Technicolor American Dreams

Remember Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat? The Bible story, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Promising young kid, his brothers hate him because their father likes him best. They sell him to the Ishmaelites and tell the dad he died in the wilderness. Then he gets sold as a slave in Egypt. While there he gains the favor of one of Pharaoh’s officials and becomes his right-hand man. The kid is pretty handsome, so the official’s wife tries to seduce him. When he won’t be seduced she accuses him of trying to rape her, and he's sent to prison for a few years. In prison the warden likes him so he gets promoted to top-prisoner, which I bet isn’t as nice as it sounds. After a while he interprets a dream for Pharaoh, which Pharaoh appreciates, so Joseph gets elevated as far as he can without actually assuming Pharaoh’s title. Then the whole thing with the brothers coming to Egypt for food during the seven-year famine and the Hebrews moving down to Egypt and enjoying a brief time of happiness before becoming slaves for a few hundred years. That story. Remember?

There’s a point to this, hold on.

I’ve been back in the States for seven months now and I’m still really confused about what to do next. My three years overseas gave me a whole new perspective on the world, life, cultures, God, everything. Now I’m back where I started, and some days it feels like I’m heading nowhere, or like the three-year adventure was a total waste.

Part of the problem is that I’ve had to return to my old job as a bus driver. I took this job in college as a way to make extra cash, and it turned into a nice safety net that I can fall into when other options aren’t available. Coming home to a recession, I thought it was natural to come back to the bus-driving nest until I figure out what step to take next.

Recently a friend pretty much told me to run for my life. He basically said that I have some potential and promise and could do much better than bus driving, and he encouraged me to get out soon and move on to something more worthy. My vanity heard this and said, “Yeah, I’m made for something better than this. This job will eat my soul, I have to get out of here fast.”

But, recollecting a conversation I had with another friend, I checked that thought for a minute. She asked me what kinds of jobs I thought I wanted to do. I told her the only thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to be a bus driver. After a second she said, “But God obviously wants you to be driving buses right now.” I thought about it for a while. If God is as powerful as I believe he is, and involved in our day-to-day lives, he is definitely able to take care of my employment situation. It seems to follow that if he, like me, definitely didn’t want me driving buses right now, he would have provided another job for me by now. Despite my sending ten resumes a week in response to every job advertisement I’m remotely qualified for, I still have not found another job. God hasn’t provided the right opportunity yet. My friend seems to be right and this is what God wants me to be doing at the moment.

This is something that we, in our culture, get hung up on. We have the American Dream at heart, and we think that anyone should be able to accomplish great things if they work hard and apply themselves appropriately. As kids we’re taught to dream big and reach for the stars, and we’re disappointed when we grow up to become paper salesmen and mechanics and bus drivers.

As American Christians, I think we need to get rid of our sense of entitlement to the American Dream. Not that it’s bad to pursue dreams or to work hard at making a difference in the world. But we need to put God back where he belongs. He needs to be First, front and center in our lives.

Back to Joseph. There was a promising lad if ever I saw one. The guy had it all. Everyone liked him, he was obviously smart, attractive, etc. For a kid like that in America, we’d hope he’d have all the great opportunities that life could hand him. College education, chances to travel, good relationships, a good job where he can make an impact. But Joseph had some tough experiences. His brothers sold him and told his dad he was dead. He was a slave. He was wrongly imprisoned, and that for years. I’m sure there were moments in those periods when he figured he was through. He probably felt like he was stuck forever, that his chances of fulfilling the dreams he had as a kid were gone forever.

The point is: God had a plan for Joseph. That’s a comforting thought and all, but think about it for a second. Even when Joseph was in the dungeon he was living out God’s plan. There were things God wanted to teach him, and us, and things God wanted to reveal about himself through the periods of imprisonment and slavery. Years of his life were spent in the very opposite of what the American Dream would wish on the guy, and it was exactly where he needed to be.

Look at some other Bible success stories. The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time in prison. He was stoned a few times, shipwrecked, flogged. The Prophet Jeremiah had like one friend in the entire kingdom and talked about how he wished his head were a spring of water so he could cry as much as he felt like crying. Heck, Jesus was a pretty promising young man until God killed him in his prime. So where do I get off presuming that the American Dream is God’s plan for my life?

I’m still hoping to move away from bus driving as soon as I can. But I think I’ve turned a corner in my understanding. God’s wisdom is inscrutable, and I’m going to trust that he knows what he’s doing with me. It makes it a lot easier to restrain myself from running people down and crushing them with my bus when I think of the job in terms of God’s will instead of my own.

There and Back Again

Ok. So I've been back in Massachusetts for almost a month now. It's been really good to be back. I've made some observations that I'd like to share. Here are a few things about my re-entry adjustment:

Things That Are Nice About Being Back:

Fast Internet. I can watch streaming video. I've watched like 4 hours of SNL sketches and a few episodes of The Office.

Family: It's been really nice to spend time with family and old friends. It's crazy to be only an hour's drive from the house I grew up in.

English: Do you realize that most people here speak my mother tongue? It's such a shock to say something and have it understood right away. I was taken totally by surprise when I was taking the bus from NYC to Northampton and the lady sitting near the bathroom told me there was someone in the bathroom and he was in there a long time. And I understood it all...

Real Doctors: I've gone to see several doctors and been tested for everything you can think of. Their offices are so clean! They even let you go into your own examining room. And when you tell them something about how you're feeling, they actually listen.

Clean Restrooms: It is so nice to go into a public restroom and be able to breath without a scented tissue over my face. You probably think they're nasty, but they are so, so clean! I could go into a lot of detail about how much cleaner these public bathrooms are, but I'll leave it at that.

Restrooms Everywhere: Seriously. I can drink coffee, tea, and water all day and almost never have to worry. Every restaurant, coffee shop, gas station, and public building has a bathroom. And they're free! And clean!

Tap Water: Did you know you can drink water out of the tap here?? Not only that, but you can also rinse out your coffee cup and make hot chocolate in it without drying the mug out first.

A Few Things That Are Hard To Adjust To:

Crossing the Street: These laws about yielding to pedestrians are just annoying. I'm used to crossing 4 lane streets lane by lane. I've waited at the yellow line for as long as 5 minutes before, with trucks and buses driving by on both sides. I like to step out into the street and calculate the velocity of the vehicles and the trajectory of our respective paths. It's actually a lot more confusing here when cars actually stop to let you go. I think they're going to make the turn, but they stop mid-stream and yield to me. In my confusion I skip a few beats, and now everyone's late. If you'd just kept driving, you could be down the road by now, and I'd have made it to the other side.

Central Heating: It's cold outside and hot inside. What the heck? You're not supposed to wear a T-shirt inside in the winter. For the last 3 years, I spent my winters bundled in multiple layers of long-underwear and fleeces. When I was indoors, I wrapped myself in a fleece blanket like a strapless wraparound prom dress over the rest of my clothes. When I was outside, the sun was shining enough that just the 2 layers of long undies, fleece top and fleece jacket were enough to keep me warm. Here I can wear a T-shirt indoors, but I need a thick winter coat and hat and gloves outside. It's really hard to adjust to the temperature changes I undergo in the course of just a few minutes.

Expensive: Everything here is wicked expensive. Since when is a cup of coffee $1.70? I'm spending $20 on what used to cost me 3. Or $10 on what used to be 25 cents. My monthly rent for a room in a boarding house is more than 6 months rent for my 3 bedroom apartment in Asia, which had a utility room, kitchen, bathroom, and little sun room type deal. And that included landscaping for the outside.

Nifty Things I Forgot About:

Leaves: The floor of the woods is covered in brown leaves that fell off the trees. I forgot about that space of time between Fall and the first snowfall when there are brown leaves everywhere. The landscape has a neat tint of gray and brown. It's kind of a depressing color scheme, but it's kind of neat, too.

Fallen Trees: In the woods around here, sometimes trees fall over and uproot themselves. The roots end up forming this neat little round dirt wall. It's really kind of cool. You don't see that everywhere.

Stones: There are a lot of rocks around here. Big ones. There are huge ones by the sides of the roads. And stone walls everywhere. They're pretty cool, too.

Cranberries: Cranberries are like the best ... They're not very common worldwide, you know. You should be more thankful for cranberries.

another new one

i got some new photos of my hand and cast. i'll post them here with just a few comments, since it's hard to type left-handed...


the crowd in the examination room - there's no such thing as privacy here.


here's my friend who taught the doctor how to make a proper splint. she has a bachelors degree.


the re-wrapping: 2 friends and 2 teachers from the school accompanied me to the hospital. in addition to the 4 of them and the 3 onlookers in this picture, there were several other patients and patients' family members watching from the door. so, if you include me, the doctor and the nurse, there were 15 or so people present for this event...


the doctor tied the new splint on with cheap gauze.


the next day, my friend re-wrapped it with this fun black spongy tape. now it looks like a real cast, even though it isn't.

Casting Director

As promised, my Athletic Training friend - a.k.a MacGyver - helped me with my broken hand problem. She fashioned a new cast out of cardboard from a yogurt box and various medical tapes and wraps. This cast is about 4 pounds lighter than the old one and it actually stays in place! And, its small enough that I was finally able to take that borrowed Savannah t-shirt off and take a bath!

Its good to have friends with skillzz.

Also, I'm becoming increasingly thankful for this whole situation. God has opened up a lot of opportunities through it. I've bee able to spend lots of time with a certain local friend (she's been helping me by cooking and cleaning, etc), and she's been bringing friends and family with her. So I've had plenty of company, and lots of chance to talk about JC...

Hazards

You may remember me saying that I wouldn't bring my dogs to the hospitals here, but this week I needed to go myself. Let's just say there was an incident.

I hurt my hand. At first I was pretty sure it wasn't broken, but as the day worn on, I thought I should probably do something. So, against my better judgment, I got a local friend to help me get an x-ray. Luckily, it was after hours, so even though the staff was still rude and gruff, I didn't have to wait in line.

Turns out, I fractured a bone in my right hand. Thankfully, it's not severe, so I didn't need them to work any magic. They just gave me this cast.

Keep in mind, this is a fracture...


As you can see, we're dealing with top notch medical facilities here...


I'm supposed to wear this for one week, but I'm pretty sure it won't last that long. Then I need another x-ray. And then, maybe three or four more weeks in the cast. Luckily, I have an American friend here who studied athletic training, so she will be able to help me recover despite the doctor's lack of skill.

This could be a very frustrating situation, but I've been able to laugh with friends about this whole "incident".

Why I'm Thankful for Space Mountain

I used to be a roller coaster fanatic. It started when my family used to go to Disney World in the winter. We'd pack into the truck camper and drive 3 days to Florida, spend some time at the theme parks, do some camping, and drive back. I remember Thunder Mountain was my favorite, but my big brothers loved Space Mountain. As I got taller, I graduated to the big-kid realm and got to try a ride on the roller-coaster in the dark. Soon I graduated to the kind that had loops, double loops, or enormous drops - the ones that made you feel like you had a concussion...

So, why am I thankful for Space Mountain? From a young age we took these trips year after year, and the combined effects of the days in the camper on the way to Florida, the rides on the Tea Cups, Mr Toad's Wild Ride, and eventually the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror result in the happy fact that I do not generally suffer from motion sickness.

I just got back from a 6 day road trip in a area where most people do not regularly ride in vehicles. They get around on foot or horses in the mountains, only occasionally traveling into the city on buses. And when they ride those buses on winding roads, they get car sick.

The first leg of my journey - last Thursday - was a 15 hour bus ride. We road in one of those "comfortable" buses. It had air-conditioning (which the driver never turned on) so the windows didn't open. The seats are set up high so luggage can be stowed beneath - you know the kind of bus I'm talking about. Well, it's a recipe for disaster on mountain roads with a car-sick population.


The roads wind up and down one mountain after another. The bus sways back and forth, and the high seats only serve to magnify the swaying effect for the passengers. The windows don't open so there's no fresh air, and the driver doesn't run the air conditioner, so it's stinking and hot.

And then the symphony begins.

Passengers holding plastic bags in front of their faces quietly release their stomach discomfort. I'm always amazed at how quietly these people puke. They'll wake you up with the noise of their spitting, but puking is discreet. During one particularly winding stretch of road, I count the sound of 12 people vomiting into their plastic bags. After a while the smell, sound and heat get to me, and I have to admit I feel a little queasy myself. So I turn on my mp3 player to drown out the noise, and look out the window. Within a few minutes I feel fine again, thanking God that my father packed us into a truck camper and brought us to play on roller coasters...

Long and Winding Road

I posted this piece elsewhere a while ago, but I thought I'd put it on this blog for you guys. A few months ago, I traveled out to a friend's village and had a really good, but really hard experience. It's a privilege to experience firsthand what goes into spreading the Good News in the far corners of the earth. There are all kinds of obstacles along the way, but the joy of telling people about our Father and Savior outweighs the frustration of those obstacles...

As you read this, maybe you can think about how you can pray for the Unreached Peoples in remote areas like this, and for those who have been sent to share with them...

Let’s start with The Road.

There are two roads that lead to my friend’s area. The first one takes about 9 hours, and most of it is really dangerous. Rock-slides are common. Sometimes streams cross the road. Switchbacks carry you up one mountain, down the other side, and up the next. Last time we went that way, and it took 3 hours to go 30km. The benefit of taking this road is that it drops you off right at her village. All you have to do is hike about 10 minutes down to the river, cross the river on a raft, and walk uphill about 20 minutes, and you’re there.

The second road takes about 7 hours. It’s not the best road. Right now they’re doing a lot of work on it, so it’s covered in potholes and other obstructions. There are long stretches where there is no road. There aren’t as many places where you think you’ll fall off the side of the mountain or be covered in a rockslide, but it’s not much more comfortable that the first road. This road only takes you to the first village in this area. It’s 4 hour walk to my friend’s house from there – and it’s all downhill. (That means on the way out it’s all uphill.)

Here, you can see a switchback road carved into the side of the distant mountain. Follow the road all the way to the bottom of the valley, and cross the river, and you are at my friend's village. This photo was taken during our return hike, about 3 1/2 hours after we started walking. It was far. It felt farther.

So, this time we are taking the cheaper route – Road 2. Round trip for 2 people will cost us less than $20.

The truck carries cargo to and from the villages. This time we are carrying a truckload of shingles, a few sheets of greenhouse plastic, some chickens, and some other building materials. I know because I have to hide in the back of the truck for a while. This route passes through a touristy area where non-locals are expected to pay a huge fee just to use the road. I will never pass as a local, so the locals stuff me in the back with the chickens and rice and smuggle me through.

We set out rather late this time. It's 4:30 pm before we leave the city. That means we expect to arrive in the first village around 2am. There are 8 of us stuffed into the cab. 4 in back, 4 in front at different angles. The man next to me didn’t sleep last night, so he keeps nodding off, his big cowboy hat hitting me in the head. At one point, I lean forward and nap with my head on my knees. I wake to find his head on my kidney, hat squished to the side.

Its 11:30pm. We have been traveling along terribly bumpy road for several hours. The truck ascends to a bald mountaintop to find the road is blocked with piles of gravel and sand. In the morning I will walk and count 102 piles. With the darkness and unfamiliar road, the driver doesn’t know what to do. We can’t go forward, it’s too dark to turn around, and it’s unclear whether we can bypass the blockage. The engine is off now, and people are trying to get comfortable for a night’s sleep in the truck.

I’m closest to the door, the wind howling outside. My friend’s village is low near the river, so it’s warm there. I’m wearing only a t-shirt and light fleece. We are now stopped on top of a high mountain. My tailbone hurts, I’m cold and can’t find a comfortable position in the cramped cab. I sleep restlessly, spending at least 20 minutes of each hour awake. I anxiously long for the first light of morning.

When morning comes, we find our way around the gravel piles and are off again. We expected to arrive in the village at 2am; we arrive at noon. My friend’s grandparents live in the first village, so we go there for a quick lunch before making our descent on foot. I am famished from the night in the truck and the morning without breakfast. Being poor, our elderly hosts can offer us nothing but noodles with fried egg and pig fat. It’s not enough for my padded American bones, I dread the long walk ahead of me.

We set out down the mountain on foot. Happily, I find that the first few hours aren’t so bad. The trail is not so steep, the weather is nice, my legs are a little tired but I can walk. After 3 hours things change. It is steeper down here, and the trail is gravel and sand. I fall about 5 times, once into a pile of horse manure. Finally, at about 5pm we arrive at my friend’s house. Again, I am famished and craving something substantial. What do we eat? Pig fat, fried eggs, rice, and some half-decent beef with too much fat attached.

Thankfully, I get to spend an entire week in the village before having to endure another long travel day back. When the time does come to return to the city, we set out early to avoid the heat of the sun. The entirely uphill walk is much harder than I expected, perhaps because I have eaten pig fat and rice almost exclusively for several days. The last hour or two of our hike, I find I can hardly put one foot in front of the other. It’s hot, I’m malnourished, and I’m not in the best shape.

Again, at her grandparents’ house in the first village, we eat fried eggs and pig fat. This time on rice, not noodles. I sneak my snickers and granola bars while my friend washes her grandfather’s clothes. At about 5pm, we pack into a police officer’s jeep and prepare for the long road back to the city.

There’s a forest fire blocking the road, so the driver takes a short cut. I’m certain this road has not been driven on in years. Small pine trees are growing in the middle. Our driver drives far too fast, and my neck hurts from holding my head up on the bumpy road. After a few miles, the driver adjusts his mirror to watch me while he drives. I pretend not to notice.

5 hours later, I arrive at my apartment and take a much needed shower, dream about what I will eat for breakfast the next morning, and rest my weary head on my familiar pillow.