The Grand Strand

This week we stayed at a friend's family beach house on the Grand Strand in South Carolina's Low Country. For the first time in weeks, we stopped moving. We actually stayed in the same place for three days.

As a result, we had plenty of time for long walks on the beach.

We stayed on what is known as The Grand Strand, a continuous series of ocean beaches that stretch for 60 miles along the South Carolina coastline.

Throughout the area, the beaches are accessible and open to the public, although in places they are lined with hotels, condominiums, and various tourist "attractions."

Each day, we saw many people fishing from the shore. Some of them were using hand-thrown nets to catch minnows for bait. The guy in the photo below is just emptying his net into a pail.

The days were warm (80+ degrees) as was the ocean water (73 degrees). As a result, we did most of our walking toward the end of the day, which gave us a chance to enjoy some great sunsets, including this one near the fishing pier at Garden City Beach.

A Celebration Of Friends

Week 9--We can use many words to describe a group of things: a host of angels, a gaggle of geese, a pod of whales, a herd of sheep. This week, we had a  wonderful time of reflection and celebration with five friends and their families on five different nights--a "celebration of friends."

Each friend we visited was connected to one of the major work commitments in my (Bas) life: Medical Teams International, World Relief, and The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center. We had not seen some of these friends for more than 30 years.

In each case, we had a great time of sharing memories, laughing loudly at some of the crazy experiences we shared, remembering some of the amazing people who worked alongside us, and celebrating God's grace in our lives over the years.   

Each visit was a time of blessing and joy. In each visit, we experienced God's blessing and grace in new and fresh ways.

Our friends, Don and Ronna, live in Nyack, New York, in the same house in which Don grew up as a child. Don is the chief executive of a major social service agency in the community in which they live. He also serves on the city council. Ronna works for an international group that supports hospice programs in Romania, Serbia, and Moldova. She works from her home so that she can also care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s. I worked with Don for many years while on staff with World Relief. He served as the director of one of our major refugee-camp programs overseas and then returned home to lead World Relief’s refugee-resettlement programs in the U.S. It was wonderful to be with Don and Ronna again. Over a great meal at a local Italian restaurant, we laughed loudly about some of amusing experiences we had shared together. We also talked about some of the pain and the frustrations that were a part of our work and recalled with joy how the Lord used our efforts to touch the lives of so many refugees over the years. Don and Ronna are special people. We had not seen them for more than 10 years but, when we sat down together, it was as if we had never been apart. They are wonderful friends who love the Lord and are doing what they can to serve Him in the community where they live.

Our friends, Todd and Hibst, live in Maryland with their two daughters, Emma and Eliana. Todd is an international public health specialist on the staff of Medical Teams International. Hibst is a nurse who grew up in Ethiopia and who came to Canada and then the U.S. Their two beautiful daughters speak Amharic (Hibst’s Ethiopian background) and Hebrew (Todd’s Jewish background) and are studying Mandarin. Todd became a Christian after recovering from a brutal car accident that left him as good as dead. A refugee from Ethiopia, Hibst faced major difficulties in obtaining legal U.S. residency. We prayed for her for many years. Finally and miraculously, the Lord intervened in the process. She now has legal U.S. residency. As a result, the entire family was able to return to Ethiopia to visit Hibst’s family, whom she had not seen for more than a decade. Hibst’s face shone with joy as she recalled her reunion with her 82- year-old father, her many siblings, and a host of cousins. Hibst is an outstanding cook who served us two wonderful dinners, one filled with African specialties. As we said good-bye to this wonderful family, we realized that we had been fed both physically and spiritually as result of our visit.

Our friends, David and Laura, live in a house they call “Point of View,” which aptly describes their home in the mountains above the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia. From the deck of their home, they see the Shenandoah River winding through the valley far below. Each night, they can sit in two side-by-side claw-foot tubs on their deck and watch the sunset over the mountains on the other side of the valley. 

I first stayed with David and Laura when they lived in Swaziland in southern Africa. Laura had just joined our World Relief staff as a program specialist. David, who is from South Africa, was helping to administer a computer services and training company. In the years that passed, David also joined the staff of World Relief, eventually serving as the Africa regional director in our international program department. Later, both David and Laura moved to Oregon to work with Medical Teams International, where Laura served as our HIV/AIDS specialist and David was our vice president for administration. They moved back to West Virginia to care for Laura’s 98-year-old mother, who lives in northern Virginia. Laura and David are some of the few people who served with me both at World Relief and Medical Teams International. They are quality people who are warm, faith-filled, and passionate about serving the poor. They have lived full and rich lives in a wide variety of places and have always managed to make a warm and beautiful home wherever they have lived. We value our friendship with them and always are encouraged by the time we spend together.

Our friends, Ken and Martha June, live in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where they moved after Ken retired from his position as director of micro-enterprise programs at World Relief. I hired Ken when I was the vice president for international ministries with World Relief, one of my best decisions. A missionary who had served with the Mennonites in Bolivia, Ken had an outstanding understanding of micro-enterprise development. Under his leadership, we were able to establish micro-enterprise programs that are still serving hundreds of thousands of families in places like Rwanda, Burundi, Cambodia, Liberia, Haiti, Honduras, and Bangladesh. In some cases, like Cambodia and Rwanda, the loan funds that we established with about $100,000 now amount to hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of loan repayments and the investment of additional capital by other funders. 

On a personal level, Martha June had a tremendous impact on our our family. For more than six years, she served as Alisa’s tutor when Alisa was not able to attend school because of her illness. Every day, Martha June would come into our house with lesson plans, books, stories, and, sometimes, with treats. Often, Alisa was so tired she could not sit up, so Martha June got down on the floor with her. A trained teacher, Martha June was actually paid by the Wheaton School District to tutor Alisa. We don’t know what we would have done without her and are so grateful for her care for Alisa and her ministry to us. 

Today, Ken and Martha June live a few blocks from their daughter, son-in-law, and two active grandsons. They have volunteered as team leaders with Mennonite Disaster Services in the U.S. over the years and also volunteer at a local free clinic in Harrisonburg. They had the choice of six Mennonite churches in town when they moved to Harrisonburg because it is a center of Mennonite and Amish people. In fact, Eastern Mennonite University, one of the premier Mennonite universities, is located nearby. As a result, Ken and Martha June have connected with many retired Mennonites who share their missionary and humanitarian aid background and interests. Ken is also a talented cook who prepared a wonderful supper of barbecued chicken and homemade pumpkin pie followed by a breakfast of baked oatmeal the next morning. Even in retirement, these good friends continue to live out their Mennonite faith in humble and significant ways, inspiring us to do our best to follow their example in our own retirement.

Our friends, Jim and Brooke, live in Chesapeake, Virginia, where Jim serves as the director of a writing and analysis program for Regent University Law School. Brooke worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network for many years. Most of that time, she served as the executive producer of the 700 Club. 

After earning degrees at Wheaton College and Gordon Conwell Seminary, Jim joined our staff at The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center in Boston. He immediately faced a number of significant personal adjustments from the quiet life of north shore Boston to the harsh realities of urban street life and homelessness in Boston. Even today, 30 years later, Jim shakes his head at the wide variety of people and experiences he faced during his years at Harbor Light Center. There were times that he truly feared for his life. But, he faced each challenge with faith and with an amazing ability to talk to people. I found him to be incredibly dependable, very serious about his faith, willing to do whatever was needed to help us move forward with the work God had called us to do. 

Jim and Brooke met and married each other while Jim was on staff at the Harbor Light Center. Both were very active in a home fellowship that led them to move to Dorchester in the city. For a number of years, Jim continued to work in the field of alcoholism treatment. Then, miraculously, the Lord led him to law school and, a few years later, to a teaching position as a professor at Regent University Law School. It was amazing to hear their journey from Boston to Chesapeake—truly a God-led journey. Today, they have two adult children and one very cute, very loved 13-month-old grandson whom they see almost every day.

As we sat and talked with Jim and Brooke, in some ways it seemed like no time had passed at all. Almost immediately, we took up where we had left off in our relationship. At the same time, 30 years had passed—enough time to raise children, have careers, build new friendships. Our time together was too short. There was not enough time to talk about all that had happened and all that was happening. 

After five visits with these good friends in five days, we found ourselves overwhelmed with gratitude for the richness of the friendships we had made over the years. Even in cases where we had not seen each other for a long time, the friendships were still real and strong.

In every case, our friends have had significant careers that God has used to touch the lives of many, many people. In every case, they have had rich family experiences, sometimes marked with difficulty and challenges, but always marked by love and faith.

The number of friends we have in Oregon has been reduced these days because we are no longer directly involved in Medical Teams International, which was the focus of most of our relational activity for 17 years. But this trip has shown us that over the years, God has given us so many good friends in other places. 

We are truly blessed by our friends. For this we are immensely grateful.

Sergeant Dan

Tonight we spent the evening with my (Lynn's) nephew Dan, at his home near Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was a delight to be in Dan's home, which reflects his creativity and values.

While enjoying Dan's homemade chili and cornbread, we learned more about his military career, from his days in the National Guard and the Air Force to his present service with the Army. 

Sergeant Dan serves at Fort Bragg under the Air and Missile Defense Command, specializing in Patriot Missile systems. He has served our country not only in the US and Korea, but also during deployments to Bahrain, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. 

Life in the military is sometimes hard, and it requires personal sacrifice. I am grateful to Dan and his military colleagues, who use their skills to defend our country as well as other vulnerable countries around the world.

Bas and I were touched today by similar expressions of gratitude for the men and women who serve in the military. While driving to Fayetteville, we drove by the outskirts of Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps military base in Jacksonville, North Carolina. All along the fences lining the road, friends and family of Marines had hung banners expressing their love and gratitude.

To Dan and all who serve our country in these difficult and challenging days, thank you so much for your service.  

The Outer Banks

Week 9--Sand, wind, crashing waves, combing the beaches, lighthouses, remembering the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, ferries--the collage of our days on the Outer Banks of the North Carolina seashore.

Treasures in the sand:

We are at the blue dot on this map. As we drive, we can see water on both sides of the road.

Cape Hatteras Light -- tallest lighthouse on the East Coast (12 stories high.)

Wright Brothers National Monument. Exact replica of their original airplane.

Sculpture of first flight 

Sculpture of man cheering on the Wright brothers

Ferry from Ocracoke National Seashore to Cedar Island. That's our van in front.

Meeting as Friends

More than 40 years ago, this amazing woman walked into my ninth-grade English class. She was not confident about her skills, but she worked hard and developed into an effective writer. I love reading what she writes today.

I admire her so much for the woman she has become: a compassionate chaplain to people in their final years and days of life, a light-bringer to terminally ill children, an enthusiastic gymnastic coach, a brave and strong woman who faces many obstacles with grace and humor. She is touching so many lives with her love and care.

A few days ago we spent a few hours together, catching up. She is articulate, smart, and wise. Although she had a hard time not calling me Mrs. Vanderzalm, it was so wonderful to meet as friends: Lisa and Lynn.

A Prophecy Fulfilled

Days 61-62--When I (Lynn) first knew Betsy, she was one of several young women who regularly sat at the end of my couch. I was couch-bound with a chronic illness, always available to listen to and pray with my friends. 

Betsy was going through a hard time, some deep distress. We prayed about a marriage partner for her. We prayed about a career path for her. We prayed about her health.

One day Betsy showed me an Old Testament passage that spoke to her, a passage that she wanted to claim for her future: 

Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. . . . work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I send you. Jeremiah 29:5-7

Betsy saw these verses as God's promise and directions to her, even though she was not in a dating relationship, even though the fulfillment of that promise was nowhere in sight.

This past weekend, we spent two days with Betsy and her family. Betsy has been married to her husband, Jack, for 21 years. They have two children. They have lived in their home in York, Pennsylvania, for 10 years. They served us fresh vegetables from their garden. A social worker and play therapist, Betsy works for peace in the lives of children who have been abused or are facing distresses and losses in their lives. 

In the 21 years since we had last been together with Jack and Betsy, God has been so faithful to them and to His promises to a distressed young woman. It was delightful to listen as they shared their stories. To meet their adopted son, Jeremiah. To meet their daughter, Iliana, a Hebrew name that means "God answered my prayer." To eat the shrimp and grits as well as the beef tagine that Jack cooked for us, using vegetables and herbs from his garden.  

We spent an afternoon at the Center for Creative Arts and Play Therapy, where Betsy practices as a psychotherapist, social worker, and registered play therapy. 

She talked us through how she works with children, using various methods, including sand-tray therapy. She demonstrated the sand-tray therapy for us, showing how young children, who are unable to verbalize their distress, work through their feelings over the weeks by creating "worlds" with miniatures that allow them to express their feelings.

Twenty-five years ago the promises in Jeremiah 29 seemed so distant and impossible to Betsy and to us. But, as we spent time with Jack and Betsy, we rejoiced together that all of these promises, every one of them, had been fulfilled by a loving and gracious God.

Truly, a prophecy fulfilled.

View from the Boston Harbor

We've known our friends Matt and Marge since we were students at Calvin College, more than 47 years ago. Bas and Matt were roommates their senior year, and both of us couples got married right after graduation. Matt and Marge visited us in Portland this spring to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary, a few weeks after ours. 

Matt and Marge moved to the Boston area a few years after we had arrived in Boston. Matt has a PhD in astrophysics and had accepted a position at MIT's Lincoln Lab where he has continued to work for his entire career. Marge has had a long and rich career as a school librarian in various school districts west of Boston. They have 3 daughters. One shares the same birthday as our son, Matt, which resulted in our celebrating a lot of birthdays together while we were in Boston. 

When Matt and Marge learned we would be coming to Boston, they invited us to go sailing with them on the Boston Harbor. Matt has been a member of the Boston Harbor Sailing Club for many years and is a skilled sailor. He chose a 26-foot Pearson for the afternoon. 

The day could not have been better for the sail. The harbor was relatively quiet, but the wind was just right. Matt put Bas at the helm as we headed for the Harbor Islands. The view of the city from the harbor was impressive. 

All afternoon we watched harbor ferries, tugboats, schooners, and even a cruise ship glide through the harbor. 

It was a hard decision to turn the boat around to return to land. We wanted to sail on forever. It was so beautiful. 

But, with the sun starting to set in the sky, we headed back to the harbor and to a delicious meal that Marge had prepared for us at their home.

We have seen Boston from many different vantage points over the years. But, none was as striking as the view of the city from a 26 ft sailboat on a clear day in October.

It All Began in Boston

As we traveled around Boston these days, we realized again how God used our years in Boston from 1970 -1982 to shape our lives.

For our first two years in the Boston area, we lived in a one-room efficiency student apartment at Andover Newton Theological School. The apartment was already furnished. It measured about 400 sq. ft. and had just enough room for our clothes and books. With a few decorating touches, we made it our own.

Each day Lynn drove to Lexington Christian Academy, which was about an hour away on busy roads filled with temperamental Boston drivers. I went to class and studied. At night, Lynn graded papers and did lesson plans. I went to more classes and studied some more.

At Andover Newton, I was able to pursue training in prison ministry through a field work program at a nearby maximum security prison. Every week, we’d travel to the prison to meet with inmates who were about to be released. After their release, we’d follow up with them on the outside.

I took classes not only at Andover Newton but also at other seminaries in the area. One of my classes focused on counseling alcoholics. It was taught by an Episcopal priest who was himself a recovering alcoholic.

My work in the prison and my experience with alcoholics led me to my first job as the director of a counseling program for alcoholics at The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center in Boston.

The Harbor Light Center was located in the area of Boston where homeless and street people congregated. The Center offered a 30-bed temporary shelter for men, a 10-bed temporary shelter for women as well as a 60-bed alcohol rehabilitation program for both men and women.

Daily contact with so many poor, homeless, and addicted people had its effect on us. They taught us honesty and patience. They forced us to exercise and stretch our faith. They made us examine our values and the culture that shaped us. We loved many of these people. Some of them loved us back. As a result, our lives changed.

We were also privileged to work with some wonderful staff, including two African American women whom we met during our visit to Boston. 

Jaqui was my administrative assistant for most of the time I served as executive director of the Harbor Light Center. Sandra joined our staff as the manager of our homeless shelter. Both of these women remained on staff at the Harbor Light Center after I left. Jaqui worked there for 31 years, Sandra for 30 years. Working for this many years in a setting that has uncommonly high levels of pressure and stress is an amazing testimony to their resilience and faith. Sadly, both Jaqui and Sandra lost their jobs when the Center closed for financial reasons about seven years ago. Both have struggled financially since then. Both have lost people close to them. Sandra has had to overcome two different types of cancer. 

Sandra and Jaqui have many reasons to be burned out, frustrated, angry. But, they are filled with faith. The joy in the faces of these two women when we met together overwhelmed us. They truly are saints whose lives have touched hundreds of people with hope and who have served the Lord in some of the most difficult circumstances and conditions to be found anywhere.

After two years in seminary housing and two years in a third-floor walk-up apartment near Lexington Christian Academy, we settled into a three-family house in Hyde Park in southeast Boston. We raised both of our babies in this house, which was to be our home for the rest of our time in New England.

Lynn was a stay-at-home mom who became involved in local women’s Bible studies and, in time, started to work out of our home as a freelance editor. I traveled by bus and subway to Harbor Light Center each day and often on weekends.

After four years on staff at Harbor Light Center, The Salvation Army asked me to serve as the executive director of the Center. This involved the oversight of 25 staff from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds. It forced me to develop new skills in budget management, fundraising, community relations and strategic planning. On Sundays, it brought our entire family to the Center to lead worship services for residents and elderly people in the area.

On the Sundays that we did not have responsibilities at the Harbor Light Center, we attended services at Park Street Church in downtown Boston. Park Street Church was where we were members and where both of our kids were baptized. The church was home to many students and a large group of internationals. As one of the oldest churches in the U.S., it had a huge commitment to missionary support and to faithful exegetical preaching.

We were able to attend a Sunday worship service at Park Street Church during our visit to Boston. As we heard the magnificent organ and joined the congregation in singing, we choked up and stopped singing. Our eyes filled with tears at the memories of the services we had attended at Part Street while we lived in Boston.

It was at Park Street Church that we attended our first week-long missions conference. It was there that God touched our hearts to serve the poor internationally. It was there that we first heard about World Relief. It was there Lynn took a course taught by J. Christy Wilson at the Boston Center for Christian Studies and learned about tent-making mission strategy. It was there that Lynn worked with our first refugee family.

Our involvement with Park Street Church opened our eyes to the world outside of the U.S. As a result, we felt led to pursue missionary service overseas, where poverty and human need was so much greater for many people than in the U.S. To gain access to these countries, I felt led to pursue an MBA in health care management on a part-time basis at Boston University.

So, I quit my full-time job at the Harbor Light Center and took on a number of part-time jobs--working for a friend at his local seafood restaurant business, serving as a pastor at a small church in our community, working as the weekend administrator at Boston City Hospital, consulting to The Salvation Army.

As I approached the end of my studies at Boston University’s School of Management, I accepted a position as Director of Administration and Personnel with World Relief, which was located in Wheaton, Illinois.  As  result, we had to leave Boston for a new life in a Chicago suburb.

It was very hard for us to leave Boston. We loved the area. We loved the people. We had many friends and many wonderful memories. But, we clearly felt God’s leading to go, and so we uprooted our family and ourselves and moved away.

But, Boston had changed us. We arrived in Boston with each other, our faith, and only those things that we could carry in the back of our old Ford sedan.

We left with such riches in terms of family, friends, experiences, and careers. Our views of the world, of service to others, of missions, and of God’s faithfulness had been enlarged and forever changed.

Now, 44 years later, we thank God for taking us to Boston. During these many years, we have had a wonderful journey filled with blessing and joy.

And, it all began in Boston.

Wicked Good Accents

We love to hear people in New England talk.

"These clayums were dug this mawhning. Just boil them in theyah own juice. They'll be wicked good," said the 70-year-old, grizzled lobsterman who had just sold us 5 pounds of freshly dug clams from a little shack on the back of his property.

"I'll be right theyah," screeched a woman from a second-floor window, when we rang a bell to register for a campsite. A few minutes later, she yelled, "I'm right heeyah." Coming into view, she apologized for her delay. "I was in the showah. I still need to fix my hayah." Telling us which site was ours, she said, "You can pahk your van right ovah theyah."

As we travel through New Hampshire and Maine, Lynn and I are always so delighted to hear the New England accents. We can't get enough of it, engaging native speakers in extended conversations whenever we can.

"That'll be one lawbstah stew and one chowdah," said the waitress when she took our order. "And do you want any beeyah to go with that?" Of course we did. With that accent, how could we say no?

We knew we'd love the foliage, the beautiful coastline, and the quaint villages with their white homes and steepled churches in New England. But, we'd forgotten how much we would enjoy hearing local people talk. 

Or, is that pronounced "tahk?"

The woman who changed the oil in our van asked, "Five quahts? Shoowah, deah."

Even the emergency signs on the road have an accent. "Make yah ma proud," said the flashing sign on the freeway, followed by "wear yah seat belts."

And those r's that seem to disappear. Well, they sometimes reappear in the strangest places. One of Lynn's students, Marcia Abbott, was referred to as Mash-uh-rabbit.

Or a seminary student who lived next door to us in married-student housing told us that he was taking a course: "The Church in the Morden Age." Nope, that's not a typo. The r just migrated.

The New England accent is starting to grow on us. Ahs move. In other cases, consonants simply just disappeah. And vowels nevah sound like we expect.  

Take the town neah wheyah we ah staying. It's not "Gloucester," it's

These wonderful New England accents. They ah just wicked good.

But accents are not the only wicked good thing in New England.