Corner Store

Just after 6 this evening, I walked myself down to what was once a Circle K near my parents' house for an out-of-stock recipe item.

As it sits just three houses and a vacant lot from us, the corner store was the source of many a thirst quencher and good wholesome fun growing up.  My brothers would stop in for some breakfast tacos on Saturday mornings, or ice cold sodas after a long bike ride around the neighborhood.  Dad would walk to it when he needed a break from his work outside.  Sometimes I would hike myself down there if I needed something last-minute.  We got to know the store really well--but more importantly, it got to know us.

This trip, I scanned the aging chest-high shelves for diced tomatoes, but found only a six-ounce can of tomato paste.  No other aisle in the tiny store carried food cans, I knew.  But paste wouldn't be good for Italian Sausage Soup.  Drat.

Across the open foyer, an older black man called out, "Hey, how's your mom?"  His skin was shiny and deeply lined, like an ebony walking stick that had been rubbed smooth from so much touch.  He wore a black cap and walked with a shuffling limp, a malady so mild it was hardly noticeable.  When he smiled, a gold cap hugged one of his top incisors.  

At first I brushed his question off with an oh-she's-fine, but as I milled about the store he kept talking.  "I'd see her in here nearly every day, but it's been a month since I seen her," he said.  "I come in on the weekends and I'd see her Friday, Saturday come in by herself and walk around the store a little bit."  He then went on to tell me about the first day he noticed her--shuffling from aisle to aisle, unsure of what to buy.  He thought she was just there looking for something special.

I stopped him, my arms full of fresh produce and bottled drinks.  "You do know what happened to her, right?"

"Oh, she come in one day, tol' me all about the accident, how she can't do some things.  I seen her comin' in one day with a man, could be your dad--"

I smiled.  No other man would have been with her, I was sure.  No other man had gotten close enough.  "Yep, that's my dad."

"I seen her with the man walkin' around a little bit, then she was gone.  I never knew where she went."

"She's all right," I assured him.  It was the standard spiel: some days good, some not, overall in good health.  "But she's not any better," I added.  I thought about asking him to pray for her, but I wasn't sure how he'd take the request.

"Oh, she come in--she talks to me good.  We talk about a lot of things," he said.  His face kept its animation as he talked, reflecting his genuine care.  Finally, after all these years, my mother mattered to someone outside our close circle of family and church friends.  "Tell her I been thinkin' about her."

"Just pray for her," I told him as I set my things on the counter to pay.  By now, we had talked enough that I knew I could take the risk.

"Yes ma'am."

"That's what the church of God is called to do--to pray."

"You tell her to come back," he said as I gathered my items to leave.  "If she comes down here, just know that I'll be lookin' out for her--and that comes from the heart."

Pushing my way out the heavy burglar-proof door and into the Texas heat, my thanksgiving spilled over into tears of joy.

Rain

"Oh, how great is Your goodness,

which You have laid up for those who fear You,

which You have prepared for those who trust in You,

in the presence of the sons of men!"

--Psalm 31:19

The plastic rain gauge on our soggy wooden porch reads just above 3.5 inches, its bottom covered in fuzzy brown algae. It hasn't been dumped out in two weeks or more, but there really hasn't been time for that. Before this week's rain, the San Antonio area got an unexpected 7.5 inches of rainfall for the first six weeks of 2012. Now, just after week seven, thirty-day totals for the Alamo City read 9.25 inches. Our little rain gauge has had its beaker full.

This is an unexpected boon, to say the least.

As I returned to San Antonio late last June, the city was in the middle of a severe drought which began the previous summer. Blazing wildfires and stage four water restrictions kept conditions life-threatening and left residents begging for relief. "The percentage of exceptional drought [in Texas] was the highest in the State" in ten years, records Wikipedia. Though averaging 33 inches of rainfall a year, this portion of the state would only see two inches for all of 2011 combined.

The 2012 Farmer's Almanac shows long-range forecasts that expect similar amounts to persist well into summer 2012. "Winter temperatures will be milder than normal, on average, with much-below-normal rainfall," it predicts. The publication goes on to suggest that the southern portions of Texas will continue to receive inadequate precipitation, "with drought a threat." And yet every day as I pull out of the driveway with my father's truck, the tires eat away at more and more soft sod because there's more moisture on the ground than the soil can absorb.

It's highly unusual, local weather forecasters claim. This year is a La Nina climate pattern, one in which oceanic temperatures are lower by as much as 10 degrees, causing conditions in Texas to be dry and warm this time of year. Even the almanac predictions take the La Nina phenomenon into account, assuming only 2.5 inches of rainfall for the months of February and March. That's 2.13 inches LESS than what February has already received.

For all this upset in climatology, I have only one person to blame: me.

Five weeks ago, in the middle of the first month of the year, my pastor issued a challenge to his congregation. He dared us to give this new year--with all of its problems and potentialities--over to the LORD. There would be four days of dedication, he said, to "commit our way" to Him, just as it commands in Psalm 37. The church would be open to come and pray on those nights. Having twelve months of uncertainty ahead of me, I went.

The morning of the first day, Sunday, January 15, our pastor directed us to Psalm 31:19. In the verse, King David describes what good things the righteous have coming to them: a measure of the LORD's favor that has been set aside for some future time. "There is a moment when the stored up blessings will be poured out," the pastor explained. "[So m]aybe it's gonna rain on you... And maybe it's gonna be soon. Maybe this [year] will be the end of barrenness or drought."

His statement rings oddly prophetic in my life, the full effects of which I know have yet to be realized. Just since September, I've felt sprinkles of God's blessings. Though nothing enough to satiate the need, I consider them a sort of first fruits of what is surely to come. More recently I've felt the showers getting stronger. As I watch the rain clouds of favor gathering on the horizon, my heart swells with overwhelming thankfulness.

"On the eve of 2012," I wrote in my prayer journal on December 30, "there are so many questions--so many hopes, so many fulfillments of dreams--and I don't have answers for any of them. Help me to trust You, Lord, and step out in faith in this new year."

Adjustment

An array of books--read, reread, unread--stand erect between the metal bookends that were never sold in the garage sale. Larger books rest wearily against a wooden slat two perches below their peers. The tall shelf that some in the tiny library occupy again speaks of its age through chips in its whitewash, yet another relic from the fundraiser. The air around the structure smells faintly of must and cat urine.

Diagonal to the scene, a pair of bunk beds guard the entrance, compelling evidence of the room's previous tenants. Their sleepers have long since grown into men and left discarded childhood debris behind. Crinkly plastic covers one bed's tucked-in sheets in order to ward off the room's malady, its clammy four-legged visitors. A purple blanket drapes the lower bunk, two-year-old wrinkles disfiguring the color's elegance. This is proof of a different kind: A new inhabitant.

In the middle of the room yawn two crushed boxes, the words oocheguk taekbae printed in bold letters at the bottom--"post office delivery." They, too, smell of time's unceasing march. The corner of one box is split wide open, revealing the shiny silvery edge of a Bible's crisp pages. The other's contents are nearly spoiled by a cat's indiscriminate choice of litter box. For almost five months, the two receptacles have been waiting for this very day: to finally be unpacked.

After half a year of crying out to God, I have a place. It's just like waiting to grow up when you're kids, sharing rooms until one of you is old enough to venture out. I shared one with my twin until we were about three, and then he did the same with his brother for ten more years. The only difference now is this room isn't really mine.

It all started 20 years ago, Mom and Dad with their small children in tow scouting out a space to call home that was larger than their eight-foot-wide trailer. After rejecting an overgrown plot of land and deciding that a five-acre ranch would be "too rich for our blood," we were introduced to a modest three-bedroom house near the corner of Ackerman and Binz-Engleman Road. With its columned porch, hardwood floors, and pier-and-beam foundation, we knew it was our little country cottage in the city.

A Mrs. Cathy Pricer greeted us at the second front door when we came to view the home; the first front door had long since been reserved as another entrance to the master bedroom. After having been added onto twice, the house now resembled an "L" shape, tipped to its right side. Proudly, Mrs. Pricer guided us through the elongated living room towards the large kitchen to our right. She clipped the corner expertly and headed to the dwarfed hallway further onward, with its two doors on either side.

The last two doors from the hall, our guide informed us, would be the children's rooms. Just glancing at the portal to the right, I quickly headed towards the one on the left. A boy occupied it, his dark posters glaring at me from the wood-paneled walls. I didn't care; I was enthralled. It was just my size, I knew--about half of the other room. Small, yes, but quaint. This room would be mine.

Over the course of these last two decades, the room to the right has changed hands several times: It was first the boys' room, then just Chris', then just Jason's when he forcefully kicked his brother out. It was no one's room the year Jason was off in China; then, hard on his luck, it was Chris' when he moved back from the Midwest. My room, on the contrary, has always been mine--that is, until moving out of it three years ago.

Growing up, Dad was always eyeing the room on the left for its peaceful solitude and quietness. One of the two back rooms would be his office, he had informed us. It just remained to be seen which one of the siblings would leave first. As the boys' door would prove to be constantly turning, mine seemed the perfect candidate the week that I packed my things. Within months, the purple paint job I had earnestly awaited almost ten years was all but nonexistent as Dad's warm yellow hue gently glided over it. No matter if I wished it so, from then on I knew my room would never again be mine.

The September before I moved to Korea, the boys' room was no one's again, as Chris headed off to the road to become a truck driver. Then it became Dad and Mom's spare room, with a place for gift-wrapping and extra storage--until, hard on his luck, Jason came back six months ago. Informed of this change in situation, it was my desire to move back to Texas with a job and apartment lined up and ready to go. Nothing within me wanted to ask Dad to give up his office, or fight for my right to be in the middle of my brothers' revolving door.

Such was not the plan, however. After nearly five months of searching and countless hours of borrowing cars and fetching rides on the bus, I have yet to find a stable, well-paying place of employment--what I like to call, a "grown-up job." Though I can praise God for the part time work I have been able to find, it's not enough to make end's meet. And certainly not enough to earn that apartment I was looking forward to.

Jason's situation has recently become such that he no longer needs use of the room at Dad's house, and the two of us have come to an agreement of sorts: if I pack up his stuff, I can have his room. Good friends of mine tell me this should only last about six months, long enough for me to save the money needed to get back on my feet. Despite their good intentions, I can't help but feel as though I'm back in high school, just waiting for the chance to venture out.

So here I am again, sharing.

Confessions of a Used Car Salesman

*Originally performed live August 30, 2011 in Universal City, Texas*

The Toastmasters Area Contest was held earlier today on the north side of San Antonio. In honor of the Christian speech club that I have recently joined, and such an auspicious occasion, here is a look at the original speech I entered this year. Sadly, it was not eligible to go on to larger, more prestigious contests--no thanks to my forgetfulness or its length.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "Confessions of a Used Car Salesman." Laugh at your own risk. Please note, any and all flirtation recorded in the preceding may or may not actually have been true.

***

HHHHow many of you ever want your daughter to grow up and declare, “Oh, dad, I really want to be a professional hustler!” Standing before you, ladies and gentlemen, is a woman who—on her honor—almost became one.

Like a lot of people in this country, I’ve been out of work for two months now. Last week, my uncle called up to tell me about a job fair the following morning. He had heard about it all on the news. He said the news anchor suggested candidates “dress for success”—which meant smoothing out your best dress suit, straightening your wild locks, and sharpening your Stilettos. The next day, there I was in my dad’s immaculate Mustang convertible headed out to take someone for a ride.

After registering my name and email address with the vultures in the foyer, I was handed a 37-page pamphlet and ushered in to the coliseum. Just like Daniel in the Lions’ Den. The leaflet was crammed with too many useful bits of information to be helpful, so I stuck to reading the map. My first booth, a trade school.

“I wouldn’t work in this industry,” the young man confessed as I stood there with my arms full of resumes. “It’s really more of a business.”

Oh really? I’ll trade you professional job-seeking, and throw in broke, for a chalkboard. “Do you have any room for English teachers?”

“We don’t teach English, no.”

I was beginning to wonder if they used it in the classroom at all. “Can I give you my resume anyway?”

“Sure.” He looked down at the first location on the page. “You worked in Korea?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How was it?” he asked eagerly. “I’ve been thinking about doing that myself.”

“It’s worth it. You should totally go.” There I was, putting myself out of a job—in another country no less!

I scoured booth after booth looking for a warm body to pawn off my 8-and-a-half-by-eleven “I Love Me” stationery. And each time it was the same response: “Oh, we’re not taking resumes. Apply online.” The only reason that first guy took it was to get my number.

Moving along, I quietly passed a power company. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I was told as I skirted the booth, “we don’t have openings for secretaries or office work.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Shouldn’t there be an equal opportunity here? Or is this industry just rigged? Success for them must have meant a well-proven track record of grit under the fingernails.

Before I rounded the bend in the event hall, I came across an opportunity to be a corrections officer for the GEO group. Translation: professional jailor. I could teach a class on how to win friends and influence prison wardens.

Finally, I had reached an oasis amid the throng, a booth nicely decorated and peopled about with gleaming upper management. They still wouldn’t take my resume, but at least I was qualified for the job. The position? Professional complaint consultant at a local call center. I would be up all night with the screams of protest ringing in my ears. I could have made a career out of this growing up for all the times my twin brother rained on my parade… Wait, maybe I could still cash in! …

Further down the line of headhunters was posted a sign for a mattress company. Expert salesmen needed, it read. Conscientious need not apply. Now, I wasn’t one to swindle anyone out of a good night’s sleep, but what I saw next to the booth was my golden opportunity.

Just opposite the mattress guys stood a flashy display that caught my eye—either that or it was the skinny guy next to it making googley eyes at me. “Drive Time” read the bold, green letters across the top of his nametag. At least as a used car salesman I’d look the part.

I only hesitated a moment before offering my hand. “Jennifer.”

“Ryan,” he said as he slipped his fingers over mine. It was official—we were now engaged… in conversation.

As any betrothed couple does, we chatted about the most important things—the weather, Korea, my job history. But, alas, we had come down to business. “Well, Jennifer, if you can communicate like you’re doing now, you can sell a car.”

What?! That’s almost like saying, “If you have a pulse and breathe air, you’re hired.”

“But I can’t sell a thing!” I sputtered at him like a beat-up station wagon.

“Let me take your resume and have you talk to my supervisor.” I knew it—he just wanted me for the Stilettos!

I was ushered past other potential tricksters right up to the man himself. “Dominic,” he stuck out his hand. “So what has my colleague told you about Drive Time?”

“That you’re… looking to expand your network,” I told him sheepishly.

“Good. We’ll set something up this week.”

There I stood, writhing like shark bait. I, too, would be asked to lay down my chalk to become… a used car salesman.

The next day as I sat relaxing peacefully at a friend’s house, the dreaded phone call rang three different times. These guys are nothing if not persistent—that, or someone on the other end is desperate.

They must have decided on a different approach because I soon began receiving made-to-order email spam. “I called the number on your resume and left a message,” read one of the notes, “but I thought an email might be ignored just as well.”

After three days of email tag, my inattentiveness had worn them out. They must have seen through the façade of hair and makeup—and the Stilettos—to where my real interests lie: in waiting out pesky used car salesmen. “I’m sorry, Ms. Lowery,” the note read sweetly, “but we’re looking for someone who… will answer our emails.”

I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a professional swindler! “After many attempts to contact me and subsequent follow-ups,” I wrote to my dad, “the good folks at Drive Time have asserted that they… just can’t keep up with my laziness.”

So I didn't become a car salesman. Maybe it's because I didn't live up to my potential--but really, who wants to be involved in legalized what collar crime? Rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, that your pocketbooks are safe with me.

Labor Day

Mary-Ellen helming the turn-of-the-century steam locomotive

located just outside Temple's railway station.

A couple of weeks ago, a dear, sweet friend from college, Mary-Ellen Tolliver, had asked me if I would come up to see her sometime in Killeen, Texas, a three-and-a-half hour ride from my hometown. Her original plan was for me to come up during the week, spend time with her after school, and then the both of us head back toward Seguin and San Antonio for the weekend. As it worked out better that I could come up to see her for Labor Day weekend, off I went.

Having not yet found gainful employment, nor subsequently a reliable means of transportation, there I was the Saturday morning before Labor Day in line for the 7AM train. I had thought about a bus ride, but the train sounded so much more exotic and adventurous. During the weekend, Mary-Ellen affirmed that, indeed, it was most appropriate for me to have made use of this particular mode of passage on such an auspicious occasion: the anniversary of the railway workers' strike that provoked the inception of Labor Day itself.

In May of 1894, in what would come to be known as the Pullman Strike, railway workers across the nation boycotted the service of Pullman rail cars. In sum, the strike cost the rail industry at least $80,000 in damages--which is more than $8 million by today's standards. The incident was bad enough to call in US Marshals to control the mobs and prevent further defacing of public property. Legislation quickly passed through Congress as a way to pacify the angry workers, and thus Labor Day was born.

The Saturday of my trip, I woke up at 5:15, left my house on foot by 5:49, and caught the 6:03 bus into downtown, just so I would be at the Amtrak station the advised thirty minutes before my scheduled departure time. As I approached the depot, all things stood at the ready. Workers puttered in golf carts around a train parked on the tracks to my left, to check for what I thought were last-minute adjustments. The further I followed the train, however, I realized that the growing crowd in front of the little station belied my calm assessment of the matter.

"The 7AM train to Chicago is still going to leave on time?" I heard the guy in front of me ask the solitary clerk behind the checked-baggage desk. Skirting eye contact, the clerk reassured all within earshot that indeed it would. At 6:40, the still train sitting outside was supposed to have left one hour and ten minutes prior to the inquiry. Apparently whatever grim circumstance rendering the present locomotive motionless wouldn't have anything to do with my own train.

Or so I thought.

After purchasing my reserved ticket, I crowded outside the small station with the other anxious passengers to await our promised ride. Without a timepiece I couldn't tell just how long we stood together with our eyes fixed on the immovable locomotive. Just as the predawn light began to baptize the gathered vigil, a second train pulled onto the pair of tracks closest to the crowd and the masses climbed aboard.

No sooner had we settled in for the ride when the wheels started turning--backwards. We must have headed in the opposite direction ten minutes or more! I was beginning to think that the quickest way to head north was south, until we began inching back the way we came. As we passed San Antonio's east-side graffiti so slow that we could read it, we asked the steward why the hold-up.

"Our trains run on Union Pacific railroad," he said. "It's because of all the freight trains in front of us." Hmm. A forty-year-old rail line that doesn't even own its own tracks? Isn't that like being thirty-five and still living at your parents' house?

This curtsy to his big brother UP cost Amtrak an initial hour and a half off the starting block, as well as untold hours of other delays throughout the trip. Regardless of the setbacks, however, I was thankful for the opportunity to ride a passenger train in the US for the first time. "Thank You for allowing me this trip," I wrote to the LORD in my prayer journal that morning. "I know You didn't have to, but You knew it was something I would like."

To my adventurous spirit, it was a chance of a lifetime--an experience I was determined to taste to the fullest. I leaned back in my extra-roomy captain's chair on row 205 and noted the soft light of dawn filtering through the window shades, determined to enjoy the ride. It was only after the sun came up full and strong that I discovered the observation deck one car in front, with its shade-less, floor-to-ceiling window panes that allowed for optimally viewing the gently passing countryside. It was here that I spent nearly half of the remainder of my trip.

A surprise awaited me in this new rail car. "Here in our Observation Deck," announced a woman over the intercom, "we have a special guided tour, part of the Trails and Rails program put on by our partners, Texas Parks and Wildlife. They will be sharing stories and details about the scenery around you through to Fort Worth."

Unfinished book in hand, I suddenly lost interest in the printed page and strained my ears toward the commentator's stories. She regaled us with moments of epic heroism by the Alamo freedom fighters, educated us about unique tidbits of old San Marcos structures, and reminded us about the beauty of the natural parks surrounding us. Her oral history of Texas was all very interesting, almost like listening to Homer or another ancient harold. I was only sorry that I couldn't listen to the park ranger all the way up to Fort Worth.

There was another thing I strained to hear on the trip: the announcement that the dining car was open for business. Instructed not to pass through or even to approach the car unless it was time, I had patiently awaited the lunch hour throughout the morning. As the come-and-get-it call rang out, I grabbed my wallet from my window seat and headed forward.

In front of me inside the dining car was a woman about my age; behind me, a mother and her daughter. Anticipating that the already-cramped space would soon fill up, the server asked the woman and myself, unknown to each other, to sit together. Moments later, the mother-and-daughter team were asked to sit adjacent to us.

The server approached them as they took their seats in the booth opposite ours. "When I asked you to sit across from them," he instructed sternly, "I wanted you to sit across the table." Slightly embarrassed, the two women scooted over a few yards to face us. It's not every day you get to eat lunch with strangers.

By this time nearly 12:15, more than forty-five minutes past the time we were originally scheduled to arrive at my destination city. Noting how quickly the car was filling up with guests, and how slowly our strained waiter was at getting back to us, I was fairly certain my opportunity to try an on-board meal was pulling out of the station without me.

Just as I was deciding between a club sandwich and soup, the announcement came to confirm my thoughts. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," the conductor called. "We will be arriving to Temple within five minutes." This time, the train would be on time.

I quickly left my new friends at the table and made my way back towards row 205 and the rest of my things. As the locomotive rolled to a complete stop, I jumped off and landed in the rail yard in front of expectant new passengers. I approached the immense turn-of-the-century station to look for any sign that would inform my friend of my late arrival.

"Jennifer!" I heard to my right as Mary-Ellen bounded toward me. Apologizing for the unexpected delays, I quickly loaded my bags in her trunk and off we went in search of adventure.

The following Monday, Labor Day, the two of us headed back to the depot to await the train that would ferry me home, scheduled to arrive at 4:45. As I approached the old-timey counter to pay for my new reservation, events from the weekend slowly began to repeat themselves.

"It looks like the train won't be pulling in until 6 or 6:30," the clerk relayed sadly. "I was hoping I could go home on time tonight."

"Does this happen often?"

The clerk smiled wryly. "It happens more often, yes. It was on-time Friday." A one-in-four chance of matching the posted schedule. It was like guaranteeing your professor you'd miss a quarter of his lectures: a one-way ticket to a failing grade.

While we sat there, the ETA of the Texas Eagle grew to a whopping three and a half hours past its timetable. It was slowly looking like I wasn't going to be able to catch it for my return trip after all. "That's why people don't take the train!" I heard my dad say as I informed him of the news. At least Mary-Ellen had offered her place for me to stay until she could drive me back home.

Browsing through the bargains of Borders' closing doors, I came across a book that might help me make sense of my recent misadventure. It was called Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service. The author, James McCommons, spent a year of his life on Amtrak time, riding the rail from Los Angeles all the way to the Eastern Seaboard. And his research question has a strong implication for where not just Amtrak, but the greatest nation on Earth, is really headed.

"Why has the world's greatest railroad nation turned its back on the form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible?" he asks. And what can be done to renew its strength?

Settling Down

The day was a warm Sunday in the middle of July. The location, Bill Black's adult Sunday school class at my grandmother's church, Somerset First Baptist. I gulped as I read the title of the lesson for the day: "Settle Down." It had been just over a month since I had come back to Texas from Korea, and this was a subject I had not yet mastered.

We had been talking about Jeremiah for some time in the Sunday school class, and now we had reached one of my favorite passages from the book, chapter 29. It was a letter to the captives of the Children of Israel from the Great I AM. The prophet had been trying to tell the Israelites that what they had been told about their captivity was a lie. Other prophets in Israel had told the people they would only be in Babylon two years, but Jeremiah was adamant that captivity would surely be 70.

"Jeremiah represents either a terrorist or a terrorist-sympathizer," our teacher commented. "These people rejected anything that he said because they thought they knew God and that He dwelt with them."

The Children of Israel truly thought they were in God's will as they prepared to live only briefly in a land not their own; yet God had a different plan for them. "Build houses [in Babylon] and dwell in them," He wrote through Jeremiah. "[P]lant gardens and eat their fruit... [B]e increase there and not diminished (29:5-6)." The LORD surely did assent to restore them to the Promised Land, but they first needed to settle into life as foreigners.

In the Israelites' obedience lay God's purpose: Only after going through captivity would they come to know God in a personal and fulfilling way. "For I know the thoughts I think toward you," reads verse 11, "thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and pray to Me and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jer 29:12-13). The captivity was designed not to alienate them from God, but to draw their hearts ever closer to Him.

"Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you," the LORD continues (Jer. 29:8). "Nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed... [for] I have not sent them, says the LORD." The Children of Israel had believed a false report about how long they would be in captivity, and now they needed to trust God in His timing to bring them out of it.

As I sat pondering my own unwillingness to trust God, the morning's commentary seemed to pinpoint my secret thoughts: "What unrealistic dreams have you been holding on to?" the margin screamed.

I gulped again. For the last month, I had done just as the Children of Israel had been instructed not to: I had believed the "dreams which you cause to be dreamed." I had listened to the desire to be overseas and because of this had become so disenchanted with living in the States that I refused to buy things like a cell phone, a car, and even an apartment. The conviction stung worse than a mesquite switch to the back of the thighs.

The Israelites' journey was beginning to mirror my own. "Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive," the LORD declared to His people, just as I knew He was speaking to me at that moment. Perhaps being back home would be longer than I had originally thought. My responsibility would now need be to build and not tear down, and pray for the success of the city I am in, "for in its peace, you will have peace" (Jer 29:7).

"In the middle of the summer, I heard an amazing Bible study about settling down," I chatted to a friend a couple of weeks ago via Skype. "I haven't forgotten it."

"What did [the study] define 'settling down' as?" she asked.

"Learning to live in the place God has for you now, even if it's not the place of promise," I wrote. As I typed my response, I knew that confessing it, just as sure as walking it out, would be a leap of faith.

Hesitation

The air quietly breathes its freshness into the room as I sit as a guest of my friend December's on a newly-made Moroccan rug. Ruthie, the small house dog, grunts and growls at me from her high place atop the bed where her owner is resting. December's phone tells me it's finally morning: June 21, 2011, by its end the longest Tuesday I'll have ever had. Homecoming Day.

In less than six hours I will be boarding a plane bound for Texas with my one-way ticket in hand, unsure of when the next flight will ferry me back to Asia. Yet, my suitcases remain glued to the floor as if they were impenetrable rock. In less than two years this part of the world, largely unknown to vast populations of the US, has burrowed itself deep in the ressesses of my heart in ways that I never expected, and I quite hesitate to say goodbye.

Here are a select few of those ways:

*I chanced to meet a woman at a thrift store who, despite obvious language barriers, became one of the dearest and closest friends of mine and accepted me with such deep, unconditional love.

*I've been encouraged and strengthened by the ex-pat Christian community through the ministries of Seoul International Baptist Church and its members.

*Through three schools located in two countries, I had the privelege of reaching out and ministering to four major ethnic groups within Asia: Russian, Indian, Thai, and Korean.

*I tried my hand--er, lips--at speaking in four previously foreign languages and successfully carried a tune in two of them.

*I witnessed North Korea's picturesque mountainy landscape and was able to meet a young man who has actually vacationed in that closed country.

*I have been able to earnestly beseech the heart of Father God for the hearts, souls, and lives of dear, dear friends that I have come to greatly cherish halfway around the world.

*I was unexpectedly able to join a girlfriend on her trip to Thailand and might have found the next step of the journey.

About two or three years ago--summer of 2009, if memory serves--I had a dream about two pictures posted on Facebook. One was a picture of dried fish and the other was a shot of bottles of beverages in a grocer's chest refrigerator. In the dream, a close friend of mine commented that there was "a better selection in the Asian markets here."

I was just commenting about her comment when I shot up in bed and marveled loudly, "I just had a dream that I was in Asia!" Within months of that statement, I was.

"I can't believe you're leaving," my friend Josh commented offhand this afternoon as I helped him edit his paper one last time. "We've talked about it and you have good reasons, but I still can't believe it."

Neither can I, Josh. Neither can I.

The Fullness of Time

The light in the room filters in from the bright florescent bulbs in the kitchen, blocked faintly by the opaque wooden entry door. A small pile of unwanted clothing sits quietly in the shredded armchair across from the bed, the feline claws which usually snag into its fleshy leather now more than twelve hours gone. Astride its weary companion, a makeshift dresser stands slightly askew but ready, attentive to the contents of its still-full drawers.

On the armchair's other side rests a stunted fridge, empty but for expired, frozen noodles and cold onion husks. To mirror this emptiness, the only kitchen cabinet in the unit fills itself with one shiny metal kettle, three pans, and a sprouting bag of potatoes. Above, where the dishes are kept, rest two lonely plates and one spoon, fork, and knife each. Just enough for one last meal: breakfast.

Tomorrow's moving day.

As I sit here in the quiet dimness, the air still without Frankie's shrill bellows, it's hard to take in what I know the morrow surely brings. The abortion of a school year, just three months into its gestation. Fractured trust from parents and staff alike. A cancellation of a contract so newly signed. Oh what shattering news comes swiftly in a fortnight!

Two Mondays ago, the sixteenth, I was still oblivious to the financial storm clouds looming over my tiny hagwon. My plan then, as I had so recently informed my Texas family, was to see them in three months after working through my final summer in Korea. I had known I was coming home; I just thought it would be a little further away than now.

Two days later, the message trickled down from management that the worst had hit: Barely afloat for the last several months as students oozed through our cracks and into other hagwons, Apple Tree could no longer afford to keep from drowning in its overhead costs. Its captain would let it sink on the 31. And my apartment would go down with it.

The news didn't hit me as tragically as it had some. If my manager had called me into her office to tell me lunch was ready, I'd have felt the same. What has replaced the sense of devastation is instead this feeling of expectancy.

Just the night before I had explained to a close friend about my apprehensiveness of the hagwon's current progress and its plans to revamp the curriculum. And as soon as I told her the news, the friend quietly replied, "Wow! ...God does indeed have plans for you to come home early." And I have to agree that she's right. True, losing one's job, one's place to live, and one's alien registration within two weeks is an unstable position at best. But no matter what others might say, I can see the hand of God even through the uncertainty.

I see Him opening doors for me to participate in a missions trip to Thailand that I wouldn't have ever tried to plan on my own. I see Him strategically placing me in a country town with a woman who unknowingly desires the blessings of the LORD, to witness of His great love and His gospel. And I see Him giving me opportunity to pray over and speak life into those He brings across my path. I saw the LORD guiding me even as I came to Korea, and I marvel at His hand over me now.

The thing that amazes me the most at the close of my time here is the willingness of those whom God has deliberately put in my path to go out of their way to provide for me: Already I've had three close friends in Dongtan volunteer their homes for the next three weeks, one of them visibly concerned about where I would store my luggage. Yet another woman has suggested I stay the weekend with her in Hongcheon. Still a third couple suggested I could crash at their place for a day or two if I needed to head down to Chungju. As I hear the offers spoken, I cannot help but know that these are urgings from the Holy Spirit and I cannot help but feel the LORD's great love for me throughout them.

It is the fullness of His time.

Sketty on the Barbie

"We need to make dinners," I cooed to Frankie as I finished folding my laundry tonight. I walked over to where my cell phone lay to check the time: twelve minutes till eight, one hour past supper. "How about we make some dinners?"

I poked my head into the refrigerator and remembered the three small chicken breasts I had bought from Home Plus the day before. "We could have Chicken Parmesan," I suggested to my cat, "and I wouldn't even have to thaw the chicken!" Gingerly, I placed an onion--what was left of my fresh vegetables--onto the meat's plastic trough and carried the two toward the kitchen.

Just moments before, I had pulled out my package of long spaghetti noodles, along with my packet of Hunts mushroom spaghetti sauce, and had placed them on the lip of my range top, which served as my only counter space. Arriving with the chicken, I set the meat in its pan and took out my cutting board, chopping the onion in smallish squares. I then spiced the meat with a generous helping of pepper, garlic powder, and some all purpose seasoning.

"Wanna come over for dinner?" I asked Holly over Skype while the meat and onions sizzled.

"Haha," she laughed. "Right now? What's for dinner?"

By this time I had torn open the aluminum sac of sauce and had poured its reddish, viscous liquid over the onions, waiting for it to heat through so that I could transfer the herbed chicken to the saucepan to finish cooking. It was too smooth a texture for tomato sauce, I reasoned--and much too thick. It also looked darker than traditional tomato-based sauces. I dabbed a finger onto the still-wet sac and brought it to my lips.

I had already known from previous experience that Korean-brand spaghetti sauces were notoriously sweet. However, American syndicates should have been different. "Why is it sweet?" I wondered aloud.

"Chicken Parmesan," I typed back to my friend on Skype-- "without the Parmesan, and 'American' spaghetti sauce that's too sweet."

"Yum! That sounds great!" Holly offered. I returned to the kitchen to transfer the meat into the other pan.

With the chicken cooking in the saucepan, I now had room on my two-burner stove for the next step: the noodles. As I watched them cook, I kept the sauce going to ensure no pinkness remained in the chicken. Steam steadily rose from the mixture as, second by second, the sauce began to cook down and its water vapor drifted away.

Trying to cover the overpowering sweet taste of the Hunts sauce, I added pepper, cilantro, garlic, and rosemary to the pan--the makings of a fine mesquite barbecue flavor. Now that the onions had started to caramelize and the concoction to thicken, my dinner was slowly beginning to morph into sauce of a different kind.

"My spaghetti sauce looks a little too much like Texas bbq if you ask me," I wrote to Holly dismally.

"Haha--interesting," she replied. "I didn't know spaghetti could look like barbecue!"

"Well it's not supposed to!"

A little disheartened, I turned back to my dinner to finish preparations and--saucy spaghetti, peppery chicken, and cold garlic-y spinach in hand--deliberately sat down to enjoy it. My heart sank even further when I noticed that, by the light of my studio room, the sauce was even browner than in the kitchen.

One spoonful of pasta confirmed all of my dire predictions: Instantly, my taste buds were assaulted with sweet spice, soft onions, and spaghetti noodles. Together. It was a flavor-texture clash I just could not handle.

"Totally sounds like something I would do!" a friend commented the instant I posted my reaction to Facebook. "So... did you like it?"

The story came spilling out after that, the sweetness, the spice, the chicken-marinade. "I'd say it turned out to be decent barbecue," I told her. "Were it not for the fact that I was going for Chicken Parmesan."

Waiting for Grandpa

The last rays of sunlight had long since dissolved into the wide open Texas sky, the long red Town Car saddled up next to the fenced-in yard. He stood at the table, surveying what still needed to be done before he left, his tanned, rough fingers spreading out on the country-blue tablecloth in front of him. I stood a few feet back near the couch, observing.

A gnarled index finger pointed to the pile of papers at the head of the table. "You can finish all that in the mornin,'" he told us matter-of-factly. "Now, tomorrow," the knotted pointer turned toward us, "you need to take the red car down to the car wash and make sure you vacuum it out." As he finished his verbal list of to-dos, he took a few steps left to the end of the enclosed porch, his weathered, sandpaper palms gripping the small brass knob. I followed him to the door, intending to close it behind him.

"Goodnight," he called to the house as he left.

"Goodnight, Grandpa," I called back.

He stopped and turned toward the slit of light escaping the door jamb. "Goodnight who?"

"Goodnight, Uncle John!" I quickly gasped, hot tears rushing to my eyelids.

"What did you say, sweetheart?" Grandma cooed softly as the door clicked shut.

"Nothing!" I breathed hotly, tucking my head low as I quickly passed her and marched back into the house.

He had been with us all day, I knew: coming in from his work at two that afternoon; suggesting we follow him into town and pick him up at the local mechanic's; riding along with us as we posted notices for Wednesday's service. I could see his face in the rear-view mirror as we drove, observing his tanned, leathery complexion and deep wrinkles. He even picked on me for my poor driving skills with his deep, thunderous voice.

Just like Grandpa, I kept thinking. All day I had tried not to make the comparison, willing myself to see this man as my uncle and deliberately remember where my grandpa was--and now I had slipped!

"It's to be expected, sweetheart," Grandma told me later, when I finally confessed what I had said. "He is so much like his daddy."

I had a chance to see my grandpa inside the chapel the next day--at least, what was supposed to be him. A much thinner, yellowy-pale mannequin lay in one of Grandpa's nice church suits at the front of the room, a strained, thin-lipped frown playing over its somber, lifeless face. Glancing at its very bald head and neatly folded hands, I noted Grandpa's tanned sunspots were on the mannequin, too. I gripped its right hand and squeezed it, but it didn't squeeze back. Instead, the hand sat motionless and stiff in the mannequin's lap, abnormally soft and hairless under my touch.

This is not Grandpa, I thought as I quickly released my grip. Grandpa's hands aren't that smooth. He's worked in the fields with cows his whole life. His hands can't be that smooth! His coarse fingers would have caressed my cheek while his voice would have called out, "How's my girl?" No, this is not my grandpa! I wanted to shout to the polished figure in front of me.

As I moved away from the glossy grey-blue casket, I took mental note of which family members were present: me and my twin brother, Jason; the three cousins, Amanda, Lane, and Abbie; my Aunt Stephanie and Uncle John; Mom, Dad, and Grandma. I knew my older brother Chris wouldn't be joining us; but in his and his wife's stead, my Great-Aunt Patsy and her nephew Lynn had come all the way from Georgia. That made a total of twelve, which meant that only one family member was missing.

At any moment I expected my grandfather to saunter in with his noticeably limping gait and wide, Denture-filled smile. "Hellooh, Sweetheart," he'd call to Grandma, his hands spread wide to cup her face. He would ask us what all the cryin' and fussin' was about. And then, with the patient gentleness of a lifelong teacher, he would swing around to greet everyone gathered, beginning with his grandkids.

"He was a hands-on grandpa," my grandmother had told me fondly as we had sorted and mounted pictures for a memorial collage earlier in the day. As she said it, my eyes had rested on a picture of my older brother as a ten-year-old boy standing on a stool to match the height of his grandfather, gnarled hands outstretched to pull his face close. Yes, Grandma, I had thought as I studied the scene, indeed he was.

We were all gathered in the chapel that night to await the arrival of the man of the hour, it seemed--just the way it had felt the last two days on the farm. Grandma and I had sat around talking or run errands in town or visited with family from next door, waiting for Grandpa to finish his work for the day and come in from his leases and hay fields. "It just feels like he's out checking his cows," I confessed to her, "and he'll come in when he's done." Except that this time Grandpa didn't come back in, not to the farmhouse and not to the quiet chapel.

That night, I waited in one of the cushioned metal chairs as one-by-one, more than 200 teary-eyed men and women from the Somerset community came to offer condolences to my family and to bid a respectful farewell to the man who had become such a pillar of faith-in-action for the last fifty years of his life. The stream of mourners poured into the chapel from 5:30 that night until well past the viewing's scheduled finish at 8, each life touched by his weathered, craggy hands. The gathered crowd was a testament to the manifold spheres of influence that my grandfather had possessed.

"Goodbye, ol' body," I heard Uncle John address the mannequin, clapping the back of its yellowy, right hand as we began to leave the funeral chapel at the close of the viewing. And to the living, he added, "We know he's not in there anyway."

"We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body

and to be present with the LORD."

2 Corinthians 5:8

Fighting the Break of Dawn

"Save tonight

and fight the break of dawn.

Come tomorrow,

tomorrow I'll be gone."

--Eagle Eye Cherry

"I read your article," Dad told me over the phone this morning, his Wednesday night, referring to my recent publication on Examiner.com. I had newly applied to be a layman reporter with the organization and just this week began producing material for the site. "Your grandma read it, too. It felt like I was there--and now I want to go to that cell phone store. I don't know about your other two, because I don't remember them."

As I started to recount what I had written about this past week, he stopped me. "But that's not what I want to talk about." There was pressing news about the family that just couldn't wait until morning.

Grandpa had been put back in the hospital two weeks ago when his cancer resurfaced and was now in ICU, Dad informed me. Dad himself had been there with the family for some time--and would stay all night if need be. "Your grandfather is very weak," he said gravely. "The doctor came in just a few moments ago and informed us of his condition. Grandma said we needed to give Grandpa every chance we could and wants to keep him on the breathing machine; the doctor said he'd do what she asked."

It was the first time I had heard the words breathing machine and Grandpa in such a weighty context. Surely that didn't mean the machine? Further along in the conversation, gulping back my tears I braved the question. "What do you want me to do, Dad, if something happens?"

It wouldn't do any good in the end, he noted, my coming home. "We know that you care about us," he replied tenderly, "but it's a very long trip. You have made friends there--get hugs from them. People in South Korea would suffer [if you left] because you still have work to do."

Informed of the new turn of events, we said our goodbyes and I left for school--but it was all I could do to focus on my students today. At random moments throughout, I couldn't help but dwelling on my grandfather's news and at one point I found myself nearly in tears as I was explaining what the phrase "bid farewell" meant. Even now my heart breaks as I sit on my ondol-heated flooring tonight, wishing with all my heart I were there with my family.

I read something this morning which gives me great comfort in the midst of the struggle. In Psalm 91, the LORD promises His faithfulness and protection to his servants. Part of verse fifteen reads in Spanish, "Estaré con él en momentos de angustia"--which in English says that He will be with us during our utter grief and pain. In this season of utmost sorrow for my family, I know He will comfort those who mourn.

"Jen, I am sure your spirit is with [your family] right now, though your flesh is not," my friend Young Hee messaged me tonight through Skype.

"My spirit can't be anywhere but my body right now," I quickly replied. "But the Spirit of Jesus hovers over them like a gentle, powerful father. And He has not left them orphans--He WILL COME to them in their anguish."

Yes, LORD, and Amen!

Sah Kyehjole: Interlude

My childhood home: 3407 Ackerman Rd.

One thing that living abroad has allowed many ex-pats to do is to take trips around the South Pacific and other parts of Asia. Among other benefits, these short furloughs allow an interlude from the fast-paced life of Korea and a chance to experience other seasons around the world. However for me, instead of travelling to another country, I chose to take my break from Korea back in Texas to experience a season of a different kind--my brother getting married and adding not one, but two new members to the family. Along with sharing in my brother's joy, I was able to spend some time with some very dear friends of mine and make some new ones. It was hard leaving for Korea in the beginning, harder still the second time around. In some ways, it feels as if I left my heart back home with many of my loved ones.

April 2010: Interlude

Makgan 막간

Meet Kristin: She was the Christian woman who sat with me on the 9+ hour plane ride from Tokyo to Los Angeles. Come to find out, she was best friends with the sister of one of my friends from Chungju! We had the chance to encourage each other in the LORD.

Faces from House Church. Top to Bottom: Lizzie, Firoozeh, and Sharam; Sam and Christina; Firoozeh; Lizzie. These are the people that were in my life just prior to leaving to Korea. It was sweet to see them and be encouraged by what God's been working in their lives.

The Tolliver Gang! I met Mary-Ellen (far left) four years ago during my last year at TLU, and she has been a precious friend ever since. Here we are with her beau, Stephen, and her older brother Adrick at a Mexican restaurant in Seguin.

This is Toastmasters International, a Christian organization which seeks to give its members ample opportunities to give speeches in front of crowds; participating in it has become one of my dad's hobbies. It became a wonderful time to spend with my parents while I was home. That night, I had a chance to try my skills at public speaking with an impromptu exposition about my favorite meal in Korea, dokkgalbi.

My best friend Heidi and her sweet boys, Brody (the older one) and Nikki. Without her support, I would have never made it here in Korea.

These are my closest, oldest friends back home. L to R: Carla, Kamil, me, Amy, Matt, Kim, and Kamil's wife, Darcy. While I was home, they took me to dinner at Blanco Cafe, a modest but popular Mexican restaurant in the middle of town. After dinner, we went to hear Cleto Rodriguez, a Christian comedian who used to attend my home church.

Rehearsal and Dinner: The night before the wedding became a sweet time for me to spend with my family before having to journey back to Korea the following week.

The day after the wedding, we gathered together at Christy's parents' house for lunch, fellowship, and to watch them open their wedding presents.

Along with a gift for the couple, I brought other gifts from the Land of the Morning Calm to pass out to my family--which my mom thoroughly enjoyed.

This is a group of people--my family, really--to whom I have stayed close since graduating high school and joining their "college group." Brenda (top), her husband, and children have ministered to me greatly over the years, along with my dear friend Carla (bottom). As I rode with Carla back home one night, she told me, "It was a big thing that you left and it matters that you came back."

The night before I caught my plane flight back to Korea, Kim (above) asked if we could get some late-night dinner at the local IHOP and catch up, "since you're probably not gonna get sleep tonight anyway." As it was the last time I'd get to see her for a while, how could I refuse?