I still remember the childhood dreams, the convoluted streams of desire to be someone important and someone loved. They usually revolved around people I admired.
“When I grow up, I want to be a nurse like Aunt Pat,” I’d announce with doll in hand, tenderly wrapping a 'broken' leg or applying a bandage. Aunt Pat was a single woman who lived alone and worked in the highlands of Irian Jaya (now called Papua), the island where I grew up. I saw her only occasionally, but I was enthralled. I watched her clean and treat wounds with the caring efficiency of a nurse who loved her patients. I saw her gather children around her and teach them songs about Jesus. I’d seen her sit in a circle of native highlanders, talking about the day and eating roasted sweet potatoes. She let me help her write down weather data, checking the rain gauge and thermometer and carefully recording them in her weather book. Yes, I thought, I want to be a nurse like Aunt Pat and work with people who don’t have doctors and hospitals.
“When I grow up, I want to be a pilot like Miss Greene,” I said later when I saw her touch the Cessna seaplane down on the water and climb from the cockpit onto the floats of the plane and nimbly jump onto the pier. She was the only woman pilot I had ever seen. I had heard the stories of her flying planes over the Burmese pass during the war. I learned much later that she had helped start Missionary Aviation Fellowship, the group that flew all of us missionaries around the country. Yes, I thought, it would be great to be able to take missionaries from their remote stations to mission conferences, just like Miss Betty Greene.
Most of the time, though, my main thought was, “When I grow up, I want to be just like Mom.” Missionary, home-school teacher, Bible storyteller extraordinaire, devoted mother to me and my siblings, and loving wife to my dad. With a song on her lips and tenderness in her touch, she made my ever-changing world a secure place to live. She had five (and then six) children, so I would have five or six children.* She sang while she worked, so I sang while I played. She worked hard from morning till night, so I learned that adulthood meant hard work. I ‘helped’ make bread, and she gave me permission to try out my own cooking skills by making ‘mixtures’. (These were usually never baked since they tasted so good as a mixture of ingredients.) She let my little brothers and I draw chalk roads on the concrete floors as we drove our toy cars from room to room. She even warned us when floor washing day was coming up so that we knew that all the roads would disappear. She taught me to set a correct table and how to properly clean the kitchen. She taught me the basics of running a household – how to cook, bake bread, clean, manage money, and sew, skills I knew I would need to be the very best mother I could be.
I learned much about appreciating beauty from her. “Come look at the sky!” she called on many evenings when afternoon sun lengthened the shadows and transformed the sky into dazzling colors. It was as though the earth had draped a bright Mexican blanket around herself before the cool night air whispered through the trees. Together we’d talk about the varying shades of pink, orange and purple and the amazing God we serve who was not only powerful but who loved beauty. Or we’d drive down the road and turn the corner and she would exclaim, “Oh, how beautiful!” as we caught a glimpse of the swiftly changing vista before us.
One day while they were on furlough in New York, after years of working in the crowded, grey cement jungles of metro Manila, I found her sitting on the back porch of my uncle’s house.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m drinking in the beauty,” she replied as she stared at the expanse of green yard dipping down to the trickling creek. I sat down beside her and let my eyes relax with the view of bright green fading into the dark green of the trees and listened to the birds calling to each other. I don’t know how long we sat there, but our spirits were revived by the beauty around us. “I feel like my soul is starved for beauty,” she told me. At the time, I didn't understand it, until I too began years of working in a grey cement jungle.
Most importantly, she taught me what it was to follow the Savior. One morning very early, I was the first to rise, or so I thought. I found her kneeling at the rattan couch in our little living room. I walked up next to her and knelt beside her. She wrapped her arm around me, finished her prayer time and gave me a kiss and a squeeze. “Let’s go get breakfast on the table, shall we?” she said, as we arose together and headed into the kitchen where I set the table while she cooked.
I learned from her that following Jesus was a life of peace and joy. Even during the hard times, when tears cruised their way down her soft cheeks, the peace was still there. After the tears were gone, a smile broke forth and once again she started singing songs of praise to the Savior. When Dad was suddenly taken from us and accused of being a CIA spy and thrown into an Indonesian prison cell, everyone around her remarked on her peacefulness. I still saw her smile. I still heard her sing. I still saw her pray and praise God for His faithfulness.
The years have passed. Time has a way of compressing the passing years into important memories. For me, some of the sweetest memories of my life are those of my mom. She has continued, throughout the years, to be an example to me. So even though I’m pushing 60 now, I still look at my mother and say, “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be just like you.”
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*Child #7 was adopted after I became an adult, so that number did not enter into my childhood dreams.
“When I grow up, I want to be a nurse like Aunt Pat,” I’d announce with doll in hand, tenderly wrapping a 'broken' leg or applying a bandage. Aunt Pat was a single woman who lived alone and worked in the highlands of Irian Jaya (now called Papua), the island where I grew up. I saw her only occasionally, but I was enthralled. I watched her clean and treat wounds with the caring efficiency of a nurse who loved her patients. I saw her gather children around her and teach them songs about Jesus. I’d seen her sit in a circle of native highlanders, talking about the day and eating roasted sweet potatoes. She let me help her write down weather data, checking the rain gauge and thermometer and carefully recording them in her weather book. Yes, I thought, I want to be a nurse like Aunt Pat and work with people who don’t have doctors and hospitals.
Most of the time, though, my main thought was, “When I grow up, I want to be just like Mom.” Missionary, home-school teacher, Bible storyteller extraordinaire, devoted mother to me and my siblings, and loving wife to my dad. With a song on her lips and tenderness in her touch, she made my ever-changing world a secure place to live. She had five (and then six) children, so I would have five or six children.* She sang while she worked, so I sang while I played. She worked hard from morning till night, so I learned that adulthood meant hard work. I ‘helped’ make bread, and she gave me permission to try out my own cooking skills by making ‘mixtures’. (These were usually never baked since they tasted so good as a mixture of ingredients.) She let my little brothers and I draw chalk roads on the concrete floors as we drove our toy cars from room to room. She even warned us when floor washing day was coming up so that we knew that all the roads would disappear. She taught me to set a correct table and how to properly clean the kitchen. She taught me the basics of running a household – how to cook, bake bread, clean, manage money, and sew, skills I knew I would need to be the very best mother I could be.
I learned much about appreciating beauty from her. “Come look at the sky!” she called on many evenings when afternoon sun lengthened the shadows and transformed the sky into dazzling colors. It was as though the earth had draped a bright Mexican blanket around herself before the cool night air whispered through the trees. Together we’d talk about the varying shades of pink, orange and purple and the amazing God we serve who was not only powerful but who loved beauty. Or we’d drive down the road and turn the corner and she would exclaim, “Oh, how beautiful!” as we caught a glimpse of the swiftly changing vista before us.
One day while they were on furlough in New York, after years of working in the crowded, grey cement jungles of metro Manila, I found her sitting on the back porch of my uncle’s house.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m drinking in the beauty,” she replied as she stared at the expanse of green yard dipping down to the trickling creek. I sat down beside her and let my eyes relax with the view of bright green fading into the dark green of the trees and listened to the birds calling to each other. I don’t know how long we sat there, but our spirits were revived by the beauty around us. “I feel like my soul is starved for beauty,” she told me. At the time, I didn't understand it, until I too began years of working in a grey cement jungle.
Most importantly, she taught me what it was to follow the Savior. One morning very early, I was the first to rise, or so I thought. I found her kneeling at the rattan couch in our little living room. I walked up next to her and knelt beside her. She wrapped her arm around me, finished her prayer time and gave me a kiss and a squeeze. “Let’s go get breakfast on the table, shall we?” she said, as we arose together and headed into the kitchen where I set the table while she cooked.
I learned from her that following Jesus was a life of peace and joy. Even during the hard times, when tears cruised their way down her soft cheeks, the peace was still there. After the tears were gone, a smile broke forth and once again she started singing songs of praise to the Savior. When Dad was suddenly taken from us and accused of being a CIA spy and thrown into an Indonesian prison cell, everyone around her remarked on her peacefulness. I still saw her smile. I still heard her sing. I still saw her pray and praise God for His faithfulness.The years have passed. Time has a way of compressing the passing years into important memories. For me, some of the sweetest memories of my life are those of my mom. She has continued, throughout the years, to be an example to me. So even though I’m pushing 60 now, I still look at my mother and say, “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be just like you.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*Child #7 was adopted after I became an adult, so that number did not enter into my childhood dreams.
