Heroes

A friend asked me to listen to a presentation by a former worker in a restricted access area of the world. The presentation was made in a church and my son and I watched it on YouTube. Let us call the former worker “Alex” in my story.

After a glowing five-minute introduction by the pastor, Alex took the stage and began talking about himself. Fifty minutes later he closed talking about himself! To make his speech more appropriate for a church setting, he wove in a scripture passage every now and then. Otherwise, he could have given the same speech to the Rotary Club—but they would have cut him off after 20 minutes because the members only meet for an hour and that includes eating and all their business discussions.

I know—I have already set the stage for a negative story about Alex but hold on because I will finish on the positive side.

Alex based his speech around an encounter that he had with some purported government authorities who wanted to take his life because he was affiliated with the CIA. He drug this story out so long by adding humor to the life and death situation. Then he told the story of his life backwards ending up with yet another story about him—of course—when he was 17. I won’t bore you with any more details of his self-gratifying stories.

Jason and I fast forwarded the video occasionally, but we listened to most of it mainly because we wanted to see if he breeched security with his stories. However, that was not the major concern. More uneasiness was caused by Alex’s implications and hints that he was with the CIA while serving as a worker.

Alex’s speech did give Jason and me an opportunity to have a conversation about heroes. An amazing thing is how much the congregation seemed to enjoy his stories even though the focus was clearly on him. Much of today’s culture promotes heroes. The challenge is that most of America’s heroes are celebrities—those who sing or rap about a myriad of themes (some decent and some indecent), those who play professional sports making and spending exorbitant amounts of money and having lifestyles  that we don’t want our children to emulate, political figures, tele-preachers, and on and on.

Who are the real heroes? I loved listening to Paul Harvey on the radio while growing up. He actually talked about good news and told stories about people who in my mind were real heroes.

Later that day the Lord brough to my mind a person from my past, and I think it was because he was a real hero. When we arrived to serve in Burkina Faso in 1980, our family was met by Ina and Bryant Durham. This is one of the most unassuming couples that I have ever known. They were soft spoken, but Bryant could raise his voice when he thought it was necessary. Their southern drawl gave away the Georgia roots, and it made you relax when talking to them. Bryant was a southern gentleman, but he was no county bumpkin. He had a PhD, but his wisdom was not all classroom based. He was a wise man who made hard decisions based on the facts and occasionally threw in a bit of compassion and grace.

Bryant and Ina stayed in Nigeria serving the Lord and the people they loved when the Biafran War broke out. They wound up being on the wrong side of the war when the war was over in January, 1970, and they were never able to return to Nigeria to serve. The mission board asked them to come to Upper Volta to open work in this country for the first time. Bryant served in Ouagadougou as the Mission Treasurer and in many other leadership positions until their retirement in the mid-1980s.

Bryant will never be recognized by those who did not know him. He was not a pastor or polished public speaker, and I doubt that he ever gave a speech promoting himself. He never called attention to himself. He was a quiet reserved gentleman who walked with the Lord and made sacrifices to serve the Lord in West Africa for 30+ years. To me he was a hero.