Category: Adventure

The pandemic has resurfaced to my view an unlikely life, someone I met in North India 25 years ago.

India’s sights, sounds and smells overwhelm a first-time visitor from the West. On my initial trip, 1995, everywhere I looked riveted my attention, especially the sheer numbers of people—children, women and men in south Asian dress doing interesting things.

Cars, buses, trucks, human-powered rickshaws, scooters, oxen-drawn wagons, bicycles … a tangle of vehicles snarled the roadway as pedestrians darted through the gaps with care. Trucks bore strange signs at the back: “Honk, please.” Pairs of laborers stood on rickety, ascending platforms passing cement-loaded trays up three stories of a construction project. Cattle tethered on short leashes languished beside tiny homes lining narrow, dusty streets.

Of course India boasts lots of world-class tourist sites, especially the Taj Mahal, and a list of lesser-known Mughal architectural wonders including the Red Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, all splendid, enchanting, spectacular.

But the people, the God-image bearers, made the deepest impression. One, especially.

In September 2000 Valerie and I, with a friend, June, flew to Seoul, South Korea, the first leg of a trip to Siberia.  We spent the night on the campus of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, at 700,000 the largest church in the world. It was Saturday evening and a loud, all-night prayer meeting was going on in the sanctuary next door to the dorm. We slept, but not much. And watched a Nebraska University football game live!

After the early service Sunday morning, a hospitable young man from the church showed us around the city for a couple of hours before we took a taxi back to the airport to go on to Khabarovsk, Russia.

When we arrived at the terminal and got out at the curb we saw something curious. A young woman, surrounded by luggage and holding her baby, stood on the sidewalk, quietly weeping as crowds of travelers hurried by. No one seemed to notice her. But we were drawn to her.

“Are you okay?” June asked. And she told us her story, speaking in English with a Russian accent.

She and her husband, their twelve-year-old daughter and baby had flown all night from Moscow to Seoul. The family was moving to Korea where he had a job waiting. They had arrived at the other terminal, visible some distance away. They collected their luggage and went to the taxi stand to come to this terminal to catch their domestic flight.