Brakes

Our first home after getting married was a 47 feet long by 7 feet wide mobile home owned by a retired missionary couple. Yes, that is smaller than many recreational vehicles today. In an era long before “tiny homes,” we had a tiny trailer.

The retired missionaries from Nigeria called it their “doll house,” and it was parked in their back yard. Income from the rent for this trailer and another one in their backyard provided supplemental income to their meager retirement funds.

Our rented mobile home was located next to a very busy freight train track. Every time a train passed by the whole trailer would vibrate so much that we had to remove the only lamp we owned from the small table where it was perched or the vibrations from the train would cause the lamp to fall to the floor. Before going to sleep or when we left the trailer to go to school or work, we would remove the lamp from the table to keep it from crashing on the floor.

The 329 square feet included a tiny bedroom and bathroom and a kitchen open to the small living area. The bed was built into a corner of the bedroom and it was five feet long. Passage into the bedroom was between the foot of the bed and the wall, so that left less than two feet to walk into the bedroom. We were smaller then, but I was still six feet tall, so Cheryl would have to make up the bed leaving an extra foot of bed coverings folded in such a way that when I stretched out, I would not pull the covers down to our waists.

But this was our first home, and we began to use Cheryl’s gift of hospitality to host friends in our home. Our college friends loved to drop by to visit or to get a free meal.

 The trailer had a large towing tongue on the front of it. My best friend from college, Denny, owned an old 50s bright orange Nash Rambler sedan. We had some good times cruising through the small town in that old car, but it was not dependable in many respects. For example, it did not have a working emergency brake.

We knew Denny had arrived to visit us when we heard a loud noise and felt a rocking of the trailer. Our mobile home was on a slope, so Denny would have to bump his Nash up against the tow tongue of the trailer, and he usually misjudged the distance from the tongue to his bumper, so the Nash would give a big bump to the tongue.

Brakes are an important part of a vehicle. Likewise, God provided us with different kinds of brakes in our lives. Our intelligence brakes keep us from saying stupid things—sometimes! Those brakes help us to use correct and polite grammar. Although, I think today that some people have zero intelligence brakes as I hear such filthy language being spoken loudly by people who don’t care what other people think of their stupidity.

Our emotional brakes keep us from doing things that we know we should not be doing—like when someone cuts you off in traffic and makes you slow down and even run off the road. Our emotional brakes keep us from doing what we are thinking and wanting to do. These brakes also control our reactions. For example, I can cry over a sad story or movie or in thinking about how I miss family and friends who have passed away, but Cheryl rarely cries. She has deep emotions, but she and I just express them differently. She has power brakes, but I have to pump my manual emotional brakes to get them to work.

We have physical brakes, and some of us do not use them as wisely as others. Fact: as we age our bodies have declining capabilities. Supposition for me: I still feel like I have the physical stamina of a 50-year-old. So, when I am playing pickleball, I go for every shot like I was fifty instead of 75. That’s why I am doing physical therapy on my shoulder now, and that’s why I take an extra strength Tylenol before going to bed each night for my hip pain. I am working really hard on exercising my physical brakes to match my age so that I can keep my body in one piece for a few more years. Darn that competitiveness!

 God has provided us with spiritual brakes. In order to optimally exercise these brakes, we must know who is in control of our lives. Many people have forgotten that nothing happens by chance. God is in control, and He has a plan for every person on the face of the earth.

Failing to apply our spiritual brakes can result in a downward spiritual spiral bound for a collision. Sometimes God allows us to come to a collision in life to teach us how to apply our spiritual brakes in life choices and decisions.

I love what I Corinthians 1:25 says about how we rationalize that we are smart enough without God: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Top Ten

My friend, Ken, is my Bible study leader at church. He is always well prepared, and he really enjoys the prep work. Ken is a retired physician who plays a lot of golf, so he can tell some good medical and golf stories that illustrate the Bible study.  

Our Bible study lessons are from Genesis this quarter, and last week’s subject was Noah and the ark. Ken focused on how impatient the people on the boat were because they had to wait another two months after the water had receded and they landed on the Ararat Mountain range in eastern Turkey. Noah told them that God would reveal to them when the time to disembark from the ark would be, and in the meantime, they just had to be patient.

I can’t imagine the disappointment these people experienced after all they had been through with the persecution for years before the flood, being confined to a rudderless boat for many months and feeding all those animals! I don’t know about you, but if I had been on that boat, I could not have waited for the answers to a lot of questions that had come to my mind during the last 10 months of floating around and seeing only water. Questions like: “Where did we land?” “Is there anything alive out there?” “Is the whole world just a bunch of mud?”

Now this is what is called a quick transition in a short story: David Letterman was famous for his nightly Top Ten Lists. So, here’s my top ten list of times when I was the most impatient and prayed the most for patience.

10. I was 10 years old, and this particular day the list of boys who would move from minor league to Little League was going to be read out after practice. I was lousy in practice that day because I was praying hard to God to just make it happen. He was probably listening to me, but I did not move up until the next year. I think this is when I learned what stress was about.

9. I prayed for patience dozens of times as our family was in the customs lane entering a West African country. We had footlockers full of important stuff to us, and we knew that the customs officials could confiscate anything that they wanted to. The whole family was praying for patience for Dad because he was always stressed out having to deal with these officials.

8. Waiting to drive. When I was 13, I learned to drive in a 1953 International pickup with a guy named Frank who worked for my dad. Frank was not allowed to take me on the road, so I had to drive in the pasture. We did not have leaner’s permits back then, but we could get our driver’s license at age 15. Waiting for two years to get my license and drive on the road was like decades long. I can’t imagine the number of times that I complained about that to my parents, and I every time their reply was the same: “You are so impatient. You need to learn how to be patient.”

7. Airline agents at check-in. We were a family of six and a dog standing in front of the airline agent. On more than one occasion we had a dozen or more footlockers to check and the agents would always either roll their eyes or give a silent expression of disgust. I guess it was because they had to lift them on the conveyor belts. I hated hearing things like “this one is four pounds over the maximum weight allowed. You will have to remove something.” There in the airport, we had to repack some baggage because we were a measly four pounds overweight. Counting to 10 backwards did not help my stress level and my impatience with the agent’s lack of professionalism and patience was exacerbated by four kids tired of waiting in line.

6. Patience as a teenaged soldier had his finger on his automatic weapon as he pointed it towards my family. Gendarmerie in West Africa loved to put a couple barrels or some pieces of wood across the road so that you had to stop and let them examine your car registration and personal ID. This was so annoying as these soldiers would be lounging around in the shade of a mango tree with nothing else to do but hassle drivers. They were always heavily armed, and they treated their weapons like an extension of their index finger while trying to find something wrong with your papers or vehicle so they might get a bribe out of you. Lots of patience exhibited hundreds of times when we were stopped because I wanted to tell them not to point their guns at my family, but I knew better.

5. Building a house. We have built three houses, and if you have built a house then you know how much patience you need with your contractor. The last two houses that we have built have been in the last 16 years, and both times the contractor was a friend of mine from our church before we ever started the construction. I am proud to say that both men are still my good friends. But that does not mean that I did not get impatient—not so much with them but with the sub-contractors. I am not friends with any of them!

4. When our two-year-old and three-year-old boys had to have all kinds of vaccinations for us to go live in France and West Africa. We were worried about what our boys had to go through for Cheryl and me to be obedient to God to go and serve Him in faraway places. They were absolute troopers about getting those injections, but I was impatient with the process that demanded that our infants have to suffer for our calling.

3. Dealing with a kerosene refrigerator. Most people will not understand this because they did not know such a thing exists. To maintain a temperature of about 65-68 degrees inside our kerosene refrigerator, the wick had to be trimmed perfectly to produce the blue flame needed for maximum service. No, that was not a typo. The average inside the house temperature was in the low nineties, so a refrigerator temperature 30 degrees lower is about the same as your electric stainless French doored refrigerator maintains in your home today.

2. Waiting to hear if you have cancer. As we waited for the lab and scan results for confirmation of cancer, both times we were told that we would get a call to tell us the results of the lab and scan work. Both times a nurse called us and said that I would have to come to the office to talk with the doctor about the results. In your heart you know that you have cancer, or they would not have asked you to return to the doctor’s office. But the wait for two more weeks to pass was a very stressful time, and my diligent prayers for patience were passed to the Heavenly Father several times a day.

1. When our children have experienced traumatic illnesses. Our daughter, Amanda, was only a couple weeks old. She was born with a midwife at a clinic in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Soon after her birth she became very ill. We were concerned that we were going to lose her, and I became so impatient with God because He was not healing her. He did, regardless of my unbelief because of my impatience. We learned a lot during this illness. We have had other major medical challenges with our children including two of them fighting cancer, but God made us realize that our children are not our own. They belong to God, and He has given them to us to parent and steward. This released us from being impatient to see God work in our children when they have health struggles.

Even with all the dangerous circumstances in the world today, including health challenges, violence, and evil, we should continue to confidently trust in God’s powerful protection over us and those we care for.

Snakes

I am not afraid of snakes, but I have much respect for them. Through the years I have learned to tell the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes. My wife does not enjoy a walk in the woods during any season as she is afraid of snakes. If she finds herself in an area that even looks snaky, then she will stomp her feet as she walks. She says that snakes feel the vibrations and flee. That sounds like an “old husband’s tale” to me!

She has been known to say, “The only good snake is a dead snake.” One of those occasions was when a rat snake swallowed a baby duck just a few feet from Cheryl and two-year-old Caleb. I was not at home, so she called across the way to our neighbor who was tending to his chickens. He came with his snake stick that would allow him to capture the snake alive. Cheryl told him that she did not want him to catch it, but she wanted him to kill it. But he was not agreeable as he and his wife were vegans who did not believe in killing any animal.

Our family has encountered snakes many times over the years in different countries from spitting cobras in eastern Burkina Faso to snake charmers in Marrakech.

There is an adage that snakes travel in pairs, and those who study snakes say that it is not true. However, we killed a sand viper on our back screened-in porch in the bush of Burkina Faso and the next day another one appeared at the back door. One of our colleagues was bitten by a sand viper on the wrist. We often slept outside on cots because the heat was so stifling. Our colleague was reaching for his flashlight on the ground when the viper bit him. If we had not stored an anti-venom in our kerosene refrigerator, he would have been seriously ill. His entire arm was swollen and discolored for two months after the bite.

John Hill was the “river rat” who taught me so much about plumbing, electricity, welding, and other skills. Once when the Mississippi River was flooded and water backed up in its tributaries so that islands were formed where the land was more elevated, we were hunting rabbits. Mr. Hill and I would approach one end of the island in his hand-made flat-bottomed wooden boat and walk through the brush to flush the rabbits. One day as I was stepping over a log, Mr. Hill fired his shotgun and it hit just under my foot. On the other side of the log was a rattlesnake. That shotgun blast scared the “you know what” out of me, but it probably saved my life.

While living on our farm here in north Georgia, I had a running battle with snakes. The poisonous ones by and large left us and our animals alone. There were occasions when we were threatened by rattlesnakes or copperheads, but most of them were when we were the aggressors in trying to get them off our porch or removing them from the road—in a permanent sort of way. The biggest problems were with the king snakes and rat snakes. Both are predators and they love chicken and duck eggs, and adults can swallow baby ducks and chicks. However, I liked having them around as they thrive on mice and rats that love to inhabit barns and eat animal feed.

Therein was our problem on the farm. I could not bring myself to kill them as they were beneficial to keeping rodents away from my barns. I tried catching them and transporting them a mile of so down the road, but I learned that they are very territorial, so they would return to our farm.

One day Collin and one of his friends were helping me with chores at the barns. His friend went with me to check out a duck nest in a small goat barn. As we rounded the corner there was a huge rat snake with a large lump in its body just behind the head. It had begun to swallow one of my duck eggs. With one foot I held the snake still while with the other foot I massaged the snake in front of the passage of the egg until I backed the egg out of the snake’s mouth. Then I continued to gently massage the egg until it was expelled from the snake’s mouth unbroken. I placed the egg back in the nest. The mother duck sat quietly on her nest during this altercation. This snake made me mad, so I hauled it off three miles hoping never to see it again.

Snakes played an important role in the religious traditions of Canaanites, Egyptians, Greeks, and Mesopotamians, and they are mentioned over 80 times in the Bible. They are almost always associated with poison or craftiness beginning with the Garden of Eden and culminating in Revelation as “the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan.” (Revelation 12:9)

Today, we use a lot of metaphors and examples of snakes including “a snake in the grass;” “cold-blooded as a snake;” “snake eyes;” and “if it was a snake, it would have bitten you.”

During our service in other countries over the last four decades, Matthew 10:16 has been particularly important to me as we served in some countries that do not welcome foreigners coming to tell their people about Jesus. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”  

The House Is Dying

As a child I barely remember my great grandmother, but I do remember how old she looked to me as a boy. With wrinkled skin, bruised arms and hands, thin white hair, she was confined to a wheelchair. That was my first time to be around a wheelchair, and I wanted to push “Grandma” around more than she wanted to be pushed around.

A flash of time and thousands of memories later, my mother looks like my memories of my great grandmother. Like Grandma, she is in her nineties—she will be 94 in two weeks. She is only able to sit up less than an hour per day. Her health has rapidly declined after several falls due to atrial fibrillation attacks six weeks ago. Before these attacks, she was mobile with a walker, but now she will never walk again. She is in a skilled nursing rehab unit at a nursing home, but in the last few days she has been unable to do rehab.

She loves the Lord and is prepared to meet Him in heaven. As I think about losing her from this earth, my mind and heart are full of memories. My mother’s house has been empty for two years. We all know that after a period of time when no one lives in a house, it starts to “die.”

The time has come to make dreaded decisions, and my two brothers and I just made a big one this week.

We will sell my mother’s house. We have agreed that we will not tell our mother what we are doing, and we will ask others who might talk with her not to mention the sale of the house. We are fearful that if she learns about the sale of the house that she will just give up—and that is not what we want.

This weekend the three brothers will meet at our parents’ old house to begin cleaning out. We will start with the most dreaded places to clean out—my dad’s shop and storage building. It is full of memories, but most of the things in there are of no value to anyone else, so we will be hauling much of the stuff to dumpsters.

It will be a sad time, but it will also be a good time for my brothers and me as we clean out so much of Pete’s “stuff” and tell Pete stories.

Of course, there will be a bunch of stuff that we cannot throw away, so we will probably be hauling home some items that our kids will ask: “Why did you bring these things home? Where are you going to put them?” Then, there will be a few things that Mimi and Pete’s grandchildren will lay claim to and might even argue about who is going to get this or that.

Even with beginning the cleanout in the shop and shed, my brothers are going to be fussing at me as I am a sentimentalist about old things—especially those that belonged to my parents or other family members. My dad prepared a handwritten list of things in their house and who he and my mom wanted to inherit those items. An old Singer sewing machine that belonged to my great aunt is one of the things that they wanted me to have. It has so much sentimental value, but what are we going to do with it? Our house is full of stuff already. And then there is the chifforobe that belonged to my grandmother. And the old clock that belonged to my granddad. Well, I love old clocks, so I can definitely make room for that one. I am hoping that some of our kids or my brothers’ kids are going to help us by taking some of the stuff.

As I think about the things that my parents are leaving behind, I am reminded of what I am going to leave behind. The financial resources, our house, our “things” and all that stuff is not what I am most interested in leaving to my children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, so many families fight battles over the valuables that a loved one leaves behind.

We put too much importance on the valuables that we will leave behind and less worth on the values that we will leave to our loved ones.

An inheritance is what you leave for someone. A legacy is what you leave in someone.

From 2 to 1

A kidney packed in a cardboard box! The box contained a plain old Styrofoam cooler containing our granddaughter Shelby’s left kidney. Medical staff transported the boxed kidney to the Atlanta airport where it was placed on a Delta flight to Seattle.

Our family has learned a lot about transplants during this experience, and one of those things is that when a commercial aircraft has a transplant organ on board, that plane has priority to depart. That’s a big thing at Atlanta’s airport—the busiest airport in the world.

Shelby’s surgery was faster than we expected. After an hour and a half of waiting, Jeremy, Cheryl, and I went for coffee and tea at Panera’s near the surgery waiting room. Just as we were served, Kimberly called to tell us that the surgery was finished, and Shelby was being moved to recovery. We had expected the surgery to take longer, but we were relieved that it was over.

Our prayer attention turned to the safe delivery of the kidney to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, and to Maggi as she was preparing for her surgery.

After a short stay in the recovery room, Shelby was moved to a regular room. When Shelby was being prepped for surgery, she posed for a photo holding up 2 fingers. After she was moved from recovery to a regular room, she posed for another photo holding up one finger. Shelby posted the two photos on social media with the caption “From 2 kidneys to 1.” Shelby had a huge smile on her face in each of the photos.

Shelby’s parents were in regular contact with Maggi’s family, so we were notified later that afternoon when they began to get Maggi ready for surgery. Thus, we knew that the kidney had safely arrived.

Finally, ten hours after Shelby’s surgery, Maggi’s surgery began. Her time in surgery was much longer, but the great news that was relayed to us was that Shelby’s kidney began to fully function even before the surgical team began to sew Maggi up. We were elated to hear this report and we all praised the Lord for this whole experience.

Shelby was able to go home on Thursday. Maggi will be in the hospital for 2 more days. As predicted, the first 24 hours for Maggi would be fairly easy, but the next 48 hours would be rough with a lot of pain to manage. The prayers of many people are sustaining Maggi with her new kidney and helping Shelby heal, and these prayers will continue to cover Maggi as her body fully accepts the new organ.

This whole experience has been one to remind us of how God ordains people to be in the right place and at the right time. He brought Shelby and Maggi together in London 17 years ago knowing that Maggi would need a kidney and knowing that Shelby would be obedient to Him in her willingness to give a kidney and new life to Maggi.

Isn’t it great how God designed our bodies with two kidneys? It is like God knew that a few people would at some point in time want to be generous enough to donate a kidney to someone in need.

Christmas Kidney

In June, our daughter-in-love, Kimberly, shared with us that she had been tested and was a match to donate a kidney to the daughter of some former colleagues. Maggie is twenty-two years old, and her health is deteriorating. She had grown up with Kimberly and Jeremy’s kids while both families were living in London.

No one in Maggie’s family was a match for her, so they were so excited about Kimberly’s gift to Maggie. Kimberly and Jeremy traveled to Seattle where Maggie’s family lives, and Kimberly went through a battery of tests and procedures required for kidney donors.

Kimberly received a report from the Seattle tests, and it indicated that she had a possible small tumor on her pancreas. However, it would be a couple of weeks before the transplant committee met to discuss her case. After their meeting, Kimberly was instructed to repeat PET scans and MRIs in Atlanta. Finally, after weeks of stressful waiting, Kimberly received a report confirming a malignant tumor on her pancreas, and, additionally, they discovered a small spot on her liver. The tumor is very small, and her three oncologists have since affirmed that if she had not been willing to give the kidney, then she would not have known that she had this cancer until many months and possibly years later.

Kimberly’s first reactions included a profound sadness that young Maggie would not get her kidney. One does not “get over” the devastating news of pancreatic cancer, but Kimberly is no ordinary person. She is always the bubbly friend-maker, conversation-starter, and go-to-person to confide in. Of course, she was upset with this dramatic development in her family, but all her extended family was so impressed with her calmness and her focusing on requests to pray for someone else to step forward to give a kidney to young Maggie.

Shelby, Kimberly and Jeremy’s oldest daughter, is a senior in college, and she, like her two sisters Darby and Emma, was walking alongside their mother during this difficult time. As Shelby was praying for her mother’s diagnosis and for another donor to step forward, she was convicted by God speaking to her in her prayers.  Shelby felt that God was saying to her that she should volunteer to be tested to be a donor of her kidney. Shelby, who is a deeply spiritual 22-year-old, only thought about being obedient to God.

Shelby is majoring in Forensic Investigation in college, and her desire is to do CSI work for a law enforcement agency. There are basically two paths to becoming a CSI agent. One is through serving as a law enforcement officer and the other as a civilian. If Shelby was going to give a kidney, then the door to working with a law enforcement agency would be closed as she could not pass the physical with only one kidney. That tough decision would be solved for her.

After Kimberly was unable to be a donor, Maggie’s mother turned to social media to help find another donor. Shelby was following her on Facebook, and she saw a link for interested people. The link was to the National Kidney Transplant Network, and without her parents’ knowledge, Shelby contacted them expressing an interest.

She was assigned a medical coordinator. After she decided where she would want to have surgery, the medical coordinator chose a mentor for Shelby. She is a young mother of one child, and she is expecting another. That allayed another issue that Shelby had thought about. She was concerned that the chances of having a baby might be decreased if she gave Maggie one of her kidneys.

The process of acceptance to be a donor was a roller coaster ride for Shelby. First of all, what are the chances of there being two acceptable donors in the same family who are unrelated to the recipient? The waiting for test results was stressful. “Will I be able to complete this journey or not?” was often the question that came to Shelby’s mind. But Shelby was persistent in communicating with God, and she knew that she had to keep going to the next step until God closed the door on this process. Through this process she was hoping that she would have a closer relationship with Maggie, and she knew that it would be a win situation for her even if she just “met some really cool people.”

Shelby shared, “I have never thought of myself as being a generous person. I share my financial resources with my church and charities, but until this experience, I have never thought of giving an organ as being a generous act. I only thought about giving my money when considering generosity, but generosity is more that giving your money.”

“There is a direct correlation between obedience and generosity. I had a major revelation this past week when I received a phone call confirming that everything was a go for the Atlanta surgical team and the Seattle team, and that the transplant would take place on December 27. I was driving home from school for the Christmas break.

Shelby continued, “I asked myself, why am I so happy about giving a kidney? Most people don’t look forward to having an operation—especially one where they remove an organ from your body. It hit me that this is not a sacrifice, it is a time when I get to obey the Lord. Our natural motivation is to be selfishly motivated or to do something with selfish intent.”

“Our society motivates us to give to our church or to charitable organizations or to volunteer for school credit or something. Now I am of the mindset that biblical generosity is only possible when you are obeying the Lord.”

On December 27, Shelby will have surgery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta where a surgical team will remove one of her kidneys. A member of the surgical team at the Seattle hospital will be standing by to transport the kidney to the University of Washington Medical Center where a team will implant the kidney into Maggie’s body.

Pickle Ball Falls

I wish I had discovered pickle ball sooner. A legend in our community started talking with me about pickle ball several years ago. Finally, I started playing pickle ball this past spring with my 90-year-old coach and some other friends from church.

All of us who regularly play in our church gym are over 70 except Mark Hambert, who is a 60-year-old retired major in the Georgia highway patrol. He is built like a tank and as quick as a flash.

We try to play on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and one day after everyone else had gone home, Mark and I were playing singles. My friend Alton is my old college buddy who lives in South Carolina and also plays pickle ball. He had already told me I am too old to play singles—especially with a 60-year-old flash. Disregarding the strong opinion of my dear friend, I managed to keep up with Mark that particular day.

After I served from the left court, I started to rush the net just like Coach Bill had taught me. Mark returned my serve deep into the right corner. I turned quickly to my right and chased the ball, and with my back to the net, I scooped up the ball with an underhand shot. As I was making this shot, my feet became tangled, and I crashed at full speed into the wood paneled wall of the church gym.

I was sprawled on the floor holding my shoulder when Mark approached me. He asked me if I was OK and said it was probably just a stinger. I replied to him that it felt worse than a stinger. I guess he did not know what to say, so he said, “If it makes you feel any better, you got the point!” At the time it did not matter, but looking back on the experience it made me feel good. However, over the past 6 months of pain that won’t go away and having to learn to play pickle ball left-handed, I cannot believe that I wiped out on the wall of the gym just for one point!

My orthopedist gave me a cortisone injection in my shoulder, and I hoped that would do the trick. But no. It did not faze the aching shoulder. So, I continued playing pickle ball with my left hand and four months later, I am still not using that right hand.

Two months after running into the wall, Coach Bill was my partner, and we were playing again at the church gym. Blanchard, one of our opponents, who has the wingspan of an airplane, dinked the ball from one side of the court to the other just over the net, and I lunged for it. Once again, I found myself sprawled out on the gym floor. This time it was my hip that took the blow of the fall.

As I was collecting myself on the floor and standing up, my 90-year-old partner said to me, “Larry, I have a couple words that I want to give you.” He said it very slowly, and as he was saying that I was thinking, OK, so he’s going to say something like act your age, Larry. To preface those two words, he said, “when you see a shot like that, you stay where you are, and you only need to remember two words:  good shot!”

There was a lot of wisdom in those two words, and I have put them into practice since those two falls left me injured. And I haven’t fallen again since receiving that wisdom.

Sometimes we don’t listen to simple words that people say to us. It’s those quiet words of wisdom that we do not hear because we are thinking that we already know what they are going to say. Basically, we are proud people.

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6 (ESV)

 

P.S. I am writing this on the evening of December 15, 2023, and today I had an arthrogram and an MRI on my shoulder because in six months the shoulder has not healed. Wonder what the follow up visit with the orthopedist will reveal?!

Preparing My Palate

Growing up in Greenwood, Mississippi, I was exposed to a multi-cultural environment. Surprised?

People today in most of the south think of everyone either being black, Hispanic, or white. Of course, there are also the Gujarati Indians who own the convenience stores and motels, and remnants of the Chinese population who were the entrepreneurs 150 years ago in the deep south. Many people still think that white people are considered to be the real Americans.

Ever notice those flashing signs in front of a business that says something like this: “Real Americans own this business,” or “American-owned?” We all know deep down that all Americans except the American Indian have ancestors who were immigrants.

Greenwood was once known as the Cotton Capital of the World. It was the cotton industry that brought people from all over the world to settle in the Mississippi Delta. My classmates in Greenwood were Italian, Polish, Chinese, Lebanese, Greek, Syrian and many other ethnicities. In addition to the traditional evangelical churches, the small town of Greenwood was home to a Jewish synagogue and a Maronite Catholic church where many of the Arab Americans worshipped.  

When I was growing up, there were the farmers and the planters. Farmers were generally people like my grandparents who owned 80 acres and a pair of mules. Yes, some of them had tractors, but the planters were those who owned, or in some cases, leased, thousands of acres of rich Delta land. They had those big dual wheeled tractors and all kind of mechanical farm equipment.

My family’s land wasn’t in the rich Delta, but in the hills at the edge of Delta. The biggest crop in the hills was kudzu that the US government had imported in 1883 from east Asia. Kudzu has had devastating environmental consequences earning it the nickname "the vine that ate the South." It was hard for a farmer to make a living for his family from 80 acres in the hills of Mississippi and other states in the deep South.

My dad drove a bread truck for Wonder Bread for many years, and my earliest memories were going with him on his route to deliver bread to small community grocery stores owned by Chinese Americans. All of these little stores would sell prepared food from their home kitchens which were in the back of their little stores. I grew up eating Chinese food long before we had Chinese restaurants. That’s hard to believe now as every little town has at least one Chinese restaurant and several Tex-Mex restaurants.

The only barbeque that I ate outside my home was from the kitchen in the back of Mr. Lucas’s store where they prepared fresh pork barbeque. It was takeout only and they served their barbeque sauce in fifth of whiskey bottles. I often wondered who drank all that whiskey!?

One of my favorite growing up foods was hot tamales—this was long before the migration of Hispanics to the South. These delicious tamales wrapped in corn shucks were prepared by the masterful hands of a couple of black families who sold them from wooden carts mounted on bicycle wheels on the street corners.

By the time I was in junior high school, my dad managed a food vending company owned by a Lebanese, so I learned to eat Arab food at an early age. By the time I was 15, I was selling clothes at the nicest men’s store in town, so I could afford to eat in restaurants that were owned by Greeks or at the pool hall where a meat and two was served and prepared by an Italian—long before Italian restaurants were popular in the South. I learned to love capers and anchovies. I was introduced to cheeses from other cultures, and I loved them all.

I believe that God was preparing me to live and work in a multi-cultural environment for most of my adult life. God knew all along that I was going to travel in the countries of the Arab world, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. That’s why he gave me opportunities to prepare my palate even as a child. He was preparing me to smile when I was served sheep’s head, roasted scorpion, grilled goat stomach, cow’s blood mixed with fresh milk, bat stew, fish from the uranium-enriched Black Sea, and boiled okra and onions with dog meat.

Thank goodness for the old missionary prayer: “Lord, my job is to get this food down. Your job is to keep it down! Amen.”

 P.S. Trivia: My hometown is no longer the cotton capital of the world, but it can boast of being the historic stoplight capital of the world. This town of 20,000 has the most vintage four-way traffic signals than any other city in the world. These traffic lights, which are at over 30 intersections in Greenwood, were all manufactured in the USA and have all been refurbished to their original condition. These classic traffic lights and accompanying restored buildings in downtown Greenwood have been featured in many movie productions including “The Help” and “My Dog Skip.”

The Power of Words

Have you ever tried to teach English to someone from another country? It is tough—especially for those of us who are not trained to do that. For all those years we spent living overseas, I have heard so many acronyms that I don’t like to even use them now. Our own company had a plethora of them, and some of the workers were very clever in making up stories using mostly acronyms that were used in our company.

Some very familiar acronyms while living in other countries were TESOL, TEFL, and TESL. All of them pertained to teaching English to people who had another first language. Back to the opening sentences. Many of our friends through the years were certified in TESOL, TEFL or TESL, and they had some great stories about their experiences in teaching English to internationals.

English is not an easy language to learn. Want to know what the hardest language in the world is? The one that you are presently studying!! There are probably hundreds of words that have a double meaning like pen, general, orange, layer, or march and on and on. I learned and have spoken for many years two other languages, and as much trouble as I had learning them, I do not think that they are more complicated languages than English.

I am often surprised at difficult or unusual words that our grandchildren use. With my eyelid disorder, I have been listening to the Bible on an app. Seven-year-old Margo came into the room while I was listening to the Bible. I had my earbuds in, and she asked me what I was listening to. I told her that I was listening to my Bible because I had trouble reading my Bible. She replied, “that’s epic!”

We all grew up using words that may not have been in the dictionary like “I swannie” (popular Southern expression) used in my parent’s generation instead of “I swear.”

Some words that are acceptable in my personal circles are used just like my parents’ generation using “I swannie.” The words “fricking” or “freaking” are very popular words that I have made up my mind never to say as they are substitutes for a vulgar word that is used so much in streaming entertainment that it has become an acceptable word to use on any occasion. I get angry (yes, angry, but I don’t outwardly express it) hearing that vulgar word used so often in public places. I do not think that my family, friends and colleagues should be using “fricking” because it is, in my opinion, support of using the vulgar “F” word.

Some English words that have been used for centuries are no longer used or their meaning has been changed because of cultural adaptation. One such word today is the word “gay.” Cheryl and I like to listen to the XM station that broadcasts old radio programs, and we frequently hear the word gay used, but unfortunately when I hear the word I am reminded of its meaning today.

A whole new vocabulary has been established for social media communication. That’s a language that I have not learned. Some Boomers are using a few words from that language like LOL, BFF and BTW. As for me, I am not going to CMV BC ATM FWIW, SM language is not my GOAT. IJS!

Our words can hurt, and they can also heal. Words can destroy or they can build up. Words can express love, but they can also express hate.

The Bible says a lot about how we use our words. “Gentle words bring life and health.” (Proverbs 15:4) “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 18:21) Whosoever keeps his mouth and his tongue, keeps himself out of trouble.” (Proverbs 21:23) “Every careless word people speak; they shall give an account of it.” (Matthew 12:36).

My favorite is “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14).

Kinda

Our grandson, Collin, is starting a dog training business. During high school he worked at a business that was a kennel and also offered dog training, so he picked up some tips there. However, he has learned the most from working with his two standard poodles.

I was wondering how he was going to get his first customers when he did not have any business cards, a website, or any marketing materials. He trained a couple of dogs that belong to friends, and then word of mouth got him three more clients.

One day he took Davis, one of their poodles, to Tractor Supply where they provide a dog washing facility. People were coming in to bathe their dogs while Collin was wandering up and down the store isles acting like he was shopping. As he meandered through the store, he had Davis do some commands. Mind you, Davis was not on a leash, and he never left Collin’s side.

Collin says to Davis, “Middle,” and Davis immediately turns and backs into a sitting position between Collin’s spread legs. People all around Davis and Collin followed him around watching Davis’s unbelievable good behavior in a store full of people. In the meantime, Collin picked up more customers during the visit to Tractor Supply. I think he should visit the pet store next time.

Collin told me that one lady asked him if he was training dogs, and Collin responded, “I kinda train them.”

That was a good opportunity for me to share a lesson with Collin. I told him that he should never present himself to others in a negative manner. He should tell people positive things about his abilities. A better response to the lady would have been, “Of course. Would you like me to give you some references?”

“A good rule to follow is this: never tell people what you cannot do, tell people what you can do,” I said to him. “If you respond with the ‘kinda’ word you are not giving the lady any confidence in your ability to train her dog,” I added.

Have you ever heard a speaker get to the podium and say something like this: “Well, I am not a good speaker, so I don’t know why they asked me to speak today.” Or a preacher gets up to the pulpit and says, “I don’t understand much about the second coming of Christ or about tribulation, but today I am beginning a series of sermons on Revelation!” That does not encourage people to come back to hear what he has to say about Revelation. As to the speaker who tells us that he is not a good speaker, I say, “Click!” I turn him off and my mind wanders to more important matters.  

My dad, Pete, always said to me while I was growing up, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” Maybe that’s why I am a number one maximizer on the Gallup StrengthFinder assessment. I like to make good things better.

Titus 2:7 states: “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity.” I think that would be a good verse for any business to follow. Not a bad model for our lives, too!

Botox

I am wearing a T-shirt today that says: “Papa knows everything. If he doesn’t know, he makes stuff up really fast.” Cheryl bought it for me years ago because our grandkids often asked me if I knew everything. They ask that because I never say to them, “I don’t know.” And, yes, if I don’t know, I quickly respond with a random response that is usually related to the subject that they were asking about.

I recently learned that maybe I should not answer all questions my grandchildren ask me, as one of them asked me: “Papa, do you know everything?” Even though that’s what the T-shirt says, I don’t want them to think that anyone knows everything. I want them to ask good questions, and I want them to respond to good questions when they have a good retort.

All our grandchildren are intelligent kids. I have enjoyed working with all 16 of them to help them develop self-confidence. I have joked at all of them at one time or another with lines like this: “When I wake up in the morning, I look in the mirror and I say, ‘You good looking thing, if you die, I want to go too.’”

I don’t want them to become cocky, but I want them to like themselves the way that God created them. So many people spend their lives trying to be like someone else instead of being content and using the talents that the Lord has given them to be more like what God intended them to be.

One Sunday as we were preparing to eat lunch after church at our house Caleb just walked up to me, looked at my face intensely, and said, “Papa, time has not been good to you!”

After I asked why he said that he said that I had a lot of wrinkles, and that wrinkles are the sign of a tough life. I am proud of my wrinkles. A lot of people—more women than men—spend enormous amounts of money to keep their face looking younger.

In June I started Botox treatments, but not for cosmetics. I have been diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder called blepharospasm. Interestingly enough, Botox was used in the late 1980s to treat blepharospasm before it was ever used for cosmetic purposes.

Don’t worry if you have never heard of this problem because most people have not either. It causes the eyelids to involuntarily close. Bright lights and stress intensify the spasms of the eyelids making it nearly impossible to read or at times to drive. The cause is unknown, and there is no cure. However, there is one treatment. I get 10 Botox injections in each eyelid every twelve weeks, and I get some relief from these treatments. A diluted solution of botulinum is injected into the skin of the eyelid and along the eyebrow, and the injections temporarily paralyze the spasming muscles. 

The Lord has given me patience and perseverance to work through many of these spasms to keep on working and maintain as normal a life as possible. I must admit that I do get stressed out when I cannot read or drive, and I just have to keep my eyes closed for long periods of time.

The thing that has been most discouraging is the inability to read anytime that I want to read. I have disciplined myself to listen to an oral Bible, listen to news podcasts and other podcasts more frequently, and to “watch” TV while closing my eyes for the majority of the time. Fortunately, the Botox treatments allow nearly normal days for about seven weeks during the twelve-week intervals between my treatments. The first two weeks after a treatment are not good weeks as the medication takes time to be most effective. Then, at week nine, the effectiveness wears down, so the last three weeks are very difficult.

Through two separate and independent bouts of cancer and other major health problems, and now through this new challenge, my faith in a sovereign God who loves me, who saved me from my sin and has given me the assurance of an eternal life with Him, and whose Spirit guides me each day has not decreased, but has increased. Just like my favorite Bible verse says, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

Right Timing

After we decided to sell our farm, our grandson, Collin, asked me, “Papa, when did you decide to sell the farm?” I responded, “Before we ever built our home on our land.” That response had to be explained to Collin, and later to other family members.

We bought the land in our late 50s, so when we purchased the acreage and started designing the house we knew that at some point in the future we would not be physically able to maintain the farm and the big house we were building. One does not know how much the body begins to deteriorate after 60 years of age until they experience it. We discussed this thoroughly, and then we decided that it would be worth the investment of time, sweat and sacrifice to build a destination place for our grandchildren.

The decision was made to build a house that could accommodate a large family and to build a farm that the children and grandchildren would enjoy even if we only lived there for 10-12 years. We had two of our four children and their families living overseas at that time, and we would have room for them to live for a few months when they came back to the states.

The layout of our home and our farm met not only our needs and desires, but it was a respite for family and friends for the 15 years that it was ours. We are settled in our new home now. It is much smaller, but it is on one level and is easily accessible for two senior citizens. Plus, Allison and her family have built a home right next door to ours!

It was not easy to release our farm, but selling it was the right thing to do at the right time. There was some delayed maintenance on the fences and barns while we spent several months living with my mother in Mississippi during Covid. I was increasingly having to hire someone to help me maintain the farm and care for the animals. We prayed about the timing of selling the farm, and the Lord affirmed to us that we were within His will concerning the move to town.

 God’s timing is always perfect. We will never be perfect with our timing, but as we walk with the Lord, worship Him in a right relationship with Jesus Christ, and pray that we will make decisions according to His will, then we can discover God’s timing.

Years ago, some “chosen family” members, Brian and Aimee, gave us a beautiful framed rendition of Isaiah 40:31: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Even amid difficult circumstances, we can trust that God is working all things together for our ultimate good and His glory. Our timing is never perfect. God’s timing is always best, and in believing that and living that we begin to understand the importance of waiting on the Lord and being patient for His timing. Waiting can be tough, yet it is frequently necessary for growth, faith-building, and receiving the best outcomes according to God's plan.

Spook

We have owned a lot of dogs through the years, but my favorite of all time was Spook. I purchased Spook, a six-month-old female Border Collie, when we were ready to return to West Africa in 1982. I was serving as an agricultural missionary and needed a livestock dog to help me work with sheep and goats.  Border Collies are renowned for their intelligence and abilities to work livestock.

I had only a few weeks to work with her before our journey to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). The trip meant spending the night at a hotel at the Paris airport and another long trip to Ouagadougou. I was nervous about traveling with four kids and a dog.

The hotel at the airport had only one grassy spot about the size of a bedroom where the dogs took care of their digestive business. I had worked on getting Spook to do her business on the command of “get busy.” I nervously walked through the lobby of the hotel and approached the tiny dog area. I gave the command and Spook did her business. I was so proud of her as planes were roaring their engines, people filing by with their luggage, shuttle vans speeding by, and only one tiny grassy spot.

During that trip and subsequent trips, I often told the children that Spook was a better traveler than they were.

Spook was so intuitively smart about helping me control a herd of goats or a flock of sheep and also chickens, ducks, pigs, cattle, and even donkeys. Once I heard a bunch of kids screaming and I went outside our house to see Spook running circles around six kids all mounted on donkeys that were making a tighter and tighter circle. To the boys’ relief, I called Spook off the donkeys, and they continued down the road.

This dog was so smart that sometimes she would anticipate what you wanted her to do. She loved our children and was very protective of them. When the boys would go visiting out in a village, Spook was always right there with them—unless she was out with me working some animals.

We had our own house worship service every Sunday evening for our family and colleagues who lived on the same compound and volunteers who were serving with us. All the windows were always open, and Spook would be outside and lying down next to a window where she could see me or at least hear me. When I sang, she would howl. If I stopped singing, she would stop howling. We could never understand why she did this, but for the most part I could not sing as everyone would laugh too much at Spook and not make a joyful noise!

Spook had a terrible weakness. She was afraid of storms. Fortunately, where we lived at the edge of the Sahara, there were only 3-4 storms each year, and they came during a 14-week period. Spook could sense when a storm was brewing, but we had no idea that it was going to storm. Mind you we had no communication with the outside world where we lived, so we did not have any weather forecasts.

We could usually tell when Spook sensed a storm coming. She would become very nervous and agitated, so we would let her come into the house until the storm passed. Only twice did we fail to observe her warning, and she ran away. She would run in the opposite direction of the approaching storm, so we would know where to go looking for her.

Village dogs were so inbred that they all looked similar, and the villagers all knew Spook, so it was not a huge problem to find her.

Many people lead their lives in a manner that mimics Spook’s actions. Like Spook, they act exemplarily and excel in their activities and expectations. But when something happens to upset them or alarm them or they get some bad news, they fall apart.

At times when someone is diagnosed with cancer, they become overcome with fear of dying. Granted cancer is a frightful disease that takes over 600,000 lives a year in the USA. I know as I have been successfully treated for two different kinds of cancer in the past 11 years. Did I have fear? Yes, but I decided in both episodes to claim Joshua 1:9. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified nor dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

I so much admire my daughter-in-love, Kimberly, as she has recently been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on her pancreas. She was being screened to donate a kidney to a 20-year-old who is the daughter of some former missionary colleagues. The tumor was discovered much earlier than the normal diagnosis, so she is in a “wait-and-watch” season to see how fast the tumor grows and to watch a spot on her liver that also lit up in a scan.

Kimberly is such a happy, loving follower of Jesus, and everyone likes to be around her because she just oozes joy. Her diagnosis did not change her disposition or her outlook on life. What a great example of someone who has claimed Psalm 118:24 as their lifestyle: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Above the Ground

After having lunch with my pastor and the Director of Family Life at our church, I exited the restaurant and walked across the street at the pedestrian crosswalk. A man of about forty greeted me with a “Hello” as I met him. I quickly responded, “Hello. How are you doing?” As he walked past me he cheerfully replied, “Above the ground.”

I laughed out loud at his comment. As I reached my truck, I was still thinking about his response, and my thoughts went to living in West Africa. I was reminded of the beliefs of the Mossi people of Burkina Faso. I worked as a missionary agriculturist among these people for seven and a half years. These people believed that only the physical part of the body dies when they take their last breath. That sounds OK to us western Christians, but that is where the similarities end.

The spirit side of the person drifts around them after death. To appease the wandering spirit, they make sacrifices for the departed that include food, local beer, money to buy things after death and clothes. Their afterlife is truly “above the ground.”

I participated in many burials while living in Burkina. Since it was always extremely hot, a body had to be buried the day of the death. If the grave could not be dug in time for the burial to be finished before sunset, superstitions demanded that they dig the grave at night and wait until sunrise for the body to be buried.

Men dug the grave while the women prepared the body for burial.

I never attended a village burial where a casket was used. This was in the Sahel—the zone connecting the Sahara Desert with the savannah, the more temperate zone that stretched across West Africa. So wood was in short supply, and wood for a casket had to be imported from neighboring Ghana. The villagers had no means to purchase such a luxury.

Villagers dug a round hole about 6 feet wide and about two feet deep, and in the middle of that hole they dug another hole. This “inner” hole was in the shape of a rectangle about thirty inches by eighteen inches and about 3-4 feet deep. Three or four men would get into the bigger hole, and they would place the feet of the body into the smaller hole. As they slowly released the body, it would slide into the slot. When the feet hit the bottom of the hole, the buttocks would also slide onto the bottom of the hole. The body was in a crouching position and the head would fall over on the knees. The result was that the body rested in the fetal position.

When I asked about this process, they would explain to me that a person came into the world from this fetal position, and when they reached their final earthly home, they were once again in the fetal position. I must admit that I really like this custom and wish that we practiced it. Of course, today the funeral directors would develop a casket that would be buried with the body in a fetal position while others would manufacture a vault in which to place the casket.

Today, we spend a lot of our time “above the ground” worrying when Jesus taught us not to worry. We make all kind of excuses about why we can’t spend more time with our family while understanding that God ordained our family and not our jobs or ministries or recreational activities. While walking on the topside of the soil, we spend most of our financial resources on ourselves and our family, while there are so many desperate needs of which we are aware.

And worst of all, while we await our time to leave our above the ground lives and enter eternity, we neglect sharing the best news that we will ever hear above the ground—the Good News of salvation for all who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Lard

You can find canola and olive oil in most American kitchens today. But when I was growing up you could find lard as the primary cooking oil ingredient in most kitchens. I watched both of my grandmothers and my mother dip their hands in the lard bucket and mix it with biscuits and cake batters or throw a glob into an iron skillet to fry some chicken or pork chops. Lard was rendered from pork and other animal fats, and we never considered that it was unhealthy for us.

A century ago, Procter and Gamble came out with a product called Crisco shortening that used chemical processes to change vegetable oils to solids. They advertises that this product was a better choice than traditional animal fats, so households began to use the new product over their traditional lard. Then in the 1990s, when the medical establishment joined the Crisco marketers to hammer on saturated fats as the culprits in heart disease, lard’s banishment was complete.

The truth is that Crisco and other early hydrogenated oils were made from cottonseed—a waste product of the cotton ginning process that was fed to cattle. However, it was goodbye to lard because it was not healthy for you—or so the mass marketers told us.  

Today American households use many different kinds of cooking oils, but they shun palm oil. However, palm oil is consumed worldwide more than any other oil. The next largest consumed oil is soybean followed by rapeseed while cottonseed is number seven followed closely by coconut and olive oil (Vegetable oils consumption worldwide 2022/23 | Statista).

I watched the preparation of palm oil many times while living in Cote d’Ivoire. Palm kernels are cracked to remove the shells and cooked over an open fire. Then women make a mush with a wooden hand carved mortar and pestle and extract the oil. Palm oil is the most widely used oil on the continent of Africa. However, villagers in the Sahel, where we lived in Burkina Faso, did not have enough rainfall for palm trees to grow. Their main source of oil was extracted from the kernels of the shea tree nut.

In the past 50 years as the Sahara has marched southward each year, villagers have razed the countryside in the Sahel in search of firewood for cooking. The landscape is practically bare of all trees except the shea tree because of its cooking and medicinal values. The shea tree is very hardy and does not require any special nourishment or attention. Every part of this tree that is indigenous to Burkina Faso and surrounding areas is useful.

The production of shea butter provides economic sustenance to rural women who do not have many ways to make money for their families. In most recent years, shea butter exported from Burkina Faso has increased as it has been used in the cosmetic industry in Europe and North America.

Over the years, saturated fat found in lard has garnered a bad reputation as an artery-clogging fat. However, recent research has shown that saturated fat is not the artery-clogging danger as we once thought.

The main constituents of lard are monounsaturated fatty acids, particularly oleic acid. These are the same fats that are found in olives and avocados!!

I don’t know how many times I have read how avocados are full of “good fat” and healthy for you. Our family regularly eats loads of olives and avocados. So, why not lard? I think my grandmothers and my mother were much smarter than we gave them credit. Way to go Mama Downs, Grandmama and Mimi!

Wonder how many more of our southern comfort foods that we shunned over the years are actually healthy for our bodies?

Fried green tomatoes. Country ham. Cheese straws. Hush puppies. Whole hog barbecue. Fried okra. Giblet gravy. Deviled eggs. Biscuits and gravy. Am I making you hungry?!

Chitlins and Rutabagas

Good ole pig guts! That’s what chitlins are. I think the proper name is chitterlings, but for those of us who grew up in the rural South, they are chitlins. I think the origin of chitlins was rooted in one of the small farmer’s values: use everything you have.

I did not fully understand this value until I lived in West Africa. When we shared a meal with a villager’s family and they prepared a chicken, our boys’ eyes would roll back into their heads when they saw the villagers eating every part of the chicken except the beak and the claws. That included the bones as they would crack them with their teeth and suck the marrow out of the bones. And the gristle—it was just crunchy chicken meat.

Cooking the intestines of the pig takes a certain culinary prowess as they must be carefully washed and cooked to make them safe for consumption. In the early winter each year my uncles would kill hogs and it was all hands on deck.  It was an exciting time as I watched the process as a child. Big black iron pots of boiling water were prepared to help remove the dirt and hair from the pig skin. I won’t bore the reader with a gross description of the next steps, but it included the removal of the intestines and cleaning them with boiling water.

My family was not fond of chitlins—except my younger brother, Bubba. When Bubba was only two years old, he developed a taste for chitlins. Our neighbor, Beatrice, started feeding chitlins to Bubba as a joke, but to everyone’s surprise Bubba really liked them. Beatrice kept Bubba while I was at school, and some days when I was walking home from school, the aroma of chitlins filled the air long before I arrived at home. The smell of them cooking is pungent. I was never able to eat them because they had to pass under my nose, and I just could not get them down. Actually, the smell is worse when they are boiling. After they are boiled, they are rolled in flour, salt and pepper and other seasonings and then deep fried.

After we started living overseas, I learned that us rural southerners were not so crude after all as the French consider andouille sausages a delicacy. And the Scots rave about their haggis. By any other name both of those delicacies are still chitlins!

Another southern food that stinks while cooking is rutabagas. They stunk so bad that my mother would never cook them for my dad, although he loved eating them. Cheryl’s grandmother learned that Pete liked rutabagas, and since she loved to please people she enjoyed cooking rutabagas for Pete. I asked Mamoo one time if she liked rutabagas, and she said no and she hated to smell them cooking. So, I asked her why she cooked them for Pete, and she said simply “I like to do things for people I love.”

As I write this blog post on Saturday afternoon, I am multi-tasking and watching college football games. When I finish this epistle, I am going to abandon my football games and take my grandson, Pete, to get a cookies and cream milkshake. No one asked me to take him; I am not taking him to get a milkshake because I feel that I need to do it; I am just taking him because I like to do things for people I love.

Why not do something for someone just because you like to do things for people you love?

Grandchildren

“Your children are your rainbow, and your grandchildren are your pot of gold.” So goes an old saying. We are blessed with 16 grandchildren, and 13 of those are girls!!

Like us, you have had friends who have moved to be close to their grandchildren. Then, one of the children’s parents gets a new job in a different city and they move away from the grandparents.  We are so blessed to have all four of our children and their families living close to us. One has lived 30 minutes from us for many years, and another is building a house right next door to us. The other two live an hour and a half from our home.

We cannot control what our grandchildren do about sharing time together after we have gone to be with the Lord, but as long as we are able, we intend to get family together whenever possible. To that end, Cheryl prepares Sunday lunch for kids and grandkids every Sunday that we are in town. We usually have 15 for lunch, but sometimes one of the granddaughters who are in college will drive an hour or an hour and a half to come spend Sunday with us. And sometimes they drive from college another day of the week just to spend time with Nana and Papa. We love that our grandkids like to spend time with us during this season of our lives.

Preparing Sunday lunch is a task for Cheryl, but she has the gift of hospitality, and she loves to cook—especially for our family and our chosen family. She does a lot of the cooking on Saturdays. Yes, I do help, although I help her less during college football season. But I still carry the dishwashing duties for the pots and pans and cooking accessories. Different kids and grandkids help with the cleanup after Sunday lunch, but Jeff carries the big load.

After lunch, some kids and sometimes an older grandchild will take a nap, but most of the grandkids are supercharged, so we try to harness some of that energy by playing table games or playing on the floor with the preschoolers or playing outside.

It is volleyball and soccer season for some grandkids as I write, and it seems that ballet goes on all the time. We enjoy seeing grandkids playing a sport, singing in the chorus, participating in a school play, performing in ballet programs, and just taking them out to eat.

A huge joy for me is to walk into a room while a grandchild is staying overnight with us and see them reading their Bible or journaling with their Bible in their lap. One day I was watching TV in our bedroom, and I walked into the living room to find two granddaughters reading their Bibles. I felt so bad because there I was watching TV while two of my grandkids were seeking wisdom from the Bible.

I am blessed to have wonderful grandchildren who walk with the Lord and enjoy spending time with Nana and Papa.

Bread

During our first few weeks of living in Tours, France where we were studying French, I came home every day with two baguettes. Cheryl fussed at me because we could only eat one during a 24-hour period.

We had only learned a few vocabulary words, so I would go into the boulangerie across the street from our apartment and point to the baguettes and hold up my index finger to indicate that I wanted one baguette. The proprietor would smile and give me two loaves and take the money from my outstretched hand. I explained that to Cheryl, and neither of us knew what I was doing to get two baguettes.

Finally, I swallowed my pride and asked one of our missionary colleagues what I was doing wrong. He told me that If you held up your thumb, you received one loaf, and if you wanted two loaves you held up the thumb and the forefinger. So, the boulanger had only noticed my forefinger and gave me two loaves.

It was great living across the street from a boulangerie, but when we lived in Burkina Faso, the nearest bakery was four hours away, and it was not nearly as good as what we had bought in France. If we wanted bread where we lived out in the bush, Cheryl had to make it. She developed the art of making delicious home-made bread while using flour that had to be sifted to remove weevil eggs. It was the work of her hands and knowing just when to stop the kneading of the dough that made it taste so good.

As I have traveled the world for the past 47 years, there are many common things that I have noticed in every culture that I have visited. Every people group has some type of staple starch food that is a necessity of life. Of course, western cultures have more selection, so they usually have hundreds of choices of bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, cereals, and some more elaborate ones like couscous. Around the world the leading starch may be baguettes in France, injera in Ethiopia, corn tortillas in Guatemala, rice in Cambodia, ugali in Uganda, naan bread in India, polenta in Romania, or millet mush in Mali.

Today when Cheryl cooks for any of our 16 grandchildren, she can’t always be sure that they will eat what she cooks as some of them have some idiosyncrasies about what they will eat, but one thing she can be sure of is that they will put away her homemade waffles, pancakes, rolls, bread, and cheese bread.

The smell of bread baking. Hot bread with a bit of butter. Homemade cinnamon rolls. Hot cornbread. We all like bread—even though some must eat the gluten-free kind.

Jonathan Swift once said, “Bread is the staff of life.” It is true that bread or some similar staple is a large part of people’s diets around the world.

Jesus proclaimed in John 6, “I am the bread of life.” Because we have a greater need than a daily starchy staple, Jesus came into the world not to give us bread but to be bread in us. Our souls are hungrier than our bodies, and we desperately need someone to satisfy our soul. Only Jesus can do that.

Wait 'til I Die

This past week I read once again the story of the prodigal son. I really like to call it “The Parable of the Loving Father” because the Father of the two sons represents God in this story. 

 Many have called this the best story ever told. Since I was a boy, this story has been one of my favorites.

 One of my mentors wanted to make sure that the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering received the bulk of his meager estate, so he requested that I serve as his executor. He left me several mementos of our 44-year relationship, and one of them was his rendition of The Prodigal Son. This huge gold and black framed pencil and charcoal drawing is mounted on the wall of our home. 

 Other than the first two verses of Luke 15, which set the context for the three following parables, there is not a backstory for this narrative of the lost son. It jumps right into the son asking for his inheritance. According to custom, he and his brother would receive his father’s estate upon the death of their father. However, the younger son could not wait for his father to die. In essence, he was saying I wish you were dead, father, so I could get your wealth. 

 During a visit to my parents’ home a few years ago, my dad, Pete, and I were working in his backyard by his shop. I asked Pete about an old thermometer that was mounted on the outside of his shop. It was a big “RC Cola” branded thermometer that was faded, but well preserved. And—it still had the correct temperature! My dad told me that an RC Cola representative had given him that thermometer in 1955. 

I like doing things with old barn wood, so I began imagining what I could do with that old thermometer, and I liked the idea of mounting it on some of the old 120-year-old barn wood that I had. I was thinking how great it would be to find an antique “Moon Pie” sign, mount it on some old wood and hang both signs on a wall in our home.

That night as Cheryl and I were visiting with my mom and dad, I asked my dad if he would give me that RC Cola relic. I will never forget his response. First of all, he just looked at me for what seemed like a long time, and then his face cringed a bit as he looked away. Then he looked back at me and said, “Larry, can’t you just wait ‘til I die to get that thermometer?” 

I was heartbroken that I had asked for it. So many things ran through my mind in an instant. I could not recall ever asking my dad to give me something since I left home to go to college at age 17. I wanted to apologize for asking. I wanted to take back my question. I wanted to crawl under the chair.

My mother spoke first: “Pete, you don’t need that old sign. Give it to Larry.” I tried to take back my request and say that it was ok to leave it there for the time being, but my mother continued to bark at my dad for not giving up the sign right away. Finally, I managed to change the subject.

The next morning as we were packing the car for our return trip home, there in the back of my car was the RC Cola sign wrapped in paper towels. My dad had removed the two rusty screws that attached the thermometer to his shop and wrapped it up for me. I knew better than to start another discussion about the old sign, so I just whispered in his ear “Thank you, Pete, for giving the RC Cola thermometer to me.” 

Today when I read the story of the Prodigal son, I think of disrespecting my dad by asking for something that he cherished. I could not wait to get something that I wanted—just like the prodigal son. 

Pete was never able to visit our home to see the RC Cola thermometer mounted on 120-year-old barn siding and displayed prominently in our home. I look at that relic often and think about how much I would have liked for my dad to see the old thermometer and know how much I cherish it just like he did.

Unfortunately, I have only found numerous Moon Pie sign reproductions, but I have not been able to find that antique Moon Pie sign. But the RC Cola thermometer serves as a reminder of the significance of honoring our parents’ memories, of the importance of not being greedy and asking for things that we know we will later receive, and of telling stories about our parents and lessons learned from our parents to our children and grandchildren.