An Overland Odyssey - Kyrie, Eleison

January 1991

In January 1991 at 19 years old, I had one year of college behind me.  The previous summer saw me recommit my life to Jesus Christ (more about that here), and that fall I'd just finished a ten week 'intensive Christian training' school in Texas (see this link about an experience there).  I was not ready to back into any kind of formal schooling at that time.  I felt I needed to learn more about God and serve him.  So I'd planned to head back down to Texas and continue the learning I'd started there while volunteer working in the print shop they had.

There was a fellow named Kevin from Sandpoint, Idaho who had gone through the fall training with me, and he was also going back to Texas to continue his learning journey there - and he planned on driving down.  We previously agreed that I would join him so we could travel together, but I had to get to Sandpoint first.  My Mom, brother, and cousin decided to drive me to Sandpoint - about a 8 hour drive from where we lived in the interior of British Columbia.

The Odyssey Begins

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 

even there your hand will guide me.  Psalm 139:9-10

January as it was, we had winter driving conditions which weren't really too bad until we were closer to Spokane.  By that time, we'd already crossed the border into the US, and had been driving in Washington state for a couple hours.  My mom had gotten tired of driving and I had taken over.  It was snowing and dark out. The roads were snow-covered and I was doing the speed-limit, which Mom informed me was 'too fast for the road conditions and traffic.'  I silently disagreed in my mind, and barely started to slow down when a dog about the size of a coyote ran onto the road from the right.  I couldn't swerve because there was traffic coming at me from the left and the road was too slippery for sudden moves.  Braking fast was also not an option because of the icy road.  As a result, I hit the dog.  The whole episode was over rather fast, but adrenaline spike and subsequent verbal grilling I got lasted for a while.  Cars were made pretty solid back then, so there was little physical damage to the car itself.  God protected us, and I learned a lesson which I remember to this day.  

Kevin in TX

Unscheduled Stops

The next morning I was dropped off at Kevin's house in Sandpoint and my family started their return journey home.  Kevin and I left for Texas the following day.  He had a Subaru with florescent pink trim, if I remember correctly.  He had driven it to Texas for the ten week training we'd done in the fall.  We began our trip and drove the length of Idaho most of that first day, but later in the afternoon, the car broke down a ways past Weiser, ID.  We left it on the road and walked to a house nearby.  The Zaugs lived there - they were an older couple and were happy to help us out in our quandary - providing us with a place to stay for the evening and letting us use their phone so Kevin could make alternate arrangements.  In the end, the car wasn't going to get fixed.  We caught a Greyhound bus from Weiser to Boise, to Salt Lake, to Denver, to Dallas, and finally to Tyler, Texas.  It was a really long trip, with a lot of unplanned stops and lay-overs at bus stations on the way.  We were exhausted when we finally arrived at our destination a couple of days later.  But God protected us and we were no worse for wear.

Reflection 

Thinking about that trip now, how old I was when I did it, I can only imagine the concern of my parents.  It brings to mind one of my favourite radio tunes of that era - Kyrie by Mr. Mister.  At the time, I didn't know what the words meant, but knowing what they mean now, my thoughts immediately think of this trip.  Kyrie, Eleison is actually the beginning of a Greek Orthodox prayer.  It means 'Christ, have mercy..'  The words of the chorus of the song were very appropriate for that time in my life: 

Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel
Kyrie eleison, through the darkness of the night
Kyrie eleison, where I'm going, will you follow?
Kyrie eleison, on a highway in the light

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A map of my January 1991 overland odyssey

Airline Ticket Scam

Our Dream

Ewa and I had a belated honeymoon once she landed in Canada with 'landed immigrant' status in early May, 1996.  I picked her up at the Calgary airport and we drove through British Columbia to Vancouver Island.  During the drive and on the island, we thought how fun and wonderful it would be to one day invite Ewa parents - who had never travelled outside of Poland - to visit us, and show them the mountains and the sea.

Once we moved to Edmonton, it looked like that dream would come to fruition.  We had a small house with extra room for them to stay, and a significant tax return to pay for their tickets.  We purchased some tickets through a Polish travel agent in Edmonton, and waited for Ewa's parents to receive them.  Here's some excerpts from my journals that document what happened next...

AirLine Ticket Scam

May 21, 1997
I have lots of questions.
I got laid off from work today.  Hired April 29 - laid off May 21.  We moved to Edmonton banking everything on this job.  Ewa’s parents are coming in 9 days from Poland.  And I thought the weekend was bad.

May 23, 1997
This evening we found out that the fellow we bought airplane tickets from for Ewa's parents trip isn’t exactly trustworthy.  They haven’t received the tickets yet, and it is a week before they fly. The fellow hadn’t even sent the money.  He said he would send it over a month ago.

June 1, 1997

Ewa' parents in front of the
Alberta Legislature
in Edmonton

God has been good to us.  Apparently, last week Saturday was the last day we could have done anything about the tickets for Mom and Dad.  God got ahold of us just in time as it might have been too late a day later.  Seats became available in economy class which was really a miracle because there was a line up for people to have a seat on the plane and it didn’t seem like the fellow we bought the tickets from was going to pay Mom and Dad’s way up to business class.  He was just leaving the phone off the hook at the store.  So, Mom and Dad are here now.... The travel agent has flown the coop.  The store is closed and he has left the city.  The story made local news.

July 12, 1997
Last weekend, we certainly saw God's faithfulness and Father heart as we went on a weekend trip to Calgary, Canmore, Banff, and the Rockies.  We had a great time and it couldn’t have worked out better.  The weather was fantastic.  Our trip itinerary filled up nicely and we saw lots of wildlife.  2 bears, a moose, mountain goats, sheep, a couple deer and lots of elk.  It was a great experience for Ewa's parents. 

Ewa and her Mom in the
Christmas store in Banff

God's Protection and Provision

God protected and provided for us.  We didn't lose the flight tickets - Ewa's parents arrived and returned safely. 

Even through that crazy summer with no job (see this post), no steady income, and other disheartening experiences, we were able to take them for a weekend to see Calgary, Banff, Jasper, and the Ice-field Parkway. 

And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  Phillipians 4:19

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Employment in Edmonton

Full Circle With God

There are some Biblical accounts where God does what I'd call 'a circle of completion.'  He gives a person a dream, a starting place, or a 'state of being', then a whole bunch of activities and changes take place, and in the end the people involved find themselves returning full-circle.  Some examples I can think of are Jacob and Bethel, Joseph and his dreams, Job and his story, Joshua and Jericho.  There are some situations in Ewa's and my life where we've seen this, too.  Landing full-time employment once we'd moved from Slave Lake to Edmonton is one of those stories for us.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.  1 Peter 5:7

On The Move

Living and working in Slave Lake served two purposes for us:  

1. Through my employment at the OSB plant there it allowed me to sponsor Ewa's immigration to Canada, and 
2. We hoped it would serve as a springboard for me to start a more meaningful career and move us to a larger, more connected city.

While there, I tried taking a correspondence course in Accounting from the University of Athabasca, but I found learning something entirely new, by myself, while working shift work, was very challenging.  I also applied to become an air-traffic controller, and made it through a couple rounds of interviews, before ultimately falling short there as well.  I was finally successful in landing a good paying position in Edmonton at a large plant the printed milk cartons.  Around the same time we bought a small house in Edmonton and moved.

A Crazy Summer

We were so excited about this new employment and new house!  Additionally, our tax return came back for the previous year and we had some extra money so we invited Ewa's parents to visit us for the summer.  Unfortunately, events after that didn't quite go as expected.  Take a look at excerpts from my journals that summer:

May 21, 1997
I have lots of questions.
I got laid off from work today.  Hired April 29 - laid off May 21.  We moved to Edmonton banking everything on this job.  Ewa’s parents are coming in 9 days from Poland.  And I thought the weekend was bad.
On the weekend, Ewa and I realized that we would be pretty short with funds while her parents would be here for the summer (after paying for their flights).  I got paid more and put in more hours at the OSB plant in Slave Lake.  I tried to encourage myself with the song ‘God will make a way, where there seems to be no way…’  The song goes on to say  ‘... and He will do something new today…’ 
This certainly is something new.  Please understand - I don’t mean that sarcastically.  I know God has something better in store.  This route, however, kind of took me off guard.

So.... I have lots of questions.  I’m always kind of excited when I get into a situation like this because I know something has to happen.  Will I have a job a week from now?  God can do amazing things.  Who knows where I’ll be working?  I wonder how I’ll look back on this situation a year from now.

Ewa and I were talking over supper, thinking wistfully that maybe we had missed God in the opportunity with the milk-carton printing company and this move to Edmonton.  I do not believe that.  We had prayed that God would either open or shut the doors for this job opportunity, as well as this move.  God opened the doors and now here we find ourselves.  I believe that this is all part of God’s plan.  Now we just have to continue to seek Him and His direction for the next step.

May 23, 1997
God, we look to You for provision.  There is not much hope given to us by the milk-carton printing company as far as any kind of extended severance agreement or the opportunity for a choice to work somewhere else within the company.  I talked with P.K. - head human relations man in Memphis - and he at least sympathized with me and agreed that we had a raw deal here. Later I had a meeting with management here and signed the severance package we were originally given.
Saw a job in the paper last night and another on the computer in the library today.  Applied for them both.  This is all I can do besides pray.
Come and save us God...
I see lots of big bills on the horizon.  At this point, there is only money to pay into the first week of June.

June 29, 1997
Well, I have been working as a vacuum cleaner salesman for the last two and a half weeks. It has sure been a challenge.  I find that I am too concerned about what people think to do my job properly.  A salesman is supposed to sell things. Not just educate people on their product.  I am too polite.  I need to develop urgency and need in my presentation.  There are a couple of jobs as printing estimators in the paper that I am going to apply for this week.  I will continue selling vacuums until one of two things happens: 

1. I start to sell vacuums in volume - then I won’t look for another job.
2. I get hired at one of these jobs that I’m applying for.  

God has really been with us through this time.  The milk-carton printing company gave us an extension of severance pay to the end of June.  So as of Wednesday I am not receiving pay any more.  God knows what will happen then.  We plan to go to Canmore for 2 nights next weekend, taking Ewa's Mom and Dad with us. 

July 12, 1997
God, You are our only strength and hope.  Friday turned out to be quite a day.  We miscarried our first baby early in the morning.  I took Ewa to the hospital. She was there until 3 in the afternoon.  She had to have a DnC done.  I left the hospital at about 1 to go home, have a shower, and then I had to get insurance for the car.  That turned out to be a little surprise when I found out that we would have to pay $400 more per year for our insurance because we live in the city now.  Just what we need in the financial situation we are already in.  I don’t have any vacuum cleaner sales yet... 

Aug. 4, 1997
Lots of Old Testament stories seem very applicable to our lives this summer.  It certainly hasn’t been an easy one.  We have completely depleted our RRSP money and have had to borrow more from Mom and Dad to make it through August.  Ewa has been really struggling with her hormones and the whole situation.  We both had a different picture of how her parents would spend the summer here.  The job with the vacuum sales company doesn’t seem to be working out.  They are not completely honest in all their dealings with customers as well as with dealers.  

Aug. 14, 1997
Oh, God!!  I need Your help.  Today I gave all the vacuum cleaner sales stuff back to the office.  I am now completely unemployed.  I struggle to know what You want me to do.  Sometimes life seems really complicated.  Ewa’s Mom and Dad leave for Poland in less than 2 weeks.  God, my only hope is You.  Please show me if there is something I am doing wrong.  I can’t walk in the dark very long.  

Sept. 30, 1997

A printing press similar to the one I
worked on in Leduc

Well, I have a job now.  In fact, this is the 2nd week I’ve been working.  I’m working for a newspaper printing place in Leduc.  I’m sure learning a lot. I have been hired as a second pressman.  They are paying me $14/hour.

God's Full Circle

So where is God's circle of completion in all of this?  I had forgotten about it myself, until I read this journal entry I wrote several years later....

April 11, 2001
I was reminded of something interesting that happened before I left the newspaper printing place in Leduc.
My manager was looking to hire someone to fill my position when I left.  We were working days and he brought in a prospect, and believe it or not (my mouth sure dropped) he was showing around a fellow that had interviewed me at the milk-carton printing company. 

I talked to my boss later, and apparently a year after they laid us off, the whole milk-carton printing plant in Edmonton folded.  To see the hand of God on that whole situation from that perspective makes that whole rough, jobless summer a lot less of a bad memory.  This fellow had been looking for a job for a year already!  Wow!!  Thank you, God, for your direction there, even though it seemed like I was taking the only available job opportunity at the time.  

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Car Fire!

God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done.  2 Corinthians 9:8

When we moved to Edmonton in 1997 we had a 1991 Olds Cutlass Sierra for driving around.  It had a lot of mileage on it and was beginning to require expensive maintenance.  We were concerned about this as it was our only form of transportation and I needed a means to get to work and back (a 25km drive, one way), so we asked God for help.

Sometimes God's help arrives in round-about, unexpected ways.  Here's an excerpt from journal entry from Jan. 9, 1998:

We have had quite the experience this past week.  Monday evening, our car burned in our garage.  Today we received news that the insurance company is going to write it off.  Looks like we’ll be getting a new car. 

Here's what happened...  Arriving home from work that day, I had parked the car in our townhouse's attached garage.  Sitting down to supper, I heard some weird noises from the garage, so I asked Ewa "What's that popping sound in the garage?"  I went to look and the garage was full of fire and smoke (mostly smoke).  I immediately shut the door and called the fire department.  They came and put the fire out.  

Fortunately, there was no major structural damage to the garage - mostly smoke damage.  However the car was totalled.  The fire investigator said they'd seen this before and the fire was caused from static-electric shot somewhere around the gas tank.  

We asked God for help in finding a newer used car for us - something that would last longer and be a bit more reliable.  God answered!  Here's another journal excerpt from Jan. 31 1997:

God has really been our provider in this whole car situation.  A week ago Thursday we were torn as to what to do with buying a car.  We didn’t feel totally at peace with the red Honda Accord here in Millwoods that we had looked at.  Then we went to look at a 91 Accord at a Ford dealership way up north Edmonton.  It turned out to be the one that God was providing for us.  It had only 127,000 km as opposed to the red Accord which had 195,000 km.  Not only that, but they offered us a great deal - no trade in - and we were able to buy a 40,000 km/2 year warranty along with it. 
THEN, we had agreed with our car insurance company that we would get $5900. for the Olds minus $500. deductible.  When we went to pick up the cheque yesterday, it was for $6313.  God’s provision!  It turned out that with a fire, we didn’t have to pay deductible, AND they added GST to the $5900.  We are truly blessed.

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God Winks in Slave Lake - Part 2

 After Ewa and I got married, we lived in Warsaw, Poland.  After almost a year, we went to the Canadian embassy to ask them if, in the event we had children, they could obtain dual citizenship.  We got that answer, but at the same time the embassy told us that immigration law in Canada had changed and if we ever wanted to move back to Canada the ONLY way they would allow Ewa into the country was if she officially immigrated.  

We didn't want to be in a situation where Ewa was not free to travel to Canada, so we decided to change our plan to live in Poland.  We quit our work contract in Warsaw and I went to Canada alone so I could find a job and sponsor Ewa's immigration.  I left Poland in Sept. 1994 and God provided immediate employment for me in Slave Lake, Alberta.

Read Part 1 of God Winks in Slave Lake here

Moose!

There is a lot of wilderness and wildlife in northern Alberta surrounding Slave Lake.  In fact, the highways there have a swath of extra forest cleared on each side so drivers can see wildlife approaching the road more clearly - it a safety issue!  Moose are particularly numerous and dangerous because they are dark, quite large, an have a high centre of gravity.  My Dad had a work colleague lose her life in a car accident with a moose as she was returning to Slave Lake from a trip.

This is nearly what happened to me as well.  Early one morning after a night shift at the OSB plant, I was driving home from work struggling to stay awake.  It was still dark out (the shift ended at 6am).  Suddenly on the passenger side of my car a large bull moose appeared, preparing to trot across the highway.  I was doing the speed limit and I had no time to react.  Fortunately, I was just ahead of him as I passed him.  If I had been a couple seconds later, I would have taken his legs out and he would have come through my windshield.  God's protection and timing!

That’s right—he rescues you from hidden traps, shields you from deadly hazards.

His huge outstretched arms protect you—under them you’re perfectly safe; his arms fend off all harm.

Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night, not flying arrows in the day...  

Psalm 91:3-5

The Dream of the Lost Gloves

Journal entry from May 29, 1999
Before I forget, I made a mental note to write this story in the Journal before I forgot it again.  Ewa reminded me of it one night when we were having small group and talking about things that God had done for us...

Ewa had bought me some nice leather gloves in Poland.  I had them with me when I came to Canada in the fall of 1994.  Used them that winter (of 94-95) in Slave Lake and then put them 'away' until next winter.  Ewa immigrated to Canada that spring in May.  Eventually next winter came and I couldn't find the gloves anywhere.  I looked for them high and low and came up empty handed (haha, nice pun), so I made a mental prayer to God asking Him to help me find them.  Later the next day, I took a nap and I dreamt of precisely where they were.  They were in the garage in one of the old, large, pool chlorine buckets.  I woke up and went immediately to that old chlorine bucket in the garage.  Sure enough, thats exactly where they were.  

God's direction in a dream!

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God Winks in Slave Lake - Part 1

After Ewa and I got married, we lived in Warsaw, Poland.  After almost a year, we went to the Canadian embassy to ask them if, in the event we had children, they could obtain dual citizenship.  We got that answer, but at the same time the embassy told us that immigration law in Canada had changed and if we ever wanted to move back to Canada the ONLY way they would allow Ewa into the country was if she officially immigrated.  

We didn't want to be in a situation where Ewa was not free to travel to Canada, so we decided to change our plans.  We quit our work contract in Warsaw and I went to Canada alone so I could find a job and sponsor Ewa's immigration.  I left Poland in Sept. 1994 and God provided immediate employment for me in Slave Lake, Alberta.

Working at the OSB Plant

While in Slave Lake, I worked at an Oriented Strand-board Plant that made plywood from wood wafers.  I worked 4 12-hour days, had 3 and a half days off and then worked 4 12-hour nights followed by 4 days off.  Some of those shift transitions could be brutal - particularly the first night shift.  

Oriented Strand Board

My initial responsibility there was clean up.  Conveyers carrying bark and other wood waste to the burner never caught everything, or sometimes got plugged or overflowed.  I got to cleanup the messes.  It was heavy, hard work shovelling wet wood waste back into the convey which was sometimes higher than my head.  Late one dark, very cold evening I was taking a short break from this labour when I noticed some very large icicles hanging down the side of the structure.  Considering their size (over 3 feet long) I thought they could be a danger to someone, so I decided to knock them down.  In my tired state, I didn't properly factor how they might fall once I broke them with my shovel.  When they fell, a large piece hit my hardhat, knocked it off and then hit my face.  I needed stitches, but I was told that I was fortunate the injury wasn't worse given the size and weight of the icicle.  God's Protection!

Waferizer

After a couple months doing cleanup, I got informally moved up to the 'Green-End' crew. We were responsible for ensuring the mill had a consistent flow of wood wafers to make the boards.  This involved running machines that debarked the logs coming into the mill, trimming these logs into 2 foot lengths and ensuring those 2 foot lengths were oriented correctly as they were fed into 'waferizers' which turned the logs into wafers.  The debarking and log trimming was mostly an automated process, but making sure the log sections were oriented properly going into the waferizers was manually done, and these logs could be heavy.  We used tools called pickaroons to help move these logs into position.

Pickaroon

Food processors are loud.  Waferizers scream past them in decibels.  One could get very mentally and physically exhausted from the noise and the work in the wee hours of the morning.  I had to be very conscious of the moves, pulls, and yanks I made orienting the wood so I didn't hurt myself.  

One evening I pulled a muscle in my back, but convinced myself I could work through it.  By the time the shift was over, I was hurting in a big way.  This was concerning because the mill tried very hard to avoid lost time injuries and my back felt like it was going to require some time off to heal.  

After arriving home, I was getting ready for bed and found my back pain was so overwhelming that I was struggling to breathe!  I called my Mom for help.  She came and I told her my back was hurting and I couldn't breathe.  She prayed for me right there, and within 30 seconds the pain was entirely gone.  It was amazing!  God healed me!

"The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all"  Psalm 34:19
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."  Psalm 46:1

Read Part 2 of God Winks in Slave Lake here
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Living in Europe

Full Circle With God

It seems to me there are some Biblical accounts where God does what I'd call 'a circle of completion.'  He gives a person a dream, a starting place, or a 'state of being', then a whole bunch of activities and change happen, and in the end the people involved find themselves returning full-circle.  Some examples I can think of are Jacob and Bethel, Joseph and his dreams, Job and his life, Joshua and Jericho.  There are some situations in Ewa's and my life where we've seen this, too.  Here's one of them...

After Ewa and I got married, we lived in Warsaw, Poland for a year.  We worked for the Polish Baptist Union Publishing House during that time.  Part of the employment agreement with them was they would provide us a place to live.  That place ended up being a new, rather large apartment at their seminary in a suburb of Warsaw called Radosc (radosc means 'joy' in Polish).  Living there for that year was something of a 'full circle moment' for Ewa.  Here's why:

Building a Seminary

Previous to us getting married, Ewa had worked as a liaison between the North Carolina Southern Baptists and the Polish Baptist Union on a project.  That project involved building that seminary!  When she was originally asked to become the liaison, she was very concerned about how involved she might become with the project and wondered if taking the position was the right thing for her to do.  As the day of the decision loomed, she had a dream on night that two ministers she was acquainted with from the States had arrived in Warsaw on the train specifically to visit her with a message.  She woke up struck at the clarity of this dream and curious because she thought they were back Stateside at the time.  Later that day, out of the blue a phone call came from this pair of ministers saying they were at the Warsaw train station!  They asked if Ewa could come and meet with them as they had a message for her.  The message was to encourage her with taking this opportunity - God would support her in it.

Ewa worked on the project for a gruelling 3.5 years.  The work involved travelling to North Carolina in the winters to recruit and prepare construction teams that would come over to Poland in the warmer months.  When these teams came to Poland, she worked as their translator and guide.  The weekdays were spent working with the teams on the Seminary construction.  On the weekends she took the teams to see various churches and cities around Poland.  She had considerable time and effort (literally blood, sweat, and tears) invested in that Seminary construction partnership and project.

Even the land the seminary was built on had an interesting story.  Before WWII the land had been owned by a Jewish family.  During the war they had been protected and hidden by Polish Baptist Christians.  After the war, they gifted this land to the Polish Baptist Union as a token of appreciation.  However, the Union couldn't possess the land until after communism fell in Poland, which was why construction didn't start on the seminary until the early 1990s.   

Living at the Seminary

Our first year of marriage living at the seminary was poignant for us.  Ewa got to enjoy some of the 'fruit of her labour' in living there.  Because our apartment was so large, we were able to host lots of guests. I had Polish language lessons in the evenings there, learning better Polish grammar.  Ewa blew an electrical fuse in the complex installing a light fixture (220 volt system over there).  We bought our first clothes washer, our first piece of furniture, and our first TV in that apartment. We had a 2km one way walk through a forest to the bus stop for work each day.  I carried that new TV from that bus stop all the way back to the apartment the evening we bought it - what a workout!  God had provided our first living space for us in a special way.  It was a provision that closed a circle in completing a busy, fulfilling chapter in Ewa's life.

90s Europe Trip - The Bad Passport
90s Europe Trip - The Engagement Ring
90s Europe Trip - Vienna

90s Europe Trip - Vienna

My second overseas trip was to Europe.  Many of my friends had already been to or lived in Europe in some form or fashion and I had heard all of their stories and was itching to get there myself.  I had several reasons for going:

1. My main motivation for the trip was to go to Poland and meet the family of my girl friend, Ewa.  I needed to know if I could live in Poland as I was considering marrying her.  Consequently getting exposure to the culture and language was pretty important to me.
2. I wanted to spend some time with a great friend of mine, Kevin,  in Holland.  I had met him in Texas, and he had been working and living in Holland for close to a year and I wanted to catch up with him.
3. I had some graphic arts film negatives to deliver to an organization in Austria.  They were translating some Christian discipleship tracts into various eastern European languages and the art work for these tracts was on the film I was delivering.
4. I wanted to accompany a professor of mine and visit our mutual friend Janis, in his home country, Latvia.  I had worked and gone to school with him in Texas for a while and I wanted to see him in his home country.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.  2 Thessalonians 2:16,17

My trip lasted from the middle of December 1993 to April 1994.  In February, Ewa and I travelled by bus from Poland through the Czech Republic to Vienna, Austria.  I was delivering the graphic arts film for translations to an organization called Operation Mobilization in Spillern, a suburb of Vienna.  We had also arranged stay there for a week.  It ended up being quite cold that particular week and we were mostly using public transportation to get around.  I was glad I had packed the warm clothes I did, but we'd still return to our dorms with numb hands and feet. 

In a square in Vienna

Several things happened on that trip that were memorable and highlighted God's faithfulness to me...

The Couple from Brazil

Unfortunately, I'm having to recall these details from memory because several years of my journals were lost to mold and mildew in storage.  As I mentioned above, one of the main reasons for this trip was to discover if Ewa was to be my 'forever partner.'  I had proposed to her earlier on the trip on New Year's Eve, but life happens and I was beginning to question if getting married then was a good idea .  One of the reasons for my hesitation was Ewa is almost 7 years older than me.  

While Spillern we met some of the staff working with the Operation Mobilization office there.  We had an engaging discussion with a married couple that were from Brazil - and it turned out she was also older than he was.  Unfortunately I don't remember their names now, but they invited us over for dinner one evening, and shared their story with us.  Hearing the story of how they met and their encouragement, I felt God encouraging me that this relationship with Ewa would have His blessing and work out.  God provided the confirmation I needed on that significant life decision!

Ewa's Surprises

Ewa had come with me on this trip because she hadn't been to Austria before and she had time available.  I had limited contact with the people at the Spillern OM office before arriving, so we weren't sure what to expect.  Ewa knew no one.  My only acquaintance there was my contact, and as it turned out, I didn't know him as well as I thought I did.

We finally met my contact in the middle of our week there (he did a lot of travelling).  In talking with him, we discovered that the name I knew him by, 'Charles', was actually a pseudonym (for safety and anonymity) because he spent most of his time smuggling Christian literature into communist countries.  This was a bit of a surprise to me, but immediately reminded me of Brother Andrew and one of my favourite books - God's Smuggler.

Charles then proceeded to ask Ewa if she knew any pastors in Poland.  Ewa actually knew quite a few pastors in Poland because of her previous years working as a liaison between the Polish Baptist Union and the Southern Baptists of North Carolina.  It turned out that Ewa and Charles knew several of the same Polish pastors.  He asked Ewa if she remember times when a truck would arrive in the middle of the night at her church in Czestohowa with a 'delivery', which she recalled.  He said 'I helped drive those trucks to that church!'  Talking further, we discovered that Ewa's first Bible, and much of the edible provisions that she received from that church during her time at college in Czestohowa were from those truck deliveries from the OM office in Austria!  This was very encouraging 'devine appointment' for both Charles and Ewa.  God's provision of encouragement.

Ewa

Even back then, Austria was expensive and we were both on budgets.  Ewa was quite concerned about how much money she had left.  Towards the env of our week there, Ewa came back to her room after we had been out and found a note with money for her on her bed.  She was so happy and thankful for this, God's provision again.  We were so encourage in our trip to Vienna.

90s Europe Trip - The Bad Passport
90s Europe Trip - The Engagement Ring
Living in Warsaw

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90s Europe Trip - The Bad Passport

My second overseas trip was to Europe.  Many of my friends had already been to or lived in Europe in some form or fashion.  I had heard their stories and was itching to get there myself.  I had several reasons for going:

1. My main motivation for the trip was to go to Poland and meet the family of my girl friend, Ewa.  I needed to know if I could live in Poland as I was considering marrying her.  Consequently getting exposure to the culture and language was pretty important to me.
2. I wanted to spend some time with a great friend of mine, Kevin,  in Holland.  I had met him in Texas, and he had been working and living in Holland for close to a year and I wanted to catch up with him.
3. I had some graphic arts film negatives to deliver to an organization in Austria.  They were translating some Christian discipleship tracts into various eastern European languages and the art work for these tracts was on the film I was delivering.
4. I wanted to accompany a professor of mine and visit our mutual friend Janis, in his home country, Latvia.  I had worked and gone to school with him in Texas for a while and I wanted to see him in his home country.

The Lord will keep you from all harm - He will watch over your life;  the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.  Psalm 121:7-8  

Canadian Embassy - Warsaw

My trip lasted from the middle of December 1993 to April 1994.  I spent the Christmas holidays with Ewa's family and had a great time with them.  In the middle of January, we travelled to Warsaw so I could get Visas for my other trips.  At that time I needed Visa's for my stay in Latvia as well as a transit visa for my passage through the Czech Republic to Austria.  However, when I stopped at the Canadian Embassy in Warsaw to ask a question, they examined my passport and asked me (really, they politely confiscated my passport and told me) to get a new one.  It turned out that the lamination on the ID page of my passport was coming off.  

They said passport could look faked because of the delamination and as a result it could get confiscated at a boarder crossing.  Suddenly our time in Warsaw got much busier.  I had to get a new passport photos, a new passport, a new Polish Visa, and then get my Visa's for the other countries - all in a week. This was rather frustrating as it cost extra money and time to do all of this.  

Looking back, I can definitely see that God was looking out for me(!) in getting that passport fixed.  It would have been terrible to ride on a bus for several hours only to be turned away at a border crossing because the main page of my passport was delaminating.  In retrospect, I was also very grateful to have several extra days in my schedule, and Ewa's availability and help as a translator and guide to deal with that situation.

90s Europe Trip - The Engagement Ring
90s Europe Trip - Vienna
Living in Warsaw

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90s Europe Trip - The Engagement Ring

 My second overseas trip was to Europe.  Many of my friends had already been to or lived in Europe in some form or fashion and I had heard all of their stories and was itching to get there myself.  I had several reasons for going:

1. My main motivation for the trip was to go to Poland and meet the family of my girl friend, Ewa.  I needed to know if I could live in Poland as I was considering marrying her.  Consequently getting exposure to the culture and language was pretty important to me.
2. I wanted to spend some time with a great friend of mine, Kevin,  in Holland.  I had met him in Texas, and he had been working and living in Holland for close to a year and I wanted to catch up with him.
3. I had some graphic arts film negatives to deliver to an organization in Austria.  They were translating some Christian discipleship tracts into various eastern European languages and the art work for these tracts was on the film I was delivering.
4. I wanted to accompany a professor of mine and visit our mutual friend Janis, in his home country, Latvia.  I had worked and gone to school with him in Texas for a while and I wanted to see him in his home country.

What’s the price of two or three pet canaries? Some loose change, right? But God never overlooks a single one. And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.  

Luke 12:6-7

God Cares

I proposed to Ewa on New Years Eve during this trip. We were in a little town called Krynica nestled in the Polish mountains.  Later, we bought an engagement ring together in Wroclaw - you can see the ring in picture.  Ewa was concerned because she knew that people would ask to see the engagement ring, and she had a rather large wart on the middle finger beside her ring finger.  

I don't remember exactly how our conversation went surrounding this concern, but Ewa and I agreed to pray about this wart and ask God to remove it.  We prayed and then moved on to other things.  

God definitely heard that prayer, as within 2-3 weeks the wart on Ewa's finger was completely gone!  

God is our healer and He cares about our concerns!

90s Europe Trip - The Bad Passport
90s Europe Trip - Vienna
Living in Warsaw

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Sparks and Smoke at the Sawmill

 I worked as a weekend oiler at a local sawmill in my last three years of high school.  As a grease monkey, my assignment was to ensure the chains and machinery on the outside log decks, cut-off saws, and 2 debarkers were greased and lubricated.  I worked the early shift on Saturdays, starting at 5am and getting off work at 1pm in the afternoon.

There's a lot of potential to get a workplace injury at a sawmill.  We had to be well versed in lockout procedures that turned off the electricity and air (as some of the log kickers were pneumatically powered) and 'lock it off' so someone didn't accidentally turn it back on while you were working in the machinery.  Often times some of the larger machines like the barkers had whole panels of switches (see image below) that one had to turn off to ensure it was safe to work in and around.  For these larger machines, we were trained to turn all the panel switches off, run a cable though them in the off position, and then put our lock on the end of the cable.  That way no one could flip any of the switches back on again unless they had the key for your lock.

MCC Panel

One particular Saturday, I was wrapping up my work on the 26 inch barker and removing my cable from all the switches on its MCC panel.  Once I pulled the cable free, I threw it on the ground so I could wrap it up nicely before turning the switches back on.  As it hit the ground, sparks shot up in the air.  Something around me was electrified and I didn't know what it was.  I surveyed my surroundings, trying to see where the sparks came from. Seeing nothing obvious, I kicked at the cable I'd just dropped and noticed it was 'stuck' - actually spot welded - to a pike pole that was sticking out of a welding cable.  

Pike Pole

Debarker (not installed)

A pike pole is a long pole with a point and a hook at the end, for moving logs around.  They should never be found stabbed into live welding cables.

Realizing I was in danger with this live current around me, I tried to see where/how I could turn off the electricity to the welding cable.  While I was doing that though, the lock-out cable I'd originally thrown to the ground started to smoke, and then burst into flames.  A fire in a wood framed sawmill is a not good at all.  I quickly found a fire extinguisher and put out the fire.  By this time there was a large cloud of smoke at my end of the mill and people came running over to see what was going on.  When I showed my boss what had happened, he was quite relieved I hadn't been hurt and said I was very fortunate as there had been a lot of electrical current energized around me earlier.  God's protection surrounding me!  Psalm 91:9-11

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God's Protection With Vehicles Growing Up

 Remembering how God protected me in vehicles growing up, I'm conscious of how things could have been much worse given the accidents I was involved in.  I've already posted about the very first, worst one here.  With the other three, I think if my position, the vehicle's speed, or the timing had been a little different, the outcome could have been much worse.  I believe that I walked away from these accidents unscathed because of God's protection.

Flipping a Honda ATC

When I was in grade 10, our high school band got a government grant to be part of an exchange program with another high school band on the other side of Canada in Nova Scotia.  We hosted them in our community in BC during a week in February that year.  They played their repertoire of songs in schools and community centres in the area and experienced life in Western Canada.  Then later in May we travelled out to Nova Scotia to do the same.

I was hosted by Kyla Woodworth's family on their apple farm while we were in Nova Scotia.  The farm had been in their family for more than a generation and they had many of the usual tools and implements one would see on a farm like that, including a couple of Honda ATCs.

ATCs were gaining notoriety at the time because, being 3-wheeled, they were easy to flip.  And if a large one rolled on you it could be bad news.  The first full day I was there, Kyla and I took those ATCs out to a back field to burn around.  I had grown up driving a dirt bike, so I wasn't too far out of my element with this motorized trike.  What different for me was steering - on dirt bikes you can steer at speed by leaning and turning the handlebars very gradually.  Leaning on an ATC does nothing except move your centre of gravity.

Returning to the farmstead after burning around in the field, I chased Kyla down a dirt lane that was lined on either side with young saplings.  At one point I found myself going at a good clip drifting towards the saplings on the left side of the lane, so I leaned right.   Nothing happened - I continued my trajectory towards the saplings on the left.  Starting to panic and forgetting steering was different, I leaned further right.  Still no change in direction, and as a result I plowed into those saplings.  Because I was already leaning right, the ATC flipped, landed on me and rolled off.  

It took Kyla a minute or two to realize I wasn't behind her anymore.  I'm sure her heart must've come close to stopping as she drove back to where I was.  There were a couple of fender parts on the ground and the ATC was upside down.  I was a little bruised and muddy, but otherwise fine - God's protection!  She helped me roll the bike back on its wheels and we headed back to her house at a slower pace, and we didn't ride bikes anymore that week.

Dodge Aspen Accident

For a number of years while we were in high school, Mom and Dad had a 2-door Dodge Aspen with a 318.  That car could motor!  Generally Mom drove it, and one Christmas holiday she was driving us to the community ski hill for the day.  My brother and I often got season's passes to the hill during high school and spent most days and evenings during the holidays there.

This particular day there was a bunch of snow on the roads from the snowstorm the night before.  The drive to the ski hill had a significant downhill section with a sharp curve at the bottom.  My mom refrained from pressing the brakes to hard going down the hill to avoid skidding, but unfortunately that meant we had too much momentum to safely make the turn at the bottom.  We fishtailed into the opposite lane going around that turn.  Fortunately, there were no oncoming cars.  Still trying to control the car, Mom fishtailed back into our lane and then did a 180 across the road into a telephone pole.  Again, no oncoming cars had impeded our slide into the telephone pole. God was protecting us with good timing!

Rolling the Toyota

My Dad had a small Toyota pickup that he used as a commuting vehicle for work when we were growing up.  We also used it to haul the wood to heat our house for the winter and go on fishing trips up in the mountains.  It didn't like road salt that much, so by the time my Dad was ready to give the truck to me it was 'well used' and in rough shape.  Originally the truck was yellow, but by the time I got it, we called it 'the overripe banana' because the rust on it made it look.... well, like an overripe banana.  Additionally, the engine wasn't running on all its cylinders - so much so that when I drove the truck to work I had to take a run at larger hills to ensure I didn't slow down too much before getting to the top.

One of the 'fun' things to do in our small, remote community was to take old vehicles out on the logging roads and do fishtails and doughnuts.  We'd 'take our beater out for a dig' - basically all the fun stuff that was not really legal on a paved road.  

The summer after I graduated, right before the August long weekend Dad signed the truck over to me and then promptly left with Mom for a weekend getaway.  I lost no time in picking up Shane M., a friend from school and church, to take the 'yellow banana' out for a dig.  I didn't have a lot of experience doing intentional fishtails and donuts in a vehicle, but did my best trying to impress Shane.  At one point, I found a gravel pit that looked fun to burn around in.  We drove in there at a fair speed and I pulled the emergency brake an yanked the wheel sideways.  As we started to slide sideways, I began to question my judgement as rocks the size of softballs were kicked up over the passenger door by the leading edge of the truck.  Immediately after that the front tire right tire caught an edge, dug in deep, and the truck rolled over onto its roof.  

Fortunately we had our seatbelts on.  I don't think there is a graceful was to unbuckle your seatbelt when your hanging upside down by it.  We got out of the truck, a little scratched from the broken glass, but otherwise fine.  Again, God's protection! I walked to a nearby house and called for help.  The policeman that showed up was my brother's girlfriend's father.  He thought the whole thing was rather funny but warned me it could have been much worse.  Then he called the tow-truck and drove us home.

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I Need God's Glasses

Sharp Vision

My wife has 20/20 vision.  I do not.  Neither do our kids.  For years the kids and I thought my wife was overly keen about cleaning things - the bathrooms, the kitchen, our hardwood floor - and then I realized one day that she's like this because she can see perfectly.  We can't.  She'll talk about how dirty a shower is sometimes, and I have literally no idea because I don't wear my glasses in the shower.  Or, just as often, my wife will ask me 'How can you see through those glasses?  They are so dirty!'  No wonder I can't see the dust on our hardwood floor.   :-\   Clear, focused vision is a gift, and I'm definitely missing it.

Focused Spiritually?

It got me wondering - how is my spiritual vision?  Jesus said 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.'  How do I see God?  Is my picture of Him as it should be... do I see Him as He really is?  Or is it distorted and out of focus?  Do I let worries and cares distort my perspective of His loving heart for me?  Are my expectations of His involvement in my life out of focus?  What about how I see others and how I see my past?  Is it through the lens of God's grace?

Getting Blindsided

If you haven't noticed, I tend to ask myself a lot of questions.  I think this stems from an experience I had at a Discipleship Training School in Texas back in late fall, 1990.  I actually recalled this in a journal entry this past week...

Dec 3, 2021

“He has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light”. This was the verse that came to me this morning after reading my devotions.  Every time I hear/read this verse it takes me back to ICT (Intensive Christian Training) school at LDM in Texas.  This was ‘the verse’ the school counsellors believed God had spoken over our class.  I was so keen and expectant to hear from God during that time.  

For me the seminal week and day of that schooling was the last day of our Openness and Brokenness week.  We were encouraged to be brutally open and honest with ourselves and the class about sin in our lives in the past and ask God to break our hearts over it - show us how He felt about that sin - and ask for his forgiveness.  We were warned against pride in sharing.  

I had kind of been through an exercise like this informally the previous year at college.  As a result, when I shared that day in Texas I was proud that I could be so open because I 'already had experience at this'. But I certainly wasn’t proud of the bad things I had done.  My attitude, demeanour, and lack of true remorse in the openness and brokenness exercise were perceived as pride - or at the very least, enough of an improper attitude that the leadership excused me from the proceedings for the rest of the day.  This was a shock and it hurt.  I was blindsided.  I felt like I had terribly misunderstood something important and questioned everything.  The counsellors couldn’t have know my heart and the subtleties of my experience.  What they saw and heard must've been more black and white to them.  At the time I wasn’t informed enough and lacked the experience to understand why I had been oblivious to what was really going on.

Why am I bringing this up now?  I see now that even though some of my motivation was wrong, deeper in my heart I wanted to be involved and do the right thing.  I wasn't trying to be intentionally malicious in what I did.  God disciplines those He loves.  He doesn't give us more than we can bear.

I left the classroom that day, not knowing who to talk to or where to go.  I felt exposed and alone (so far from home, too).  All kinds of crazy thoughts go through one's mind after being publicly reprimanded and excused like that.  It was a rough afternoon.  Pride comes before the fall, and I fell hard that day.  

From that point and for many years following, I was much more cautious, hesitant, and less confident in my relationship with God.  I didn't want to get surprised like that ever again.  I consequently examine my motives and my spiritual decisions closely, asking myself a lot of questions. 

Search Me Oh God...

In several places in the Bible God is concerned that His children miss the forest for all the trees - even though they think they can see, they are truly blind to what really matters.  Just like my experience above, we can get a distorted spiritual view of ourselves.  

But God sees me with more clarity and in sharper contrast than I can see myself.  That's probably why David prayed 'Search me oh God, and see if there's any wicked way in me.'  He knew that our hearts can deceive us.  

God made me.  He knows what I'm going to think before I think it.  He's aware of all my foibles and issues, and He wants to help me see some of them a grow into someone who acts and thinks more like Him.  But He needs me to be willing to accept 'His glasses' so I can get a little bit of his view.  

The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 3

For more context about my India trip and why it was such a big lesson in learning to trust for me, read these posts first:
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 1
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 2

Returning from Pakistan by plane, the three of us continued on our odyssey.  After landing in Delhi, the next 5 weeks saw us travel by train and spend time encouraging missionaries and churches in Agra, Kanpur, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Pune.  We took all manner of transportation to get to train stations in each city, but didn't miss a single train.  (Again, see the related posts above for why not missing a train was important to me)

I'm traveling to the Kanpur train station in a rickshaw.

All during this time, religious tension had been building between then Hindus and the Muslims and had actually broken out into riots in some cities.  The day we left Pune for Mumbai this tension erupted into a full scale riot at the Mumbai train station.  We were oblivious to this, totally enjoying the beautiful train trip until our train stopped in the middle of nowhere 100 kilometres outside of the city.  We finally got word that the engineer was refusing to take the train into the station, fearing for the passengers' safety.  All of us waited in the train for what seemed like several hours until a decision was finally made to take the train back to Pune.

Joanne and David doing laundry in Pune

Arriving back in Pune, we discovered that the American and Canadian consulates had issued travel advisories recommended that their citizens leave India as soon as possible because of the civil/religious unrest.  After some phoning we managed to reschedule our flights back to Texas to the next day, cutting our trip 4 days short.  This meant we had to fly into the Mumbai airport from Pune.   This flight turned out to be super pleasant, as short as it was.  We were given refreshments and warm face cloths for our faces - it was like a spa!  I sat next to Joanne, and David made friends with the young Indian fellow he sat next to.

We arrived in Mumbai early in the evening, and discovered that the city was under curfew.  We couldn't catch a taxi or rickshaw from the domestic airport to the international airport - a rather large problem for us as our flight to London was leaving in a couple of hours later from the international airport that night.  The young fellow that David had chatted with on the flight to Pune noticed our concern and asked if he could help.  We explained the situation and he offered to give us a ride in his car.  We gladly accepted... and then surprise!  God showed us just how in control He was of the whole situation.  It turned out that this fellow was the son of a famous Indian movie director.  His car was a chauffeur driven stretch Mercedes limousine!  Of all the ways to wrap up my lesson of trust and travel with God in India.  I didn't know until recently that Mercedes means mercy, reward, and/or favour.  We put our packs in the trunk and gingerly hopped in the back of that roomy limo, marvelling at God's provision and protection over us.  On the way to the international airport, we drove passed full armoured troop carriers, but no one stopped us.  Our flight from Mumbai left on time with us on board.  We arrived safely home in Dallas 26 hours later.

I'm playing the guitar, singing Sunday school songs
for kids in Vidisha (close to Bhopal)

God's message to me:  Matthew 6:30-30 "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."

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The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 2

In my last post about my trip to India I mentioned the fact that often God works in us as much as He works through us on short-term missions trips.  I also referred to how, from an early age, I'd get anxious about getting to places on time.

It was an early morning in  mid-October when our plane landed in New Delhi.  We caught a taxi to a guest house in Jangpura where we would stay for the first week.  We were warned not to eat food from street vendors - this was rather hard to do and it wasn't long before we ignored that advice and just ate naturally.  Within 24 hours, our tummies were feeling out of sorts.  We prayed about this and that was the last of our gastronomic troubles for rest of the trip.  And boy, is that Indian food tasty!

The Red Fort in Delhi

Our second week found us staying on an outdoor conference grounds in Delhi, close to Humayun's Tomb.  We were tasked with looking after the kids of missionaries while they were attending a conference for the week.  The dormitories we were housed in were made out of bricks and looked like large igloos.  The door frames on these structures were rather low - I had to duck to walk through them.  One day, someone asked me to run an errand that required I duck into one of these dorms.  In my enthusiasm, I ran and forgot to duck.  That doorframe wasn't moving, and I hit it hard.  It knocked me flat on my back and gave me a large gash above my hairline.  This was a concern, given the general state of cleanliness everywhere.  A nurse in attendance at the conference told me not to go to the hospital, and instead she cleaned the wound herself and tied my hair overtop of it to keep it closed.  We prayed that it wouldn't get infected... and it didn't.  I wore a hat for the next 3 weeks.

After the conference, we were due to leave New Delhi for Lahore, Pakistan.  We caught a rickshaw to the train station and pretty much immediately got stuck in traffic.  Lots of horns and small, loud, poorly carbureted motorcycle engines.  As we inched along I could feel the old anxiety rise inside of me, afraid we're going to miss our train.  It felt like we were stuck in traffic for an hour, and my fear of missing the train gnawed at me the whole time.  Finally getting through that, we arrived at the station with - as it turned out - time to spare to catch our train.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  God was encouraging me that He was in control.  Would I continue to trust Him?

It was an overnight trip to Amritsar on the train (Amritsar was as far as you can go towards Pakistan by train back then), and we had a lot of friendly attention - people curious about us and wanting to share their supper with us.  We tried everything and it was yummy.  When we laid down to sleep that night in our open berth, I was keen to ensure that our packs wouldn't get stolen so I slept 'with one eye open.'  Somewhere around 3am, a figure walked into our room and reached for my pack which was hanging on the wall.  In a quick motion I grabbed their outstretched arm.  They didn't seem too startled and reached behind my pack with their other arm and turned the light on.  The light revealed this person was a soldier with a gun - it turns out a group of them were checking the entire train in a security sweep.  I went back to bed and tried to sleep.

Joanne and I on the roof of the bus in Amritsar,
heading to the Pakistani border

At 6am the next morning we arrived in Amritsar.  We caught a bus which was full, so we rode on the roof to the demilitarized zone between India and Pakistan.  The border crossing itself didn't open until later in the morning, so we waited.

Once the border opened we walked across.  As we entered Pakistan, the two border officials we dealt with were pleasant enough, and very interested in David's pen as we signed the visa documentation.  They were so interested, in fact, that they asked if they could keep it.  David smiled and declined, taking the pen back.  They weren't very busy so we chatted with them a bit, and they gave us some advice on the best way to get to Lahore.  We followed their advice and caught an absolutely packed Toyota van 32 kilometres into the city.

Checking into our hotel in Lahore, we discovered we didn't have our passports and return plane tickets. They had been forgotten in a bag somewhere at the border!  We desperately hoped and prayed that the bag would be there - we didn't know where else it would be.  These were the days before cell phones, so we immediately caught a van back to the border and discovered that the two border officials that were interested in David's pen had saved our bag for us.  We gratefully accepted the bag, and David sensitively turned down another request for his pen.  God was continuing to watch over us, and protect us from ourselves.

We stayed a night in Lahore, and then several nights with some Australian missionaries in Islamabad. Our last stop in Pakistan was in Peshawar - a city notoriously known as a smuggling route between Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We were, in fact, staying with an American family that worked with a federal US Drug Enforcement department there.  We were rather naive to the political and religious climate when we arrived in Peshawar.  Our hosts were late picking us up from the bus stop.  The locals there, seeing we were traveling with a guitar, asked us to play.  I pulled the guitar out and played some songs from church.  They seemed to enjoy this.  However, when our hosts arrived and saw what we were doing, they quickly ushered us into their car and drove us to their house.  In the next 2 decades, I became acutely aware of what kind of place Peshawar was, seeing it on the news quite a bit during the Afghan war with the Taliban.  God was certainly protecting us the few days we were there.

A road with elaborately decorated rickshaws
in Islamabad, Pakistan (on the way to Peshawar)

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 1
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 3