Ibex (part I)

While one of our Central Asian companies was hosting a delegation of government ministers from Kyrgyzstan in the USA, my wife prepared a meal for them in our home. The delegation asked for a tour of our home, and one of them asked me about my guns that were visible through a glass on the door of the gun case. He told me that on my next trip to Kyrgyzstan that he would arrange a hunting expedition for me.

 Several months later I was preparing to take a small team to Kyrgyzstan to lead conferences. Our hosts had asked me to pack some hiking boots and a heavy coat. I was going on a hunting trip, but I did not know what I would be hunting. I was just asked to allow four days after the official visit to go on an expedition.

 After finishing our conferences and visits with government officials, I said farewell to my colleagues as they departed for the airport. By this time our hosts had informed me that even though their hunting season was not open, they had arranged for a hunting party to accompany me on a hunt for the Central Asian ibex. 

 The ibex is distinguished by the male's large recurved horns, which are transversely ridged in front. The huge horns arch towards the center of the ibex’s back. A member of the goat family, Central Asian ibex are a majestic species who are in general, the most difficult sub-species to hunt due to the high altitudes and steep mountainsides they inhabit.

 My host’s chauffeur drove Alex, my interpreter, and me deep into the mountains where we rendezvoused with our two guides, an Afghan and a Kyrgyz.

 My first thought when we greeted our guides was not about them, but the small size of the horses that would be our mounts for this treacherous expedition. I asked about their small statured horses, and they assured me that they are very tough and experienced for travel in some of the most rugged mountains found any place in the world.

 Within a few minutes of beginning our trek, I was having trouble with my horse. I had grown up owning and riding horses, so I was no new-by to horseback riding. My horse was just mean and stubborn and was not responding to the bit in his mouth. I complained about the horse to the guides, but they basically did not reply. After wrestling with this creature the first half day, I told the Afghan guide that he should ride my horse for a while and maybe he could straightened him out. He dismounted and said something in Russian under his breath. Alex laughed  and told me that he said something that was very close to our expression “he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” 

 The Afghan guide carried the rifle that I would use on the hunt over his shoulder. He mounted the angry horse and immediately struck the horse’s rear end with a leather crop. The horse responded by bucking him onto the ground! 

 I could not help it. I laughed out loud. As he struggled to his feet, he examined the rifle, and I wondered how the delicate scope could have maintained its setup with the nasty fall. I mentioned that but the Kyrgyz guide said that we were too far into the mountains to resight the scope. Shots fired might frighten away any ibex that might be lurking up ahead of us.

 After the Kyrgyz guide discovered that the saddle girth was pinching the horse’s belly and he made adjustments, we proceeded without another horse incident. By late afternoon we reached our lodging for the night. Some sheep herders had erected a yurt which is basically a round tent made from animal skins. 

We had covered a lot of ground that first day, and we had climbed up into the Tien Chan Mountains to about 10,000 feet. The air became very thin and made it more difficult to breathe. The sun was setting and the colder evening air made me gasp for air as I felt like I was not getting enough air in my lungs.

  Alex informed me that our shepherd hosts were cooking a meal for us, but in the meantime, they had prepared their traditional national drink for us. Having traveled in Central Asia for three years I had heard many tales about “kumis,” which is made from fermented mare’s milk. Oh, joy! How was I going to be able to politely refuse to drink it. All I needed was an upset stomach while riding a horse on mountainsides covered in small rocks that cascaded down the steep slopes as the horse’s hooves plodded through the rocks.

 One of the shepherds was smiling as he came to me with a small container of the kumis. I did not have the heart to refuse their generosity. Long before that day, I had learned how to fake drinking “welcome water” in Burkina Faso. So, I put the cup to my mouth, and I acted like I was swallowing it. That deception is accomplished by swallowing hard enough to make your throat move the skin on your neck. Then I wiped the kumis mustache from my mouth with the back of my hand. Success! The other shepherd host showed steel-clad front teeth as he smiled. After that first “drink” I was able to politely refuse more—to the delight of our two guides who savored the kumis like I would a chocolate malt with extra malt. 

(Ibex Part II—to be continued)

Virgin Walnut Forest

Grass had grown up in the cracks of the abandoned concrete runway where we waited for the Soviet helicopter to pick us up. We were in Bishkek, the newly renamed capital of the former Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic. It was 1991 and the Communist government had just folded.  

On this particular three-week project one of the three guys that I brought with me was Mike Jones, head basketball coach at Mississippi College. He was a gentle giant, and our host, the Minister of Tourism nicknamed him “The Bear.” Mike was a big hit as he put on some basketball clinics in gyms. But, as we waited on the tarmac, Mike had broken into a cold sweat. He was afraid of flying. Granted we had flown for two days to arrive in Central Asia, but the thought of flying in a helicopter terrified him.

On the horizon we saw the Soviet-era troop transport helicopter flying towards us. The only reason Mike boarded the helicopter was that his fear of being left alone exceeded his fear of getting on the helicopter.

One of the pilots stepped out of the chopper to assist us in climbing onboard. We sat down on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the helicopter on one side. As we sat, our knees rubbed up against a fiberglass or plastic tank that contained the aviation fuel. A gruesome thought to be so close to the fuel tank. There was one seat for the pilot and one for the co-pilot, of course, so when the third pilot boarded, he pulled out a piece of wood about five feet long and placed it in between the two pilot’s seats. He took his seat on that piece of wood.

As the twin rotors began to whirl, I yelled to our host, Salavat Isakov, “Why three pilots?” He replied, “Nyet. One pilot and two mechanics.” That did not help my confidence in Soviet aircraft, but I was thankful that Mike was sitting far enough away that he could not hear that exchange.  

After leading a conference in another city where they literally rolled out a red carpet to welcome us, we flew towards the snowcapped Tien Shan mountains. As we climbed above 12,000 feet in the non-pressurized helicopter, I began experiencing shortness of breath and wondered just how high we were going to go. We were skirting very close to some glacial ice, and suddenly we topped out over a ridge, and there appeared a lush valley tucked between two mountain peaks.

As the helicopter began its descent to a clearing, we noticed that all around us were forests like a green carpet. After another red-carpet welcome, we went to a pavilion to have tea.

While drinking our fruit tea and eating cookies, we were told that we were in the middle of a 74,000 acre forest of virgin walnut trees--the largest walnut forest in the world. A walnut tree can live as long as 1,000 years and can reach a diameter of six feet. The locals told us a story about how Alexander the Great’s army took walnuts back to Greece and introduced the walnut in Europe. Whether fact or fiction, it makes for a good story, and after all history records some of Alexander’s ventures into Central Asia.

A businessman who was traveling with me immediately started asking questions about exporting walnut wood. At that time there was a shortage of the pricey walnut wood used in solid wood and veneer furniture production all over the world.

Our hosts presented the challenge of getting the wood out of their small town named Arslanbob. They said that their area was accessible only by one road that was unpaved and impassable from October through April because of snow and ice.

The people in that area did not harvest any of the walnut wood as there was no market for the wood. They only gathered walnuts from the trees that were the most accessible each fall and that provided income for many of the 16,000 residents who were mostly of Uzbek descent.

After our visit to the walnut forest, we flew back towards the capital city, stopping for a visit at the second largest saltwater lake (behind the Caspian Sea) in the world. Lake Issyk Kul is fed by glaciers but it never freezes because of the lake’s salinity which is estimated to be 0.6%. Its average depth is 280 feet.

The Soviet government had used this enormous lake for testing naval vessels, so no foreigners had visited the lake since the beginning of Communist rule in Central Asia. Our hosts were three Ministers of the Soviet-led Kyrgyz government, and they told us that we were the first westerners to visit this area in three generations.

 The lake area is also home to a number of thermal mineral radon springs. Because of its high mineral content the water is not drinkable, but serves as treatment for various illnesses. There were many health resorts along the shore of this immense lake, so our hosts treated us to a mineral bath and sauna.

Russians, as well as Central Asians, love saunas. For them a sauna is a healing cultural experience for your mind and body. The Lake Issyk Kul sauna was my first experience in a sauna in Central Asia, and it still ranks above all others. I have been in saunas in many different countries, but none of those experiences compares to the ritual and culture surrounding a Russian/Central Asian sauna.

Wonder what it would cost to build one in my backyard?!

Red Carpet

One of the two companies that I had started in 1990 for working in Central Asia was called International Business Partners (IBP). We were inviting marketplace professionals to go to Kyrgyzstan and teach the principles of free market enterprise.

Our first contacts in Central Asia were with government leaders at the highest level. IBP at first hosted government ministers from Kyrgyzstan in the USA. They flew into Dulles, and we arranged meetings with US government officials including Senators and Congressmen and other dignitaries. They toured businesses and met with governors, mayors and other officials in Atlanta, Charlotte and Jackson, Mississippi. In turn, the Kyrgyz government hosted small groups from IBP, and we led conferences on free market enterprise for these government leaders at first because they were unsure what we were going to teach. After one session they realized the benefit of this instruction and selected a wider array of citizens to participate.

Most people in Kyrgyzstan did not even know the Russian word for profit when we started teaching these principles, so we had to use some very simple material. We chose Junior Achievement material. That’s right—we taught Communist government leaders the principles of free market enterprise using high school curricula. It worked!

The teams that we brought to Kyrgyzstan were given very rare privileges as we were among the first westerns to have such a close relationship with government officials. Communism had not fallen yet, and westerners and oil companies had not arrived. We were asked to go to other parts of the country to lead conferences, and everywhere we went, they literally rolled out a red carpet to welcome us. We traveled by car and by helicopter, but no matter where we went we were treated as royalty.

Central Asians had been isolated from the world for 70 years since the beginning of Stalin’s iron fist dictatorship. They were hungry for change and Americans coming to their town was a big event.

In one of our early visits the very first Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Nasirdin Isanov, entertained us in his office. A month after our visit he was killed in an auto accident in the outskirts of Bishkek. The Prime Minister had presented me with a Kyrgyzstan chess set. Today, I still have not unwrapped the individual chess pieces from their brown waxed paper wrappings.

I ask myself, “After 32 years, why have you not unwrapped the chess pieces?” My first response is that I received several Central Asian chess sets as gifts and this one is more special to me. Another response would be that I am saving this special chess set to talk about with my grandchildren. One third of our grandchildren are young adults now, so I missed my chance with them, and other younger grandchildren want to play chess, not talk about the origin of the set.

OK, so I guess I will just keep my chess set intact with the original wrappings and let my kids determine what to do with it after I have gone on to glory.

Mississippi Sayings

Living in northwest Georgia is a lot like living in rural north Mississippi where I grew up. The climate is relatively the same. The people here also talk as slow as “the coming of Chrissmas.”  There are more pickups than cars. They call mobile homes trailers. The rural hillsides are covered in kudzu. And on and on.

People seem to talk faster here, but this is coming from a Mississippi boy who has lived a lot of years in other countries. I am told that people talk more slowly in southern Georgia, but I don’t care to explore that part of the state because I am not sure about people who don’t know how to pronounce the word “pecan”—that delicious southern nut that graces so many desserts. After all, who would want to be close to anyone who calls a pecan a “pee-can.” Doesn’t sound very appetizing to me!

I have also found that both regions share some of the same non-standard language. But there are still quite a few colloquialisms that I have not heard in the peach state. My apologies to Georgians who also claim these Mississippi idioms.

When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I heard  one of my friends described this way: “That boy is as ugly as homemade sin.” Pore boy! I did not understand the meaning of homemade sin—still don’t!—but I just knew that the little bugga was not a handsome dude.

We almost never use the letter “g” at the end of words. I love bread puddin’. Cheryl’s cookin’ makes you good lookin’. 

What you fixin’ for suppah? I reckon I’m fixin’ to put on a pot of peas. Good ‘cause I need  sumpn to eat. Well, go get a piece of loaf bread to hold you over.

Come here and give me some sugah. Heavens to Betsy. Dear Gussie. Good night Miss Agnes. Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise. Over yonder. Runnin’ around like a chicken with its head cut off. Off like a herd of turtles.

If someone is being “uppity," they are acting “too big for their britches.” “She thinks she’s so highfalutin’.”  That’s a pejorative term in the South and a huge put down on someone who’s trying to be extremely fancy when everyone knows she’s not. If a woman hears you describing her as uppity, back away because she will become madder than a wet hen, and she will shout, “Hush yo mouth.”

Bless her heart-- When a Southerner hears this expression, she knows what’s coming next…and it’s not going to be nice, and she will probably have a hissy fit. For example, “Bless her heart, she could make a preacher cuss.” We use the “bless her heart” phrase to excuse what comes out of our sassy Southern mouths.

Crazy as a Betsy bug. Chunk it to me. Slow as molasses. By the way, blackstrap molasses is my favorite. (Special treat: Try it on pimento cheese heated on top of a piece of cornbread.) Yummy!

Know what a thingamajig is? Of course, you do. It is another word for a whatchamacallit.

You rurnt your pants. You got grass stains all over them. You rurnt these potatoes. They taste scorched.

You can’t beat that with a stick. Shucks or shuckins.

This one is for my mother. She is 93 years old. I call her every day, and when she is ready to terminate our conversation, she will say, “Well let me let you go.” That’s her way of saying, “Larry, I am tired of talking to you and I have other things to do.” I could feel like she has treated me like a red-headed stepchild, but aw shucks, hold your horses, I know she loves me ‘cause she taught me to eat grits with sugar sprinkled over them.

I don’t remember ever hearing a cuss word from my mother. However, she has a few of her own expletives such as I swunnie (for I swear) or “Well I be Sam Hill”. Speaking of my mother, when we talk each day the topic of weather always comes up.  It’s comin’ up a cloud. It’s fairin’ off. It’s rainin’ cats and dogs. I love you mom a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.

As I write about these fun pearls of wisdom, I am sitting at my desk eating some nabs and drinking a coke. Nabs? You know those Ritz peanut butter and crackers. I feel compelled to explain this one: the National Biscuit Company came out with a nickel package of peanut butter and crackers about 90 years ago and they were nicknamed “nabs.” People from the north probably do not remember this so they laugh at us Southerners calling them by their proper name—nabs.

That brings back some fond memories. As a youngster, when I had a dime, I would buy a bottle of coke and a package of Tom’s Toasted Peanuts. Pour those goobers into the coke and watch it foam. Fine dining! Makes me hungry just thinking about that snack.  

I used the word cattywampus so much as a child that I blame that word on my CDO condition. CDO, by the way, is not a Southern term, but it is an acronym for OCD—in its proper alphabetical order!

Well, I declare, I am plumb wore out trying to think of more southern sound bites.

Hold your horses. I have one more thing to say: For you northerners who try to imitate southern people—don’t go there. That is a universal Southern dislike, and we can always spot those movie and TV actors who think they are slicker than a slop jar and try to speak Southern.

This has been fun for me and I hope that it has left you grinnin’ like a possum!

Know Your Audience

I am preparing to speak to some business people in West Africa next month and reflecting on the blessings that I have had in leading conferences in 80+ countries over the years. These privileges have had much more to do with God’s grace and me being in the right place at the right time than with my intelligence or experience.

For sure I have had some challenging locations, topics, and audiences. Through the years family, friends,  and colleagues have enjoyed stories about some of the more exotic audiences and places where I have led conferences. Here are a few examples: teaching young leaders at a military camp just outside Khartoum; teaching North Koreans who had escaped their country to learn more about Jesus so they could sneak back into their country to tell others; teaching the principles of servant leadership to the staff of a wild game preserve in Zimbabwe; leading sessions for young adults on the Isle of Man; teaching how to lead teams to business executives at the World Trade Center in Bogota; and teaching community transformation to young adult leaders in Stellenbosch, South Africa.  

I have been blessed to work with some amazing people who have taught me so much. Three mentors who have all now gone to heaven were so influential in my life as each of them spoke into my life for more than forty years. Some of the teams that I have been privileged to lead have been called “the dream team,” not because of me, but because of the phenomenal talents of those with whom I worked. Having people on a team that I led who were smarter than me never bothered me. I love working with team members who challenge me to grow, and I love it when they contest something that I have said or an action that I have undertaken.

The Lord began early in my life preparing me for my career. Some adult leaders in my church when I was 11 years old helped me get over my fear of getting up in front of people. Singing in a touring college choir strengthened my abilities to perform in front of an audience. Leading music at Central Baptist Church in Little Yazoo, Mississippi while in college built my confidence to do something that I was not fully trained to do. Falling in love with Cheryl during college was the biggest boost to my self-confidence as she was not only my biggest critic when I spoke or sang, but she was also my biggest fan.

Early in my career, I was invited to speak for the 1979 Royal Ambassador Congress in the coliseum at Mississippi College. I was confident in my own abilities and I knew that I could handle the audience who would be attending the meeting, so I did not ask if anyone else was going to be on program.

As I walked into the coliseum, I was overwhelmed by the number of little BOYS, yes, kids mostly in the 6–11-year-old range. As the boys filed into the coliseum, I realized how rambunctious they were and how difficult it was going to be to get and keep their attention.  As I sat down, I was squirming like the little boys. Someone came to greet me and give me a program. A quick look over the program, and I immediately started sweating—you know the kind of nervous sweat you get when you are about to do something that you are not sure you are going to survive.

Preceding me as speakers were John Stroud, an all-SEC basketball player at Ole Miss and Bunny Martin, the Yo-Yo champion of the world. It was at that moment that I bowed my head and prayed—not for John and Bunny, but for me.

The realization that I did not really know my audience, and I was not well prepared hit me like a ton of bricks. So, I prayed. In that short prayer as I mostly listened to God speaking to my heart. He did a number on me in those 3 minutes. Guilt swept over my mind and heart like soft butter over warm bread. I did not spend enough time preparing to address these boys. I had prepared to use one of my standard missionary talks, but the Lord compelled me to leave my notes in my chair and just speak from my heart.

The boys sat on the edge of their seats when John Stroud was talking about playing collegiate basketball, and then they were spellbound when Bunny Martin started talking and doing yo-yo tricks at the same time. When I got up to speak, the boys settled back into their seats to see what this old missionary was going to say. I started sharing stories about living in West Africa, and surprisingly, I kept telling stories until my time was up. Once I forgot about who spoke before me and concentrated on doing what only I was able to do, I loved the experience.

The Lord taught me a lot about communicating to audiences on that day. One lesson I learned was to know my audience and to make special preparations for that audience. Though the years I may have spoken on the same topic, but I have adapted that topic dozens of times to fit the audience.

I learned that the best way to capture hearts is to tell stories. People don’t remember much of what you have to say not matter how good you think you are, but they can latch onto stories especially when they are about something that you have experienced.

Finally, a huge lesson learned was to be authentic. Be who God created you to be. One day I will stand before God, and He will ask, “Larry, why were you not more like Larry instead of trying to be like someone else?”

Planned Giving

When you read the title of this blog post, you might have thought I was writing about what you plan to leave in your estate, right? Wrong! Conventionally, those two words are used together almost exclusively in determining who gets what when you die.

At the close of the year, Cheryl and I were talking about our contributions during the year, and she reminded me that we had not given to Send Relief. I looked at a file I have in Evernote and realized that not only had we not given to Send Relief, but there were two other ministries that we had not given to during the year.

In this file I can look back at previous years to see what we gave to a particular organization, and then we determine each year if we will continue to give to that nonprofit. Then we decide how much we will give. The system has worked well in the past, but I had not been consistent with our “planned giving.”

The name of the file is “Stewardship.” Such a great word, but one that is rarely used today. Most people could not give a definition of the word, but many would say something like this: “It has something to do with money.” Oh, but it is about much more than just money, but that is another topic for another day.

Planning is important, but giving spontaneously can also be a good thing. The Lord brings things and people to our minds because he wants us to act—to pray for them, to help them with a need, to give to a Christian ministry, to help with a special emphasis at our church, or to help a needy person or family.

If we give spontaneously, it should not be haphazard. Second Corinthians 9:7 states, “Each one of you should give just as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver.” The fact that we make our decision from the heart suggests that our gift should be carefully and prayerfully planned.

The way we steward our resources should be planned and intentional. First Corinthians 16:1-2 says, “Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. Paul taught that every time the church gathered, they should set aside money to give. We should follow Paul’s teaching and reserve money to give according to our income.

I have talked about setting aside money for ministries and urgent needs of others, but giving to our local church is primary in planned giving. What I give to nonprofit ministries and people in need must be above and beyond my regular giving to my church.

It is not a question of whether I should give to a world catastrophe, support an orphanage in a developing country, help a struggling family or give to my church. All of those are worthy causes, but my first gifts should go to my church. God ordained the church in establishing Jesus Christ as the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), but no ministry that I support was ordained by God.

It is good to include in your planned giving gifts to ministries that operate outside the structure of your local church; however, this giving should not substitute our giving to our local church. Giving to parachurch organizations should be above and beyond.

The Lord commands our giving to be decided in the heart, so our gifts need to be prayerfully inspired and wisely planned.

Expectations

For the past 46 years we have traveled to so many places in the world that it takes a lot to impress us. I am not intentionally being snobby about this, but I have seen so many museums and churches/cathedrals/mosques/abbeys that I really don’t like to visit them anymore. 

There are some cities/mountains/beaches/ attractions/historical sites which have set our standards so high that we have become critical—OK, and a bit snobby, I admit. 

 This past week we have been on vacation in Curaçao, We didn’t know anyone who had traveled there, but after considering St. Lucia, Belize and Curaçao we chose Curaçao. It is a small island country in the Dutch Antilles with a population of 150,000, so we thought we could get away from a lot of people for a few days and enjoy the warm weather. What we did not know is that two to three cruise ships per day drop anchor in Willemstad so their passengers can spend the day in Curaçao! So much for getting away from a lot of people. 

 We rented a car for a couple days and saw some beautiful beaches. Most people would think we are crazy as we did not even get into the ocean. Neither Cheryl nor I like sand. We like to walk on the beach but getting into the ocean is something we don’t usually do. We have lived in coastal cities in the USA and West Africa and in each of the three different places we lived sand was ever present in our vehicles, our houses and I am sure in our diets. While living at the edge of the Sahara—the largest beach in the world!—we have had our fill of sand. 

 So, it is logical to ask, “Why did you go to a Caribbean island for vacation?” I would say, “To get away from the cold weather.” All our lives Cheryl has been the cold natured one in our family. Now it’s me. In the winter I wear a fleece vest around the house each day and bundle up when I go outside. 

 The weather this past week has been ideal—highs in the 82-85 range and lows in the 74-78 range. If it rains, it is light and only for a few minutes. I don’t remember sweating at all as the wind was always blowing. 

 I had purchased new snorkeling equipment as it had been several years since I had the opportunity to go snorkeling. Each day Cheryl asked me if I was going snorkeling. We visited some movie quality beaches on the island, but we mainly looked at the beautiful landscape and watched people sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, or cliff diving. I finally told her that since I had been snorkeling in some of the best locations in the world, that my expectations were high. How could Curaçao snorkeling compare to Cayman Islands, the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia or Sharm el Sheikh located at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea? 

 Sharm el Sheikh is definitively my all-time favorite. The beautiful coral reefs dropped off suddenly into a bottomless depth that was absolutely loaded with fish and other sea creatures in brilliant colors and in all sizes. It was like swimming in the world’s largest aquarium. 

 So, when one of our Curaçao resort friends from Switzerland told me about her snorkeling experience, I lost all interest. She was so animated while telling me what fun she had, and I asked her what did you see. She replied, “I saw a fish!” I no longer had any desire to snorkel in Curaçao. 

 All of us have had experiences when our expectations have not been met. Eating in a restaurant that has been advertised as “one of the best…” and your meal tasted like a warmed-over Lean Cuisine, or your favorite college football team is built up to be a top 10 competitor but finishes the year at 8 and 5, or one of your family members lets you down. 

 Of all the expectations that turned out to be duds, the ones that I hate the most are those that disappointed God.  I build myself up to be more like Him and then I let Him down. I promise to be more faithful with my quiet time and I get consumed in something that seemed important, but in the light of eternity, it was actually trite. 

 “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” This quote is from William Carey, founder of the English Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, lifelong missionary to India, and known as the “father of the modern missionary movement.” It is not about mediocrity. God expects us to do great things and receive great things from Him. He is only satisfied when we have done our best.  

Khartoum

On a visit to Khartoum, Sudan, two colleagues and I were meeting with two new believers who were from a Muslim background. Our purpose was to talk about a strategy for sharing the Gospel to the 25 million Arab Muslims in northern Sudan.

 We pulled some chairs into a circle under a Neem tree and began getting to know each other. Ahmed and Abdul began to share how God worked in their lives to bring them to Himself.  Ahmed had been having the same dream over and over for nearly three years.  No one had been able to interpret his dreams until one day one of my colleagues sitting with us under the Neem tree met Ahmed, and he was able to tell him about salvation through Jesus Christ. This is what Ahmed had been dreaming about for years, and he quickly accepted Christ.  In turn, Ahmed helped Abdul interpret the dream that he had been having for over a year and Abdul also became a believer.

 As these two Sudanese men sat before us, we asked them to share their ethnic background.  All Sudanese Muslims will say that they are Sudanese Arabs because of the Arabization brought on by Islam.  Ahmed shared that he was from a people group called Baggara –people scattered across Sudan and Chad who were nomadic herders.  Ahmed said that we should have heard of his tribe since they are mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible.  He pointed us to Jeremiah 35 where his tribe, called the Rechabites, is highlighted. Ahmed shared with us how God used many things including that dream to make it possible for him to be one of the Rechabites who fulfill the Lord's promise in Jeremiah 35:19 that at least one of this tribe shall always stand before God.

 After returning to my hotel room I read Jeremiah 35, and I realized the importance of  what Ahmed shared with us.  Throughout the Old Testament God is very patient with the Israelites and their disobedience to Him.  God warns the people of Israel of their unfaithfulness by using other people groups as examples. The Rechabites are one such example of a people who remained faithful to God.  They made a covenant with God that they would live in tents, that they would not consume strong drink, and that they would not settle down and grow crops but they would tend to their animals.  They pledged to obey God and to remain faithful to Him.

 Ahmed later shared with us that he was not the only Rechabite to know God through Jesus Christ as he had led 19 others from his people group to saving faith in Christ.

 As we continued our meetings with Ahmed and Abdul, we began to ask them more questions that would help us develop our strategy for taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to the unreached people groups of the north.

 In the shade of the tree we drew with a stick a rough map of Sudan in the dirt.  We asked Ahmed and Abdul if they knew of other believers in the north, and they said that they knew many.  Then we asked how they knew them, and they replied, “We met them on our trips by motorbike to the towns and villages of the north.” With a stick they drew the Nile River on our dirt map and indicated six towns along the river where they had visited. 

Hot Cold Dip

Our family was on furlough in Vicksburg, Mississippi during the fall of 1984, and I was invited to speak at the inaugural session of the Wyoming Southern Baptist Convention. My good friend, Herschel Wells, was also going to the convention to give a report from the Brotherhood Commission, and he invited me to drive out west with him. I was also going to speak at the Utah-Idaho Baptist Convention’s 25th anniversary, and Herschel was going to set up an exhibit at that convention.

We left Memphis in Herschel’s car and drove through St. Louis and Omaha and cut up to Interstate 90 and drove across South Dakota. The drive to Wyoming was an adventure, but our escapades had only begun. As soon as we crossed the Wyoming-South Dakota state line it started to snow.

Our family was serving in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) at this time, and while living in West Africa I did not even own a long sleeve shirt much less any kind of jacket. I had borrowed some warm clothes for this trip, but I wasn’t prepared for the snow. While I was acclimated to living at the edge of the largest beach in the world (the Sahara Desert), I was not prepared for this wintry weather. But it was beautiful.

Our speaking at the first convention in Casper was uneventful, but just before we left Casper to drive to Jackson Hole, a blizzard began. I had never dreamed of such a snowfall. By the time we arrived in Jackson, Wyoming three feet had accumulated. We had planned on spending a few days in Jackson Hole between the two conventions. Our mutual friend Randy Foster was hosting us. We had known Randy while we were students at Mississippi College, and Randy had provided summer outdoor adventures for high school boys planned and hosted by Herschel. A few years later, Jason and Jeremy were each able to participate in one of these three-week adventures in the wilderness.

The first adventure that Randy had planned for us was a snow mobile trip to a natural hot spring that was supposed to have some kind of healing power. That sounded exciting, but Herschel and I both started getting cold feet when we realized that Randy planned to drop us and the snow mobiles off at the intersection of a highway and a primitive “road” that ran about 5 miles to the hot spring.

Mind you, there was three feet of newly fallen snow on the ground, and when he dropped us off, there were no tracks in the new snow, so we would be blazing a new path. Fortunately, Randy loaned us some warm parkas from his outfitter’s business. The only instructions were that the spring was about 5 miles, but how were we supposed to measure five miles while plowing through three feet of snow?? And, he also added that there were some deep ravines along the path, so be careful. We set a rendezvous time to meet him back at the highway, and we were off.

After a perilous, but fun ride, we arrived and found a bubbling hot spring in a natural rock formation and the only building was a snowbound toilet. We had not prepared to take a dip in the spring, but the steam coming up from the bubbly water was too inviting. We pulled snow away from the door of the toilet and stripped down to our skivvies.  Then we realized that we had to wade through the snow to get to the spring.

 It was freezing, so we quickly ran over the snowy ground and jumped into the hot springs. I must admit that it was refreshing, but when I lifted my head out of the water, I felt like icicles were quickly forming on my head. Ducking my head underwater frequently helped me stay warm all over. 

 At some point in our hot springs dip, we realized that we had to go back over the snowy ground to get to our clothes—and we did not have anything to use to dry off. After dreading that short trip for 30 minutes, we finally got out of the water, and within a few seconds we felt like human icicles. I do not remember how we dried off, but it was done in a matter of seconds as we sought the warmth of our clothes. 

 I do not think that the hot springs had any healing qualities for me, but it was refreshing and invigorating, but I would definitely do it again. 

Sabbath

Most of my friends could probably quote at least seven of the Ten Commandments, and I am sure that a few could quote all ten of them. I am sure that 23.67% of all the people in the USA could quote at least three. Among those that people remember the most are honor your father and mother, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not kill.

One that most people around the world either don’t know or have forgotten is the fourth one: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Growing up there were absolutely no businesses open on Sundays. When I first heard the term “blue law” in reference to Sunday closures of business, I asked what it meant. I do not recall anyone ever having a good response for me, and I later found out that was because there is not a definite explanation for the term. The term dates to the 18th century and historically it has been associated with either Sunday closures of businesses or restricted sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday.

As I became a teenager, we started seeing the first convenience stores and short order cooking places that evolved into the fast-food industry, so we began to see more and more places of business open on Sunday.

By the time we moved overseas for the first time, the proliferation of fast-food restaurants that were open on Sundays forced other restaurants to open also. Then, the big box stores open on Sundays became numerous and discount stores and grocery stores followed suit.

As I was growing up in rural Mississippi, my grandparents and parents put a fear in me that made me emphatically obey some “rules” about what not to do on Sundays. My grandparents thought it was a sin to play cards on Sunday, so I firmly believed that dreadful things would happen to me if I played any kind of game that included cards. Likewise, I would never mention going to the movies on the holy day—I wish that I had been smart enough to ask, “Are Monday through Saturday not holy days?” That would have put me in a conundrum.   Going to the movies on a Sunday—that was a sin!

But the capital sin was going fishing on Sunday. I never understood this one. My elders would drive into me that we were supposed to relax and rest on Sunday. What better way to relax than to throw a baited hook into the pond and bring up a two-pound catfish!?!

This one buffaloed me: it was acceptable to pick blackberries or shell butterbeans or pull corn for the freezer, but pulling weeds from the garden or planting new seed in the garden on Sunday—those were definite no-nos.

In my quiet time I am reading in Mark, and this past week I read chapter 2 verse 27: “Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’” (NASB). The New Living Translation says, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.’”

The purpose of the Sabbath is to benefit man. The true welfare of mankind must not be opposed by rules about what you can and cannot do on Sunday.

The Sabbath was created with man in mind—not for his harm, but for his benefit. On the Sabbath, God intends for men to worship Him both quietly and publicly. He also wanted man to take a break from his work. Other taboos for the Sabbath that are different from taboos for any other day are not described in the Bible.

In summary, lest one of my colleagues persecutes me for sinning in writing about the Sabbath, I would like to add that the Sabbath was created to be a blessing for man, to keep him healthy, to make him happy, and to render him holy. Jesus is teaching us that the Sabbath was made to be a blessing for us, but the plethora of non-biblical rules of the Pharisees had turned the day into a burden.

Today Sundays afford man the opportunity to worship God, to rest and to attend to spiritual needs.

Well, I have to close this epistle as I have my second meeting at the church today—it is Sunday!

Behavior

When we sold our farm and moved to the city, the only animals that we kept were our Great Pyrenees, Cloud, and our yard cat, Gus. Contrary to popular beliefs about “You can’t move an outside cat,” Gus made the move with no problems. However, Cloud, who had been a part of our family for nine years was very unhappy.

All her life Cloud had lived in the pasture with our livestock, so moving to the city and being confined to a small yard did not make her happy. We constructed a six-foot privacy fence because Cloud could easily jump a four-foot fence. Since she could not jump the fence, she started digging under the fence, so I installed an electric wire around the bottom of the fence. That stopped her from digging, but in her own way, Cloud was very expressive in letting me know that she was unhappy. She started losing weight and moping around.

The people who bought our farm wanted us to leave Cloud on the farm when we moved, so we made the tough decision to make us unhappy and make Cloud happy. We took her home, and the new owners graciously gave us visiting rights. Cloud is content to be back in familiar surroundings.  

Recently, I was telling my dental hygienist, Brandi, about having to return Cloud to the farm. Brandi has cleaned our teeth for 15 years, so she has learned a lot about our family, and I, in turn, have learned a lot about her family—since she has her fingers in my mouth for a large portion of my visit to the dentist’s office.

Brandi shared a story about their dog, Zeus. Their young son often rides his small ATV on their farm and does not always tell his parents where he will be riding. They installed an underground “fence” around their house so Zeus will not run away. They discovered that when their son took off on the ATV that Zeus would lie down and patiently wait in the nearest corner of the hidden wire in the direction that his master had driven away.

When we lived in the bush of Burkina Faso, we constructed dozens of water catchments among nearby villages to retain rainfall during the short 14-week rainy season. Villagers used the water for their livestock and to make mud blocks for construction of huts, walls, and granaries. One of these was for the village next to our home. The soil was not good for retaining water, so I added some Bentonite that I had imported from the USA to help seal the muddy bottom of the pond.

Then I put a solar electric wire around the pond. The single wire was about 10 inches off the ground. I assigned one of the orphan boys that we took care of to herd our pigs out to the pond each morning and drive them back to the pig pen in the late afternoon. The pointed toes of the pigs plus the fact that they would wallow around in the mud would all help to compact the sealant into the mud and help seal the bottom of the pond. A week or so after I asked him to do this, I walked over the pond and noticed that the wire was lying on the ground. I was angry because I wanted the pigs to be confined to the bottom of the pond, and the solar electric wire would not produce any shock for the pigs touching it if it was lying on the ground.

I confronted the boy charged with herding the pigs. After a scolding for not telling me about the wire on the ground, the young man told me that the pigs did not need the fence anymore because after a few of them had their noses shocked, not a one of them would ever get close to the wire fence. They learned that they did not want to go near that wire from watching other pigs squeal after touching it.

The next day I observed him herding the pigs, but he did not have to do any herding. He opened the gate, and the pigs immediately ran out of their pen and straight to the pond and did their work. The young man did not bother to hook the wire that served as the gate for the wire fence. In the afternoon he merely walked down to the pigs and led them out the ‘”gate” and they ran back into the pen.

A few days later, I needed the solar charger and wire for another project, so I removed the fence. The pigs’ behavior did not change, and they enthusiastically ran each day and stayed cool in the mud without ever running away.

Like us humans, an animal’s behavior can be learned from choices, repetition, developing habits and watching what others do. Our lives reflect the choices that we make and who we imitate. In our culture today there is much evil and so many inexplicable behaviors.

We are divine creatures, but we have severe flaws. We descend into horrible depths yet ascend to exalted heights. We are imbued with virtues such as integrity and compassion but also with vices like greed, cheating, and violence.

Scientists spend a lot of resources researching human behavior to explain why people do what they do. They should spend more time studying the Bible for good and evil are not new to our culture today. The Lord has given us sufficient guidance through His words such as these:

“It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” Titus 2:12

“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

By the way, the pigs successfully sealed the bottom of that pond, and the next rainy season it filled with water!

Cold

“Baby, it’s cold outside…” Ever wonder how that song got to be a Christmas song? It is nothing about Christmastime, but it plays several times a day on the Sirius XM station that I listen to. Sure there are other songs regularly played that don’t belong to the Christmas holidays, but this one is on my mind as a severe cold front has moved across our nation with unseasonable low temperatures.

My outside camera thermometers registered 7 degrees Fahrenheit early this Christmas Eve. We are not accustomed to these low teens. As I sit in my warm home this Christmas Eve, I am thinking of the coldest experiences in my life. There are many and most of them were in other countries, but I will share three of those encounters.

A one-party Communist country since 1946, Albanians had overthrown the government and formed a constitutional republic in 1991. Albanians were misled by their dictator and his government to believe that America and its allies were going to invade the country, so they were forced to spend their resources on building hundreds of thousands of these igloo-shaped bunkers where they could flee when the invasion came. They also did some other weird invasion preparations like mounting spears pointing upwards on fence posts to kill the invading paratroopers.

So, my colleague and friend, Dan Panter, and I were in Tirana, Albania visiting with our missionary colleagues in February 1996. Our missionary hosts let us sleep in one of their bedrooms. It was a bedroom for the children furnished with a bunk bed. The only heat that the host family had was one portable gas heater, and they had that heater in the parents’ bedroom where the children slept on the floor. They apologized for the lack of heat for us, but they gave us extra blankets. Well, that was kind of them, but the blankets proved to be insufficient for us to stay warm.

We kept all our clothes on and tried to go to sleep, but the strong cold wind made the windowpanes rattle. Yes, they actually were moving because there was no calking around the windowpanes. The panes were held in place with small tacks, so the wind came around the panes and made a constant draft blowing across our very cold bodies. I have no idea what the outside temperature was, but I knew that the outside temperature was the same as the inside, and I was so cold I could not sleep.

Dan and I talked most of the night to make sure that the other was OK. He said to me that I should not be as cold as he was because I had the upper bunk bed, but I rebutted that was impossible because there was no heat in the room to rise.

On another very cold night, I was visiting colleagues in Ajloun, Jordan located in the hills about 50 miles northwest of the capital, Amman. My lodging for two nights was in a 100-year-old house with one-meter-thick mud brick walls. It was frigid outside, and the thick mud walls held the cold temperature well, so the house felt like a walk-in cooler. The only source of heat was a heater made from a 55-gallon drum turned sideways on a metal stand. Inside the drum diesel fuel slowly dripped into a small metal container with a wick.

My host struck a match and lit the diesel-soaked wick and wished me a good night. It was not! Fully clothed, I sat as close to the “heater” as I could and tried to sleep while listening to the drips of diesel fuel fall into the small container. It was certain that this heater would never be approved for use in any situation in the western world.

I had the proverbial “One-way Ticket to Siberia” while flying from Alma Atta, Kazakhstan to Novosibirsk in the winter of 1992. Aeroflot would not let me purchase a round trip ticket, but they assured me that I would have no problem securing a return ticket. Sounded ominous, but I took the risk and began my journey. We had a layover in Omsk, and our takeoff was delayed by a blizzard. We were allowed to deplane, and I took the opportunity to go into the airport to get some food and hot tea. There was no jetway connecting the plane with the terminal, so I had to descend the stairs and walk through the blinding snow to the terminal.

It was warm inside the terminal, and I enjoyed the tea, but I still don’t know what was in my sandwich. I stepped outside one of the front doors of the terminal to get a photo of the piling snow, and the door locked behind me. I walked around trying to get back in the terminal, but every door was locked, and there were no other people around. Finally, I banged on the door so much that a soldier came and opened the door. Of course, he spoke no English, so he slammed the door shut.

I was stuck outside the small terminal in a frigid snowstorm for over two hours until someone came to the door who understood some English. He told me that the soldier said that I did not have a boarding pass to show to him, so he would not let me in. I realized that I had left my boarding pass in my carry-on bag on the plane. I begged him to let me in, and he replied in broken English, “Follow lead,” which I interpreted to mean that they were only following orders. Once again, the door was slammed, and I was in the snowstorm.

Eventually, another passenger recognized me staring through the glass door and came with the agent who allowed me inside. The warmth of the terminal felt so good, and I was so grateful not to miss my plane. And, oh yeah, I was able to buy the return ticket from Siberia.

Spitting

Have you ever seen a parent fussing at their child for spitting? Of course, we all have witnessed this disciplinary moment. Interesting to note that children usually spit because they have seen an adult discharging excess saliva from their mouth. Isn’t it great how children imitate adults around them!

Once while living in Burkina Faso, I corrected one of our sons about spitting. Later, my quiet reserved patient wife softly said to me that if I would quit spitting then the boys would probably not imitate me. It was a “gotcha” moment as I did not even realize that I had been spitting in front of people.

I grew up in a time and culture when it seemed to me that only poor people chewed tobacco and dipped snuff. When I was a child it was fun to watch my uncles spitting tobacco juice while carrying on a conversation. They would sit on the front porch with a tin can on the floor between them, and they rarely missed spitting into that small can. They had this special way of spitting that I tried hard to imitate but without success because I never put that nasty stuff in my mouth

These same uncles taught me how to roll cigarettes for them. I became so adept at rolling their cigarettes that when we were sitting around on the porch, they would give me their tin of Prince Albert tobacco and cigarette paper that they carried in their pocket and tell others gathered on the porch that I rolled the cigarettes better than they did.

We were visiting the state fair in Mississippi with my brother. He ventured off with Jason and Jeremy who were 10 and 11 years old at that time. After a while they reunited with the rest of our family, and suddenly both boys became sick to their stomachs. They hurried to the restrooms where they both threw up. My brother then disclosed that some guys were giving away samples of chewing tobacco, and he started chewing one of the samples. Both boys told him that they wanted to try it, so my brother obliged them and instructed them on how to chew tobacco. He reported that they seemed to be doing a good job, but what he did not know is that they must have swallowed some of the tobacco juice. I believe that neither of the boys ever tried a tobacco product again.

Today there is an acceptable culture of farmers and cowboys and “wannabees” who chew and dip and carry around an emptied soda bottle to spit into. Late in 2019 I was diagnosed with submandibular salivary gland cancer which is often associated with the prolonged use of smokeless tobacco, but I have never chewed or dipped. During my treatments for the cancer, I met many men who had many different types of oral cancer from the habitual use of smokeless tobacco. Many of them expressed to me their regret of ever getting started chewing or dipping.

Our family went on our own "safari” in a small game park in southeastern Burkina Faso. We were particularly searching for the rarer red cape buffalo who inhabit areas in West and Central Africa. Many say that the cape buffalo is the most dangerous wild animal as they are so unpredictable. We were successful at finding both the regular cape buffalo and the red ones also. We were, however, unlucky in encountering a spitting cobra.

As we were driving our Toyota Land Cruiser (not the luxurious type we have in the USA, but the rugged type built for developing countries) down a dirt path one of the boys spotted a spitting cobra right beside our vehicle. I yelled, “Roll up the windows!” The spitting cobra can spit venom through tiny holes in its fangs up to 10-12 feet and can do that repeatedly for 30-40 times.

We safely escaped the attack of the spitting cobra, but today there is a more venomous threat in that region of Burkina Faso as it is overrun with Islamic militant groups who are pillaging and killing poor villagers and driving survivors from their meager mud huts and making them IDPs. IDP stands for “Internally Displaced Person”—someone who has been driven from their home but has remained in the boundaries of their country.

The number of IDPs is double that of the 26 million refugees. Most people have heard of refugees, but few understand that the IDPs suffer the same as the refugees who have been driven from their country of residence.

Pray for the 55 million Internally Displaced People who live in temporary shelters all over the world. They have been herded like livestock because of political conflict, intense weather conditions, earthquakes, or war.

Trotlines

There are dozens of species of catfish in the south. They are not defined by their whiskers, but by the shape of their head and scaleless body. The dorsal and pectoral fins have hard spines that can be locked into place if the fish is scared or in a defensive or aggressive mode. The catfish can secrete venom through the spines. I have had many wicked injuries to my hands from these barbs. Every time you take a catfish off a hook, there is a danger that you will get a nasty stick from one of those spines.

There is an art to successfully catching catfish on trotlines. A trotline is a fishing line strung across or alongside a river, stream, lake, or bayou with dangling hooks at various intervals. In the South they are used mostly for catfishing. The hooks are baited and usually left overnight. The line is held in place by tying it off on a tree limb and by attaching heavy weights to the line.

John Hill, my old “River Rat” mentor, taught me to catch the big ones with a trotline. Nothing he did was traditional or expensive or impractical, so it was the same with catching catfish. What better person to teach me how to use a trotline than Mr. Hill who grew up on a boat anchored in the Mississippi River just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The French have a good word to describe John Hill: “bricoleur.” The short definition of a “bricoleur” is a handyman, but the longer explanation is that it is someone who can take whatever is available and make something useful out of it. Mr. Hill’s catfishing techniques would not impress many fishermen today, but he got the job done, and we caught some whoppers. The Mississippi River and its tributaries in the Louisiana and Mississippi Delta is the home of many species of catfish, but the three most common ones are channel, blue and flathead. The flathead has a yellow coloring on its head, and it really does not taste very good, so it was undesirable for us. The flathead could weigh up to 140-pound and the channel could weigh up to 40-pound, but the biggest we caught were no more than 30 pounds. The average was about 8-pound--good eating size.

Today, many trotliners use circle hooks that are easier to catch the catfish. The hook is not actually a circle, but it is more of a circular shape than a traditional hook.  But those circle hooks were not available to us 45 years ago, so we used a straight-shanked hook. When hooks became dull, we would toss them because the catfish has a thick bony mouth, and to successfully catch the catfish, it had to set the hook through that bony mouth. If the catfish only set the hook in the sides of the mouth, it would definitely tear away before we arrived.

The art was not only in choosing the right hooks, but in the line used—we preferred a twisted nylon twine—and how to weigh down the lines. Mr. Hill had a barrel full of window weights from the 1930s construction era and they worked perfectly. How much slack to leave in the line was crucial to whether you were able to keep a fish on the hook once the hook was set. One of the most difficult things to master was how to tie the drop lines to the trotline—until Mr. Hill showed me how to do it. The simple knot he showed me how to make was so effortless that it was hard to believe that it would work. But it did. This is a very useful knot, and if it has a name I have never seen or heard of it.

Using the right bait was essential to catching catfish. Crawdads were the best, but they were not always in season. For the most elite readers that is crawfish, and for the even more refined these are defined as small freshwater decapod crustaceans that resemble a lobster. We would go to a swamp or marsh or a bayou, slough or backwater and capture crawdads with a drag net. The second-best bait was cut bait from Shad caught with the same net in shallow back water or bayous. Shad have a peculiar odor that attract catfish.

After Mr. Hill passed away, I was fortunate to have another trotlining partner. Dr. Sam Gore, an internationally celebrated sculptor and Founding Father of the Mississippi College Art Department. Sam grew up catfishing, and he had not set out a trotline in many years, but he had not forgotten his trotlining skills. Unlike the river adventures with Mr. Hill, however, we only ventured to lakes in the central Mississippi area. When I would mention that my catfishing buddy was a sculptor, I would hear things like “I would not have dreamed that someone so refined would know how to catch catfish in the backwoods of Mississippi.” I guess they knew that I wasn’t “refined!”

As that great philosopher Bruce Lee so adequately espoused, “True refinement seeks simplicity.” Sam Gore and John Hill were poles apart in their understanding of cultural ramifications, education, and professionalism, but they were both simple men who in their own way used their talents to glorify God, and enjoy the simple life. I anticipate spending more time with them in eternity.

First Duck Hunt

If I were ever on a deserted island, I would want to be with John Hill. He was the real MacGyver. This man could fix anything, and he could make useful things out of a pile of junk. We know the expression “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Well, when thinking of Mr. Hill I would say, “Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder.” And, Mr. Hill would say, “You look at some of my stuff and call it a pile of junk, but I look at it and think of all the things that I can make with that stuff.”

Someone had thrown away a shotgun that was in a house fire, and Mr. Hill picked it up and took it home. It was an old JC Higgins bolt action 16-gauge shotgun. He refinished all the metal pieces and replaced the wood stock on the gun. I bought that old shotgun from Mr. Hill and still have it today.

The first time I used that 16-guage was on a duck hunt with Mr. Hill. I had never hunted ducks, so I was excited. The Yazoo River was backed up into the farmland because the Mississippi River was at flood stage. We boarded Mr. Hill’s flat-bottomed wooden boat, which he had made himself, of course, and headed to a flooded soybean field. Mr. Hill told me that he would run at high speed into the feeding ducks, and I would shoot ducks as they took flight. It was fun, and I wished that I had an automatic shotgun instead of the bolt action. I could have killed a lot more ducks.

Abruptly, Mr. Hill killed the motor, and he told me to be quiet. After listening intently, he opened the throttle and hurried towards the flooded woods. We were at full speed and running over small trees as if we were either chasing someone or someone was chasing us. I was frightened that we were going to crash into one of those trees.

Again, Mr. Hill suddenly stopped the motor, and we sat idly in the shallow water deep into the woods. Finally, I had an opportunity to talk to him, and I asked, “What’s going on?” He then told me that he thought the game warden was after us. I asked him why and what we had done wrong. It was then that I learned that it was illegal to flush ducks and shoot them from a moving boat. Plus, I found out later that I was supposed to have a duck stamp to legally hunt ducks. I could not believe that I had been breaking the law.

From that point on whenever I went hunting or fishing with Mr. Hill, I made sure that I had all the proper licenses and stamps and that we followed all the regulations.

River Rat

After liquidating all my farm equipment, I had to have some type of recreational vehicle to ride around on friends’ farms. I have a four-wheeler, or some would call it a quad. I can have it loaded on my trailer in 10 minutes, and I am off to the woods. That’s therapy for me as I certainly miss our farm.

I was riding around today, and I started to get off the quad, but I hesitated. I was in some thick weeds, and although snakes are supposed to be inactive during late November, a couple of stories came to my mind as I paused before stepping on the ground. I did not want to step on a snake.

People born and raised on a boat on the Mississippi River or one of its tributaries in the lower Mississippi River Delta were called “river rats” 50 years ago. John Hill was a true river rat. I don’t think he finished Jr. High School, but he was one of the brightest men I have ever known. During the early 1970s he taught me so many useful skills that I have used all my life—plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, welding, and basic mechanics. He also taught me much about hunting and fishing—the kind called “setting out trotlines.” There is an art to catching fish on trotlines, but I will save that for another day.

There were many other skills that I watched Mr. Hill perform such as gun repair and gun fabricating. I wish that we had been able to spend more time together to learn some of these other skills, but our time together was cut short when we left the USA to go work in West Africa. I wished that I could have taken him with me to West Africa because he could fix everything with anything available. He was a genius at repairing things with whatever materials were handy. Today, we discard things when they are broken, but John Hill would have repaired them.

We were hunting deer in the hills north of Vicksburg where the Yazoo River emptied into the Mississippi River. This was before the invention of the four-wheeler, but our party of four were all riding three-wheelers. Those ATVs are all but extinct now since the safer four-wheeler came on the market in 1984. We were in deep woods and the ground cover was thick. I was young and careless, and I did not even look at the ground as I started to step off the three-wheeler. Just before my foot hit the ground there was an explosion under my foot. I looked down to see a rattlesnake right where I was about to place my foot. Mr. Hill had seen the snake and shot and killed it just under my foot.

It scared me so much that I did not know if my pants were clean or not. I thanked Mr. Hill for saving my life, but I also asked him how he knew that he would miss my foot. His response was so typical for him: “I wudn’t aiming at your foot!”

That incident took place nearly 50 years ago, but I can remember it just like it was yesterday. I have many other snake stories, but this was my first snake encounter. Even today when Satan tempts me about something, I think about this event from so long ago, and I imagine shooting Satan before I fall prey to his temptations.

Whatever form Satan works in to tempt you, he is dangerous. Even though God always provides a way to resist and defeat Satan, many people refuse to let God help them. Maybe they need their own “Mr. Hill experience” to remind them how Satan lurks under our feet to bring us down.

By the way, Mr. Hill taught me how to skin that rattlesnake, and then he fried it up, and we ate it at the cabin in the woods.

Sunbeam

I do not remember how often my parents took me to church on Wednesday nights, but my earliest recollection of learning about international missions was in Sunbeams at Calvary Baptist Church in Greenwood, Mississippi. Sunbeams was a missions education ministry for preschoolers that was replaced in the 1970s with Mission Friends.

The theme song for Sunbeams was “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.” The song was composed by Nellie Talbot around 1900, and it has been used by several different programs through the years. Cheryl was also a Sunbeam in her church, and she had to remind me of the tune of the old Sunbeam song.

Miss Sproles was the earliest preschool Sunday School teacher that I remember. She was a tiny woman who was hunched over so much that she could not look up. However, it was not necessary for her to look up while working with preschoolers. We could tell how much she loved us and we all looked up to her.

Today my mother is 92 years old, and she too is hunched over like Miss Sproles was. Although my two brothers and I are making decisions for her now, we still look up to our mother out of respect and love. I am grateful to her for helping to form my life by taking me to Sunbeams. I am also grateful that my mother and father instilled in me as a preschooler certain stimuli and responses that have shaped my life: you get ready to eat, you thank God for your food; you go to bed you pray; it is Sunday so we go to church; you get an allowance you give an offering at church.

I am concerned that many parents today don’t realize the bad influence that they have on their preschool children. Afterall, they are just little kids, so how can what I do or say influence them ?!? It bothers me how so many preschoolers are exposed to arguments between their parents. Some parents think nothing about using all kinds of foul language in front of their preschoolers, thinking they are so immature that their language will not affect their young children. How wrong they are! Those preschool years are so formidable in our lives, and too many parents don’t realize what a bad influence they are having on their children, and how it will shape the rest of their lives.

All babies are born culture neutral. We shape their future. As parents and grandparents, we have the responsibility to help mold the minds and hearts of our children and grandchildren to help them become all that God intended them to be when He so wonderfully knitted them in the womb.

“Train up a child in the way that he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (ESV). I like the old adage: “The acorn does not fall far from the tree.” Help your children and grandchildren know why you make the choices that you make.

No Values

A group of Chick-fil-A owner/operators were a part of a Christian marketplace professionals’ group in Northwest Arkansas. They were sponsoring an annual luncheon for the broader business community and asked me to be the keynote speaker at the event.

 After asking them what they would like for me to speak on, they said that I could choose any topic related to leadership. At Lifeshape we had been sending teams of Chick-fil-A people all over the world speaking on the principles of servant leadership embodied in the acronym SERVE. The last “E” stood for “Embody the Values,” and that was my topic.  

 I was talking about the fact that everyone has values. Some people have good values, and some people don’t. To illustrate this, I told the following story: a Chicago newspaper published a political cartoon that pictured Rahm Emmanuel, the mayor of Chicago, and Louis Farrakhan standing next to each other, and the mayor was pointing at a Chick-fil-A cow. In the cartoon the mayor said, “We don’t want any of their values.“

 A friend of mine who lives in Chicago called the mayor’s office, and he asked them, “What are the values of the mayor’s office of Chicago?“ The mayor’s office representative replied, “The mayor’s office of Chicago has no values.”

 In my speech to the luncheon group, I went on to say the fact that the mayor’s office said they have no values actually is a value.

 After the luncheon was concluded, I was standing around with some of my Chick-fil-A friends, and we were innocently chatting. I noticed a young man who was outside the circle but intently listening to our conversation. My friends were joking about the response from the mayor’s office representative, and the young man made his way into our circle and said he was with an online news service. He chatted informally with some of my friends, and I did not think anything else about him—until the next day.

 Chick-fil-A communications contacted me the next day with a story headlined “Chick-fil-A Executive Says Chicago Mayor Has No Values.”  I learned that this young reporter from the luncheon had a one-man shop in northwestern Arkansas, but as one knows, anything on the web can go viral—and this article did.

 Regardless of the fact that the reporter fabricated a statement from my story, I was in trouble with Chick-fil-A communications. They did not spank my hand or wash my mouth out with soap. They just made me go back to school.

 Foundation staff had been trained to avoid talking about controversial subjects, but I really did not think that I was out of line—besides, that political cartoon was a great illustration to accompany the point that I was trying to make.

 My reprimand included going back to “school” for a day of sensitivity training by the PR consultants. But I still enjoy telling that story because it so beautifully illustrates that everyone has values.

Chasing Rabbits

There is nothing a beagle likes better than trailing rabbits through briar patches. During two different stretches of living in the USA earlier in our marriage, I raised and trained beagles to hunt rabbits. Certainly, any beagle—yes even one that sleeps at the foot of its owner’s bed—instinctively loves to chase rabbits, but the training part is teaching them not to trail and run deer or other varmints.

I loved to plow through the briars and other thick underbrush right behind the dogs in pursuit of the rabbit. Most people think that the rabbit just runs away from the dogs, but the rabbit is predictable—it will run in a large circle and return to the same spot where the dogs jumped it.

Yesterday at the lunch table my wife shared with kids and grandkids that many times while I have been speaking she “shot” rabbits. As she said this, she extended her hand in the “pistol” pose. When I am speaking, I sometimes have the tendency to go off subject and “chase a rabbit.” If Cheryl is present and catches my eye, then she stealthily points the pistol at me and pulls the trigger. I have enjoyed interrupting my clever remarks with a quick laugh and letting the audience know that Cheryl shot the rabbit I was chasing, so I could return to my topic. That usually gets a good chuckle from the audience.

Two different points from this story: First is to point out the similarities between the rabbit and people in how we run around in circles. When we get in a hurry and have “so much to do,” we often stop to catch our breath and discover that we have been busy about those important “to do” things on our list, but we discover that we have not accomplished much at all. We have seemingly been running around in circles.

I have to interject this story to make my point: Two brothers were at a fair. Their parents had given them some money to spend. One of them was a miser while the other could not spend his money fast enough (amazing parallel to our two sons!). The spender told his brother that he had spent all his money and needed to borrow some money from his brother. The saver brother asked him what he wanted to do with the money, and the spender said that he wanted to ride the merry-go-round one more time. The saver reluctantly gave his brother some money for the ride. The saver waited patiently for the ride to finish. When his brother exited the ride, he said, “Look at you. You spent all you had. You’ve been going round in circles. You got off where you got on, and you ain’t been nowhere yet!” Unfortunately, this is the life story of many people.

Second point: God calls us to specific things to do with our lives. Granted, some of us are called to do the same career for all our lives while others are called to work in several types of jobs during our lives. However, many people change jobs because they are not walking with the Lord and cannot find peace with their vocation. They are chasing rabbits instead of staying focused on what the Lord wants them to do.

“So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.” (2 Peter 1:10 NLT)

Crane Rescue

Pete Cox was a friend to everyone. Like my dad, I talk fast—especially for a Mississippi boy. Sometimes when Pete introduced himself people thought his name was Peacock because he ran the two syllables of his name together.

My earliest memories of Pete were when he worked for Wonder Bread. Many of his customers were either first- or second-generation immigrants including Chinese, Italians, Syrians, and Lebanese. The brother of one of these customers approached Pete about managing a new food vending company called M & F Vending Company. The “M” was for Malouf and the “F” was for Fratesi. Abe Malouf bought out his partner and he was the sole owner when Pete was hired to run the company.

At that time, Pete was the only employee, but in twenty-six years he built the company to four truck routes and other staff that included repairs, stocking, and an onsite kitchen that prepared food for the vending machines.

During those 26 years my dad asked the owner about a retirement plan, but the owner always told him, “Pete, don’t you worry about retirement because I will always take care of you.” Pete trusted Abe Malouf just like he trusted most people. He always looked for the good in everyone. I never knew anyone who did not like my dad. He was a friend to all regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or socio-economic status.

In his 26th year of running the company, the owner announced to Pete that he was selling the company to a large vending company. However, he told Pete not to worry about that because they planned to retain him as manager of the company.

A representative of the company worked alongside Pete, and Pete introduced him to all their customers—mostly factory plant managers and other commercial and professional businesses. After one year the new company fired my dad. Pete was 57 years old, and he still had no retirement program.

Our family was serving as missionaries in Burkina Faso in West Africa in 1984 when my dad became unemployed, and we learned about this shocking news in an international air letter which had taken two weeks to arrive in the village where we lived. As soon as possible, I traveled four hours to the capital city to have a telephone conversation with my dad. I felt so helpless because I was so far away, but I knew that my two brothers who lived nearby would be there for him and my mother.

Not only had my dad lost his job, but my mother ran the kitchen that prepared food for the vending machines, so she also lost her job. Pete was a hustler, so I knew he would soon find another job. But I did not imagine that he would have a problem with depression. He faltered for 18 months while having jobs in a fast-food restaurant, selling automobiles, checking cotton, and trying to sell insurance.

They rented a one-room building on a country road, and my mom opened a small store to help provide food and other necessities. It was a challenging time for my parents. However, they both grew up on small Mississippi farms where they scratched a living from the infertile red clay hills of one of the poorest counties in the poorest state in the USA, but they never had a need that the Lord did not provide for them.

 Ferguson Machinery was one of the plants where Pete had vending machines, and like all his customers, Pete had developed a friendship with the plant manager. The manager called Pete and asked him to come to visit him. During the visit, he offered Pete a job managing their tool crib where all tools were housed and checked out.

Pete worked ten years for Ferguson Machinery, and they were good to him and good for him in restoring his self-respect. Finally, he had a retirement program.

Crane Company, founded in 1855, acquired Ferguson Machinery. Not only did Crane help my parents with the small pension, but they also augmented their income from The Crane Fund to help them in their retirement.

When Pete passed away, Crane continued the retirement income for my mother, and recently The Crane Fund has also helped my legally blind mother with some unusual medical expenses. I am grateful for Richard Teller Crane, the founder, and for his passion for helping widows and children as the Bible has instructed us to do. I am thankful for The Crane Fund’s present leadership who continue this legacy.