Our first graduate

It was a packed house on the football field

 It was a beautiful day in the mountains - sunny but not too hot.  A perfect day for a graduation ceremony.  One down and two still to go!  Karine's plans are to work here in Conifer for most of the summer, then I'll probably buy her an inexpensive car and drive her to Alabama. She plans to live with my brother Bill and his wife Sandy, get a job and get involved with the singles ministry at their church.  I think a year away will be a great growing experience for her.

Jacqueline the movie star

Karine and her best buddy Jessica

Crazy Wedding Photos

My neice set up a photo booth at her wedding reception two weekends ago, and those of us who were present from the Myers/ St Cyr. Clan got in on the action :)

Graduation

Karine will graduate from Conifer High School today; can she really be 18?  Can I really be that old?  Her experience with High School and especially with graduation has been so radically different from my own graduation from Rift Valley Academy almost 30 years ago.  Karine has only been at this school for two years, and while she's built a few solid friendships she only knows a fraction of the 500 kids in her graduating class.  My graduating class was only 65, and we all knew each other very, very well.  Graduation was a BIG deal at RVA, because it meant that we would all leave Kenya and depart for schools all across America - and for many others back to their home countries of Holland, England, and Canada, etc.  Most of Karine's friends will go to college here in Colorado, and they'll see one another again on weekends and school vacations.  Since my high school graduation in 1981 I have only seen a handful of my friends from boarding school, and because I was living overseas for the past 20 years I've missed every one of our class reunions. 

Karine was considering not even attending her graduation, because her friends aren't interested either.  In the end I convinced her to go - if for no other reason than because Daphne and I want to be there to see her graduate.  I also believe one day she'll look back and be glad that she marked this important milestone in her life.  I can understand why this doesn't hold the same importance for Karine as my graduation did for me, because she's only been at this school a short time and hasn't built the lifetime friendships that many others have who are from this community.  In France there is no graduation ceremony at all, because all the attention, stress, and your entire academic future hang in the balance based on one final exam - The Baccalaureate.  That's the academic environment Karine grew up in, as opposed to here in the U.S. where your first 12 years of school end with your High School graduation - and then for most of them on to college.

This will be the first American High School graduation I have attended since my own 30 years ago.  My life has certainly taken some amazing twists and turns since that memorable day in Kijabe, Kenya in 1981.  I could never have imagined back then that I would spend 10 years in West Africa, and even less likely that we would take on dual French-American citizenship!  And now God has planted us here in Conifer, Colorado - where it snows a blizzard on May 19th, and bears walk down our driveway at night.  It's all good.

Nightime Visitor

Yesterday morning as the girls walked out to meet their bus, they called us from the end of the driveway to tell us about the huge bear tracks from the night before - heading right down the driveway towards the house.  There is no mistaking the paw print of a black bear, and a pretty good sized one at that.  Amazing, that these large animals can co-exist with humans in such close proximity - and yet remain completely hidden the vast majority of the time.  Hmmm . . . makes you wonder if we should let the girls walk down the 200 yard driveway every morning!

The tracks eventually made a detour down the hill before reaching our house - and disappeared into the forest on our neighbors property.

Missionary Kids

It snowed again last night.  Let's see - what's the date today... May 19th?  I hear that summer is bound to start sometime before the end of July.

Last night I taught from 1 Corinthians 8 and 9 where Paul talks about the issue of not putting a stumbling block in anyone's way, and he ends chapter 9 by saying that he is willing to become all things to all men, in order to save some.  Becoming all things to all men sounds a little like being a professional shmoozer, but that's really not the idea at all.  I think what Paul meant has more to do with being able to understand another person, or another group of people to the point that we can become an "insider" in their world, to bring the love and acceptance of Christ to their context.  Our Senior Pastor Michael Cheshire puts it this way:  "We don't ask the community to join our church; we want our church to join the community."  The question is whether I can relate to an un-churched athiest as well as I can to my local church community?  Am I able to step outside of my own way of thinking, my own lingo and my own Christian culture to befriend someone who is far away from God?  And not only befriend him/her, but actually enter their world in order to understand first-hand the challenges they face every day?

As I was thinking about what it means to adapt to another person's way of thinking, it occurred to me that there is one group of people who have mastered this art to the highest degree: Missionary Kids.  The very nature of our upbringing has created this chameleon-like ability to adapt to different cultures, languages and values.  All M.K.s grow up in a host culture (Kenya, in my case) that is very different from the birth-culture of their parents.  As missionary kids we realize early in life that we belong neither to our parents' passport country, nor are we 100% integrated into the host culture of the country where we live.  As a result we create our own, unique "third culture" that is a blend of both our passport culture and our host culture - with a mix of other cultures thrown in for good measure.  This is why (in recent years) we have become known as "Third Culture Kids".  We have learned to adapt to new cultures and new languages with amazing ease, more as a survival technique than by personal preference.  So, what does a missionary kid look like?

You know you're a missionary kid:

-  When your elementary school teacher asks you to state your nationality, and you reply "which one?"
-  If your childhood stories involve charging elephants, wild gorillas, or coup d'etats.
-  When you can imitate any English accent to near perfection
-  If you can be speaking to one person using a South African accent and terminology, then turn and greet someone else in perfect West African French.
-  If you can "fit" into virtually any culture in the world within 24-48 hours of arriving
-  If you've lived in five different countries and can speak four languages - but you don't know who Paris Hilton is.
-  if you've never driven a car with an automatic transmission
-  if you've ridden an ostrich, water-skied with hippos and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, but you don't know how to answer the question "Paper or Plastic?" at the grocery store.

C'est la vie pour les enfants des missionaires

Reflections on marriage

I've just returned from attending my Niece Kathy St. Cyr's (now Kathy Hughes) wedding in Annapolis.  Kathy is my sisters second eldest daughter, and she married a young man by the name of Chance, who's just graduated from the Naval Academy with the intent to fly helicopters for the Marines.  The setting for the wedding was idyllic - beautiful green lawn sloping down to the water, and directly across the Severn River the Naval Academy itself.  The weather was touch-and-go all day: completely overcast and drizzling at times.  The morning of the wedding, The St. Cyrs and Myers who were staying at my sister's house had a long time of prayer together (one of the many aspects of this wedding that stuck in my mind), asking the Lord to hold the rain off until after the wedding ceremony.  True to form for the Lord, there was not a drop of rain before, during or after the outdoor ceremony - and the rain only started falling late in the evening when the reception was winding down.

I could not help but remark on the many deeply spiritual aspects there were surrounding this wedding.  Both Kathy and Chance love the Lord deeply, and (even rarer today) both of them had kept themselves pure prior to their marriage.  The image of the church being presented spotless as the Bride of Christ is only really demonstrated when two young people make the hard choices to refuse to engage in sexual activity outside the bond of marriage.  But as I said before, this is almost unheard of today - which I find very sad.  At the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding - after everyone had eaten their fill of melt-in-your-mouth, slow smoked beef and pork - Greg (Kathy's Dad) opened the invitation for anyone to share a thought, memory, funny story, prayer etc with Kathy and Chance.  This probably went on for the better part of an hour, and almost everyone had something to say about Kathy and Chance related to their character, their love for one another, and most of all their love for the Lord. 

The wedding itself was memorable for me for a couple of reasons:  First, everything in the ceremony was designed for all of us to rejoice with Kathy and Chance in their joy, and to glorify the God whom they both serve.  Kathy could not keep herself from turning her head around throughout the ceremony to look at various friends and family in the audience, and give them a wink or a huge smile.  And the reception at the church was one, big PARTY!  Almost everyone - including Ouma and Oupa (my folks) got out onto the dance floor and had an absolute blast.  The room was so full of joy and laughter that there didn't need to be any alcohol - everyone was just soaking up the emotion of the moment.  Kathy's brother-in-law Kevin and her cousin Nate kept us all laughing with their own version of the Chicken-Dance, or just making up the dance moves as they went.

When I got home and showed our three girls some of the videos I took, I told them what an enormous difference it made that Kathy had chosen a young man who obviously adores her, and who has a strong and deeply spiritual part to his character.  When God tells us to choose a mate who is "in the Lord", He isn't out just to ruin our fun or to make us into straight-laced prudes.  To the contrary, I've never been to such a fun, joyful, wild and crazy wedding in my life - and God was honored by everything that took place.  So, my daughters;  walk closely with God, and trust Him to bring you to the godly young men we've been praying for for all these years. 

Storm Stories

Before I share some of the stories I've been reading from the once-in-a-lifetime storms that devastated Alabama last week, I have one cute story (totally unrelated) to tell.  Last Wednesday I drove to a nearby convenience store to buy an energy drink to inspire my tired brain before preaching at our evening service.  As I pulled up to the store I heard a noise from the truck parked next to me, and realized it was a little girl who was leaning over her mother to bark at me through the window (much to her mother's embarrassment).  I went into the store, then realized that I'd left my wallet in the truck.  As I walked back outside the same little girl (now on her way into the store) growled at me as I passed.  I overheard her mother say something like, "OK, you are going to stop this before we go in!"  I retrieved my wallet and went back in, and was followed around the store by a small person who continued her ferocious barking and growling.  As I passed the mother I said, "Boy, you just can't take dogs anywhere these days!"  She looked at me with a puzzled expression, then smiled and said, "I know, right?"  I threw her a lifeline to spare her some embarrassment  - remembering how mortified my parents used to be when I would crawl around on the floor as an alligator in public settings (like airports and shopping malls).

Yesterday I rode down the hill with my friend Bud in his 1971 Ford Bronco, towing a trailer full of scrap metal to dump.  On the way back up the hill to Conifer, the Bronco blew out a radiator hose - and in an instant the car was full of smoke and steam.  He managed to pull over safely, and we called a friend to come give us a hand.  We sat there for an hour waiting, and I was disappointed to remark that NOT ONE PERSON stopped to ask if we needed any help - even though we had our hood up and there was radiator fluid all over the ground.  It's not that we needed extra help - I just thought that someone would surely show some neighborly kindness.  I guess Bud was right when he said, "People just don't help each other anymore."  Very sad.

___________________________________________

My brother John continues to keep me updated with tales of miracles and tragedy from the massive storms that swept across Alabama last week, leaving death and destruction in their wake.  I have been personally blessed to watch John's heart of faith and care as he has personally purchased several chain saws and generators to help those in need.  

If your heart is in some way moved to help financially (the need for more chain saws, generators, and other equipment is still enormous) as you read the account below, please let me know.  John has received some gifts designated for emergency equipment, and he uses 100% to buy whatever is needed. 


The man in the pictures is a dear friend and supporter of my brother John and his family.  They narrowly escaped death as the massive tornado passed half a block from their home, but those who's homes were in the "kill zone" of the twister were not so fortunate.  The pictures speak for themselves.

These pictures were taken as Wade described his encounter with the tornado while touring his house.

Wade and his son, Ross on their front steps.

The entire front of the house is covered with splinters, mud, insulation, glass and other debris. And this is all on the EAST side of the house, opposite the side the tornado approached the neighborhood.

The outer wall that disappeared that day. But the winds mind-bogglingly left books neatly stacked on shelves!

Their once-beautiful kitchen. Judy is an architect and a talented artist and decorator, so the whole house was just the way they liked it.

Wade shows me how his bedroom looked, with cowboy hat undisturbed!

You don't want to get in the way of that! Wade points out a shard of glass sliced into an interior wall protected by a solid corner; demonstrates the swirling effect of the winds.

A branch acting as a spear thrown by a giant, completely piercing the outer wall into their living room!

Wade demonstrates with his son how he turned when the window exploded. He crouched over his wife while his back was peppered with debris.

The upper level of the house was actually lifted up allowing debris to blow under it before it set back down. This plastic Easter egg on the left was blown under and remains completely intact.

The house where Wade and others pulled a family and to small children to safety, although the mother did not make it out alive. Most houses that display a flag represent a place where someone died.

Another small flag at another flattened residence (by the white bucket).

Heart-Breaking

My brother John went to visit some mutual friends who live in Pleasant Grove Alabama, a small, quiet community just North of Birmingham.  Pleasant Grove received the full fury and devastating power of an F5 tornado in last week's once-in-a-lifetime (thank God) storm.  To give the photos some context:  Pleasant Grove is an older community - older homes; enormous 100 yr old oak trees; manicured lawns.  When you look at the unbelievable devastation, it is impossible to imagine what this community once looked like.

In a previous email John wrote this statement:  "We have friends and friends of friends who had either significant damage or lost their homes altogether. And we have other friends who were in the path of the storm that we have not yet heard from. There is much suffering out there today.  We appreciate your concern and interest in us, but for whatever reason God decided we be spared this time."

The last statement is the most poignant.  God has not promised to spare us from danger, trials or heartache simply because we are his children.  But he HAS promised - at all times, and in all circumstances - His PEACE, His POWER and His PRESENCE.

John wrote:  "I took a little walk and took some pictures along the way. I found that in some places the mega-tornado had narrowed to as little as a 1/4 mile across, and sometimes widened to as much as three or more miles. A friend who went with me used a word that fit the view and the feeling one had while looking at it: "Sick!" 

This picture gives some idea of the original state of this neighborhood.  The rest is unrecognizable.

Even brick is not immune to the power of an F5 tornado

Another brick home reduced to ruin.  Note the books stacked on the front steps - all that's left of a home & memories.  Only one room remains in the center of the house.

Enormous oak trees become 50 ft matchsticks - all the branches literally ripped off.