Pile Your Rubbish Here

Pastor Bob & I had purchased the Cipro for his wife, who'd picked up a tummy bug during their visit. At the corner I jerked my thumb toward Deb’s work on the walls.

“Did you see the murals?”

Bob’s response was enthusiastic as we passed under the shade of the drive-thru at the liquor store to have a look.

A year earlier, he’d seen the work of Deb’s crew at the Galapagos Islands and had loved it. Amid evolutionary theory assumed as fact, murals stand as a testimonial to the Creator.

We stood and admired the work; it wasn’t long before Bob found his own story on the wall.

“This was me, right here.”

I knew his story even though I'd only met him an hour earlier.

The artist, Xavier, had captured it all in black and white: anguish, emptiness, desperation. Bob had known what life was like without God, whom he credits with non-churchy overtures toward a personal relationship. Like spoiling a drug deal at Bob’s lowest point, for example.

In the next panel, Jenny had artfully showed crowds playing with the wrong “toys.”

“Oh and look over there; people at the cross,” Bob gushed. He credits God with rescuing his marriage and bringing his family back.

We headed up the hill, Bob saw to his wife, and we drank a cup of coffee together.

“I better go,” I said.

“You need to? I could talk about Jesus all day.”

I really think he could have.

The next day I thought “oh, what a shame” when I saw garbage piled on the sidewalk in front of the murals. But the symbolism rushed in quickly:

Pile your rubbish here.

Right here.

At the foot of the cross.

Come as you are and pile your rubbish here.

As a chorus says,

Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus

Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, and broken toys.

Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus

And He will turn your sorrows into joy.

See (and buy!) more of Deb's work.

Book Details Spiritual Journey of Captive in Colombia

Source: CBN (used with permission)

A hostage of Colombia’s notorious FARC guerrillas for nearly six years, Marc Gonsalves considers his abduction a second chance to live for Christ. In early 2003, Gonsalves, along with Tom Howes and Keith Stansell, were captured by rebels after their plane’s engine problems forced them to land in the jungles of Colombia. A Christian already, Gonsalves’ faith had become cold, however.

“I wasn’t praying anymore,” he said. “I wasn’t going to church and I still believed in God . . . but I was still lost and this brought me back to Him immediately.” The ordeal of the three hostages is chronicled in a new book, Out of Captivity. Gonsalves had given up on surviving until he felt God’s presence in the midst of his suffering.

Locked in a 6x6 box, he heard Colombian military jets dropping bombs on the camp. “I was just shaking, physically shaking, and I just called out to God to protect us,” he said. “The next morning I woke up and I felt different. I felt like He saved me again--saved my physical life, and that’s when I believed that we were going to live through that.”

With a new desire for God’s Word, Gonsalves received a Bible from another hostage. He often discussed the Bible and his faith with fellow hostage Ingrid Betancourt--a French-Colombian politician kidnapped by the FARC while running for president of Colombia in 2002. Gonsalves said he saw in her a woman of faith who was generous and humane.

Gonsalves and 14 other hostages, including Howes, Stansell and Bentancourt were rescued on July 2, 2008. Their FARC captors had been tricked into handing them over to Colombian commandos posing as aid workers. They made it home safely.

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If you have not already heard Ray Rising tell of his 810 days of captivitity in the jungles of Colombia, here are three audio files. They aired as one complete program on HCJB-Australia in 2004 or so. Ray was held captive in the mid 1990s. Each segment runs several minutes.

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Includes a dramatic re-creation of Ray listening to a Luis Palau Crusade broadcast in camp, a regular morning occurrence during his captivity. Please press Play for Segment A.

"Most of them (captors) were between the ages of 14 and 20, so I got to be kind of a father to them." - Ray. Please press Play below for Segment B.

"Well, Ray is on a special assignment for awhile." -Doris. Please press Play for Segment C.

When Wall Street Won't Matter

Thoughtful truths of "You Can’t Take It With You" still bubble up in our conversations after we recently saw the comedy by Kaufman and Hart. Percolating you might say, just as each “bloop” of brew came into view through the glass knob on the lid on our old-fashioned percolator.

A central character, Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, dropped out – of the workforce, not high school – and is a bohemian, a “hippie” of sorts decades before anyone had used the term. He spends his days attending commencement addresses, capturing snakes for his living room terrarium or improving his dart game. Around his dinner each evening are family members, household help and hang-arounders. Their own endeavors include writing unfinished novels, reading Trotsky, and making homebrews of fireworks in the basement. The conversations are lively.


Grandpa has not worked in 35 years, and advises the same lifestyle to a tightly wound business magnate, Mr. Kirby, whose son falls in love with Mr. Vanderhof’s granddaughter. Hence Grandpa’s admonition, “You’ve got all you could want; you can’t take it with you.”


The phrase refers to an end to all earthly attachments at death. Two characters however, had fled their homeland, Russia. Likely, their posessions remained behind. Duchess Olga had lost the most, for her social standing had also been left in Russia. Now she works as a waitress.

Introduced to Grandpa’s family amid adieu and adulation, Duchess Olga Katrina gets acquainted with the family, answering their questions. Yes, she knew the czar, in fact he was her cousin. Yes, there are other royal family members in America who fled the revolution. Yes, everyone wants to know about Rasputin.

Then she graciously accepts their invitation to dinner, assuming the role of a servant. “I just love to make blintzes,” she joyously proclaims as she sweeps into the kitchen in her duchess attire. Within minutes, royalty had won the hearts of this oddball entourage at the Vanderhof home.


Can we all do as much in tougher times when we’re adjusting expectations about major purchases over the next few years or maybe our eventual retirement? Or maybe expectations about our grocery spending next month? If we live like kings (compared to much of the world, we do) we might lose status, as the duchess did.

Can we take that? Or do we take ourselves too seriously (I do. And most of us do, according to Jim’s sermon series we also attended recently.)

Another guy who ended up amidst revolutionaries and tax men, in royal courts (on trial) or breaking bread with rough-edged workers was the Apostle Paul. He wrote these lifetime priorities to friends at Philippi:
-that I may know Him
-and the power of His resurrection
-and the fellowship of His sufferings
-and be conformed to His death
-so that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

With priorities like these in place, Wall Street won’t matter and we can go to the kitchen with a smile. And never be stingy with blintzes.

aging

Although I haven't yet turned 50, my recent birthday reminded me that for all intents and purposes, my life is half over.
Growth and change marked the first half. Starting out in rural South Dakota with two very hardworking and determined Christian parents, I learned quickly that the lazy and inept were not to be tolerated. We worked hard, worshipped often, but also had time for games of Yatzee and Pit, and kickball in the front yard with the neighbors from across the road. "Maude" was forbidden on T.V., but "Gunsmoke" and "60 Minutes" were mandatory.

Fast forward to college, when God reached down and got a hold of my soul. My parents' faith became real to me. I fell in and out of love a few times and found out what real friendship is.

After graduation, moving to the big city of Minneapolis was an eye opener. For the first time I was a small fish in a big sea, rather than vice-versa. A lot of tears were shed as I tried to navigate adulthood alone.

Then I met the man I have spent the past 20 years with - my best friend. Now the adventure was really beginning. I moved with him to a developing country,"far from the home I loved." Seven and a half years later, I had bore four beautiful children, who consumed all my time and energy.

Nine years have passed, and Motherhood is still a full-time job. Even though they now can make their own supper when I am beat from a day of subbing, they still protest when I announce plans to be away for an evening. Thus begins my second half of life. I know that my role as their Mom will change drastically as they leave the nest.

What else will this half bring? I dream of time to take ballrooom dancing lessons with my husband, write my life story, and someday live again in the land of my childhood.

The Story Continues: Carlos on Cassette to Carlos in Concert

Carlos Santana is on tiptoes now, coaxing a bit more expression from the fretboard.

Half a phrase earlier, he'd tipped back his head as if to watch his notes take flight from his guitar, then shower down on 10,000 listeners at Ruminaui Coliseum in Quito. The tickets that Martin and I had bought a day earlier were in the "nosebleed" section (as is the entire city in fact, at 9,000 feet.)

Often, the 61-year-old Santana’s solos featured a pleasant complement to a driving rhythm; other times in the nearly 2 ½ hour performance, he showcased his bandmates’ talents. In a musical dialogue, they solo’ed or traded riff for riff.

No matter where those solos soared, the tight rhythm carried the crowd forward, whether it be salsa, Afro-Cuban, and even rap and reggae. Roused to their feet to sing Oye Como Va, people would surely have been stirred to a fevered frenzy at Santana’s first appearance in Quito.

He’d back off the pace however, with a ballad, sitting on a speaker monitor by the side of the stage. He spoke little, letting the guitar talk in ways it has since his reputation skyrocketed to fame 40 years ago at Woodstock. The ladies in Ruminaui received a dedicated song in the flamenco rhythm. Another song hailed Africa. Launching his1960s classic, “Oye Como Va” prompted a chorus of voices joining those on the stage.

His fusion of rock with Latin music established Santana, and the performance in Quito revealed his decades of disciplined playing. He successful weaved in the piercingly high solos central to rock music since the sixties, throwing in triplets as effortless embellishments. His Pandora’s box of effects full of any number of moods most often produced the “wah” of the seventies.

Martin at one point suggested a move to bleacher seats that would've let us see the rhythm section in action, for a speakers tower and huge video screeen blocked our view of the drummer, Dennis Chambers, and the fellas adding punchy percussion for that Afro-Latin sound. We in fact were watching a drummer, Chester Thompson, who happened to be on organ and keyboards. Benny Rietveld played bass; Bill Ortiz was on trumpet and fluegelhorn, teaming up nicely on brass with Jeff Cressman on a featured number. Santana stepped briefly into a role as sideman before re igniting the audience with another solo. Late in the evening it was Raul Rekow and Karl Perazzo delighting the audience on timbales and congas. Other stellar players included Andy Vargas, Tommy Anthony, and Tony Lindsay.

The band played a dozen songs, then said goodnight, with enough audience applause to bring them back for a just a few more.
Surging rhythms . . .


soaring solos . . .

saying goodnight . . .
Santana.

(Way, Way) Back There The Story Starts

The song ends.

A weary hand slips out from beneath the heaps of quilts, feels for the Panasonic on the plain wood floor, and turns the cassette tape to Side 2. Quickly, the hand rejoins its owner in the warmth of the bed.

Happy, syncopated rhythms in mono sound from the cassette recorder compete with winter winds howling outside the farmhouse’s upstairs bedroom. Then exhaustion from the day’s cold and work outside sets in. The four boys doze off as Santana's guitar plays on.

It was Christmas 1970 and my older brothers' new cassette recorder introduced a new phase of life, new rhythms, a new musician and a new language. (Our school only offered German as a foreign language. The one family in town with a hint of Hispanic roots, the Duarte brothers’ surname we thoroughly anglicized. Nobody said Duarte, we all said Dwoordee.) Carlos Santana’s name got similar treatment, even as his Abraxus album got played over and over on those nights in the unheated bedroom until we fell asleep.

Lying dormant for decades, this childhood memory revived for me as our own kids began passing from childhood to adolescence. Just as my brothers and I had left behind homemade toboggans and go-carts and sparrow shooting with the BB gun in the barn’s hay mow, our own boys were moving on.

The memory surfaced on Christmas a couple years back. That year's batch of presents had brought into our home a bass guitar. The drum kit was getting some new accessories - a ride cymbal and stand. The kids' Duplos had already been stored years before; even the little Lego lilliputians were seeing fewer visits from the Gullivers who assembled their world.

I wrote down the reality of time never waiting for any mortal; the paper got shoved in a drawer. Months later at the school's spring concert, a new Santana stimulus when the band played Oye Como Va. The boy in me remembered the rhythm and late night 70's radio in the car.

One day in March, Santana came to town. He brought his guitars, his band and a whole lot of songs.