Chapter 49 - Marathon Mentality

For months that stretch into years I keep trying to refocus, to reshape my outlook into marathon endurance. We are headed to the mission field, but like Paul are making tents for a time. And while back in the States we are launching our sons into life, into their callings.

We faithfully attend New Life as a family, have devotions, memorize scripture. We lead the Saturday night prayer group in the church auditorium, with Jared playing worship music. Both sons attend youth or college group, and Jared sings in the adult choir. As the church launches cell groups we lead some and eventually become section leaders over 5-6 groups, then zone leaders over 20-40 groups. We are committed and busy.

Nick applies and is accepted as a youth pastor in North Carolina. Later when we visit, we delight to hear his lively exhortations to the high schoolers. They are rich, spiced with laughter! In a year he marries Linda at her parents’ church in Minnesota and she joins him in ministry.

Each year we take some of our building profits and fly on a missions teaching trip to one or two countries. Ywam leaders welcome us back to Penang, and later Dass and Rani at their base south, in Ipoh. Nepal, Ethiopia, India, Singapore also open up for DTS teaching or their School of Biblical Studies. We begin to support some of these leaders with small amounts each month. We are planted in the States now, but preparing for missions, doing whatever we can.

When we are elected elders at New Life (there are 35 couples—70 elders in what becomes a 14,000-member church), we begin to lead a Sunday night elder prayer meeting before the evening service. Our numbers are small, but through prayer we grow close in spirit.

Each year we come closer to getting a home paid for. Larry builds houses by taking construction loans, and I nurse, doing 12-hour night shifts. I drive home with blurry eyes, slapping my legs to stay awake. I love the tiny babies in the NICU, the quiet late-night hours, the extra pay for working the second shift. But around 4am as I drink coffee to stay awake, I wonder to the Lord, “Is this the best way you can use me now? I don’t feel like you called me to work here in the States. When will we break through into the big picture of missions, Lord?”

After helping Tony our neighbor with his cows, Larry and I decide we don’t want to raise cattle to pay for missions. We are driving 30 miles to the Springs, sometimes twice a day. We divide the land and sell pieces of it, including our home on 40 of the 160 acres. Then we rebuild a slightly larger log house closer to town on Sweet Road, that has a smaller mortgage. That home has great views—and a steep driveway, which is challenging in winter!

Since Nick is now married, Jared is like an only child during his junior and senior years of high school. He is tall and dark haired, quiet, with a lively sense of humor. He practices his classical and worship music late at night on our worn piano, singing resonantly. Darlene Baldwin his music teacher encourages him to write songs. He begins writing fun lyrics, worship songs, and some that are so deep and obscure I have to ask what they mean!

Over dinner we discuss life—church issues, movies, girls, politics, callings. Jared is open with Larry and me, and we have sincere prayer in family devotions.

So when we find out Jared has been deceiving us by watching R-rated movies at a friend’s home I am deeply hurt. We are in the living room, and I am kneeling on the floor. “How could you do this? You know the rules, and we’ve trusted you.” I wipe my eyes.

“We want what’s best for you, Jared,” Larry says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Mom and I don’t make any rules for you that we don’t keep ourselves. They’re guidelines to ‘help our eyes be single so our whole bodies will be full of light.’ How can God use us if we take in darkness willingly?”

“I know,” Jared responds. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry I deceived you. I won’t do it again.”

“I’m going to have to limit you from seeing those friends of yours, except at church, for a while,” Larry tells him.

“That’s OK. I understand.”

And we pray together.

Jared graduates from Rampart High School in 1997, with a large party at our home on the hill. That summer we celebrate and fly him on a special graduation trip to Italy. We eat at the Piazza Navona where artists sell paintings, climb the Spanish Steps, tour the Vatican, visit Sienna. We even spend one night in Narni, the hilltop town north of Rome where I had lodged years before when motorcycling through Europe. We climb narrow cobbled streets on whose stone walls metal sconces are fastened that once held flaming torches in the Middle Ages. I am entranced. I shop and buy a shallow Tuscan bowl that says Narni in the center.

At dusk after dinner we sit on the steps of the small town square, licking gelatos. Half the populace seems to be strolling--or sitting on the stone steps at one end of the piazza. The young people laugh and joke on the risers…there is community, comradery. For how many hundreds of years has one generation passed down homes, traditions, faith, love!

We notice a sign that says Narni is the geographic midpoint of Italy. I consider thoughtfully, prayerfully. “Lord, use us in our lives to persevere, pass down truth, faithful living to our family and generation.”