Everyone knew they heard strangers approaching from the sky

 

Decades before our family arrived at that little missions center, Lomalinda, Marxists had influenced the Colombian government and a segment of society against Americans.

 

Cuba’s Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul, keen on violence and everything anti-American, had circulated propaganda, brought Colombian guerrillas to Cuba, trained them, offered aid and weapons, and sent them home to carry out a revolution.

 

Over the following decades, Marxist harassment against Americans (not just against missions organizations, but against American corporations and other interests, too), remained somewhat restrained.

 

Nevertheless, disinformation and misinformation against Americans circulated—sometimes truly bizarre accusations.

 

Hostility against Americans began to increase a couple of years before our family arrived in Colombia, and it would worsen. (Click on “We mean business. Get out or you’ll hear from us again.”)

 

Let me tell you about one incident.

 

Keep in mind that Lomalinda was a hushed place. At our missions center, we had no throngs of noisy, bustling humanity, no traffic jams, screeching brakes, honking horns or sirens, no factories or trains.

 

Oh, we did hear noises, mostly each other’s motorbikes, just before school started and offices opened in the morning, and again in the afternoon when school dismissed, and later when offices closed.

 

We recognized friends’ moto sounds and knew who was arriving at our back door.

 

We recognized the hum and rumble of our planes and could distinguish between the Evangel and the two Helio Couriers.

 

Other than that, our center was a still place.

 

And so, back in May 1974, two years before our family moved to Lomalinda, everyone knew they heard strangers approaching from the sky. That was the day the military helicopter arrived.

 

It circled overhead but, rather than landing at the hangar, it set down alongside the dining hall and commissary.

 

A swarm of anthropologists and armed forces jumped out, among them two generals and a colonel. At the same time, a Navy truck full of frogmen roared up the steep, winding hill where the helicopter had landed.

 

Forrest Zander, our director at that time, approached the major general in charge, who, bristling, ordered Forrest to gather his staff for a meeting, opened sealed orders, and announced: “You will open your doors for our inspection.” (Forrest Zander, “Invasion by Land, Sea and Air”)

 

Forrest complied.

 

In the Technical Studies Department, the investigators studied our linguistic files.

 

At the hangar, military officers demanded to see paperwork authorizing the use of planes and radios. They examined offices, filing cabinets, and the parts storeroom. They asked why the landing strip was so short. That was easy to answer. Since pilots used some of the world’s most dangerous airstrips—on precarious mountainsides or in dense, tangled jungle—planes were equipped, and pilots trained, to land on and take off from short strips.

 

The frogmen found their way to the lake and began searching for a uranium mine—for a long time some groups had suspected our organization of covert activities like mining uranium—a truly bizarre rumor.

 

Here’s how one of those outrageous rumors started: In Lomalinda’s pioneering days when everyone used a communal bathroom, the septic system clogged. A couple of men spent the day digging out waste and dumping it into fifty-gallon drums.

 

By the time they finished it was dark, but they kept working, loading the drums into a truck, driving to a pasture, and emptying them.

 

That should have been the end of the story, but soon the community faced accusations of mining uranium from the lake, storing it in drums, and flying it out at night in their planes. (Reggie McClendon, “Uranium from the Lake”)

 

Do you see how off-the-wall that accusation was?

 

Here’s another preposterous, laughable allegation: In Lomalinda’s early years, our missionaries had also been accused of plotting to launch missiles from three water storage tanks when the United States took over Colombia, using its three small planes and radio department in support of that effort. (Forrest Zander, “Invasion by Land, Sea and Air.”)

So, with the arrival of that helicopter and the frogmen, the government hoped to discover and expose our organization’s true reason for working in Colombia—or, rather, what they mistakenly surmised was our reason for working there.

 

Frogmen dragged the lake for several days, learning only that it held no uranium, no secrets of any kind.

 

The military’s other week-long investigation showed Lomalinda’s people owned no uranium mines or missile launchers, made no nighttime flights, and didn’t carry out hush-hush activities.

 

As a result, the Minister of Government stood up for our well-known global mission agency and charges were dropped.

 

Even so, in coming years, ongoing false accusations would threaten to bring work to a halt. (from Chapter 14, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Looking back, it's clear to see

our times were in God's hands,

and that for another too-few years,

He would deliver us from the hands of our enemies,

from those who pursued us (Psalm 31:15).

Laughing at impossibilities

 

About a month into our new life in Lomalinda, I was only beginning to get acquainted with her people. I was clueless about the deep, enduring blessings God would give me through my new neighbors and colleagues.

 

In the coming months and years, God would use them to help me take baby steps toward walking by faith, not by sight. They would shape who I was to become and change me forever.

 

I would witness that these ordinary people trusted God—in very practical, specific, real-life ways. They demonstrated faith in action while, among many other things, they endured ongoing hostility from Marxist guerrillas.

 

Let me tell you how that hostility began.

 

In 1948, the assassination of a Colombian presidential candidate triggered an era known as La Violencia (The Violence), twelve years of mass murders, mobs, rioting, destruction, fires, and political conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives.

 

Participating in that unrest was a young Cuban student, Fidel Castro, at the National University of Bogotá. (Yes, Cuba’s leader, the Fidel Castro you’ve heard about for decades.)

 

After returning to Cuba, he and his brother, Raul, recognized La Violencia left Colombia ripe for a revolution like Cuba’s and began preaching Marxist/Leninist principles among Colombians.

 

Keen on violence and everything anti-American, Castro circulated propaganda, brought Colombian guerrillas to Cuba, trained them, offered aid and weapons, and sent them home to carry out their revolution.

 

La Violencia was also a time of hostility against evangélicos (Protestant Christians) and Roman Catholics, especially pastors and priests, some of whom were martyred for their faith. Churches were destroyed and burned. In addition, for years Roman Catholics had prevented most Protestant mission agencies from entering the country.

 

Given that, what Cameron Townsend dreamed up in 1956, eight years into La Violencia, seems absurd.

 

Founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators (which was to become the world’s foremost Bible translation organization) and SIL International (a scientific as well as faith-based organization) Cameron Townsend (Uncle Cam) came up with a wild idea—he wanted to start Bible translation work in Colombia.

 

Bible translation and more. Because the Bible tells us, many times, to care about people’s all-around well-being, Uncle Cam cared, too. In other Latin American countries, his mission agency had addressed spiritual, physical, and educational needs of minority groups and he wanted to do the same in Colombia.

 

To many people, that made no sense, given the hostility toward both Americans and Protestant Christians at the time, but plucky Uncle Cam stepped up, proving the words of what became known as Wycliffe’s theme song: “faith . . . laughs at impossibilities and shouts ‘It shall be done!’” (Apparently, that was his version of Charles Wesley’s “Faith, Mighty Faith.”)

 

He pressed on, just like in the past when he’d faced obstacles in other countries where he wanted to begin new work.

 

For years, he persisted, and he prayed, and as a result—surely this was God’s doing—in Guatemala, Uncle Cam met Colombia’s new Director of Indigenous Affairs and told him stories of the ways his colleagues helped native groups in other nations. God answered many prayers when the official asked, “How can I get you people to come to Colombia?”

 

Uncle Cam answered, “If we can have a contract with the government that will allow us to help the people physically, educationally, and spiritually by translating the Bible, we will come.”

 

With a signed contract in 1962, Bible translation began in Colombia (from Chapter 14, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir).

 

How is it possible that mere humans can

“laugh at impossibilities and cry ‘It shall be done!’”

—and then the impossible happens?

 

How is it that people pray

and God answers the way they want him to—

the way they tell him to?

 

When Jesus said,

“You can ask me for anything in my name,

and I will do it,”

did he mean we are the boss of him?

(See John 14:13-14.)

 

Let’s read the whole passage. Jesus said, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.”

 

The people at Got Questions urge this caution: “Some misapply this verse, thinking that saying ‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of a prayer results in God always granting what we asked for. This is . . . treating the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ as a magic formula. This is absolutely unbiblical.”

 

They continue, “Praying in Jesus’ name means . . . praying according to the will of God. ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him (1 John 5:14-15).

 

“. . . Praying for things that are in agreement with God’s will is the essence of praying in Jesus’ name” (from “What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?).

 

The desires of our hearts and prayers need to be in accord with a very important phrase within Jesus’ words: “that God the Father would be glorified” (John 14:13-14).

 

To glorify God means

to recognize His holiness and greatness,

it means to give Him honor.

It means to acknowledge His authority in our lives.

It means to desire what He desires.

 

So, let’s get back to Uncle Cam. For six years, he prayed, he persisted, he laughed at impossibilities and shouted, “It shall be done!” and lo and behold, God opened wide the doors for Wycliffe Bible Translators to begin work in Colombia.

 

The takeaway for you and me is this:

Uncle Cam prayed according to God’s will.

He prayed for what would glorify God.

Uncle Cam’s heart wanted what God’s heart wanted.

And God was pleased to answer.

It was all so good.

 

Ah, but carrying out Bible translation in Colombia didn’t turn out to be a breeze.

 

Oh, no, it wasn’t.

 

Come back next week. I have so much more to tell you!

 

Learning from those willing to take knee-buckling, breath-stealing leaps of faith

 

Agreeing to apply to Wycliffe Bible Translators required me to take a scared-out-of-my-wits leap of faith.

 

Agreeing to move to South America took another hysterical, blind-eyed leap of faith.

 

Getting on that plane in Miami and flying into Bogotá—that required a brave-but-wild-eyed dive into the scary unknown future.

 

And then walking into the scene of, and hearing stories of, the Marxist-guerrilla bombing of our Bogotá facility that had occurred only days before—that plunged me into a terrifying reality. Dear God, what have we gotten ourselves into? Putting one foot in front of the other, and taking the next step, one foot in front of the other, required another sobbing, howling leap of faith.

 

Over the next three years I would witness those around me—my new neighbors and colleagues and friends—live their lives with ingenuity and patience and stubborn perseverance and hope.

 

They faced ongoing tests of faith. And every time, I witnessed their willingness to take knee-buckling, stomach-cramping, breath-stealing leaps of faith.

 

What I faced, in settling into Lomalinda,

was nothing compared to what many of them

had already faced

and would continue to face for decades.

 

It used to be, in the first half of my now-long lifetime, that Christians spoke of and wrote of dying to self and instead, living for God and His purposes and plans. Dying to self: setting aside our own hopes and dreams and plans and dedicating ourselves to God’s hopes and dreams and plans.

 

But in recent decades, I haven’t heard our Christian leaders and teachers calling us to die to self and instead to live for God. Perhaps it’s no longer a popular way for Christians to live. What a shame!

 

God gave me and my husband and our kids the great privilege of spending three years with a couple of hundred men and women and their kids who, over and over again, chose to die to self and instead, to live for God.

 

They didn’t talk about that much—I rarely heard anyone verbalizing that. No one strutted around with a holier-than-thou attitude. They just kept slogging along, trusting in God.

 

Taking a clear-eyed look at the challenges

and real dangers they faced,

recognizing the uncertainty of their wellbeing,

plunging forward into an unknown future,

they kept taking more mindboggling leaps of faith,

dying to themselves and placing God first.

 

Lomalinda’s people stayed faithful to the divine urgency

God had placed in their souls.

A number of them, some now well into their eighties,

 are still working on behalf of Colombia’s indigenous people,

still working to provide them with Scriptures

in their own languages.

 

They put their faith and deliberate trust in the Lord with all their heart, not relying on their own understanding, welcoming His grace and mercy, His strong hand of blessing to guide and hold them (Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 48:14, Psalm 139:10).

 

Theirs was, and still is, a glorious, sacred journey, 

a testament to the steadfastness of them all 

and to God’s love and faithfulness.

 

“Here is my mind—think through it to show me what love demands; here is my will—guide and direct all my words and actions; here is my heart—come and live in me. . . . Thank You, Lord, that with this commitment, I have died to myself. . . .” (Lloyd John Ogilvie, Silent Strength for My Life)

 

Those who survived the bomb blast

August 4, 1976, Bogotá, Colombia: “A bomb exploded at the Summer Institute of Linguistics,* injuring five U.S. citizens who had just arrived from Peru. Several other bombs were detonated in Bogotá, including one at the Bank of America.” (Lethal Actions Against Americans) 

Will and Lee Kindberg and three of their children were the five mentioned above who had just arrived on a flight from Peru. They had completed their work as Bible translators there and had accepted a new assignment in Colombia. (Click on “We mean business. Get out, or you will hear from us again.”)

It was midnight when the Kindbergs arrived at the guest house with Bill Nyman. Here’s an excerpt from Called to Die: 

“A small parcel in the shadows on the step caught his [Will’s] attention. 

“Oh, look,” he chuckled, “somebody’s left us a bomb.” 

As [Bill Nyman] toyed with the lock, Will stooped to pick up the package. A tiny electrical component on top began sparkling. 

“It is a bomb!” [Bill Nyman] shouted. [He] dropped the key and raced to the car for shelter. 

Will froze. Should he throw it into the street? His family and friends were there. Leave it on the steps? People were inside; but at least a door protected them. 

Gently he set the package down, then sprinted behind the car and crouched, wondering what it would feel like to have his feet blown off. 

The explosion ripped the night. Will buried his face in his hands and listened as bits of glass rained on the pavement up and down the street. “Welcome to Colombia,” he muttered, ears ringing from the concussion. (from Called to Die,The Story of American Linguist Chet Bitterman, Slain by Terrorists, by Steve Estes)

Later, Will Kindberg wrote, “My daughter, Kathy, had run across the street at Bill's warning, and threw herself on the ground in front of the house there. She was slightly cut by falling glass. I scraped my elbow when I fell as I scrambled around the car, and my ears hurt for days. But we were all thankful to still be alive.”

He continued, “One woman, leaning out of a second-story window of a house across the street, screamed to her family: "Llama a la policía!"  (Call the police!)  A few drivers, attracted by the explosion, drove up and stopped. The occupants of one car offered a seat to my daughter, Virginia, who was sobbing, and asked, 'Why do they hate us so?'" 

By God’s grace, the bomb killed no one inside the guest house.

After reading of devastation on the first floor (see “We mean business. Get out, or you will hear from us again”), you might be asking, “How could it be that no one died?”

Here’s how: Everyone was upstairs, on the second and third floors, asleep. Damage up there wasn’t nearly as bad as that on the first floor. How wonderful is that?!?

Let me hurry to point out that the upper floors did suffer damage, and people did receive injuries, but no one died.

That night, Edna Lush was in bed upstairs, recovering from surgery. Up to that point, she had been getting into and out of bed very carefully but that night, during the split-second time lapse between the blast and its impact, Edna sprung out of bed—just before the window above her bed blew out and left her pillow covered with broken glass. Her husband, Jim, recalls, “It was truly amazing that she leaped out of bed so fast.” 

Young Danny Janssen had a similar experience but, unlike Edna, he didn’t escape from his bed in time. He tells the story of his dad watching the glass blow out of the window, whole, and then explode, landing on Danny (who now goes by Dan). Today, he still talks about the scar he has on his left hand.

And then there was Bobby Wheeler, who by that time had graduated from high school. His younger sibs, Jim and Linda, get a kick out of telling the story of Bobby sleeping through the bombing. They tell the story like this:

Bobby and their mom, Peggy, had brought a Siona man, Estanislao, from his tribal home to Bogotá for medical help. Estanislao and Bobby were sharing a room for the night and when the bomb exploded, Estanislao called, “Bobby! Wake up. I heard a big noise. I think it was a bomb.”

But Bobby mumbled, “No, it couldn’t have been a bomb. Bogotá is a big city with big noises. Go back to sleep.”

But Estanislao wasn’t convinced. “No, Bobby, I’m sure that was a big bomb.”

After some back and forth, Bobby said, “Let’s go downstairs. I’ll prove to you everything’s okay.” Imagine Bobby’s surprise when he saw the front door blown in and all the other damage—and the traumatized occupants of the guest house.

In Edges of His Ways, Amy Carmichael wrote of the times we ask God to show us what to do, where to go, what to do for a living. She likened us to children who ask a parent, “Please point us in the right direction.” We ask Him, believing He has good plans for us.

No doubt Bill Nyman and his family were serving God in Bogotá because they believed He had pointed them there. The five Kindbergs, too, had spent long months asking God to point them in the direction He thought would be best for them. Each person asleep in the guest house also had sensed God pointing them toward work in Colombia.

Amy Carmichael continues, “Then He points perhaps to something very unexpected,” —like working with an organization targeted by anti-American Marxist guerrillas—"and we are bewildered.”

Bewildered! I guess so! Why would God 

send people to work in such a dangerous place?

But then, Amy Carmichael draws our attention to Psalm 139:10, 

“Even there your hand will guide me, 

your right hand will hold me fast."

God gives us many assurances of His protection, verses like this: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10, NIV).

Those at the guest house that night 

witnessed God do just that for them.

* “In the early years of what would later become, in part, Wycliffe Bible Translators, linguists trained during summer breaks from college at a school named Summer Institute of Linguistics, SIL. . . . In later years, SIL and Wycliffe became partner organizations. SIL worked on foreign fields doing linguistic and anthropological research and work, including Bible translation, while Wycliffe worked in home countries to recruit personnel and provide support services for those working overseas.” (Chapter 3, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

“Terrorism was to affect our lives very significantly for the next several years.”

A week later, just before our family’s arrival in Bogotá, Colombia, Will Kindberg answered the phone and a woman said she’d overheard people saying they planned another attack. (If you missed last week’s post, click on “We mean business. Get out, or you will hear from us again.”)

Will Kindberg

Around midnight, Will spotted a man on the sidewalk. After that day’s threat, he was wary, but the man identified himself as a plainclothes policeman assigned to the guest house because of the new danger.

“Guerrillas have already carried out five attacks tonight,” he told Will. “They killed five.”

“The terrorists are using bombs much larger than they did last week—enough to blow up this whole building.”

A Land Rover turned onto the road, streetlights shining on three men inside. It crept along, the men watching Will and the plainclothesman. That was the third time it had driven by.

The vehicle stopped next door, drove away, and soon returned, parking down the street, lights off but engine running. Five men—three in the Land Rover, and Will and the policemen on the sidewalk—again locked eyes.

Jonathan Smoak photo of the Guest House (on the left)

The officer had stepped inside to use the phone when the vehicle, headlights still off, began driving toward Will.

“My mind quickly evaluated my options,” he said. “Run into the house? To do this would eliminate any witness, and then they might stop and drop their bomb. . . . No, the best option is to stare them down.”

So that’s what he did, and it worked. The men kept driving, inching toward the corner, where they turned and accelerated, filling the neighborhood with a roar.

The policeman returned and told Will he’d requested reinforcements. “We will be ready for the terrorists if they come back,” he said. They didn’t come back—not that night, anyway—but our people remained in guerrillas’ cross-hairs for decades to come.

Later, Will summed it up:

“It was obvious that some who opposed us ideologically 

were willing and able to kill to remove us from the scene. . . . 

Terrorism was to affect our lives very significantly 

for the next several years.”

Can you imagine Will’s courage? And the instant wisdom God gave him—the wisdom to stare down the terrorists?

A few weeks later, once settled in our remote mission center, Lomalinda, I would work with Will Kindberg for almost three years, but I didn’t know that then, not when we first arrived in Colombia. Can you imagine working alongside such a brave, heroic man?

Chuck Swindoll wrote of “something C. S. Lewis said about the importance of being loyal to a cause that is greater than ourselves.

“He likened that quality to a person’s chest. ‘What we need are people with chests.’ The old American word for this is ‘guts.’

“We need people with guts who will say [like Esther],

 ‘I will stand for this, and if I must die for it, then I die.’”

(Charles R. Swindoll, Great Days with the Great Lives)

Will Kindberg was one of those people.

God had put him in that place for just such a time. (See Esther 4:12-16.)

(From Chapter 3, 

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

“We mean business. Get out, or you will hear from us again.”

Our family climbed out of a taxi in front of our mission agency’s guest house in Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia.

A line of our new colleagues filed out to the sidewalk and gave us a warm welcome. Perhaps they’d been looking forward to meeting Dave, new teacher for their kids, and Matt and Karen, new friends and classmates for their kids.

Motioning us toward the entrance, one of them said, “Excuse the porch and the mess on the first floor. You heard about the bomb, didn’t you?”

(If you missed last week’s post, click on Who would bomb missionaries? And why?)

On the night of August 4, 1976, twelve days before our family arrived, Bill Nyman and his daughter, Melodie, picked up Will and Lee Kindberg and three of their kids at the airport. It was about midnight when they pulled up in front of the guest house. 

While Bill searched for the key, Will noticed a package next to the door. Assuming it was for someone inside, he picked it up and said, only joking, “What’s this? A bomb?” At that moment, Will saw an electrical device on the package. And it flickered. It was a bomb! “Everyone take cover!”

Seconds later a blast shattered windows throughout the neighborhood and mutilated the Nymans’ cars but, by God’s grace, the Kindbergs and Nymans received only minor wounds.

The explosion left the cement porch cratered and the heavy iron door disfigured. It blew the door’s window into shreds, lodging shards into walls and stairs leading to the second floor.

The blast ripped the steel kickplate into shrapnel, which, Will Kindberg wrote later, “cut through steel banister uprights, leaving the top and bottom pieces reaching out to each other.”

Throughout the first floor, shrapnel “had gone through walls, two by fours, suitcases, and trunks full of clothing,” Will said later.

“Splintered wall paneling was lying here and there. Glass littered the floors. At the end of the hall, the telephone had been ripped from the wall and the wires severed by one of the steel shards. . . . Murderous intent was plainly evident.”

But, thank God, everyone was upstairs asleep, and although some received injuries, none was serious. Some people still have scars that remind them they lived through it.

Upon arriving in Colombia,

I still did not know that for some time,

Marxist anti-American guerrillas

had been targeting our organization and others like it.

At that time, I did not know

that our director, Forrest Zander, had said,

“We were aware that our enemies wanted

our mission out of the country,

but we didn’t know they would

resort to such deadly tactics.”

At that time, I did not know that

the day after the bombing,

the guest house phone rang,

and a voice on the other end said,

“We mean business.

Get out, or you will hear from us again.”

(from Chapter 3, Please, God, 

Don’t Make Me Go:

AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir)

So, my ignorance—all that I did not know—led me to embrace optimism, believing the guest house bombing was a one-time event and we’d seen the end of such violence.

God had sent us to this dangerous nation, Colombia,

but He had arrived ahead of us

to prepare the way.

He does that for us nowadays as much as He did in Old Testament times:

“The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you;

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged.”

(Deuteronomy 3:18)

“No matter what path we walk down, God is one step ahead,” writes Kelly Balarie. “No matter what mountain we come up against, He is already climbing it. No matter what journey of uncertainty we encounter, God is 100 steps further. He’s laying out our path and preparing our steps.”

Who would bomb missionaries? And why?

I wrote the following in Chapter 3 of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir:

In those days, all flights to Colombia left from Miami so, on July 19, 1976, our little family set out driving from Seattle, stopping in Dallas for pre-field orientation. 

Between Dallas and Miami, the Wycliffe office contacted us: The Bogotá guest house had been bombed. 

Bombed? Who would blow up missionaries? And why? 

A lot of people depended on the Bogotá guest house. While most Wycliffe personnel in Colombia lived in Lomalinda, the remote center of operations, sometimes people spent a few days in the capital city for doctor appointments, vacations, shopping, as well as paperwork for those arriving in or leaving Colombia. 

The three-story building had a few small apartments our colleagues used for those visits, and that’s where our family planned to stay—assuming it was repaired by the time we arrived—and do paperwork before traveling to Lomalinda. 

And so, on Monday, August 16, 1976, at five in the morning, the Aerocondor lifted off the Miami tarmac. . . .

After landing in Bogotá and going through customs and immigration, we loaded our baggage into and on top of a dilapidated microbus and set out toward the guest house. I continued in Chapter 3:

In traffic—erratic, aggressive, even dare-devilish—we soon learned to hang on, swaying as the van darted around cars and came to quick stops to avoid collisions. 

After countless dizzying turns, our driver pulled to a stop on a city block lined with adjoining brick or block buildings, two or three stories tall, with bars on every window and door. A uniformed guard stood in a booth in front of the guest house. I’d never seen such safety precautions in Seattle. 

Guest house on left; Jonathan Smoak photo

 The front door burst open and grinning strangers poured out in a line, their greetings so warm that I thought they’d mistaken us for someone they already knew. But I was wrong—they knew our names, and they were expecting us. When I realized their sincerity, I fought tears. 

Motioning us toward the entrance, someone said, “Excuse the porch and the mess on the first floor. You heard about the bomb, didn’t you?” 

Twelve days before our family arrived, Bill Nyman and his daughter, Melodie, had met Will and Lee Kindberg and three of their kids at the airport and set out for the guest house, part of the family riding with Bill and the others with Melodie in the family’s orange Volkswagen Beetle. 

She arrived before her father and, in what had to be divine intervention, she suggested they wait in the car for the others. 

Minutes later, around midnight, Bill pulled up next to Melodie. He, Will, and Will’s son Doug climbed out. 

While Bill searched for the key, Will noticed a package next to the door. Assuming it was for someone inside, he picked it up and said, only joking, “What’s this? A bomb?” 

At that moment, Will saw an electrical device on the package. And it flickered. It was a bomb! “Everyone take cover!” (from Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir,  Chapter 3)

Before we left the States, when we’d first heard about the bombing, I was troubled, puzzled over why someone would bomb missionaries. As I processed it, I remembered our nation’s turbulent 1960s and ‘70s when many people demonstrated against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. It was a time of widespread violence, including bombing—a kid I’d known in college was one of those bombers and spent time in prison.

So, I wondered if perhaps Colombia was going through a similar time of unrest and that young idealists had randomly targeted our guest house.

But what I didn’t know at the time, 

and would soon learn, was this:

The bombing of our guest house

was a deliberate act of terrorism

aimed at our mission organization.


God knew about the bomb,
He knew the names and faces and hearts
of those who bombed—
and would continue to bomb—

yet He sent our family there anyway.

For months and months, I’d given God lots of opportunities to impress upon me that moving to Colombia was not a good idea, but instead He gave our family only open doors and green lights.

How true it is that 

“God’s ways are as mysterious as 

the pathway of the wind.” 
(Ecclesiastes 11:5, TLB)