My heart nearly stopped. Had The Pearl gasped her last breath?

The Pearl of Africa was a superb vehicle. That old Toyota Land Cruiser could drive through streams, slog through deep mud resembling greased peanut butter, cling to a steep rock face on a hillside, and somehow adhere to a tiny point of a mountaintop, preventing our certain deaths.

 

You’ll remember that on the first day Dave and I spent in our final segment of our three-month orientation, The Pearl wouldn’t start. Yet someone—we didn’t know who—had scheduled important appointments for Dave, as our group’s leader, with the District Commissioner, the Bishop, and the police. Brian, our orientation director, had explained that relating with those officials would assure them our group had no suspicious motives.

 

Brian impressed upon us that establishing a good relationship with them was of great importance.

 

But we couldn’t get The Pearl started! Aaaargh!

 

And we had no one nearby to help—we were in a remote, sparsely populated forest in steep mountains at about 6,000 feet.

 

We'd have to push to get her started.

Looking around, we were keenly aware that only thirty feet away we would come to a drop-off of nearly five hundred feet. It was going to be tricky. Mighty tricky.

 

Bwana Mwakodi and I pushed while Dave steered The Pearl and worked the clutch, but she wouldn’t start. We pushed again. That Toyota Land Cruiser was a sturdy, heavy vehicle!

 

Winded, we strained and shoved, but The Pearl still wouldn’t start. The nearest mechanic was probably dozens of kilometers away.

 

I looked at Dave. He looked as sick as I felt.

 

We had only one option: turn The Pearl around and face it downhill. However, whether we turned to the right or to the left, we had to push The Pearl uphill to turn it around.

 

If and when we got the back wheels up on the hill, we had to avoid yet another drop-off. Bwana and I tried and tried, but didn’t have enough muscle to push The Pearl uphill.

           

Then, as if by a miracle, a man stepped out of the forest. And then another, and another, all of them Bwana’s friends and neighbors. For an hour, we struggled and groaned and sweated and eventually managed to turn The Pearl around, facing downhill.

 

We pushed once again and that time it chugged and sputtered—and came to life! Oh, what a sublime sound!

 

From that day forward,

we always parked The Pearl facing downhill

so we could get her started by pushing.

 

Nevertheless, our adventures with The Pearl continued. One morning we climbed in and expected her to chug to life by compression after I pushed it wobbling down the hill—but it did not.

 

My heart nearly stopped. I looked over at Dave. He looked pale.

 

Had The Pearl gasped her last breath?

 

Dave looked around for a way to avoid pushing her uphill backward to try again. He scouted out a steep, forested trail beyond the Mwakodis’ house, one we’d never driven before.

 

It took travelers away from civilization, but it was a downhill slope, so the two of us pushed The Pearl that direction. Dave jumped in at the last moment and worked the clutch—but it didn’t start.

 

That left us stuck worse than ever before.

 

What should we do? We could push it further down into that unpopulated mountain valley and hope it would start, but if we had already tried twice without success, why should we expect The Pearl to come to life the third time?

 

If it still didn’t start, towing it out would be all the harder, if not impossible.

 

We were so stressed we felt sick. Faint-hearted.

 

We felt so alone, so isolated—and in fact, we were. No one was around to help this time.

 

After nervous deliberation, lots of sighing, and silent praying, we decided to push once more before we gave up—and . . .

 

. . . and The Pearl sputtered to life. Hooray! It’s hard to find words for the enormous relief we felt. Tears stung my eyes.

 

At that point, Dave faced another challenge: he had to back The Pearl up that narrow steep trail, up and up and up, until he got to the dirt road at the Mwakodis’ place.

 

“Ah,” Dave sighed, “the perils of The Pearl.”

 

My stomach still knots when I remember that day. I can feel again the light-headedness, the cold sweat.

 

But once again, we had witnessed that:

 

God had worked on our behalf,

confirming His promise

for those He sends to do His work:

 

“Do not be afraid or discouraged

for the Lord will personally go ahead of you.

He will be with you.

He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

(Deuteronomy 31:8)

 

(From Chapter 3, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

We had a problem: We didn’t even know where we were

We woke up Monday morning, our second day of living with Bwana and Mama Mwakodi high in the Taita Hills, and Dave and I took turns walking across the yard to use the choo (outhouse). By then Mama and Bwana were ready for breakfast: black tea boiled with milk and sugar.

 

They were thoroughly gracious. They hadn’t known we were coming, due to a communication snafu, yet they smiled and made pleasant conversation with us around their small table. Bwana spoke a little bit of English but Mama didn’t understand us, so Bwana interpreted for her.

 

As we finished our tea, Dave said to Bwana, “This morning I need to meet with the District Commissioner, the Bishop, and the police.”

 

Someone—we didn’t know who—had scheduled those appointments for Dave, as our group’s leader. Brian, our orientation director, had explained that relating with those officials would assure them our group had no suspicious motives. Brian impressed upon us that establishing a good relationship with them was of great importance.

 

We had a problem, though. We didn’t know how to find their villages or offices.

 

We didn’t even know where we were. We had arrived at the Mwakodis’ home after dark and, along the way, we lost our sense of direction.

 

No electricity or streetlights lit our surroundings over twisting one-lane dirt tracks—with no street signs—cloaked in tropical forests, uphill and downhill and around corners.

 

We had seen very little evidence of other human beings.

 

We had no map of the area. Before Brian left us, he told us all we knew—that the closest of our fellow orientees lived more than nine kilometers away.

 

The nearest phone was many kilometers away, too. And even if we’d had access to a phone, we wouldn’t know who to call.

 

We had no idea what to do.

 

Just when we felt ourselves slipping into a panic,

God provided a helper with a willing heart.

Bwana offered to come along

and direct us to the various villages.

I find it hard to explain the enormity of our relief.

           

The three of us grabbed our canteens and climbed into The Pearl of Africa. Dave turned the key, but The Pearl did not start. He tried several times but—nothing.

           

“We’ll have to push The Pearl to start it by compression,” Dave said.

 

And, looking around, we were keenly aware that only thirty feet away we would come to a drop-off of nearly five hundred feet. It was going to be tricky. Mighty tricky.

 

Bwana and I pushed while Dave steered The Pearl and worked the clutch, but she wouldn’t start. We pushed again. That Toyota Land Cruiser was a sturdy, heavy vehicle!

 

Winded, we strained and shoved, but The Pearl still wouldn’t start. The nearest mechanic was probably dozens of kilometers away.

 

I looked at Dave. He looked as sick as I felt.

 

We had only one option: turn The Pearl around and face it downhill. However, whether we turned to the right or to the left, we had to push The Pearl uphill to turn it around.

 

If and when we got the back wheels up on the hill, we had to avoid yet another drop-off. Bwana and I tried, and tried, but didn’t have enough muscle to push The Pearl uphill.

           

Then, as if by a miracle, a man stepped out of the forest. And then another, and another, all of them Bwana’s friends and neighbors. For an hour, we struggled and groaned and sweated and eventually managed to turn The Pearl around, facing downhill.

 

We pushed once again 

and that time it chugged and sputtered—

and it came to life! Oh, what a sublime sound!

 

Our new friends cheered and laughed along with us.

           

How could we ever thank them enough?

 

I wanted to hug and kiss each one, but I suspected a public display of affection wasn’t appropriate in their culture.

 

Then Bwana Mwakodi told us the men were on their way to another village for market day, so, to thank them, we loaded them into The Pearl and gave them a ride.

 

God had worked on our behalf,

confirming His promise

for those He sends to do His work:

 

“Do not be afraid or discouraged

for the Lord will personally go ahead of you.

He will be with you.

He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

(Deuteronomy 31:8)

 

That morning we experienced God’s love and provision for us through dear Kenyan people. All these years later, their kindness still brings tears to my eyes—happy, thankful tears.

 

After that, we always parked The Pearl facing downhill because we never knew when we’d have to push to get her started.  (From Chapter 3, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

Clinging to hope, fighting to be courageous and tenacious

There I stood in the lovely, yet profoundly foreign, Taita Hills in southeastern Kenya. Dave and I had just completed our first day of the most demanding segment of our three-month orientation course. All we had learned during the first two months had been in preparation for this phase.

 

Everything around me was alien (except for my husband, of course). And I was dreadfully worn out. And I worried, wondering if I’d make a complete mess of the coming weeks. A lot was at stake. (Click on Tears turning to joy: Could I believe it? Would I believe it?)

 

I had wandered outside, leaned against The Pearl, and cried—just soft little tears trickling silently down my cheeks. I’m pretty sure the Mwakodis didn’t know I was crying, and I suspect Dave didn’t know, either.  

 

At such times, it’s important for us to cling to hope, no matter how bleak our situation looks.

 

“Hope is a decision we make, a choice to believe that God can take the adversity, the disappointment, the heartache, and the pain of our journeys and use these to accomplish God’s purposes,” writes Adam Hamilton.

 

“Sometimes God asks us to be with people we don’t want to be with,” Hamilton says, “to go to places we don’t want to go to, and to do things we don’t want to do.”

 

Hamilton nailed it.

 

I just wanted to be finished with the orientation course.

I wanted to get back to “civilization,”

back to working among people

who understood English,

who ate the kind of food I liked to eat.

I wanted to live in a house with running water

and a flush toilet.

And electricity.

 

But then Hamilton also offers this wise, helpful, and hopeful perspective: “. . . God is often most profoundly at work in those times when we’re confused, broken, or wounded.” (The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem)

 

We need to embrace that truth.

 

Henri Nouwen writes, “The ups and downs of our spiritual lives depend on our . . . attentive listening—to the movements of the Spirit of God within us. Without this listening our spiritual life . . . becomes subject to the windswept waves of our emotions” (Bread for the Journey).

 

We need to embrace that truth, too.

 

And that brings me back to my good old role model Habakkuk, who told God he was troubled over several things.

 

God replied,

 

“Look . . . and watch—and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something

that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

(Habakkuk 1:5)

 

And that dear Habakkuk chose to practice—was willing to practice—attentive listening, willing to wait and watch to see what God would do. He said:

 

“I’ll . . . keep watch . . .

I’ll wait to see what the Lord will say

and how He will answer me.”

(Habakkuk 2:1)

 

Okay, then, I had told myself

on that dusky Taita Hills evening.

I will do what Habakkuk did.

I will watch to see what God will do.

(from Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 3)

 

I reminded myself I needed to follow Habakkuk’s example of “attentive listening” because God had work to do within my mind and heart and attitude. What an example, what an encourager, that beloved Habakkuk has been to me for decades now!

 

Now, looking back on that evening, I’m comforted when I read Chuck Swindoll’s words about endurance during trying times.

 

Chuck prays, “Lord, we all remember times of passing through the waters and going through the fire—overwhelming tests and furnace-like trials.

 

“And,” Swindoll continues, “we have the scars to prove it.”

 

He was referring to Isaiah 43:1-2 in which God said to the Israelites, “Don’t be afraid. . . . I have called you by name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you cross rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned, nor will the flames hurt you.” (NCV)

 

Swindoll continues, “How faithful You are, Lord, to meet us at every one of life’s contingencies. . . how caring and accepting, how full of grace and mercy. It is because of Your mercies that we are not consumed.”

 

“Now, Lord, do a work deep within our hearts.

Provide us with fortitude for the trials of life—

those we’re enduring and those on the horizon.

 

Help us come to terms with negative attitudes. . . .

 

Give us eyes of faith to see beyond the predictable,

beyond the facts and figures.

Open us to a whole world of possibilities

because You are the God of the impossible.

 

“Encourage us, Father, with thoughts

that send us into our future with hope and joy.”

(from The Prayers of Charles R. Swindoll)

 

“Our hope is in the Lord. He is our help, our shield to protect us. We rejoice in him because we trust his holy name. Lord, show your love to us as we put our hope in you” (Psalm 30:20-22, NCV).

 

Sometimes the pain seemed almost more than I could bear

 

During our three-month orientation course, if our staff drove to Nairobi for supplies they also brought back mail. Everything halted when mail arrived. One day we received a letter from our son Matt, age 23. He had written it on May 17, almost three months before Dave and I left the States. He didn’t mail it, though, until we got to Africa.  

 

I can honestly say now that I am very excited that you are going to Africa. Knowing that my parents are passionately doing God’s work not only gives me tremendous peace of mind, but it also provides an inestimable amount of motivation, courage, and drive to do so, myself, in whatever God has planned. I just can’t tell you how excited I am about it now. I will surely miss seeing you, but now I feel like our relationship supersedes life as most people on earth know it. If I never see you again on this earth, it matters very little to me, and I sense that it means little to you, too. Of course, that sounds worse than it is. I love being with you and I eagerly anticipate many more earthly adventures together with you. But on the scope of eternity, if for some reason we never are together again, big deal, because we’re just passing through this place, dedicated to a common holy purpose, heading for the same destination where we can spend eternity. Does that make any sense? Well, whether it does or not, it has given me a lot of peace and real excitement to see you on your way.

 

He set that letter aside for more than three months and resumed writing on August 31:

 

All of that courageous rhetoric is the way I feel when I’m feeling brave. Sometimes though, I feel like screaming as loudly as I can, “I want my mommy and my daddy!” I really miss knowing where you are and what you’re doing each day. That will take some getting used to.

 

Those words cut me to the heart. I’ll never forget them.

 

We also got a letter from our daughter Karen, who had turned 22 only days before. She was busy in Port Angeles as a middle school English teacher and Young Life Leader. She wrote:

 

Oh, my sweet parents, my friends, I got another postcard from you yesterday. It made me cry. I love you so much. I think of and pray for you every day. I worry about you. I do little things and think, “Oh! That sounds just like Mom,” or “That’s exactly what Dad would’ve said or done.”

 

My heart ached for my son and daughter. Sometimes the pain seemed almost more than I could bear.

 

When that happened, I took a mini-break and spent time alone with God.

 

I hoped and prayed that my children’s struggles would make them stronger and better, not break them. I wanted to ask God to prevent their difficulties but, instead, I asked Him to help them succeed within their difficulties.

 

In Psalm 138:8, David said he knew the Lord would fulfill His purposes for him, and those words gave me hope that God would fulfill His good purposes for my children.

 

I reminded myself that Christ, at the right hand of God, intercedes for each of us.

 

The Bible says we can give all our worries and anxieties to God because He cares about us (1 Peter 5:7 and Psalm 55:22).

 

The Bible also says “Don’t be . . . worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind. . . .” (Philippians 4:6-7, The Passion Translation)

 

Trusting God to care for my kids

was the only way I could cope sometimes.

My requests were not always “faith-filled.”

Often “overflowing gratitude” eluded me.

And sometimes His peace

seemed to be beyond my grasp,

but God did guard my heart and mind.

I chose to believe that God was working out

good things for my children

and growing them in their faith.

 

And so, life went on.

In ways I’ll never fully know,

God helped me, and my kids,

moment by moment, step by step. 

(From Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

Playing life safe for fear God won’t live up to His end of the bargain

Pastor Sid didn’t beat around the bush. He just spoke plainly: “How daring are you?”

His words made me squirm. I don’t like taking risks. I avoid going out on a limb.

Sid was talking about The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30 in which a master entrusted his wealth to his servants. “To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability” (verse 15, NIV). And then the master left them.

Sid was referring to stewardship. We hear that word “stewardship” a lot, but what does it mean?

Stewardship is something we manage or take care of that is not our own.

Like the guys in The Parable of the Talents, God has entrusted you and me with “talents,” things like money, time, skills, and experience. In the parable, the talents were of great value. Treasures. Blessings. Gifts.

Sid told us those “talents,” those blessings, those gifts, are not only for our own use and worldly advancement. The gifts He gave each of us are not just for our own enjoyment and material gain.

No, God’s best for us is this: That we manage our “talents” so they impact God’s work locally and around the world. That’s why He has given us all of those “talents.”

Furthermore, Sid said, the God we know in the Bible doesn’t want us to be conservative in our use of our money, time, skills, and experience.

Whoa. Read that again. God doesn't want us to be conservative in our use of money, time, skills, and experience.

Let’s get back to The Parable of the Talents. When the master returned, the five-talent and the two-talent servants had doubled their holdings.

“What did the two of them do,” Sid asked, “to double their five and two talents? They didn’t play it safe.” 

I don’t know about you but that statement, “they didn’t play it safe,” makes my stomach knot. I always want to play it safe.

Let’s look at the man with only one talent. Instead of investing it, buried it—because, he said, he was afraid.

Today we don’t dare to do great things for God, Sid said, “. . . because we fear God won’t live up to His end of the bargain.”

“. . . because we fear God won’t. . . .”

Won’t what?

Won’t give us strength and tenacity

to do hard things?

Won’t stick with us through the difficult times?

Won’t supply us with what we need along the way?

Sid said:  

The degree of safety that we invest in our lives

 indicates a lack of faith.

Gulp. Lack of faith. Being unwilling to trust God to keep the promises He’s given us in the Bible: His promises to enable us to do what He calls us to do with our talents, His promises to stick with us, to meet our needs (not necessarily wants, but needs) along the way.

It felt like Sid was pointing right at me.

He left us with questions and challenges:

Are you playing it safe with what God has given you of time, money, skills, and past experience?

How much do you trust God? Let go. Invest your “talents” in what God’s doing around the world.

Do you have God-sized dreams and investments?

Or are they too risky? Too scary?

It’s tempting, Sid said, to play it safe and take it easy. He compared life to a ship in the harbor—it’s safe there, but that’s not what ships are for. Staying in the harbor is not what its creator planned for it. What has your Creator planned for you?

And here’s Sid’s final challenge:

Do great things for God.

Trust Him. Don’t settle for playing it safe.

What could God do if every person

who has a relationship with Him

dared to be great?