reports on Sunday. We also spent a little more time writing. Matt and I were able to finish a song we had started on Saturday.

Matt was talking to a young man on Friday, sharing the story of Jesus with him. When he told the guy that Jesus died but that God raised Him to life again and He lives today, the young man’s face lit up and he asked, “Is true?!” Matt couldn’t get over it and he started writing a song to convey the joy that you feel when you wholeheartedly believe that the news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is absolutely the truth!

We packed and went to dinner... a place so close we could walk to it... an Indian-Chinese-Italian restaurant. My mind was not on food. Getting to the airport and getting through security always stresses me out. Once I’m at my gate, I relax. But not until then.

I was not wrong to feel anxious. The Mumbai Airport was insane. Continental had grossly oversold the flight. We stood in line for an hour to check our luggage. That’s when we were told that they did not have seats for us. Hmmm. Our luggage might go, but we might not. Nice.

I had actually checked in earlier in the day and had an assigned seat. That didn’t make any difference. We waited in another line for an hour, and eventually we all were assigned seats.

By this time, our flight had been delayed until about 2 a.m. A girl we waited in the security line with told us she took that flight back and forth all the time and it NEVER leaves before 2 a.m.

We waited another hour in our first security line. Then we went through another. At the third security line, we were “wanded.” That’s when my right pocket started beeping loudly. I had forgotten that I’d stuck a small tin of Altoids there for the plane. I took it out and handed it to the stern security woman. She opened it, looked carefully at the tiny mints, held them up to me and said, “Eat please.” I had to eat several of them to convince her that they really were mints.

Finally we got to our gate where we all sat on the floor in a group and waited.

Suddenly we saw the rest of the people getting all excited and pulling out their cameras and rushing toward the last security check-point. A real Bollywood star... Anil Kapoor (the guy who played the game-show host in Slumdog Millionaire) was going through security. I grabbed my Flip video and joined the rest of the crowd.

They called our flight to board. We passed through one more security check point. And then we had to walk through first class where the passengers were already stretching out in their big leather recliners and ordering dinner. That was really really cruel.

Once we took off, I tried to watch a few movies but I simply couldn’t keep my eyes open. I can’t say I really slept, but I wasn’t awake either. Because of the time-frame of our flight, it was night for nearly all 15 hours. We flew back over Afghanistan and up through Russia, then up further north over Sweden and Norway and under Iceland and Greenland. Just knowing we were over American airspace was a good feeling. We landed in Newark at dawn, and I must say the sun coming up over the New York City skyline was spectacular.

My favorite part of any international trip is when you go back through American customs and the agent says, “Welcome home.” It always makes me want to cry.

We had to retrieve our luggage, then recheck our bags, then go through security again, and then get to our gates in another terminal. Members of our group were starting to peel away. We left Martin and Nate and Aaron in Mumbai, headed for the west coast through Hong Kong. Seth and Matt left us when we landed in Newark. Both have babies at home and they could hardly wait to get on their connecting flights.

I was on a flight directly back to St. Louis... my gate was right next to the Nashville gate, so the Nashville bunch was still together... with basically one thought on all our brains:

Starbucks.

John was three hours away. I called him and said i was on American soil. I texted my kids and heard back from them. I felt completely grungy and jet-lagged but in a happy kind of way.

If you’ve hung with me through this whole saga, I do appreciate your patience. It was a spectacular trip. I want to go again. To India? Yes. To somewhere else? That too.

There are a few odds and ends I haven’t mentioned. I was able to check Facebook and Twitter... we did have internet at the hotel. When people said they were praying for me, it meant so much.

I had an adapter for my hair dryer, but not an extension cord. The outlet wasn’t anywhere near a mirror. So I dried my hair each day using my i-Sight camera (even with the slight delay). I think I deserve some kind of award for creativity for that.

In recent years, I haven’t thought so much about the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering that is taken at Southern Baptist Churches. But I saw what those funds do while I was in India, and I will never let a Christmas go by again that I don’t give generously to it.

My love and admiration for the in-country ministry workers grew and grew while I was there. They are awesome. They’re regular people who are doing extraordinary work in difficult circumstances... far from home. The “journey girls” were incredible, confidant, energetic, brave, fun, and cool. I kept trying to imagine what it would be like if one of my granddaughters decided to do a short-term assignment like that.

Usually on a trip like this there’s someone that’s a pain. Everyone in our group and everyone we worked with was an absolute joy. I loved each of them so much, and I was especially blessed to spend the week with Susan. I have made a life-long friend there.

So that’s my story. Thanks for reading.

the most dangerous thing I did (my India story, part 8)

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:16:38 -0600

My most daring moment in India was not riding on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet. It wasn’t presenting the gospel to several young men who wanted to know who I thought I was, coming from America and trying to take their gods away from them. It wasn’t singing “All over the world Christ is King” in a Muslim slum on a Saturday night. Accidentally almost brushing my teeth with tap water came close, but even that was not the most dangerous thing.

On Monday, I rode a train.

Even now the memory gets me a little panicky.

Monday was the day we were going in small groups to visit various Indian ministries around the city. We were assigned to go north of the city to a daycare center in a slum run by Pastor A and his wife. James, Susan, Nate, Matt and I met our guide Stephen* at Andheri East. We gave him our rupees and he bought all our tickets. Then we began to wait for a train that didn’t look too overcrowded already.

In India, the trains have separate cars for women and special cars set aside for cancer patients and handicapped riders. Susan and I couldn’t ride the women’s car though because without Stephen, we wouldn’t know where to get off. So after waiting through a few trains, Stephen said we would have to get on the next regardless. Amazingly, it wasn’t that crowded... when we got on.

We were standing, approaching the next stop in a car that was only half full. Stephen began to say, “Step back. Get up against the railing. Get back as far as you can.” I did what he said, not really understanding why.

While the train was still traveling quite fast, men began hurtling through the door. As it slowed, we experienced what I can only describe as a virtual tsunami of men gushin through the door. My foot got stomped, but miraculously I didn’t get knocked down. I was, however, completely cut off from everyone else in our group. Matt managed to work his way through the passengers to where I was. (These men weren’t trying to be rude or inconsiderate. It’s just the way the train is in India. In fact, that afternoon when we were on our way back, there were men who were obviously tired from a long day of work, who got up and insisted some of the guys in our group take their seats.)

Finally, we reached our stop where we got some autoricks to the place where we’d meet Pastor A. The slum we arrived at was the worst I’d seen so far. It climbed up the side of a hill. There was open sewage that was almost impossible to avoid. At one point I stumbled and some sloshed into the toe of my Crocs. I used my bottled water to try to wash it off. We passed the community garbage dump where a dead cat was rotting in the sun. On we climbed through narrow passageways, past structures that were part corrugated tin, part board, part cardboard.

Finally we reached a small white-washed building. Leaving our shoes at the door (when you are walking through so much muck, you certainly understand and appeciate this Indian custom), we stepped inside the spotless, sunny room to find about 30 children, 3-7 years old, hard at work on their lessons. Each one had a small slate where the word “Welcome” was printed over and over. Tears filled my eyes to know that they had been preparing for us to arrive.

Pastor A’s wife, who has a master’s degree in social work, teaches the children in the mornings. In the afternoon, she teaches adult literacy to the women in the slum. She also teaches sewing. The three machines I saw looked like the one my grandmother used when I was a little girl.

What a great teacher I observed that morning. Every child was engaged and not a moment was wasted. They sang the ABC song. They sang a song that taught something about telling time as well as the value of doing their homework. I don’t think I have mentioned the great emphasis that is placed on doing well in school. It is so much more than here. Of course students are encouraged to do well here, but in India, it is absolutely essential. If students do not excel, they are weeded out of the system, and basically they have no good prospects for future employment. The pressure is so great that we were told that in the past few months in Mumbai, 15 school age children had committed suicide because they were afraid they were not doing well enough on their exams. That breaks my heart as much as anything I saw or experienced.

Matt, who was sitting across the room from me, joined in on every song, and the kids were sure fascinated by this tall white guy with wild red hair and a bushy beard who was doing all the motions of their songs with them. The teacher asked him to lead a song, so he tuned up the guitar that James had bravely lugged on the train for a few chorus. Then the teacher asked if I would tell a Bible story. Kneeling in front of the class, I told them one of the first stories I remember hearing as a child... of a wee little man who climbed a tree to see Jesus and how Jesus knew his name and called him to come down. I told them that Jesus knew each one of their names and He loved each one of them. And then, I couldn’t resist teaching them to sing, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he...”

Before school was over for the morning, each child got a nutritious snack to eat, and then they spilled out the door and were gone for the day. Pastor A and his wife sat and talked with us for a while about their ministry there. They told us how hard it had been to haul the bricks up the side of that hill and build the school, and how challenging their work is... but also how committed they are to it and how they know God has put them in this place.

They led us further up the hill to another home where we met a man who had a very noticeable growth on his face. We asked how we could pray for him. He asked that we just pray he could find a job so he could support his family.

We went to another home and sat outside with several women, singing and talking and praying. They asked us to pray for a young boy who was with them who has severe eye problems. We prayed that God would touch his eyes and heal him. Without sight, I can’t imagine what his life will be.

We had to get back to the train and so we headed back down the hillside. Again, I gave away the chocolates and silly bands and stickers I had left in my purse. It seemed pitifully small compared to the needs we had seen all around us.

The plan was for our whole team to gather at the home of the in-country workers to eat, share stories, and debrief. My priority was giving my feet a good scrubbing before I went inside again. It was great to be with everyone and to hear the stories of where they’d been that day and what they’d done.

I had given the guitar to Mike that morning, and he had delivered it to Pastor P. who had taken it to Amit. During the evening, Amit called to thank me. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Sue,” he said. “The guitar is so beautiful!” It was so great to hear his voice, and I was so thankful that I had gotten to give him a birthday gift he loved.

Twenty minutes later, someone brought me the phone again. “It’s Amit,” they said. “He wants to say thank you for the guitar.”

I said, “Oh, I already talked to him.”

“He wants to say thank you again,” they said.

When I saw Pastor P. the following day, he told me that when he had delivered the guitar on Monday afternoon, Amit started to open it right away. But his mother said, “No! No! Don’t open it yet. Not until Pastor has a chance to pray over it.”

So they had a prayer of dedication that the guitar would always be used to the glory of God. That’s what I’m continuing to pray.

TOMORROW: TIME TO LEAVE