What's in a Name?

My grandfather was the 13th child born into his family, and he always told us grandchildren that his parents ran out of names, so they only gave him one name. Often someone would ask him his name and he would tell them, “Howard Cox.” Then they would ask him to state his whole name, and he would reply, “Just Howard Cox.” And that’s exactly how some officials would record his name “Just Howard Cox” because the forms had to be completed and one must have two names to properly do so.

When I was an adolescent, my grandfather taught me that the most important thing about a person’s name is the character that is associated with that name. Today, years after his death, we are reminded of a kind, soft spoken, gentle man who loved the name of Jesus Christ above all other names.

Sitting and chatting or walking in the woods with my grandfather, I learned something as a boy that helped me through those value-forming adolescent years and something that continues to mold my life today: a person who claims the name of Christ in his life as a Christian cannot be involved in questionable activities. Temptations abound for all of us, and we are masterful at convincing our conscience that something we want to do is acceptable.

To my grandfather, decisions were easy when you based them on the scripture. Let everyone who claims the name of the Lord stay away from anything that is questionable.  

Close Call

Having loaded the seven-ton truck with supplies and church building materials in Ouagadougou, we began the four-hour trip back to our home in the bush of eastern Burkina Faso. Dodging donkeys, sheep, potholes big enough to get lost in, and keeping the dump truck on the pavement was a demanding task on any road, but bicycle and foot traffic had worn away the shoulder of the road. One slip of the truck wheels off the pavement to the shoulder 10 inches below, and the heavily laden truck could flip over.

My traveling companion was a 16-year-old villager who had just become a believer a few weeks before, and I was helping him understand that the trust he formerly had in his fetishes was based on fear, but the trust he now had in Christ is based on love.

As we talked, dark clouds formed to the north of us, and a huge dust storm was racing towards us. We sped ahead to reach a safe place, but the sand started pelting the truck. The storm engulfed us quickly, and when we came abruptly to a halt in the middle of the road, it was so dark we could not see the ground.

The darkness prevailed for several minutes, and then the sandstorm moved on. The dust cleared, and we sat staring out the windshield in amazement. Less than 20 feet from the front bumper of the dump truck was a bush taxi loaded with more than two dozen people.

Realizing how dangerously close we had come to a fatal accident, we stumbled out of the truck as the passengers climbed out of the bush taxi. All of us simultaneously fell to our knees. Some were praying to their idols and some in the name of Mohamed. But my young friend and I were praying with thanksgiving in the name of Jesus. My friend said to me, Those people are praying out of fear, but we are praying out of love.” He said, “My love and trust are in Jesus. He cares for me, so I pray out of love.”

The young believer had learned a valuable truth that most of us take for granted. “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. But, with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries and will pursue his enemies into darkness.” Nahum 1:7.

Kinesiology

After deciding that I was not cut out for majoring in music, I decided to just delay declaring a major. I had started working in the recreation program of a large local church during the second semester of my freshman year. During the summer that I was taking voice lessons from Gerald Claxton, I began working as the youth director of Parkview Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi.

That was the beginning of a 44-year relationship with Dr. Rolfe Dorsey, the pastor of the church I served through the summer of my junior year. Rolfe was my mentor during all those years, and he was largely responsible for many of the leadership principles that I practiced during my career.

During my first two years of college, I took courses in Christian education, speech and drama, and several English classes that were not part of my core curriculum. I took 3 classes that Mrs. P. I. Lipsey taught as she was such a dynamic teacher. She made children’s literature (we called it “Kiddy Lit”) come alive for me. I had the chance to live my college life over again, I would have majored in speech and drama. I just discovered drama too late to declare it a major—and get out of college in four years.

I was working my way through college, and I did not want to delay getting out. I had numerous jobs during college including youth director at the same church for three summers and two years in between those summers; coached YMCA Gra-Y sports teams; and made ice cream at Borden’s (night job); Another big factor was that Cheryl and I decided to get married in the middle of my junior year, so I had to finish in four years.

We were making wedding plans, and at the beginning of my junior year, I had to declare a major and get to work on it so I could finish college. At that time Cheryl and I had already determined that once I finished college, I would enroll in seminary studies. Cheryl was a year ahead of me, so she graduated after we had been married for one semester.

I diligently studied the college catalog looking for the easiest way to finish college—after all, I was going to do graduate studies in Christian education, and it did not matter what I majored in in college. Finally, I found it. I was going to major in Recreation Administration. At that time, a major usually required 30 hours of study in a specific field. I looked at what was included in those 30 hours, and I loved what I saw: 18 hours of course work in the field of recreation administration and the remaining 12 hours could come from a list of courses that would count towards your major. I had already taken 9 hours of courses that were on the list, so that meant that I could take extra loads for the remaining three semesters and finish on time.

Although I have never had the opportunity to use a degree in recreation administration in any of my jobs, I received an excellent education from Mississippi College, and I would not trade my experiences for anything.

A few years ago, I received a letter from the alumni office at Mississippi College to inform me that I had been selected for a Homecoming Award. The Kinesiology Department had selected me to receive their alumnus of the year award.  My first question was “What is the Kinesiology Department?” I had to find out how to spell kinesiology before I could look it up with a search engine.

After some investigation into kinesiology in college curriculum, I discovered that the recreation administration degree that I had received was now under the Kinesiology Department.

We traveled to my alma mater to receive the award, and as I stood there receiving that award, this thought went through my mind: two months ago I could not even spell kinesiology, and now I was receiving the Alumnus of the Year award from the Kinesiology Department! That degree was worth something after all.

Gerald Claxton

Yesterday we participated in the commissioning service for the Fellows program at Impact 360 Institute. Seventy-five students walked across the stage to receive their certificate of completion of this nine-month residential program that grounds 18- and 19-years old students in Biblical worldview, helps them become servant leaders, gives them a month-long international experience, teaches them not only to share their faith but to defend it, and demonstrates how to live in Christian community not only in college but for the rest of their lives. 

I was privileged to serve as the founding director of Impact 360, and sixteen years ago this week was a proud moment for our small staff as we watched 18 Impact 360 students in the inaugural class walk across a smaller stage to get their completion certificates. But it was a prouder moment yesterday to see how far this movement has grown.

The students are going to some outstanding colleges, and they will no doubt have some of the best college professors in the world.  I hope that every one of those students will have a professor like Gerald Claxton. I only had Mr. Claxton for one summer term, but he spoke truth into my life.

After high school I followed dozens of my classmates to a big state university. When I arrived on campus, I did not see much of my classmates because of the sheer vastness of the campus, and we just all went our separate ways. My old friends began new friendships, and I felt alone, but an extrovert like me makes friends easily, so I began new acquaintances. Unfortunately, I made some bad choices of friends, and I drifted away from the Lord. 

After the first couple of months of running around with these new friends, I realized that they were not becoming my friends, but just remained  acquaintances. The Lord got a hold of me and made me realize that I was not walking with Him and that these new “friends” were not good for me. 

During this time, I was asked to lead the music at a little church that my parents helped start. “Lead the music” really meant just standing up in front of the small congregation and firmly gripping the hymnal and singing and letting the pianist take the lead. I could handle that even though my only music training consisted of two years of piano lessons in elementary school. I discovered that I enjoyed getting up in front of people even though I did not really know anything about leading music.

The Lord used these experiences to convince me that I should transfer to Mississippi College to study music. Never having studied music or sung in a choir, I enrolled as a second semester Freshman to pursue a degree in music. That semester was life-changing for me as I met the love of my life. 

I learned that the Chapel Choir was conducting auditions for some vacancies in the traveling choir. Going on a choir tour sounded interesting to me, so I tried out. The simple truth is that they were desperate for a couple new tenors, and I was accepted—and I also found out that I was a tenor!! Over the weeks of rehearsal as I was following the lead of the tenors to my right and left who were actually proficient in reading music (unlike me!), as I watched Roland Shaw, our conductor, my eyes drifted slightly to the left to look at the choir pianist. She was indeed a “looker,” and I started thinking about how much I would like to date that young lady. 

We did date, and BOOM—we fell in love, and, by the way, we had the best time on the choir tour! And, we have been having a good time for the past 50 years. 

That first semester at Mississippi College I took a course in music history, and I had voice and piano lessons. The lady who was my voice teacher encouraged me, but I decided to take voice lessons from Mr. Claxton for the first summer term. 

As we were wrapping up the first summer term, Mr. Claxton asked to meet with me. I thought that was unusual, but I had no idea what he wanted to talk about with me. He came from behind his desk and pulled up a chair and was sitting almost knee to knee with me. Mr. Claxton jumped straight to reviewing the month of voice instruction. He was not complimentary, but he did not tear me down either. I don’t remember anything he said except this question towards the end of our meeting: “Larry, have you considered majoring in something other than music?”

He was sincere. I was not angry at all, but I was totally impressed that this man was really trying to help me. I have to admit that I struggled during my sophomore year trying to choose a major. But I did not lose any time with my studies as I took a full load each semester, and I definitely did not lose any time making progress in my relationship with Cheryl! 

Throughout my career, I have continually looked for people in my life like Mr. Claxton, and I have tried my best to be a Mr. Claxton for the people that the Lord has put in my life. 

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Ephesians 4:25  

 P.S. Gerald Claxton passed away in March 2022. I read in his obituary that many of his former students were life-long friends. I was not among those, but I have a life-long remembrance of him, and I salute him for caring for his students enough to speak truth into their lives.

No Problem

Whatever happened to politeness? I am not going to mention driving courtesies, kid’s lack of respect, or cutting in line. My target today is those people who take my money for a service.

One eats at a restaurant where everyone expects you to add an additional 20% to your check, but for what? The server brings out the beverages, and I say, “Thank you.” She/he says, “No problem.” The server brings out the food, and I say, “Thank you.” “No problem.” Of course it is not a problem. Their work is to serve, but I certainly hope that I will never be a problem to any of my servers.

I was visiting my orthopedist last week after some hand surgery. As the visit wraps up and I am about to depart his exam room, I say, “Thank you.” That expression of gratitude was just a sincere spontaneous finale to our visit—despite the fact that my Medicare and my supplemental insurance was paying him for his services. His response: “No problem!”

I paid for an oil change in my truck— “No problem.” It’s the same story when the filling station pump does not give me a receipt. I have to go inside the “convenience” store to ask for a receipt. They give it to me without any apology for their lack of respect for their customers in letting the pumps run out of paper (or they are too cheap to get the pump receipt mechanism repaired). I kindly thank them for my receipt that I had to chase down. They say ,“No problem!”

Whatever happened to saying, “You are welcome,” or “I’m happy to do that.” I know what you are thinking if you know me well. You are expecting me to criticize them for not saying, “My pleasure.” Yes, working with Chick-fil-A’s nonprofits for so many years ingrained in me to say that response that you are accustomed to hearing when you visit one of their restaurants.

Years ago, Allison said to me that I was saying “my pleasure” all the time. And I was because it just rolled off my tongue. I actually got burned out on that response when I would send an email to a colleague at Chick-fil-A, to thank them for something. I would get a two-word response to my email when it was not even necessary for them to respond. Yes, the two words were “my pleasure.”  So, Allison inspired me to start saying, “It is my joy.”

In the end, I feel better after sharing my irritation with “no problem.” After all the Spanish “de nada” which means “of nothing.” The French say “de rien” which also means the same thing as the Spanish. So, I guess I just have to blame the Francophone and the Hispanics for teaching us that it is OK to say, “No problem.”

Wouldn’t it be great if all of us lived by the Word?

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You love your neighbor as yourself.’” Galatians 5:13-14

Donkeys

Thirty-five years ago, we departed West Africa to come back to the USA for a seven year period before returning overseas. We had some amazing experiences during our years in West Africa. Even after all these years there are a lot of things that I still miss. Among them is a simple way of life with virtually no media and no contact with the outside world except a trip to the capital city every 4-6 weeks. And then there is the opportunity to introduce first generations to following Jesus and starting churches—all those awesome experiences are greatly missed.

I have also missed some of the animals of West Africa: hair sheep, guineas, and donkeys.

We have coyotes all along the creek across the road from our farm. They don’t often come onto our property because of our dogs, the neighbors’ dogs, and so much activity going on. The cows are also a deterrent for the coyotes. Since my cows are away from our pasture for several months each year for their annual conjugal visit, I decided to buy a donkey to serve as a “guard” for the goats, ducks, and chickens.

He did not turn out to be a good guardian because he would not stay close to the other livestock. Plus, I did not trust him around the grandkids, so I gave him to a friend. But I still like donkeys as they bring back rich memories of living in the Sahel.

Donkey stories are found frequently in the Scriptures. John 12 tells us the story of Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus found a donkey and fulfilled prophecy: “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’ And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!’"

While Jesus was arriving at the East Gate of Jerusalem, tradition tells us that Pilate was arriving at the West Gate in Jerusalem. I suppose that Pilate arrived on a stallion and was heralded by many people proclaiming him king. Jesus arrived on a donkey and was heralded with palm branches by some as a great teacher and healer and by others as a weirdo.

A simple dumb animal brought the King of the universe into Jerusalem to fulfill prophecy. Today we are the donkeys that God wants to use to carry Jesus to all peoples.

Felt Needs

Often while living in Burkina Faso, I was reminded that even though I have significantly more education than the local villagers, they knew more than I—especially about how to live in this dry desolate wasteland that looked like a moonscape. They taught me so much about how to make do with what we had. Even today on our small farm, I often try to repair even inexpensive items because of the lessons I learned about stewarding resources from the villagers. 

After successfully constructing a 62-acre lake in the arid Sahel, we began to make plans for gardens below the dam. I talked to the villagers about saving some land below the dam to construct some small ponds to raise fish fingerlings to stock the large lake as well as the dozen other smaller ponds that we had also built. The villagers did not like my idea of saving garden space that could produce a lot of dry season food, and I did not understand why. Exasperated at them for not giving me more information on why they were opposed to the small pond idea, I finally said to them, “Why do you not want to build fingerling ponds below the dam?” 

Their response was one word- “birds.” My mind was racing trying to think about birds and fishponds and what their problem was. After more coaxing they finally got it through my thick skull. When birds move from one water catchment to another, they are transporting fish eggs on their legs, so we would not have to worry about fish getting introduced into our new lakes and water catchments. 

My fish fingerling program would not meet a felt need of the villagers. 

In community development work, felt needs are changes deemed necessary by the local people to correct the deficiencies they perceive in their community. Opinion and perception are everything when trying to help people help themselves. 

During my years of working in community development I have tried to practice a “hand up” rather than a “hand out.” “A hand up” means to help up out of poverty and not simply provide free goods and services. 

I grew a plot of sorghum seed from the USA, and when the plants were mature, I invited some villagers to come see the seed plot. The villagers’ mouths dropped open when they saw the size of the seed heads of the sorghum plants. However, when I offered these seed for distribution, there were no takers.  

I was puzzled, so I asked my villager friends why. Their responses were all the same: my sorghum stalks were less than one meter tall, and their stalks were over two meters. They depended on their tall stalks for cooking fires, so my sorghum would produce less than one half of biomass than their traditional sorghum. Plus, birds already ravage their crops sitting on their tall skinny sorghum stalks, and the villagers told me that the birds would eat all the grain on those short stiff stalks!

I had the graduate degree in agriculture, and the villager farmers could not read and write, but look who learned the most about how to feed their family in the semi-arid Sahel of West Africa! 

Mama Downs' Farmhouse

Sixty years ago, I spent many weekends and summer times visiting with my grandmother. My grandfather passed away when I was 5 years old, so I never had the opportunity to spend much time with him. My mother had 11 siblings, and 60 years ago, three or four of her brothers would be living with my grandmother in her rusty tin-roofed 4-room farmhouse with no indoor plumbing. My uncles tried to make a living farming Mama Downs’ 80 acres of Mississippi hills or working as loggers.

The farmhouse had a small kitchen with an electric “ice box,” a wood fired stove and a couple tables where the food was prepared and dishes were washed and rinsed in two large porcelain dish pans. Another smaller table held a metal porcelain wash bowl, a bar of soap, and a metal pitcher of water to wash hands. On that table was also a bucket of water with a dipper.  A nail on the wall held the hand drying towel.

There were two sources of fresh water, but there was no deep-drilled water well. One source was a hand-dug cistern about 15 feet deep that had a dirt bottom, and the walls were plastered with cement. The cistern was a storage tank for rainwater. My grandmother’s house had gutters that were home-made from scrap metal and caught some of the rain running off the tin roof and carried it to the cistern. The cistern water was used for washing clothes in the huge fire-blackened iron pot in the yard, for washing dishes, for baths, and for other house cleaning duties. 

Drinking water came from a shallow well. We would withdraw water with a cylindrical bailing bucket about four feet long on a long rope. Water pulled out of the well would be poured into a bucket and was designated for drinking or cooking water. The bucket with the dipper on the small table in the kitchen contained the drinking water.

Everyone used the same dipper, and no one ever thought about that being unsanitary. I don’t remember one family member ever saying that they were ill from drinking water out of the same dipper.

As a boy, I would often spend the night with Mama Downs. There were no extra beds, so I would sleep with her. My fondest memories are of the cold winter nights when you could feel the cold air coming through cracks in the uninsulated walls and floors. There was no TV, no games to play—we just sat around the fire and talked and tried to stay warm. About an hour before bedtime, Mama Downs would put a couple of flat creek rocks about the size of an iron skillet at the edge of the fire box. When we were ready to go to bed, she would wrap up one of those rocks in a towel and give it to me. I would climb into that cold bed and wiggle around and make my nest on that homemade feather mattress and hold that warm rock next to my chest.

I can close my eyes and see every detail of that old farmhouse. I don’t have any pictures of the inside of that quaint rustic house, but I do have a painting of the outside of the house that I have cherished for the past 55 years. When I was in college, I learned that Mama Downs’ old house was going to be leveled by a bulldozer. A few days later I was there for a last visit to this place that held so many memories for me. I had recently purchased a roll of slide film, and I took a picture of the front of the house. Six years later I asked a friend who was an artist in Vicksburg, Mississippi to do two paintings of the old house.

In every home in which we have lived since our marriage, we have exhibited one of those paintings of Mama Downs’ house. I gave my mother the other painting, and to this day it hangs on the wall of her home. The day that I captured the house on the slide film, I picked up an old piece of wood that had fallen from the side of the house and had been propped up on the front porch. Both paintings are framed with wood from that piece of siding from the old family home.

Loyal Opposition

Mike Barnett was a mentor for me. Most people think that a mentor must be someone older than themselves. While I have had some of the very best mentors who were much older than I, it has been my privilege to have mentors who were my peers or who were younger than I.

One of those who was a peer, and also younger than I, was Mike Barnett. Mike’s early death was a blow to me and others in our circle of friendship. Mike had also been a mentor for both of our sons.

Mike taught me a lot about following Jesus, about leadership, and about dealing with people. Most of Mike’s friends would agree with my comments about following Jesus and leading people, but many would contest me suggesting that Mike knew how to deal with people. Mike was a no-holds-barred type of guy who expressed his feelings without concern for how others might interpret them. He loved people, but he did not mind disagreeing with them and then telling them why they were wrong.

Often in a discussion among team members, Mike would begin his comments with this: “I will be the ‘loyal opposition’ and share a different point of view.” Or, he would say, “As the loyal opposition, I feel this way about this challenge…”

Wise people have told me that the phrase “loyal opposition” was coined in 18th-century England to let the out-of-power party express its views without fear of being charged with treason. However, for me Mike B (as we affectionately call him) coined the words to help me understand that good leaders love having loyal opposition. The best leaders don’t want all the people around her or him to agree with her or him. Weak leaders surround themselves with people who always agree with their leader.

Mike B and I were colleagues overseas before I asked him to be part of a team that I led. Another Mike named Mike Edens (who we call Mike E) was also a member of this new team. Mike E had a habit of nodding his head whenever I was talking or making a comment. He would also frequently say these phrases: “That’s right” or “Yes.”

During one meeting early on in working together, Mike E said out loud in our meeting after I made some comments, “You are right.” I turned to Mike E and said, “Mike E, if you continue to agree with everything I say, then one of us is not needed, and I plan to stay.” From that point on, Mike E learned how to be the loyal opposition in our team meetings and strategic planning. We did not need a “yes” man. We needed all our team members to voice their opinions and concerns in order for us to be a high-performing team.

Mike B, you are still influencing people as I continue to share with young leaders about loyal opposition. Thank you!

Receivers

Our sojourn in the USA to allow me to get that agriculture degree so that I could begin serving as an agricultural missionary were some of the most difficult months of our lives, but they were also some of the best times of our lives.

We only ate in a restaurant when someone invited us, but we ate a lot of food that we produced on the small farm.  We had the fewest clothes that we have ever had, but we always had enough to stay warm and to dress up for church. Our kids had the smallest number of toys in their childhood, but they learned a lot about caring for animals, tending to the vegetable garden, climbing trees, making up games, and picking cockle burrs out of their clothes.

One of the joys of living in Starkville was building new friendships. Don and Teresa Bolls had recently enrolled in Mississippi State to study agriculture. Don and Teresa had worked in the marketplace for years when they felt a calling to international missions. They moved to Starkville with their two children so Don could get an agriculture degree that would qualify him to be an agricultural missionary—just as I was doing. Teresa grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, but Don had no agricultural experience, so he spent a lot of time at our little farm. They took care of our animals while we were away some weekends to visit family. Don and Teresa ended up serving for many years in Niger Republic, and we continued to be friends and colleagues in neighboring countries.

Another couple with whom we spent a lot of time was Ben and Sandra Nash. Ben was our family physician while we lived in Starkville, and they became dear friends. We spent time together, and of course, we talked a lot about West Africa. Eventually, they felt a calling to serve with the IMB with Ben serving as a physician at Nalerigu Baptist Hospital in northern Ghana. Ben wound up being the closest western physician to where we lived in the bush of eastern Upper Volta. Even though we were separated by a 14- hour drive, we continued to enjoy many fun times with Ben and Sandra and their two children.

Another Starkville friend helped us make it through this challenging time by letting me use his woodworking shop and templates to make some Christmas gifts. The stool I made for Amanda has been used by all five of her children, and a small table I made for my mother is still by her bedside.

Although we made many lifelong friends in Starkville, the biggest benefit for us during our 19 months there was to understand what true dependence on God was all about. For the duration of my studies at Mississippi State, I had no full-time job, and Cheryl was not able to work at all as she had to care for three small children, but the Lord provided for all our needs. God used so many people to help us in so many ways. Early in our lives Cheryl and I had learned to be givers, but we never learned to be receivers until those days in Starkville, Mississippi.

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his glorious riches which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

Sacrifice

After making the easy decision to return to the states to pursue a degree in agriculture, we sold our possessions because we knew that we would not be returning to Cote d’Ivoire. We had been serving in the lush tropical zone of West Africa, but our hearts were directed to the rain-starved Sahel once we saw the people suffering from malnutrition.

Friends in Mississippi and South Carolina issued invitations for us to study at Mississippi State University and Clemson University. After much prayerful consideration we chose Mississippi where we had family support. First Baptist Church of Yazoo City offered their missionary residence on Easy Street. We had a short four month resettling experience in Yazoo City as I prepared to enroll at the university in Starkville.

Dr. Mary Futral, professor of nutrition at MSU offered to let us live on her 20 acre farm. We purchased a mobile home and located it on her farm. The land had been idle since her husband had passed away several years prior to our arrival. The county put in a gravel driveway, but there was no water or sewage on the farm. A new friend at First Baptist Church in Starkville offered to lend me his heavy equipment to excavate for the waterline and sewage system. This was pre-YouTube, so I did not have much help in installing these utilities, but by the grace of the Lord it worked when the job was finished.

We moved into the mobile home and used the last of our savings to buy furniture. Our income and insurance coverage ceased, and as I began classes I started working part-time for the university’s sheep farm. I had zero experience in raising sheep and goats and those are the primary livestock in the Sahel.

Speaking and leading music in churches when invited helped provide supplemental income to my minimum wage student job. We needed more income to support our family of five. There was an old Ford tractor with a bush hog, but no plow implements. We needed a garden to help with food costs, so I purchased a small horse and a couple of horse-drawn plowing implements. In addition to the garden, I planted a pea patch to sell peas at the local farmer’s market. The boys were 6 and 7 at that time. I paid them fifty cents a bushel to pick peas, and I sold them in the farmer’s market for $7.00 a bushel.

It was necessary to find other ways to generate some income for our family during this difficult time, so I purchased day-old Holstein bull calves and bottled fed them to sell to 4-H Club members to show at the fair.

The price of gasoline rose to $1 a gallon for the first time in 1979 due to an oil crisis caused by the Iranian-Iraqi War. Americans had hostile feelings towards Iraqis and Iranians. There were many Iranian and Iraqi students at the university and most of them were Muslims. I got to know some Iranians because a couple of them were mechanics for our two very used vehicles.

I decided to allow these international students to come to our little farm to purchase a goat or sheep to slaughter. I let them kill the animals on the farm and loaned them my outdoor grill to cook the head and liver of the sacrificed animal. They allowed me to remain with them during their ritual slaughter and while they ate the head and liver, so I had numerous opportunities to talk about God’s sacrifice of Jesus to atone for our sins.

It's amazing to me how primitive people from around the world who worship inanimate objects and ancestors and make sacrifices to appease their gods can fully grasp the atonement of Jesus when more educated people of the West cannot understand the meaning of the Atonement.

Praise God that we don’t have to make sacrifices to appease our God, for Jesus paid the price for our sins of the past, present and the future.

Easy Decision

We were well into our first term in Côte d’Ivoire when I realized that I would never get to be an agricultural missionary. I had this calling on my life to be an agricultural missionary after two events. One of the events was an Agricultural Missions Foundation presentation at First Baptist Church, Vicksburg, by Owen Cooper and Gene Triggs. These men were the President and Executive Vice President of Mississippi Chemical Corporation, the largest farmer’s cooperative in the USA at that time. They loved Jesus and they loved mobilizing people to work as agricultural missionaries all over the world. They presented the plight of villagers living in the Sahel of West Africa. After their presentation, I was ready to go—just needed for my wife to feel the same way.

Months later as we began the process to become missionaries, there were no requests for agricultural workers. I was matched with a position in Côte d’Ivoire where I began leading the publishing house for French-speaking countries in the Caribbean and Africa. During that first term I realized that my leaders were happy about the progress of the publishing ministry, so I thought they might have a problem with me switching over to become an agricultural missionary. When we were appointed missionaries, Dr. Cornell Goerner, the Secretary for Africa, had told me that once I arrived on the field, I could become an agricultural worker. After all, I was born on the farm and spent most of my early years either living on the farm or working on the farms of my relatives. 

Dr. Goerner did not tell me that he would be retiring before we finished our year of living in France to learn the French language, and he was replaced by John Mills as the Area Director for West Africa. Our new leadership wanted me to continue turning out the theological training materials that we were producing. But I made the formal transfer request anyhow through my dear friend, Bill Bullington, who was the Associate Area Director.

After a few weeks I had a message from Bill saying that my request had been denied because I did not have a degree in agriculture. No one had mentioned a degree in agriculture until that time. I think that John Mills thought that I would accept that and forget about becoming an agricultural missionary. But he was wrong. I replied that following a short furlough I would pursue a degree in agriculture. It was an easy decision because we were doing what we believed the Lord wanted us to do. 

The words of the old hymn “Trust and Obey” describe our thoughts in making this life-changing decision: “What He says we will do;
Where He sends we will go,
Never fear, only trust and obey.”

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” (Isaiah 30:21)

Strong Word

The word hate is a strong word. According to the dictionary it means to dislike intensely or to have extreme hostility toward someone or something. 

For all of my adult life I have shared that I hate cats. I love most other animals, but I have intensely disliked cats. Early on we discovered that Jeremy was allergic to numerous things including cats, and then Amanda became so allergic to cats that she could not be around anyone who had petted a cat. 

That was reason enough to justify my dislike for cats, but my aversion began long before having children. I just did not trust any animal who stealthily moved around humans. 

There were numerous other reasons to mistrust cats as I believe that they can sense people who don’t like them. When they have opportunity a cat will leave their body waste in your car or in your luggage when you are visiting cat-loving friends. And, as I can attest, they are capable of actually attacking a cat-hater. 

Once when I bought a goat from a farmer, he gave me the price for the goat on the condition that I would have to take home a cat. He had a plethora of cats and was strategically trying to get rid of some of them by forcing buyers of his livestock to accept a feline gift. I reluctantly agreed because I wanted that goat. 

That cat became a valuable animal on our farm. Living on a mountainside in the middle of the woods lends itself to having regular problems with mice and rats. Viola (named by our granddaughter, Abbey) provided varmint control in our garage and barn for 10 years before passing away. 

Thanks to the Feline Society in our town, our new cat, Gus, is patrolling Ton Tenga and bringing us evidence of not only rodents, but small copperheads, moles, squirrels, and birds. 

Over the past 14 years I have learned not to hate cats. Now I still don’t want them in my lap, but I confess that I occasionally rub Gus on the back to thank him for his service to our family. 

Right now many people around the world will say that they hate Russians because of the invasion of Ukraine. Like most people in the western world, I am appalled at the atrocities they are inflicting upon Ukrainians, but I don’t hate them. I have Russian friends. God created them in His image just like you and me. 

In First John, the Bible says that “whoever hates his brother is in the darkness,” and in Leviticus it says “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” Our challenge as followers of Jesus is to hate the aggression and anguish that is being cast upon the Ukrainian people, but not to hate the people who are inflicting the damage. Lord, help us because this is so difficult. 

Egg-citing Ending

Much like people in all societies, the villagers in Burkina Faso liked to express their appreciation for a kindness. As I traveled from village to village on my motorcycle, often a villager would give me gift. These gifts ranged from a chicken or guinea to an egg depending on the prosperity of the subsistent farmer. Many times when I received a gift I would regift it to another villager.

Frequently I received either chicken or guinea eggs, and it was extremely difficult to transport eggs on a dirt bike. When we think of transporting eggs here in the USA we think of egg cartons—but there were no egg cartons in the villages of eastern Burkina Faso. I carried these eggs either in my cap or inside my shirt along my waistline. Did they ever break? Yes, and it was a mess! However, I don’t recall ever breaking a guinea egg as they have extremely hard shells.

When I arrived home with eggs, I laid them on the kitchen countertop so Cheryl could give them the “float” test. She would put them in a bowl of water and if the egg did not float, then she would keep it. If the egg floated, then it was certainly a bad egg. If the egg stood on one end but remained at the bottom of the bowl, then the egg was not fresh, but it was still edible.

This particular day I came home and laid the eggs on the counter, but Cheryl did not immediately give them the float test. Soon afterward we heard a baby chicken chirping. That was not an unusual sound for us around our home, but this sound was not coming from outside the house. It was coming from the kitchen. To our surprise, a chicken egg had hatched on our kitchen countertop!

I enjoy caring for all kinds of fowl. I love throwing cracked corn on the ground for my ducks and guineas. Every time they hear me driving down to the barn on the Kubota RTV they come flying in from all directions.

My preferred meat is chicken, and I like it cooked in every kind of way. I also prefer chicken sandwiches over hamburgers, deli sandwiches or barbeque sandwiches.

Have you ever thought about how much we talk about chickens in our everyday conversations? Here are some samples of everyday sayings about chickens: Mad as a wet hen. Flew the coop. Nest egg. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Hen pecked. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Ruffle your feathers. No spring chicken. Egg on your face. Rule the roost. Chicken feed. Scarce as hen’s teeth. And on and on.

The age-old question about chickens is this: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It doesn’t matter to me—I enjoy eating both!

I bet you thought I was going to ask this age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?!

I do have the answer to that one: To show the possum how to cross the road without getting run over!

Pap

All my life I have not been proud of my mother’s father. His name was Henry Downs and the children of his eleven children called him Pap. Pap died just before my fifth birthday, so I don’t remember much about him. He had long white hair and a scraggy white beard that was stained by tobacco around his mouth.

It was not his appearance that embarrassed me, but his lifestyle. He and three of his sons made home-made corn whisky. Pap died at the age of 59 because of complications related to alcohol consumption. These three sons died at the ages of 50, 52 and 66 because of similar health challenges.

As I have spent a lot of time over the last 10 months helping to care for my mother, I have learned that my grandfather was a generous man. Everyone knew that he “never made a dime on his corn liquor” because he gave it all away! Everyone in the county knew he made the contraband brew in the hollow just below his home, but no one would turn him in to the authorities because he gave everyone in the county some of his homemade recipe in Mason jars—including the authorities.

But Pap was generous in other areas also. All his life he farmed and logged—that’s Mississippi talk for cutting timber and sawing and selling raw lumber. In the eyes of the world, he was a poor dirt farmer with 80 acres of hills and gullies that yielded poor corn and cotton crops. My mother said that while growing up, she and her siblings talked about their family being rich because everyone that they knew in rural Carroll County Mississippi lived just like them, so they must all be rich!

Pap was, however, generous in other ways. He and one of my uncles cut timber and sawed logs into lumber to build Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Black Hawk, Mississippi. That building lasted for many years until a tornado destroyed it.

In addition to the 80-acre homestead, Pap owned a couple hundred acres of land in another part of the county, and he decided to give that land to his first cousin with the agreement that no houses would be constructed on the land without Pap’s permission. This seems odd to me today, but I suppose he had his reasons for doing this. Even today, Pap’s children (only 4 of the 11 children are still living) must sign off if another member of the Downs family wants to build a house on the acreage.

As I reflect on these and other stories my mother has shared about Pap, I have more appreciation for him. When I was young I was embarrassed to let anyone know that this moonshiner was my grandfather. I am older and wiser now, and I can see good things even among the bad things in people’s lives. The fact is that Pap was indeed a generous man. Some of what he shared with others wasn’t acceptable in my Christian worldview, but the fact remains that he was generous.

I am happy that God is not embarrassed by some of the thoughts that I have, by some of the things that I say or by some of the things that I do. He loves me despite all my faults. I don’t love some of the things that Pap did, but I love the memories of Pap and I love most of all that he liked to give to other people.

"Bricolage"

As the vending machine business managed by my dad expanded, my mother had to prepare more and more sandwiches, so the sandwich-making operation moved from our kitchen bar to a large kitchen at a remote location. My mother hired two people to help her, so I was free to pursue another job—one that actually had a salary!

One of the ladies who worked with my mother was Zola Mae Ivory. Her husband, Frank, worked with my dad, so the Ivory family were very special to my family. Frank is the person who taught me how to drive in an old International pickup.

At work one day my mother was telling Zola Mae that she wanted to have her ears pierced, but she did not want to pay anyone to do it. Zola Mae told her that she could pierce her ears. After a little convincing, Zola Mae dug around in her purse and found a needle. She heated the needle with a match and pierced both of Mom’s ears. Then, Zola Mae picked up a toothpick on the counter and broke it in half and pushed a piece through each of my mother’s ear lobes. For several days Zola Mae cleaned my mother’s ears with hydrogen peroxide, and my mother had no problems.

The process worked and to this day my mother still wears ear jewelry in those holes. Zola Mae performed her little procedure with things that she had on hand. The French word “bricolage” describes what Zola Mae did. She did the best she could with what she had.

I find it interesting that one language has one word to describe something while another language needs several words to say the same thing.

Have you ever heard someone say something like this: “She is a wise woman. She doesn’t say much, but when she does people listen.”

 “Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent." (Proverbs 17:28). 

Hold the Cheese Please

The seventh and eighth grades are tough school years for anyone. In addition to the physical changes and growth spurt, adolescents acquire the ability to reason logically, manage abstract ideas, and connect between cause and effect.

Like most adolescent boys, I began to pay more attention to girls, avoided gang showers after PE at school, and wished that I had more money to spend on what seemed like important things at the time. Unlike other boys, I had a regular job, but it did not put any money in my pockets.

I spent most of the afternoons after school during the eight and ninth grades helping my mother make sandwiches. My dad managed a food vending company, and my mother made sandwiches for the vending machines on the kitchen bar in our home. During the day she would make the tuna salad, pimento cheese and chicken salad and get all the other ingredients together so that when I came home from school the two of us would make hundreds of sandwiches.

The “chopped ham” came in a long metal can about 15” long, and we had to slice the meat with a non-electric hand operated slicer. The processed cheese came in long packages about the same size as the ham, and it was thin sliced horizontally so that we only had to make vertical cuts about the size of the sandwich and then peel off the cheese slices.

There was a lot of incentive for me to go out and find another job when I turned 15 and could get my driver’s license. My pay for working with my mother was that I could eat all I wanted. To this day I hate processed cheese, any kind of tuna fish and any type of processed luncheon meat.

However, my “pay” left me with more than coins in my pocket. I have never known anyone who worked as hard as my mother and my dad. The work ethic that I continue to exhibit even in my senior years was instilled in me by my parents. My earliest understanding of profit and loss was working at the kitchen bar in our home making sandwiches for vending machines. Other life lessons were about food presentation, quality, freshness, how to properly store food, food sanitation, and on and on.

Let’s ponder all the small things that we learned from our parents and how much these seemingly insignificant lessons have influenced our lives, and then how we have unintentionally passed these on to our children and grandchildren.

French Driver's License

For those of you who have lived in another country, you know that many countries in the past issued a driver’s license with no expiration date. France was one of those countries. Until 2013, Germany also had no expiration on their driver’s license.

We lived in Tours, France for a year to learn the French language. During that year of studies, we had a new Peugeot 504 station wagon that we shipped to the Ivory Coast after our French studies were completed. While driving our Peugeot during language studies, we used an international driver’s license which you could obtain in your country of origin where you were a registered driver. You did not have to forfeit your US driver’s license to get an international driver’s license.  

When our studies were completed, we had to stay in France for a couple weeks longer than a year because our house was still occupied in Abidjan. That was good news for us because getting a French driver’s license required a year’s residency in France, so we could get a French license.

During the time we lived in France, we had to always carry an ID card and the international driver’s license. Both documents were laminated and very large. It was impossible to carry them in a wallet or a pants or shirt pocket. You either had to wear a sport coat or overcoat to carry these documents. The only other way to keep them on your person was to carry a “man purse.” Yes, I adapted to the French culture and bought a man purse.

When we arrived in West Africa, I still had to carry the large French driver’s license, and it was blazing hot ALL the time, so I decided that I was going to fold my laminated license and carry it in my wallet. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do because it was a mess, but at least I did not have to carry my purse.

Fifteen years later we moved to Germany. I was traveling to 21 countries in eastern Europe for 70% of the time, so I decided that I was not going to get a German license. I worked hard to get the French license, and I did not want to give it up. Getting the German license was quite an ordeal for Cheryl, but that’s a story that I am not going to touch!

Year later we moved to London, and Cheryl took the driver’s test and got her license, but I never did. Again, I was traveling a lot more than she was, so she was the primary driver on our car insurance. I was never a registered driver in the UK, so that meant that I drove on my old French driver’s license.

Over the past 44 years I have driven in dozens of countries all over the world, and each time an official has stopped me I have shown them my French driver’s license. Cheryl’s UK license expired many years ago, but my French driver’s license lives on!

Smoking on Planes

Just after the fall of communism my job was to lead workers in 21 countries from Norway in the north to Greece in the south. This area included many of the former Soviet satellite countries. We operated from an office in Wiesbaden, Germany, very near the Frankfurt Airport.

This was an exciting time to work in eastern Europe as the people in these countries were introduced to many new freedoms, and many government restrictions had disappeared. However, their economies were in shambles as they moved from a communist system that replaced private property and profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of many industries and natural resources.

People often asked me if I learned German while living in Germany, but frankly, with traveling to these 21 countries to help new workers get settled in and oriented to language study, I was not in my home in Germany enough to learn German. Each one of these 21 countries had their own language.

They also asked how many frequent flier miles I accumulated during this time since I was traveling so much. My response was that after 3 years of doing this work in eastern Europe, I had not gained enough miles to earn one free trip.

If I had been able to fly Lufthansa to every country, I would have accumulated a lot of miles. However, each country to which I was traveling had their own airline, and these airlines were always less expensive than Lufthansa. So, if I was flying to Warsaw, I would fly on LOT. To Bucharest, TAROM. To Prague, CZECH Airlines, and so on.

Occasionally I flew Lufthansa, but this was during the early days of the European airlines enforcement of providing non-smoking seats for passengers. Lufthansa’s interpretation of providing non-smoking seats went like this. In the Business Class, there were two rows of non-smoking seats followed by several rows of smoking seats. Then there were two more rows of non-smoking seats followed by rows of smoking seats for the rest of the plane. As you can imagine it was impossible to escape the smoke.

I had been working in Belgrade and was aboard a Yugoslavian Airlines flight. It was a prop plane with two seats on either side of the aisle. It was an old Soviet-made plane with thin seat cushions, and the floor under the seats was just the metal of the superstructure of the plane. I was in an aisle seat, and the guy directly across from me in the aisle seat (like 20 inches from me) lit up a cigarette. I looked at my paper boarding pass to confirm that I had requested a non-smoking seat. Yes.

There were no buttons to push for any service, so I started waving my hands in the air at the flight attendant who was sitting in the back of the plane—yes, she was also smoking. She meandered up the aisle to my seat and asked me in broken English, “May I help you?” I asked her to look at my boarding card indicating that I had a non-smoking seat. She replied, “Yes.” Then I said to her, “The man next to me is smoking.” She said, “Yes.”

At this point I was wondering if she was understanding me, so again I showed her my boarding card. Non-smoking. She said, “Oh yes.” She pointed to my side of the plane and said, “This side no smoke.” And then she pointed across the aisle and said, “This side smoke.”

These experiences plus many others in the former Soviet Union, the Arab world and Asia have caused me to inhale enough smoke to do serious damage to my lungs. Maybe that’s why I had to have my middle lobe removed a few years ago!

Halitosis

No one ever tells you that you have sweet breath, but family and close friends are quick to tell you that you have bad or unpleasant breath. I think a sensitivity to halitosis is a cultural thing, and I think it is 100 times more prevalent in the USA. Furthermore, I think that the biggest promoters of that issue are the makers of breath refreshing products.

We have lived in six countries outside the USA, and I don’t recall the mouth refreshing industry having a grip on the population’s wallet.

If you are wondering how I began thinking about this, it all started when I was timing my breathing. I take an average of 12 breaths a minute, and then I began to wonder if I was average for my age.

As I typed into the search engine “average number brea…” this is what popped up: “average number of breaths per minute.” So, you see, there have been others who have already performed that search. Therefore, I am not that weird—at least in this respect.  

I learned that for the first year of a child’s life, the normal respiratory rate is 30-60 times per minute. The average respiratory rate of a healthy adult is 12-18 times per minute. For someone in my age bracket 12 breaths per minute is average, so I felt better about my breathing.

Breathing is something that we take for granted until we are not able to catch our breath. Thinking about breathing led me to appreciate the fact that every breath I take is a gift of God. Every cell in our body depends on a steady flow of oxygen into our body. All our living processes depend on our breathing. We stop breathing and we die. And isn’t it amazing that God knows how many breaths we will take.

Stop now. Take a deep breath. Then thank the Lord for letting you take another breath.

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150:6)