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.

Elmer

The refrigerator door is ajar. The bathroom floor is wet. An outside door has been left open. The milk has been sitting on the kitchen counter all day.

“I did not do that,” says the wife. “I didn’t do it either,” says the husband. All couples have these exchanges many times in their marriage when something goes missing around the house or an article in the house has been moved from one place to another or there is a strange sound in the attic. Siblings do the same thing not only at home, but at school and at play. Friends also utter the same words from time to time when they are together. Often accusations get stronger as blame is deflected. Anger takes over, and grudges rule relationships for days and even weeks. Family feuds have even begun with such simple exchanges of words.

While the kids were growing up there were many occasions when strange events would happen, or something would be missing and no one in the family would confess. No one would take responsibility for causing the mysterious action or for taking the missing object.

In 1980 we spent three months living in an old house built decades before we arrived. The house had been purchased and furnished by First Baptist Starkville, Mississippi, for a missionary stateside residence.

At seven and six years, the boys were old enough to call the house haunted. One night when I was away, a very strange incident occurred. The light in our bedroom illuminated, but no one had flipped the switch. A few other bizarre events lead us to believe the boys were right.

To settle disputes about “who dun it,” and to find someone to blame for unexplained things in the old house, we decided to adopt an imaginary person named “Elmer” into our family so we would have someone to blame. Elmer has lived with us in several countries for forty years.

The front door left unlocked overnight—it was Elmer. Who left the top off the toothpaste—Elmer. A loud noise from the garage during the middle of the night—must be Elmer prowling around. Who ate the last of the chocolate ice cream and put the empty carton back in the freezer—Elmer, of course.

It is fun to have Elmer around to blame him for things that we have done and don’t want to admit or to explain inexplicable sounds in our house.

All of us have played the “blame game.” It is really just a game of personal deflection. One can get so involved in this charade that he/she blames everything and everyone else for all the bad things that are happening in their lives.

The first blame game was long ago in the Garden of Eden: “The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’” (Genesis 3:12-13 ESV)

The Bible is full of stories about the blame game: Cain and Abel, Moses blaming the people for God’s anger with him, Saul and the Amalekites, and Aaron and the golden calf to name a few.

The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off me when I am looking for external reasons to explain my displeasure, unhappiness, or frustration. I have to take responsibility for me. I can’t assume to take responsibility for everyone else. Nothing gets by God. He knows our hearts and He knows exactly who to blame. God says to me that I must be accountable for me—all my choices, my actions, and my life. He will take care of everyone and everything else.

Monsieur DeWorm

As a twenty-seven-year-old, Monsieur DeWorm seemed ancient to me. I do not know how old he was at that time, but I estimated him to be in his eighties. His garden showed the results of intensive labor, and his small quaint house was immaculate. It may have been an economic decision to walk everywhere, as he was living on a small pension.

Monsieur DeWorm was a retired pastor and widower. He lived alone in a three-room rock masonry house with a tile roof and concrete floors in Tours, France. Two panels of antique wavy glass opened into the house, and the wooden shutters opened to the outside.

Monsieur DeWorm preferred being called “Monsieur” rather than “Pastor” as he said that he was a “Monsieur” before he was a “Pastor.” This gentle old man with white hair and a neatly trimmed white mustache and goatee was my French language tutor.

Cheryl and I lived in Tours, France for a year to learn to speak French before going to serve in West Africa. We were enrolled in a branch of the Universite’ d’Orleans, and we attended class each morning Monday through Friday. We were required to work with a personal tutor for two hours three afternoons a week, and we were expected to practice speaking French for the rest of the afternoon time.

Jason was enrolled in “Ecole Maternelle” which was a preschool where only French was spoken. He learned French more rapidly than we did. Jeremy was not old enough for public preschool, so Margaret, a young lady who was an unregistered immigrant was his babysitter all day. He did not learn French while we lived in France, but he taught Margaret some English and she taught him some Polish, so they communicated in a mixture of English and Polish!

During the first two months of working with Monsieur DeWorm, I was not excited about our sessions. He had me reading out of the French Bible. Or, I should say, I attempted to read the French Bible. This was during the early days of learning French and my skills were not even close to reading the formal language of the Bible. I struggled during each lesson, but Monsieur DeWorm was persistent. He pushed me to struggle through word by word and would not let me move on until he was satisfied that I had made  my best effort at reading the difficult passage of scripture.

Occasionally, he broke the stiff atmosphere of the tutor keeping the student’s nose to the grindstone. With the window and shutters open and only a thin piece of cloth covering the window, our sessions were invaded by pesky flies. As I slowly read, he would be following the fly buzzing around the small wooden table with an oilcloth covering. And, then, all of a sudden he would swat at the fly with his hand and capture the fly in his hand. I never saw him miss a fly. Then he would work the fly inside the palm of his hand to where he trapped the fly between his thumb and index finger. Slowly he would work the fly and trap it between his thumbnail and forefinger nail, and he would separate the head of the fly from its body and toss it on the floor. I enjoyed every moment of watching him catch a fly and killing it as it was a relief from the drudgery of the reading session.

Frequently I asked about reading something else like the newspaper or maybe a comic book—that was more my speed! Finally, after a month of struggling through these afternoons, I was ready to change tutors. I loved Monsieur DeWorm, but I needed someone different who would let me read other material.

My language supervisor did not allow me to change tutors. He told me that Monsieur DeWorm had been his tutor. I was much more favorably impressed with my tutor because my language supervisor, who was also a missionary, had excellent French language skills. My colleague went on to say that those difficult lessons of reading from the Bible had broadened his vocabulary, helped him read French literature, and were invaluable in learning how to tell stories in French.

After six more months of watching flies die, I left Tours with confidence in my language skills and ready to go to work in Cote d’Ivoire. I did not opt for the French literature study in Tours because I was going to be working with villagers who did not even speak French, but their own native language, and I did not think they would be interested in Albert Camus or Victor Hugo.

Over the years I have tried to mimic Monsieur DeWorm not only with my French skills, but I am also guilty of trying occasionally to catch a fly in my hand. Haven’t tried that feat with chopsticks!

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Romans 5:3-4 (NIV).

Major

What are you going to major in, Jason? That was the question that I posed to Jason when he decided to go to Mississippi College.

Both Jason and Jeremy were right beside us when we said our good-byes to our families and departed for Tours, France for one year of language study. Jason was three years old, and Jeremy was about to turn two. The boys were troopers as they had already experienced a barrage of injections for every known communicable disease, and they had made it through 14 weeks of orientation at Callaway Gardens. The good-byes were difficult as we were taking the only two grandchildren on either side of the family. And we could not tell them exactly how long it would be before we would return to the USA.

We enrolled Jason in preschool, and, of course, they only spoke French. We hired a Polish immigrant to be a nanny for Jeremy in our apartment all day Monday through Friday. She did not speak French, and her English was limited to a vocabulary of about two dozen words, so Jeremy spoke Polish with her.

When we moved to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, both boys were enrolled in a French preschool. When we transferred to Upper Volta we lived between three villages in the bush, so the boys spoke a mixture of French and More’, the local language of the villagers. On visits to Ouagadougou to buy food and supplies the language was always in French. In hotels and restaurants, they all spoke French.

The previous three paragraphs are a set up for stating Jason’s response to my question above. He said that he would be majoring in French. One can understand why I laughed at his response. He had been speaking French for years, and he was going to major in it in college?!?

I asked him what kind of job he thought he could get with a BA degree in French besides teaching French in a high school. He was stumped, and after a long pause, I said, “If you expect your mother and me to participate in paying for your college then you will minor in Business. He revolted and said, “Aw, dad, I took accounting in high school and it was the most boring class ever.” Nevertheless, he declared his major in French and minor in business. Early during his studies, he discovered that he could get a combination Foreign Languages/Business Administration degree.

Jason enjoyed his studies so much that he also studied Russian, and when he completed his degree, he enrolled in the University of Memphis for his International MBA. Changed his mind about studying business!

Jeremy was only a year behind Jason in school, and when I asked Jeremy what he was going to major in, he said, “History. And, dad, I am going to minor in business.” I smiled.

Actually, Jeremy did not need any of our participation in paying for his college as he was a National Merit Scholar, and he wound up with more financial aid than he could use! But it was good to know that he was listening in to our conversation with Jason.

It is great now to reflect on some of the occasions when we had to help our kids to make the right decision without taking away their responsibility to own their decisions. And it is fun to think about some of the conversations that they are having with their children during this season of life.

How rich we are in that our Creator gave us minds and hearts to make decisions and gave us the challenge of bearing the responsibility of owning our decisions.

Neckties

Recently, I spoke at a local foundation’s annual awards banquet. The banquet and program were well planned and executed, and it was a great evening for Cheryl and me. I was assigned the topic of “Giving Back,” and that was an excellent topic for me as that falls into my wheelhouse at this point in my life.

It was the first time I have worn a necktie in months. I think the last time I wore a tie was at my dad’s memorial service in September 2019. I mean, who wears ties anymore? Funeral directors and lawyers. No offense to those professions, but I think that about sums it up.

In our recent move, we were in a clean out, give away, and throw away mode since we were downsizing our home. In cleaning out our “stuff,” I had to decide what to do with my collection of about 50 neckties. I know that is a lot of ties, but not long ago the culture of Chick-fil-A required a long sleeve shirt and a necktie. Chick-fil-A had its own branded ties, and they were very fashionable, and I enjoyed wearing them.

I gave our local charity thrift store half of my ties, but I could not get rid of the other half. It was a good thing because the awards banquet was a semi-formal event, so I needed to wear a suit and tie.

As I was going through my tie collection, I noticed the different widths of ties. It was proof that styles in apparel are cyclic. The width of ties has varied from 6” in width to 2” over the past 40 years. Wonder if bolo ties will ever come back?  

For 10 years I participated in the President’s National Prayer Breakfast held at the Washington DC Hilton. Five thousand people gathered to eat a cold pastry and spongy fruit and drink lukewarm coffee and tea and hear a lineup of celebrities. But it was THE place to be in the world on the first Thursday in February.

Of course, there were ancillary meetings before and after the breakfast where dignitaries from countries all over the world gathered. I was privileged to meet heads of state, ambassadors, emissaries, and even royalty from many countries. At a Wednesday evening dinner, I asked to sit at the table with an older man and younger woman. I learned that the gentleman and his daughter owned the largest oil supplier in the Caribbean Sea. We were joined by the Prime Minister of Jamaica, his chief of staff, and the Governor of Sint Maarten, a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea and a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Governor’s chief of staff also sat at our table.

During dinner the chief of staff of the Prime Minister of Jamaica asked me what my profession was. After sharing with them that I worked for Chick-fil-A’s nonprofits, both the Prime Minister and the Governor told me that Chick-fil-A was their favorite restaurant. The Governor said that when they came to the USA, they would fly first into Atlanta and their first stop was at a Chick-fil-A restaurant.

As we talked the Governor leaned over the table and spotted my Chick-fil-A necktie. He was enamored with my tie, so I removed the tie, stood up and walked over to him and presented the tie to him as a gift. He was overwhelmed. You would have thought that I was giving that man an expensive gift. He thanked me. He hugged me. He was grinning from ear to ear. As I walked away, he said, “Wait just a moment.” He looked down at his tie and he looked again at me. Then as he took the tie from his neck, he said, “My wife is going to kill me because she bought this tie for me in London, but I must return the favor and present you with my tie.”

That tie is not one of those that I gave to our local thrift store.

The greatest joy is not in getting more, but in giving more.

Titanium Ice Screws

In the early 1990s I was in the right place at the right time. Serving as an administrator and teacher at Mississippi College, I was introduced to Central Asia though our involvement with a consortium of colleges and universities. At first, we only worked with the Ministry of Education in each of the Soviet Socialist Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

There was a great demand from the government leaders for us to teach them business principles of the western world. I could find no other western organizations that were doing that, so I chartered two nonprofits. One of the organizations brought people from the USA marketplace to teach entrepreneurship, banking, and other very basic business subjects. We used High School Junior Achievement materials.

Since we were among the first westerners to venture into Central Asia, we were given many unique opportunities. We had audiences with the President and Prime Ministers of these countries. We were hosted by cabinet level leaders such as the Minister of Education, Minister of Culture, the mayor of the capital city and many other dignitaries.

We were flown by helicopter to a virgin forest of walnut trees that covered thousands of acres. They told us that Alexander the Great had taken walnuts back to Europe from this forest of trees—can’t fact check that, but it made a good story! The businessmen traveling with me were doing some serious thinking about how to harvest some of that wood and get it into the western markets. There were fortunes to be made if one could only get the wood out of an area that was 9,000 feet high with access roads only passable for three months out of the year.

One guy in Kazakhstan showed me some titanium ice screws. What I knew about ice screws could have been placed on a tiny piece of ice. Ice climbing was popular in Central Asia, and someone had used Soviet missile technology to develop these titanium ice screws for mountain climbers, rescuers in mountain resorts and glacier climbers. I saw a business opportunity because I learned from these guys in Central Asia that the west did not have access to this technology, and they were not using the titanium screws. I talked my way into getting one of those ice screws and bringing it back to the states.

After doing some research, I could not find anyone selling them in the states, and there was interest from outfitters to import these ice screws from Kazakhstan. This was looking like a business opportunity, but I got cold feet. I was in the middle of a PhD program; I was working full-time trying to help my teacher-wife support our family; and we had no cash to invest in a business.

That seems to happen frequently—business ideas never get from the thinking and talking stages to implementation. As I look back on this missed opportunity, I wonder what I would do differently today.

As it turns out, the life of the titanium ice screws was only a few years as professional climbers found them to be far too brittle, and stronger ice screws were manufactured from alloys.

Paul admonished us in Colossians 4:5b, “…make the most of every opportunity.”

I have heard Truett Cathy say that he never liked to pass up an opportunity that looked like it would make money or enrich peoples’ lives. I wish that I had been around him earlier in my life. My family might have been shipping walnut wood out of the mountains in Kyrgyzstan to western markets.

Looking back, I think I should have put together enough funds to buy a container of those ice screws. Hindsight is always 20/20!

Step Up

The judge and prophetess named Deborah in the fifth chapter of Judges is one of the most influential people in the Bible. Not only was she the only female judge in the Bible, other than Samuel, she was the only person in the Bible to be declared a prophet and a judge. I think that the greatest attribute of Deborah was that she was a role model of one who was not afraid to step up and take action.

When I think of Deborah’s leadership, I wonder if she ruled from a platform of position or influence. Did Deborah lead from her God-given appointment as a judge or did she inspire and motivate people to follow her.

Some of my friends may not believe that I was rather shy while growing up. Like most kids I had a fear of getting up in front of people. Mrs. Treon Jackson broke me of that fear. She and her husband, J.L., were the leaders of my Training Union class for 10–12-year-olds at my church. She literally made me get up in front of my peers and read a “part” in Training Union one Sunday night. She told me that if I did not do it that she would tell my mama and daddy that I was not listening to her, and she was sure that I would receive a very severe punishment.

I read that part out of fear, but once it was done, I discovered that I liked doing that. From that point on in my life, I have not been afraid to get in front of people and talk. In high school I enjoyed parts in school plays and participated in student government.

We all have regrets from college, but one of mine is not something I did, but rather something that I did not do—major in speech or drama. I changed majors so much in college that when I was a junior, I had to find a major so I could graduate on time and where I could use some of the hodgepodge of courses that I had assembled in my transcript.

The adage that we often hear is that leaders are born leaders. Do you think that is true? I don’t think leadership is a quality that you have to be born with. Leadership is not about being genetically lucky and being born into the “right” family. However, there are some characteristics that a leader must have that are part of their makeup. One of those is the courage to speak out and risk rejection. Mrs. Jackson threatened me to get up and read that “part,” but I had to have the courage to do it without worrying about what my peers would do or say.

Another trait that a leader must have is the ability or the desire to challenge the status quo—to stand up for what you believe or to break new ground. Leaders ask questions like “why?” or “how?” They look for the desired outcome and how it fits with the mission.

Max Dupree wrote a little book years ago that remains my all-time favorite book on leadership. In “The Art of Leadership” Dupree says that leadership is about people awareness and a lot of guts. For me that means that a leader steps up to the plate when there is a defining moment that begs for a leader to emerge. That leader does not wait for that moment to ask what she needed to do to lead. She had been preparing for a long time for the right moment to exhibit her leadership skills.

John Wooden spoke at one of our annual Chick-fil-A gatherings several years ago before he passed away, and I recall him saying something like this: “Once the opportunity to lead arrives it is too late to prepare.”

 ou don’t have to be a leader today to prepare to be a leader someday. Many people miss the opportunity to be a leader because they are waiting on someone to ask them to be a leader. It is like being “on deck” waiting for your turn to bat without ever getting up to the plate and taking a swing.

Go ahead—step up into the batter’s box. Release the desires in your heart to be a leader. Speak out and impact the world.

Which side?

While leading workers in sixteen former Soviet Union satellite countries in the mid-90s, I was based in Wiesbaden, Germany, and I flew out of Frankfurt’s international airport. People often asked me how many frequent flier reward trips I earned from frequent traveling to all those countries. My response: zero.

Frequent programs were either fairly new or nonexistent. Lufthansa, the German national airline, did not even start a frequent flier program until 1993, and the eastern European airlines had no such programs in the aftermath of the fall of communism. Plus, I flew on the least expensive airlines to the capitols of those countries, and that was always their own national carriers which all flew in and out of Frankfurt. If I was going to Poland, I flew LOT. Going to Romania, then it was TAROM. CSA for Czech Republic, and so on.

After traveling in 130 countries over the past 46 years, I have accumulated a lot of flying stories. This post will share only two.

We built an air strip behind our house in the bush in eastern Burkina Faso. The only thing that made it an air strip was that we had graded a kilometer long area out of the shrub brush embedded in the volcanic graveled soil, and the national government had required us to place a white-washed cement borne every 100 meters.

A kilometer was an overkill runway for the small Cessna 180 tail dragger, but that is what it took to get the air strip registered in the country.

We did not have any communication with the outside world, so we would not know exactly when the plane was coming once a week to bring volunteers or supplies, so the pilot would buzz the air strip for two reasons: to let us know that he was about to land and to clear all the animals off the runway.

The edges of the air strip were some of the most grazed areas anywhere around us because our boys had the only real soccer ball in any of the surrounding villages, and the shepherd boys would let their sheep and goats graze while they played soccer.

Since you were probably expecting a story about a commercial flight, here you go. I was flying from Belgrade, Serbia to Frankfurt on Yugoslavia Airlines. The plane was a twin engine prop of unknow origin and had about 18 rows of seats with two seats on each side. We were still using paper tickets at the time, and I looked at my paper boarding pass to make sure that I had requested a nonsmoking seat.  I was in an aisle seat and the guy on the other side of the aisle lit up a cigarette.

After confirming that I had a nonsmoking seat, I waved at the flight attendant, who reluctantly made her way to me. I showed her my boarding pass to indicate that I had chosen a non smoking seat. She said, “Yes.” I was waiting for more words to come from her mouth, but she just stood there looking at me. Then, I pointed at the man across the aisle from me who was smoking and said, “But, he is smoking.” She said, “Yes.”

Frustrated, I told her that I wanted to be in a non smoking zone on the plane, and she said, “Yes, you are.” OK, I got two more words from her that time, so once again, I said, “He is smoking and sitting next to me.” Then it was like a light bulb was turned on. She said, “Ohhh. This side smoking and your side no smoking.” That made me feel so much better knowing that there was a logical explanation for why someone sitting 18 inches from me could smoke while I was in the non smoking section—the left side of the plane!

Marshmallow Creme

When you are served an entrée at a restaurant or fast-food location, the food never looks as good as their marketing graphics. It’s amazing how tempting a photo of a hamburger can look on a TV commercial or poster in the restaurant, and then you get a soggy sandwich or the mustard is in one spot on the edge of the bun or the lettuce is wilted and the tomato looks like it was a reject for canned tomatoes.

Recently, I was in southern California on business. After lunch the person I was meeting with suggested that we have dessert at a dessert shop just a couple of doors away. Their menu had huge photos of their offerings. I love hot fudge sundaes, and theirs looked like a work of art. My colleague decided to order the same sundae.

When our order was delivered to the table, it was indeed a work of art. Marshmallow creme was running down the side of the fancy glass dish (it appeared to be whipped cream in the glossy photo on the menu). Hot fudge was also running over the side of the glass. Sliced, toasted almonds were liberally sprinkled on the top. It looked delicious!

There was so much melted marshmallow creme that I scraped some of it away to get to the hot fudge and ice cream. What a bummer—there was only one dip of partially melted ice cream and about a tablespoon of hot fudge in this $10 dessert. Apparently, marshmallow creme is much less expensive than ice cream and hot fudge!

This morning I was reading in Nahum about Nineveh, “the beautiful and faithless city, mistress of deadly charms” (Nahum 3:4). Nineveh had charmed other nations with its beauty, fame, and strength. She had seduced them into phony friendships like a harlot. Assyria then destroyed and pillaged the other countries when they were at ease and believed Assyria to be a friend. On the exterior, Nineveh was stunning and majestic, but on the inside, it was cruel and dishonest. Sometimes seduction and death are hidden behind beautiful façades.

Nineveh reminds me of Satan. He uses his guiles to tempt us. He uses marshmallow creme to attract us to actions that we regret once we scrap off the sugar coating. He causes us to invest time and other resources in his plans for us until we are so deep into something that we don’t know how to escape. But God is always there waiting for us to realize our mistakes and turn our face once again to Him, the loving, forgiving, patient Father of the universe. Thank you, Lord, for your long-suffering and your understanding of your humble creations.

Weddings

Weddings are all about the same. What I mean is that you are not surprised by much in a wedding because you know what to expect—processional, vows, “I do,” pronouncement, kiss, recessional. Granted there can be some unexpected events like the groom fainting or the sound system malfunctioning, but for the most part there are no surprises.

The wedding reception is where the new couple can venture out. We participated in a wedding reception last weekend that was most unusual.  The groom has lived in Central Asia, and he met his future wife where she was performing medical work with refugees. Over 50 of those refugees attended the wedding and reception.

The DJ made sure that there was some kind of dancing going on all the time. Every third song was an Afghan song, and the women and girls would circle up on one side of the dance floor and the men and boys formed another circle. The Afghans were in their beautiful traditional dress, and I felt totally underdressed. Recently arrived Ukrainian children enjoyed the buffet which included Memphis barbeque and Afghan pilaf.

The best surprise of the wedding was to get to visit with a Central Asian couple with whom two colleagues and I stayed in Kyrgyzstan a few years ago. Getting to see these friends brought back a flood of memories of working in Central Asia in the late 80s and early 90s.

I have been to a lot of weddings—some of them family and some friends of our family and some, I will admit, just because we “needed to.” The ones I enjoyed the most were our kids’ weddings, and I confess that I look forward to participating in as many grandchildren’s weddings as my life on earth allows.

Here it is: it just bothers me to see so dang much money spent on weddings. I know that is not a popular remark, but there, I said what a lot of people are thinking! I glanced at an internet story this morning about a celebrity couple spending $400,000 on their wedding—this was not the first rodeo for either celebrity. I could not help but think about what good could be wrought from $400,000 such as feeding 400,000 Ukrainian refugees for one day in Poland, Moldova, and Romania.

If you look at the mess the world is in and all the suffering that is taking place in many corners of the world, there are a plethora of places where $400,000 could make a huge difference in many lives. If I had $400,000 to dispense, I could buy all the following goods to distribute among those in need: 850 sheep, 750 goats, drill 40 wells, 2,000 mosquito nets, 1,000 business starter kits, and provide a safe place for a day for 9,000 trafficking victims.

I did not write about the multi-cultural wedding above to criticize the cost of the wedding and reception. It was a simple, but beautiful and elegant wedding. The reception was awesome as I have highlighted in this story. The wedding showed me that a bride and groom can have a memorable, fun time with the wedding and reception without paying through the wazoo. I salute them.

For years while our kids were growing up, we had this little plaque displayed in our home: Live simply so that others can simply live. I hope I never forget that message.

WYSIWYG

Both of my parents’ families were farmers. My grandparents were more of the “farm to live” type farmers than the “farm for a living” type. Most of what they ate was from their farm. Many people would have considered them poor, but in talking to my grandparents and parents over the years, they never considered themselves as poor people. My mother summed it up like this: “All the people who lived on neighboring farms had the same food, same type house, and the same struggles that we had. We didn’t know what poor meant.”

Like farmers all over the world they depended on the forces of nature to bring sunshine and rain at the right time to produce the food they ate and their cash crops—cotton and corn. The income from the cash crops enabled them to buy staples like salt, sugar, flour, corn meal, etc. Salt was not only used for seasoning, but it was one of the ways to cure meats on the farm. Drying and smoking meats were the other ways to preserve meat before refrigeration. When I was a boy, every small farm had a smoke house where meat was dried and smoked.

Even into the 1980s my dad still salted fresh pork from hog-killing days. During that time my parents did not get their living from their farm, but they supplemented their income and food supply from their small farm. 

Our family was returning to serve in West Africa in late 1980, and my dad was helping us pack a crate of clothes, toiletries, food and other supplies that were unavailable where we lived in the Sahel of West Africa. He insisted that we include one of his salt-cured hams even after I informed him that the crate would be in transit for six to nine months. 

After a slow boat across the Atlantic, a two-week journey by trucks from the port of Abidjan, the crate being held in customs for long periods of time on both sides of the ocean and at the customs warehouses in Ouagadougou, our crate arrived at our home after eight months in transit. When we received a crate that we had packed, a footlocker full of goodies from our family and carried by volunteers traveling to work with us, or that rare package sent through the mail that was not stolen enroute, it was a fun time for our family as we unpacked all the treats.

As the family excitedly unpacked the 4’ x 4’ x 7’ wooden crate, no one but me was interested in the condition of the salted ham. As I unwrapped the heavy waxed paper, I discovered that the meat was covered in maggots. It was disgusting and disappointing. That evening I gave the meat to Robila, our night guard, and told him to dispose of it. A couple of hours later Robila came to our door and showed me a beautiful hunk of country ham. He had cut off the spoiled meat and underneath was perfectly preserved meat. 

I could not convince other members of my family to eat any of the ham, but Robila and I loved it. Over the next few days, we ate country ham three times a day.

It’s not always “what you see is what you get.” In this case “what you see” was repulsive, but what we got was delicious.

The expression “what you see is what you get” was popularized by Flip Wilson in sketches on Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In” program in the 1970s. It was popularized worldwide in the early days of word processing when what you saw on the screen was not what the printed document would actually look like. Control codes appeared on the screen rather than some of the actual finished product. So, the WYSIWYG acronym was popularized.

In dealing with people WYSIWYG is not always true. Scripture supports this with the story of Samuel showing up in Bethlehem to anoint a new king. The Lord spoke to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7 ESV).

As we deal with people every day everywhere, we are held to this same accountability: What you see is not necessarily what you get.

Dark

Moving from the country has pointed out many differences in living in the city. One that I had not anticipated is it is not so dark at nighttime in the city. When we switched off the lights on the farm it was DARK. Here in suburbia, we don’t really need any night lights to move about the house at night. There is a streetlight just 100 feet from our home, and it illuminates the inside of our home enough to move about without turning the lights on—especially since we don’t have window coverings yet on most of the windows. There is also the ambient light from porch lights and security lights on neighbors’ homes. Generally, people don’t like darkness.

When I was seven years old my family took a vacation to west Texas to visit my uncle, aunt, and cousins. They had moved from Mississippi a couple years earlier, so our family went on our longest road trip ever. It was a tough trip for our old Plymouth as we had to stop from time to time to let the engine cool down and replenish the radiator water. It was exciting for me to be in the wild west for the very first time. I have always loved Westerns—movies about cowboys and Indians. That very summer I recall collecting six RC Cola bottle caps, so I could get free admission into our local movie theater on Saturday afternoon and watch a double feature of Westerns. Now I was going to go out west where all those movies took place. I was a bit disappointed because I did not see many “real” cowboys, and the Indians that I saw were at roadside souvenir stands.

I was more enthralled with the Gila monsters and jackrabbits that were featured at tourist traps along the highway.  It was a good thing there was an occasional oasis along that highway as there was not much else very exciting to see in west Texas.

While visiting with the cousins, we all went on a road trip to Carlsbad Caverns. I was fascinated with the stalactites and stalagmites—although I had no idea what they were called at that time! Our tour guide led us deeper and deeper into the cavern, and then, suddenly, the lights went out. It was pitch black, and I was frightened.

I didn’t want to be a baby and grab for my mother’s hand because my cousin who was a year older than me would have laughed at me, so I toughed it out. But I was sooooo afraid. If someone had said, “Boo!” I would have screamed. After what seemed to be ten minutes, but was only a minute, our guide reassured us, “Don’t worry. I know where the light switch is.” That did not make me feel better. While the lights were out, they played a recording of Rock of Ages and many of the tourists joined in singing.

All of us have been in similar situations where it was so dark we could not see our hand in front of our face. Some of us will admit that we were actually afraid.

Darkness is something to fear for many, but it is a friend to those who seek evil. More crimes are committed during the nighttime than in the daytime. Darkness harbors much evil in our world today.

While we talk of the despicable things that are done in darkness, we followers of Jesus are guilty of committing sins in the darkness of the moment—when we get mad over something someone says or implies, or when we return spite for spite, or when we have that thought that is not pure and holy before God.

A friend and I were playing golf in Florida years ago, and two strangers were assigned to play with us to make a foursome. The two guys hardly made a stroke without uttering some type of cuss word. After a few holes they found out that my friend and I were on the staff of a church. Soon after learning this, one of them started cussing after a bad hook. He quickly told us that he was sorry that he had cussed in front of “holy men.” I said, “That’s OK because you can say anything in front of me that you can say in front of God.” He did not like that comment—granted it was a bit smart aleck, but he got the message.

We don’t do anything in the darkness that God doesn’t know and care about. “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” ESV, Luke 12: 2-3

This Ain't No Vacation

Our son, Jason, leads an international relief and development organization, and he was talking with me recently about the massive number of people who want to go as volunteers to Poland, Romania, or Moldova to assist with projects for Ukrainian refugees. That is commendable, but Jason said that most of their relief efforts were being led by members of churches in these countries. The US volunteers do not understand why they are not being used when they are ready to travel to these countries to give a week to work, and they (or their churches) are willing to pay for their expenses.

I understand the frustration of the US volunteers who are wiling to help, but I also understand that their going would rob the joy of local Christians helping their neighbors.

As I cogitated on this, a flood of memories came to my mind. Then, last night I received a phone call from a friend from Tennessee who had been a volunteer working alongside us 40 years ago. Gerald was one of 550 volunteers from Tennessee Baptist churches who came to help us with a community development project during a five-year period back in the 80s. These volunteers were not pastors or church staff people, but they were farmers like Gerald, factory workers, funeral directors, car salesmen, nurses, welders, truck drivers—most of whom had to take time off work without pay because we required them to come for 30 days minimum. We lived in the bush of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), and it took two full days just to get to our homestead in the middle of the Sahel—the savannah area at the edge of the Sahara Desert.

Some of the best people I have ever known were among these volunteers. I will never forget their level of commitment to the Lord, their passion for helping other people in the name of Jesus, their humility, their courage to come to that far away land, and their abilities to get work done. Most of them had significant culture shock when they witnessed firsthand the poverty and simple lifestyle of the villagers. They each handled the culture shock in their own way—some dealing with it better than others.

Picking people up from their comfortable lives in the USA and dropping them into the wastelands of West Africa brought out the best in most of the volunteers as they worked hard in their assigned tasks in 110–120-degree heat and never complained. However, even the best of them made requests for amenities that we just could not provide. For example, a bathroom with a porcelain commode (we had “nice” latrines), a place to hang their pantyhose (told them to throw them away), a bed with a mattress (they had aluminum and nylon cots), ice cream (really, we could not even provide ice!), and telephone calls back to the states (at that time, that was only possible at the post office in the capital city).

Occasionally, one of the volunteers would challenge my leadership and would say something like this to me: “You are young and inexperienced, so we should be doing (whatever) like this.” Usually, we could talk these challenges through to a compromise, but in a few cases a volunteer would square up with me to assert their proficiency. One fellow said to me, “So, what makes you so smart that you tell us what to do?” I uttered a quick prayer and asked the Lord to help me with this one, and my quick response was something like this, “You came to West Africa with a round-trip air ticket. In a few days you will return to your home in Tennessee. My family and I came out here with a one-way ticket, and we arrived in Upper Volta with no return air ticket. I was here long before you arrived, and I will be here long after you get back to your home in the USA.”

After a couple of years of working with volunteers from the states, our mission organization sent a video crew to get footage for some stories about our work in Upper Volta. They interviewed some of the volunteers and did feature video stories on several of them. One of them was a heavy equipment operator from east Tennessee. When asked to sum up his experience in Upper Volta, he responded, “This ain’t no vacation!” And it wasn’t a vacation for those volunteers who came to serve no matter what the conditions.

Thirty days working in the sweltering heat in Upper Volta changed many of the volunteers’ lives. They returned to their homes with a new passion for serving others in their own communities in the name of Jesus. Some of them returned to serve with us in Upper Volta while others chose to go to other countries to work as volunteers with some of our colleagues. And ten percent of the 550 volunteers who served with us over the five-year period returned to serve overseas as long-term missionaries.

Usually when we mention the word “generous” or “generosity,” we think of money—financial resources. I consider all those volunteers who served alongside us in West Africa, as well as those who serve today with Ukrainian refugees or Syrian refugees or any of the world’s 90 million refugees and internally displaced people, generous people. Most of these people who volunteer are not considered to be wealthy people regarding their financial status. However, they are wealthy in regard to their heavenly treasures because they have given the most precious assets—their time and their hearts.

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

4-F

At the height of the Vietnam War, I was a 17-year-old freshman at Mississippi State University. I figured that if I was going to be drafted that I needed every advantage that I could manage. Thinking it would be strategic, I signed up for a special unit of the ROTC program called the Maroon Berets. We played army like other units, but we also learned some special tactics like grenade-throwing and crawling in the mud.

I transferred to Mississippi College the second semester of my freshman year, but I was still thinking about how to best position myself for the call from my draft board in Greenwood, Mississippi. I had some friends who were drafted, and they were fast tracked for the infantry and bound for Southeast Asia in the blink of an eye.

Knowing  that I would rather go into the military as an officer rather than a “buck private,” I decided to volunteer for officer training in hopes of being able to stay in college after the training while being a part of the local army reserve.

Four months after turning 18, I applied for officer candidate training and received notification to report for the physical examination. I had gathered my medical records and completed the comprehensive medical information forms, and early in the physical exam I was diverted to talk with someone in a private room. That man asked me a lot of questions about my stomach ulcer.

When I was a junior in high school, I had some stomach problems and after several medical tests, I was diagnosed with a small ulcer in my duodenum. I ate baby food and milkshakes for six weeks, and I had not had any other stomach problems after that short period. I had forgotten about the ulcer.

After a few more moments he looked across the desk at me as he slammed a rubber stamp on my application. The sight of the red “4-F” shocked me. He excused me, and as I walked out of the recruitment facility my thoughts went to the events that led me to transfer to Mississippi College and pursue a career in ministry. God was affirming the special plans He had for me regarding serving others in Jesus’ name.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV.

Too Old To Move

Moving is for much younger people than I. We have moved into our new home, and I have decided that I will never ask someone this question for the first three months after they have moved: “Are you all settled down?” Of course we are not settled down. Boxes and plastic containers are everywhere.

Plus, there are four workers inside the house today working on the “punch list.” We are wondering if and when we will ever get this house clean enough so that we can finish unpacking boxes, arrange furniture, hang things on the wall and get our rugs out of our closets and onto the floors.

Having lived in eight states and six other countries during our marriage and changing houses frequently, one would think that moving would be a breeze for us. However, two weeks ago we moved from our farm, Ton Tenga, where we had been living for the longest period of time during our marriage—14+ years. During those years we have accumulated a lot of stuff. I really did try hard to get rid of my treasures in the barn, and I thought I made some sacrificial decisions about some of my valuables. Alas, we have had to rent three storage lockers. I have assured Cheryl that two of those will be empty by the end of the month. Whew! Wears me out thinking about how many pickup trips that is to the thrift store.

Someone asked me during our move, “What was the easiest move for you all?” My quick response was the ones where we only had to move our checked baggage from the flight into our new home. There have been a half dozen of those moves where we were moving into a new house or apartment for 4-6 months.

The hardest? I have to say that my mother recently made the hardest move when her three sons insisted that she had to leave her home of 36 years and move into a care facility. None of our moves have been as difficult as that move my mother had to make.

As I have been cogitating about moves over the last couple of weeks, I have realized that no one has ever asked me, “What is the best move you have made?” I suppose people who have moved just know that no move is a good move, so why bother to ask someone what the best move was!

Many will agree with me that the best move we will ever make will involve no packing or unpacking nor will it involve deciding what to move and what to give away, and it will not cost you a penny to make this move. Jesus paid it all! Oh, that will be glory for me when I can make that final move to eternity with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Ton Tenga Season Finale

I am going to miss Ton Tenga. During the years of living in six other countries, Cheryl and I talked and dreamed about having a small farm with a log cabin at some point in our lives.

Over the past 50 years we have lived in many different settings and in many different kinds of structures. We have lived in what some people call the “armpit” of Africa, and we have lived two hours from the Swiss Alps. While living overseas our homes have included an apartment in a picturesque German village and a mud hut at the edge of the Sahara Desert.

Sixteen years ago we were finally able to purchase some land that could hardly be called a farm as I spent hundreds of hours clearing out overgrown briars, scrub brush, and other invasive plants and trees. The farm was christened “Ton Tenga” which in the More’ language of Burkina Faso means “our land” or “our farm.” After a couple of years we were able to build our dream house. We scratched the log cabin idea after discovering all the maintenance that was needed on the logs.

Additionally, we needed much more space in our house than a “cabin.” Our growing family included several grandchildren who now total sixteen. We worked hard to design the house so it would be suited for the side of a very steep hill (people in north Georgia call them mountains). It is a three-level house with lots of windows on the “view” side looking out over the mountain ranges. Cheryl’s brother was a custom home builder in Memphis, but he had never drawn plans for a house. We asked him to draw our plans based on our sketches and ideas, and we were pleased with the results.  

We hired a local friend to supervise the construction work while I served as the general contractor. After nine months we moved into our dream home. That was 14+ years ago. Now, it has come time for us to sell our home and farm and downsize and move into town. When we announced to our family that we were going to sell the farm, our grandson, Collin, asked me, “So, Papa, when did you decide to sell Ton Tenga?” I responded, “Before we ever built our house.” Cheryl and I talked about there coming a time when we felt that we could no longer take care of an active farm and a larger home, and we decided that when that time came, that we would not agonize over making the decision.

Our family and friends have had so many good memories over the years: sitting around a roaring fire;  being snowed in on the side of the mountain; kids cuddling baby goats; little ones playing on the homemade playground by the barn; getting visitors and grandkids to help with errands on the farm; sitting around the bar while Nana prepares a meal for our big family; swinging on the 40 foot rope swing; hearing the grandkids playing and yelling on all three levels of our home; watching the sunset on the deck; feeding the chickens, guineas and ducks; kids playing and making forts in the woods; grandsons camping out, making fires, and building tree houses with their friends on top of the mountain; kids fishing in the pond; and so many more.

Nevertheless, it was a difficult decision to sell our dream home. We are leaving the “our farm” part of Ton Tenga, but our new home will still be “our home,” so in a sense our home, wherever it is, will always be Ton Tenga. In 10 days, we will be moving to Savannah Place in Rome, Georgia. We anticipate making many more memories in a smaller home in a cul-de-sac.

The Lord has smiled on us as all our grandchildren live near us. Three of our four children live within one and a half hours and the fourth lives only two and a half hours away.

I look forward to writing more stories during this next season on Savannah Place.