Travel Archives -

The Cowboy’s Coming

You have not heard from me for months. There’s a reason for that. A couple of reasons, actually.

I’ve been pastoring. And grandfathering. And marketing that modern cowboy novel—Someplace North, Someplace Wild—that launched this web page.

I believe we’re in the final stretch. Four publishers have requested the entire manuscript. Somebody’s going to say yes.

So stand by for an update in about a month.

Meantime, this lady and I will celebrate our 50th anniversary June 8! Here’s a picture we took recently on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, at the very spot I sealed our engagement with a diamond ring.

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Stuck in 2020

My wife and I recently read Rocket Men: the daring odyssey of Apollo 8 and the astronauts who made man’s first journey to the moon, by Robert Kurson. (Thanks, Mark Moffat, for the tip!)

Page 282 describes the astronauts, on their way home, crossing the point “at which Earth’s gravity [becomes] dominant.” From there the spaceship gradually accelerated until, days later, entering the earth’s atmosphere, they topped out at 24,500 mph.

“But that was a long way off,” Kurson writes, “and for now, when the crew looked out their windows, with no landmarks in sight, they seemed to be standing still.” That was an illusion. They were not motionless, they were flying at 5,720 mph.

“A good metaphor for life,” my wife said when she came to that page. Sometimes it feels like you’re stuck when you’re actually flying. Maybe you’ve had seasons like that.

Baby bird from America

In 1993, I spent two weeks in Ukraine teaching Cross-Cultural Communication of the Gospel at Donetsk Christian University, invited by Dr. Ray Prigodich, DCU academic dean at the time. It was my first overseas trip—after fifteen years as a missionary long overdue—and full of wonder and worry: the wonder of a foreign culture, the worry of a new assignment. My classroom skills were limited, my experience even less.

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The Intrepid Student and the First Englishman

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.

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The Fisherman on the Aisle Was Listening

Last July I wrote about a most remarkable experience in the Seoul, Korea airport. This post relates a different encounter in another airport, Sea-Tac, in Washington state.

In the 90s I traveled between Oregon and Alaska two or three times a year. Almost always I took the (cheaper) late flight from PDX to Anchorage, arriving about 1 a.m. And, on the way home, the red-eye.

One of those 2 a.m. departures from Anchorage found me by the window, and, in the middle seat next to me, a young man, a little rough around the edges. Unwashed, I think. I figured he was a commuting fishermen. Lots of commercial fishers traveled between Alaska and the Pacific NW.

He seemed grumpy (turned out he wasn’t feeling well) and I was tired. I didn’t want to talk. But I felt compelled (later I knew it wasn’t just an intrinsic compulsion; Someone was compelling me) to start a conversation in an effort to share the gospel. I could never have imagined what the Holy Spirit was up to, but I was about to find out.

He freely shared about his life. Yes, he was a fisherman. The only other thing I remember: his uncle was a preacher. That provided a natural segue to my testimony, and the gospel. He listened politely, interacted a little, but wasn’t interested. I tried to be clear that his eternal destiny was at stake, and what it meant to trust Christ. I asked him if he wouldn’t like to do that right there. But he wasn’t ready.

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