My mom was sharing a great memory with me the other day at
lunch. It actually was a near-death experience. She and my father, who was then
Country Director for the Peace Corps in Belize, were visiting some PCVs (Peace
Corps Volunteers) in a remote location that required boat travel across the
lake. The boat that they found themselves in was a hollowed-out log with a
motor. In their boat were a driver and a US military person, apparently to
provide security for the Country Director of the Peace Corps (aka my father).
As my pareants prepared to leave the remote village to
return to their home in Belmopan, a local warned them about setting out in the
weather. (Lesson #1: Always pay attention to locals when they offer weather
advice.) They saw only clear skies and had somewhere else they needed to be, so
they left. Shortly after leaving, the
weather did indeed kick up, and my parents found themselves in the middle of the
lake in a serious storm. The armed soldier didn’t really come in handy while my
parents clung to the bottom of the boat and prayed to get safely to the other
side.
Much about this narrative will likely lend itself to a
future sermon, probably about when Jesus walked on water and calmed the waves. Right
now, though, I’m most taken with how my mother described their harrowing escape
from this storm. “The person who was driving our log decided
to go full force through the storm to get to the other side.”
Yes, there is plenty of sermon fodder in the
imagery of moving forward through a storm until you have made it through. But, “the
person who was driving our log???” It’s just not a phrase you hear all that
often, especially sitting around the dining table in Kansas City. It just made me smile.
So- should you find yourself in a log in the middle of a
stormy lake- or anywhere else you never really thought you’d find yourself- may
you always have a good log driver.
