The day had finally come: Something thrilling was going to happen, but then—!

For several days we’d had to hike Lomalinda’s steep hills in mid-day equatorial sun and eat lunch in the dining hall, and we always felt sick by the time we got there.

After lunch every day, we stopped at the comm to buy a few more groceries and kitchen supplies, hand-carrying them home and once again feeling sick by the time we hiked home. (Click on sun poisoning: nausea, vomiting, chills, fever, headache. . . .)

Making our kitchen functional was taking longer than I expected—much longer. But that day I was encouraged: I had almost unpacked our suitcases, and the kitchen cupboards and fridge were looking better.

Daily, I made good progress but also faced challenges. Life was constantly one of those two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back experiences. Persevere, I kept telling myself. Persevere. Focus.

Each hour presented me with ups and downs. Take, for example, food.

One of the bonuses of Lomalinda was that carrots and tomatoes tasted like real carrots and tomatoes, genuine flavors I recalled from my childhood when people grew their own produce.

But why didn’t the other food taste like it was supposed to taste? We had only powdered milk, and it had a strong flavor. (The brand name was KLIM, milk spelled backward.) Raw beef, so different from ours in the States, had a sweet, stomach-turning stench and, cooked, it tasted gamy.

And why did food stink? Flour, rice, and sugar had an odor. Brown sugar smelled strange, too. It came in rock-hard lumps, and we had to grate it before we could use it.

But I shouldn’t have complained—it was food. And I hadn’t had to grow it or milk it or butcher it.

And then came the day

when something thrilling was going to happen:

For the first time, we would eat lunch at home

because we had the right groceries

in our cupboard and fridge.

We had dishes and silverware in the cupboards.

No more hiking to the dining hall—

such bliss!

Bent over the open suitcase on the floor, I sorted through the last of the pots and pans and plastic drinking glasses and a pressure cooker, arranging them just so in the cupboards. I was almost giddy.

But then—

then!—

a man arrived at our door

saying I had to empty the kitchen cupboards

so he could spray for insects.

I was furious but, I hope, I kept that to myself.

(From Chapter 8,

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Now, looking back on that setback, tears sting my eyes. I was so young, and I was trying so hard to make that place a home for Dave and the kids and myself.

My discouragement was not unreasonable. The seventy-something me commends the tender twenty-something me for battling so hard.

I wish the older me could have spoken to the younger me. The older me recognizes that transitioning out of our comfortable places and into unfamiliar spaces includes grief—grief for what we have left behind.

It also involves a different type of grief—a pain, a misery, a pesky dark cloud—that envelops us as we fight and wrestle and, sometimes, even wage war to create a new home.

Marilyn Gardner writes:

“. . . Sometimes we need to just sit with the grief before being forced to move on. . . . Sometimes we need to just stop where we are and honor that moment.

“Sit with your grief, let it flow, don’t try too hard to analyze, don’t push yourself . . . to some ‘right’ response. Just sit with it. Because as the grief comes, so will the comfort.” (Marilyn Gardner)

“Dear God . . . You are my one fixed stability 

in the midst of changing circumstances. 

Your faithfulness, Lord, is my peace. 

It is a source of comfort and courage. 

You know exactly what is ahead of me. 

Go before me to show the way. 

Here is my mind; inspire it with Your wisdom. 

Here is my will; infuse it with desire to follow Your guidance. 

Here is my heart; infill it with Your love. 

I realize, Father, that there is enough time today 

to do what You desire. . . . 

Thank You for your power and presence." 

(Quiet Moments with God, Lloyd John Ogilvie)

Longing for a familiar sight or sound or smell

Our first day in Lomalinda had held some high highs and low lows for me. (Click on those links.)

It had started before dawn in the crowded, noisy, air-polluted capital city, Bogotá, high in the Andes Mountains. We’d spent all morning in a taxi, careening around steep curves, gasping at drop-offs, and begging God to preserve our lives—grasping barf bags and trying not to throw up.

Then, from the eastern foot of the Andes, we had flown in a custom-made little plane to our new home, Lomalinda, a mission center in the middle of nowhere.

The day had been challenging and exhausting, physically and emotionally and mentally. And all day, I had subconsciously longed for an anchor, a familiar vista or sound or smell—the sight of towering evergreen trees or the call of a foghorn or the fragrance of salty sea air.

If I were still back home in the Pacific Northwest, apples would be crisping, and I’d have been making applesauce by the gallon, chunky and cinnamony and buttery.

Sweet wild blackberries by the hundreds of thousands would hang heavy on vines, and my fingers would wear purple berry stains for weeks, my hands and arms scratched from thorny vines.

Peaches would be ripening, and I’d have been making pies and cobblers.

But I lived a continent away and everything told me I stood on foreign soil. I had no familiar sights or sounds or smells to comfort me, no anchor to steady me.

That evening, I stepped outside into Lomalinda’s still blackness. Neither smog nor city lights nor skyscrapers competed with night skies, and the brilliance of the stars took my breath away. I’d never seen them shine so clearly.

Then I turned and spotted the moon. The moon! I’d found that familiar something I yearned for.

And then—!

And then I realized, with a start,

that our loved ones back home

could look at that moon at the same time we did,

not only at that moment but every night—

a tie that bound us.

My heart lurched, and then soared.

(from Chapter 6,

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Cross-cultural living helped prepare me for the coronavirus pandemic

Although I didn’t realize it until now, adjusting—or, rather, struggling to adjust—to living in South America gave me skills and perspective for coping during this coronavirus pandemic. (It’s always good to look for the silver lining, isn’t it?)

The numbness I feel during this pandemic reminds me that by the time I got off the plane in our remote mission center, Lomalinda, I was already numb—optimistic, but a little dazed. I wouldn’t have remembered that if I weren’t now experiencing the way my body and mind react to stress, uncertainty, and a new way of doing life.

While the morning and noon of Day One in Lomalinda had gotten off to a great start (click on that link), I was in for an unwelcome surprise.

Oppressive tropical heat and immersion in a foreign culture left me off-balance, but it would get worse. On that first afternoon, I was about to experience alarm and fright and anger and exhaustion.

Similarly, today’s pandemic can thrust us into alarm, fright, anger, and exhaustion—emotional and mental chaos: 

• I know and love people who work on the front lines, heroes every one of them. Their lives are in extreme danger day by day by day.
• I know and love people who are hooked up to ventilators, people who might have only hours to live.
• Who else might come down with the coronavirus? My husband? Son? Daughter? My grandkids? My mother-in-law? Brothers? Dear friends?
• I can’t even begin to grasp the economic impact on my family, town, nation, and the world.

Life as my family and I have known it has changed drastically. And it will probably never return to our previous “normal.” Similarly, there in that out-of-the-way place in South America, life offered me little that I'd always known as “normal.”

We humans do confusing things at such times. Our brains dysfunction, at least partially, and we must work so hard to think rationally and make decisions.

And the old adage, “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” is likely as true now as it ever was.

How do we cope?

How do we take care of ourselves

and our families?

How do we carry out our duties?

How do we keep putting one foot in front of the other?

In Lomalinda, I would eventually discover answers to those questions, but it wasn’t a pretty process.

For years I thought about that raw experience and was able to write this in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go:

God knows all about change and hard things,

about adjusting and stretching.

He knows the unfolding, the modifying,

straightening, widening, flexing, enlarging,

altering, and polishing.

He sees the big picture,

His ultimate goal for each of us.

He knows our destination and knows we need to change

before we can arrive there.

In Lomalinda, God wanted me to learn that

it’s okay to live life one day at a time,

even one hour at a time.

And He wanted to teach me that sometimes

courage wasn’t what I’d always assumed.

(from Chapter 9, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Now I look back and recognize that the trauma, the unanswered questions and unanswered prayers, the grief, the confusion, the ongoing battles—all of it prepared me for the future, including for this coronavirus pandemic.

Let’s talk about this more next week. For now, I’ll leave you with this benediction:

May the God of hope

fill you with all joy and peace

as you trust in him,

so that you may overflow with hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

(Romans 15:13)

Coronavirus: Colombia’s 16th century indigenous peoples’ wisdom about surviving pandemics

Sixteenth-century Spanish conquistadores brought diseases to what is now Colombia, South America, destroying much of the indigenous population. Those who survived fled deep into the most hidden, inhospitable regions—places few would or could follow them. (from Chapter 15, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Nowadays many people think of indigenous groups as ignorant but, in many ways, they were and still are wise. During our coronavirus pandemic, we can and must learn from them.

John Lundin, an American, is quarantined on a mountaintop in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains where he has lived for nine years among the Kogi and Arhuaco indigenous people. When my family and I lived in Colombia, we knew and worked with linguists and Bible translators working among both of those groups.

John Lundin writes:

“My indigenous friends [in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia] recount from memory, a memory passed on from generation to generation for more than five hundred years, the stories of how the white  man arrived on the shores of Colombia, in ships with wings of cloth, bearing with them the white man’s disease, a pandemic that eventually wiped out the cultures of the Maya and Inca. . . .

“How did the indigenous peoples deal with it then? The cultures that survived did so with ‘social distancing’—isolating themselves from the infected Europeans.

“The Kogi and the Arhuaco fled to the high mountains, burning bridges behind them, and eventually settling into a new life that separated them from the harm that eventually came to the Maya and Inca and others.”

As I said, those sixteenth-century indigenous folks were very smart! And many, perhaps most, of those indigenous people groups have survived over these five hundred years. When we lived in Colombia, our Bible translator friends worked among some thirty-five of those groups.

I want to address another important bit of wisdom

ancient indigenous peoples understood:

They recognized the importance

of passing down stories from generation to generation.

That’s why I blog about and teach others to write memoirs.

Your stories are important.

There’s a reason people read great books.

There’s a reason the Bible is full of stories.

Stories teach us how best to live our lives.

Stories can help us avoid mistakes others have made.

Stories can tell us how to survive:

“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed.

Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.”

Morgan Harper Nichols

You have stories only you can tell.

Your children, grandchildren, and great-grands

need to know them.

Make sure your family’s generational stories

get passed on to future generations.

Click here to learn what a memoir is.

Follow my blog: Click here on Spiritual Memoirs 101.

Get updates from the blog

and lots of additional tips and info

on the Facebook Page for Spiritual Memoirs 101.

A hush and God’s whisper

We’d been riding in a taxi through the Andes Mountains for two and a half hours, holding on for dear life along steep, narrow roads that curved left and right and left again. Stretches of road—with no guardrails—teetered over drop-offs of hundreds of feet. 

Every few moments the driver blasted his horn and we bolted forward. He used his brakes as often as his horn. Buses and cars careened toward us down the mountainside and around corners.

I wanted to cry, Will this ride ever end? But I couldn’t speak—near-hysteria had taken my breath away.

But the trip wasn’t all bad. Luxuriant tropical vegetation surrounded us—hibiscus in red, pink, and white; leggy poinsettia trees in full bloom; carpets of flowers in orange, magenta, and gold.

Coleus, tall and crimson, grew beside the road, and philodendrons and other tropical plants I couldn’t name—all nestled among the woodlands. The vegetation was different from what we’d always known in Seattle, yet beautiful.

“Watch now!” our traveling companion, Laura, grinned. “You’ll see something special!”

A few seconds later we rounded a corner and exited the Andean forest and, from our spot high on the east edge of the Andes, Dave and I gasped at the view.

A vast, low expanse of steaming plains spread out before us, stretching east, north, and south—the llanos. An azure sky stretched to eternity, clean and searing and clear.

Somewhere out there, way out in that immense humid unknown, we’d find Lomalinda. (from Chapter 5, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

I’ve always remembered that surprising, vivid scene.

Forty-three years later, my heart still races when I relive it.

It was as if a hush invaded the taxi

and God whispered:

“I, the Lord, made everything,

stretching out the skies by myself

and spreading out the earth all alone.”

Isaiah 44:24, NCV

At such times we mortals can only

fall on our knees and say:

“Come, let us worship and bow down,

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker,

the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Psalm 95:6, Psalm 146:6

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they exist and were created.”

Revelation 4:11, ESB

When you have a desperate need to spend time alone with God

I have a hunch you’ve experienced life spinning out of control—maybe a time when the opinions and wishes of those closest to you pulled in one direction and then yanked you the opposite direction.

And in the midst of all that, you had your own opinions and wishes and plans and dreams. Life can get ragged, can’t it?

That’s where I found myself at the beginning of my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go. Dave was certain we should move our young family to Lomalinda, a mission center in the wilds of Colombia, South America, but I strongly opposed that.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 1:

  The worst part of moving to Lomalinda, the part I couldn’t bear to put into words, was separating my kids from their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The thought of that crushed my soul. Matt and Karen were part of those folks. And they were part of Matt and Karen, and of me, too. We defined ourselves within our family circle. Children thrive when surrounded by relatives who nurture, love, and shape them. With all my heart I believed yanking out our roots and moving to Lomalinda would hinder my children’s well-being, and that conviction made me the most obstinate.

  Dave subtly persisted. But so did I: Please, God, don’t make me go!

And as if that conflict wasn’t bad enough, my mother fiercely disagreed with my husband and, uncharacteristically, in sheer panic, with the profound protection mothers always feel for their kids, she pressured me to side with her.

It would’ve been easy for me to take her side because, after all, I agreed with her. But my heart told me my loyalty had to remain with my husband—and that was wrenching because everything within me rebelled at Dave’s plan.

The strain between Dave and me continued for weeks, even months. Life went on pretty well, but we avoided talking about moving to Colombia, and I knew Dave had not budged a fraction of an inch.

In truth, my heart was broken. Shattered.

I wrote this in Chapter 2: 

Those were numb days. I looked west at my Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains, and east at Lake Washington and the Cascades, and tried to imagine living in a place without their timeless beauty.

  But even more painful, those days I looked at my parents and Dave’s through different eyes—stinging eyes. And I looked at our brothers and their families, and I tried to picture living on a faraway continent where all those precious faces would be only shadowy memories—for me, yes, but especially for my kids. How could I agree to leave?

Eventually, a holy discontent with the situation overcame me. Something had to give. I longed for relief from the stresses and pressures.

   I needed clear direction and, at a time like that, religious platitudes wouldn’t cut it. Pat answers and black-and-whites—useless. I longed to enter a still place and hear what God had to say—not Dave, not my mother, only Him. And I sensed Him saying, “No hurry. Take as long as you need.”

   Despite my duties with busy kids and husband and home and ministries, I found a thin place where my heart stayed alert, listening for God night and day. (Chapter 2)

I yearned to hear God’s still small voice, to dwell in a quiet place where I could hear His ongoing whisper. I needed His wisdom, His direction. I wanted take comfort in His presence.

And Amy Carmichael writes this reassurance about praying to God our Father, “. . . there is no need to press Him as if He were unwilling.” (Isn’t that a lovely, comforting reminder?) And indeed, I did feel welcome and safe in His presence.

I prayed something like David did in Psalm 27: “Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me! My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming” (verses 7 and 8, NLT).

Like David wrote in another psalm, I said, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.” He continues, “Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. . . . Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge”(Psalm 62:5-8, NIV).

Lloyd Ogilvie reminds us of our “primary commitment to put God first in our lives.” He says, “A constant surrender of our minds to think God’s thoughts and our will to do His will will give us the moment-by-moment discernment about what we should do.” That’s what I wanted.

And so, I prayed and set my heart to listen for Him—to listen to Him. I lived out one of my favorite passages in the Bible, Habakkuk 2:1, “I will stand like a guard to watch. . . . I will wait to see what the Lord will say to me” (ICB).

Perhaps today your life is in turmoil, stretched and pulled

almost to the breaking point.

Maybe you are at a fork in the road, like I was—

at a pivotal point, a defining moment.

Hear the words, “Come away, my beloved”

(Song of Solomon 8:14).

Step back—even if only in your heart and mind—

from the noisy crowded busy life all around you

and be still in God’s presence

and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10).

Pour out your heart.

Be intentional about watching and waiting,

for as long as it takes,

to hear what the Lord will say to you.

Finally! Amazon now sells my e-book! (and other good news)

Whew! It has taken close to three months, but finally Amazon is selling the e-book version of my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

A special thanks to Barnes and Noble for selling both the print book and e-book from the very beginning, June 4. Because of that, I’ve been referring everyone to them.

Amazon has sold my print book since day one, but I had to fight one battle after another after another to get Amazon to (1) sell my e-book and (2) install the “Look Inside” feature.

And if you missed it, I was pleasantly surprised and so grateful for the endorsement I received from Vicky Mixson, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. Take a minute to read Vicky’s kind words: Click on A special endorsement: Laughter and tears, cute stories and heartaches.

Also, many thanks to memoirist Kathleen Pooler who left a five-star review at Amazon and Goodreads. Check it out at this link.

Thank you to everyone

for the nice comments you’re making about

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go.

I hope you’ll think about

doing what Kathy Pooler did—

leave a review on Amazon,

Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, etc.

Reviews are like a much-needed

pat on the back for weary authors!

Part 2, Missionaries: hairy, dirty people who live in huts, wear outdated clothes, and eat things no one in his right mind would eat

As for missionaries being hairy and dirty (continuing from last week), well, once in a while some of the men let their hair and beards grow—my husband included. I’d forgotten about that until I recently saw a photo of him proving it.

And dirty? At times some of them, out of necessity, couldn’t bathe for a couple of days.

Take, for example, the time my friends Dottie and Fran, working down in the jungle, had to flee for their lives when rifle-toting guerrillas threatened to kill them. (You can read about it in Chapter 39, “We’re coming back later and if you’re here, we’ll kill you,” in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

It took a couple of days for them to reach a safe place. First, they hitched a ride in a canoe full of pigs. Next, to find a way to continue up the river, they had no choice but to seek help from a drunk man.

Dottie and Fran spent the night in a storeroom. The place was dangerous, but they barred the door with heavy boards. They didn’t get much sleep that night.

The next morning, they flew to safety in Lomalinda, thanks to one of our brave and talented pilots, George DeVoucalla, who had spotted them along the river.

You’ll read more details about Dottie and Fran’s escape but here’s my point: The ladies might have been “dirty” when they landed in Lomalinda—wouldn’t you and I have needed a shower and change of clothes?

Routinely my missionary friends were bathed and well-groomed even when their clothing might not have been the latest style.

And then there’s the notion that missionaries eat things no one in his right mind would eat. That impression can be correct.

Even I—the coward, the one who resists adventure—ate some curious stuff: piraña (piranha), boa constrictor, caiman, dove, plátanos, ajiaco, and cinnamon rolls seasoned with dead weevils.

A friend offered me grubs, but I passed on them.

I drank chicha (wait until you find out what that is!), and tinto, and warm bottled sodas, sometimes with bugs inside. At times I gagged or nearly fainted, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. (You’ll find that in Chapter 42 of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

Now, looking back, I admit those were FUN experiences!

But back in the very beginning of this whole adventure,

when my husband surprised me with

his wish to move the family to South America

so he could teach missionaries’ kids,

 it seemed that

both God and my husband

wanted to make my life terrible.

I wish so much I’d realized the truth

of what Samantha Conners writes:

“God doesn’t call us to do things

in order to make our lives terrible.”

(from “5 Lies People Believe About Missionaries”)

It took me a few months in Lomalinda 

to figure out that living and working there 

would be far from terrible—

in fact, it would turn out to be a highlight of my life.

Looking back now, I can say from experience

that Jeremiah 29:11 is true:

“For I know the plans I have for you,”

declares the Lord,

“plans to prosper you and not harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.”

Or, here’s the way The Message words that verse,

“I know what I’m doing.

I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you,

not abandon you. . . .”

And He did what He said. Oh, yes, He did!