Moon Landing

Fifty years ago this summer in 1969 I was on a full dress Harley under the hot sun of South Dakota, headed for Alaska. Our destination was Homer on the Kenai Peninsula, to work with Alaska Village Missions. The three other cyclists with us were classmates from Crown College--their purpose in going was to earn tuition money in Anchorage.

The first day was exciting! Chugging west through blazing heat we gradually entered green-tinged atmosphere followed by a tornado that touched down a mile from us in a farmyard. (We were near a culvert to duck into if necessary.) Then after strong wind and driving rain where we took shelter in the cab of a semi-truck, we finally rented a room in an old brick hotel. I was exhausted. Opening our dufflebag, I noticed that grainy pancake mix had somehow broken open and was strewn among our clothes. After shaking everything out and repacking, I wearily climbed into bed.

Subsequent days were sweltering, but more tame. On the evening of July 20th our team was warmly welcomed into the parsonage of Crown College graduates who were pastoring in Montana. The couple served us a hot meal with laughter and sweet fellowship. It so happened that the moon landing was that night! We all gathered around their black and white TV and watched Neil Armstrong take a “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Man had really travelled to the moon! Such coordinated effort of mathematical, engineering, and construction genius to thrust humans to the nearest orb in our universe. It was amazing. But, somehow I was not awed. It was wonderful—but limited. Why did I react thus?

It must have been because I was living my own adventure. And my purposes were beyond the dimension of time and space. I grew up among the fierce Dani tribe in Papua, New Guinea where warriors carried spears, bows and arrows, their noses pierced with pig tusks. These people had turned from animism (sacrificing pigs to appease evil spirits) to serve Jesus Christ. Fetish burnings, large baptisms, fervent worship with dancing, young Bible school students preaching the gospel. Eternal light piercing darkness, birthing eternity in their hearts!

Somehow space travel, amazing as it was, seemed so inconsequential—like travelling an inch, when space was 1,000 miles long! Could we someday travel that 1,000 miles? Maybe, but at the end of our lives we would exit time and space into eternal darkness or eternal Light. Would it matter whether we had spanned the universe in a space capsule?

I climbed into bed at the parsonage that night happy. I was a part of the Kingdom of God. It had exploded in my heart, and those of our cycling team. It was enlarging, growing, the Kingdom of God within us. And we were going to tell the world…