Black Hawk

Russia’s new President Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a speech in 1986—just one year after being elected—where he criticized the Soviet Union’s economic system and introduced a new era with two words: Perestroika (reconstruction) and Glasnost (opening or transparency). This was the beginning of the fall of communism and the opening of Eastern Europe to the western world.

It was a great privilege to be able to work in Eastern Europe in the 1990s during the first post-communism decade. There had been no expat missionaries working in Eastern Europe during decades of communism, so the opportunities to send missionaries into the former Soviet Bloc countries was an answer to the prayers of millions of evangelical Christians.

The Area Director of Europe asked me to come and work on a leadership team to begin work in Eastern Europe. My responsibility was all the countries from the Baltics to the Balkans. That included all the Nordic countries down through Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Poland, Slovak and Czech Republics, Romania, Bulgaria, and on through Croatia, Serbia, and the rest of southern Europe. My colleague, Dan Panter, led workers in Russia and the rest of the Soviet satellite countries.

Since we were opening work in these countries, a huge challenge was getting families settled new areas. I had to do a great deal of traveling in those 16 countries to encourage new families as they began studying language, getting their children enrolled in schools, and learning how to buy groceries.

Those years were also difficult for Eastern Europeans as they were able to buy and sell commodities for the first time in generations. People all over Eastern Europe were hungry for western currencies as their currency rates were unstable. Prices for some items were relatively inexpensive, so I took the opportunity to buy some antique maps. All my life I have loved geography and especially old maps. I enjoyed browsing small old shops in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. One of the “treasures” that I found in Poland was a small map printed in German and made in Berlin. It was once part of a North American atlas. Most antique maps were part of a book at one time. If you are shopping for an antique map printed in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, look for a crease in the middle of the map to help authenticate the map. The crease was formed as the map was bound originally in a book.

A small 8” X 12” map caught my eye. It was printed in the late 1800s, and it featured the USA states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. and when I examined it closely, I was delighted to see the small town of “Black Hawk” printed on the Mississippi map. My mother and dad lived on a farm near Black Hawk when I was born. My dad graduated from Black Hawk High School in 1945. On this old map Black Hawk was registered as one of the stops on the stagecoach line from Nashville to Natchez.

Formed in 1828, Black Hawk, Mississippi is one of the oldest settlements in North Mississippi. The town was incorporated in 1836 but it had been a village long before Mississippi ever became a state. Some of the early settlers to this community were Coxes. I had a fast bond with this little antique map

Today there is no town of Black Hawk. All the little stores are gone and the road where the stagecoach once passed through Black Hawk is not even a through street. But the old Black Hawk School building is still standing, and it continues to be used for special events such as Bluegrass concerts or impromptu “picking and grinning.” Most governor candidates for the past 150 years have spoken at political rallies at the Black Hawk School.

Back to maps—today we do not value maps. We utilize GPS so much instead of maps that kids growing up now do not ever look at maps. GPS is very good at getting you to that next location, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the places that you’re passing along the way.

I had the little Black Hawk map framed, and I presented it to my parents. The map still hangs in a prominent place in my mother’s den today. Every time I visit my mother’s house, I study that map like it is my first time to see it. It brings back a lot of memories. Maps connect people to their memories.

Maps can tell you how people understood their world when that map was made. Maps are a time capsule.

Look at a map with someone else and it won’t take long for you both to start pointing to different spots and sharing stories of that place.

Am I advocating giving up the GPS—nope! I love using it although on occasion it has instructed Cheryl and me to “get out of the car and walk to your final destination.” Where’s my map?