Contentment
Monday, April 1, 2024 by Brave Knight Writers

A true story.

In a recent encounter, a new acquaintance asked me about my greatest life challenges and how they affected me. Even after all these years my voice tightened as I spoke. My advantage came in my ability to reflect on those times, refer to scripture, and find comfort in God’s word.

Philippians 4: 10-13 NIV

 “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Paul writes from prison to show his gratitude for those supplying him with food and necessities. He gives the glory to God for inspiring their concerns. His imprisonment produced an opportunity for others to show their concern. He also assures everyone he has learned to be content, no matter in what circumstance he finds himself.

The playroom had floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun covered the floor. The toys were a mere hodge-podge of donations: Lincoln logs, firetrucks, hot wheels, blocks, toy soldiers, and dolls. My son sat playing with a small toy knight, his bald head exposing a zipper-looking scar running from the back of his neck to the top of his skull. A shunt tube ran under his skin from his head to his abdomen, it relieved pressure and carried away spinal fluids. He was all that mattered to me, everything else faded into trivia. Money, work, marital drama all paled. His months in a coma made me relish his play.

Following his initial surgery, the doctors had pronounced him braindead; the monitors showed no brain activity and all but me had given up hope. Day after day, I read to him, and moved all his joints to prevent them from seizing. A ribbon with a bell attached hung above him. “Give it a tug” was my request as I placed his hand on it. “Ring the bell.” His hand dropped away, day after day, week after week. This is where you learn patience, ignore petty drama, and what true value is. You learn if money can solve a problem, it isn’t a real problem. You pray and you curse, you question your sanity and at times you lose it. All up and down the halls you hear the parental wails and encounter the face of grief. Your situation isn’t the worst or most shocking. This is 4 Neuro. The horrors are real. The suffering is beyond imagination, and God gets questioned.

James 1:12 tells us, ‘Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.’

At this time, I wasn’t familiar with scripture, I believed in God and sought his help. My prayers focused on strength for me and healing for my son. The book of Job offers great insight into this world’s workings. It is Satan who delivers all the tragedy and misfortunes, God allows the process and so often we blame him. What we must realize is that life is a test, a refinement. God watches, just as He watched Job suffer at the hands of Satan. The test of Job is an example of how we must not lose faith when life presents challenges.

“What are you playing with?” I asked my son.

He turned to me and held out the knight; he placed his other hand over the hole in his throat, his tracheotomy.

“It’s the brave knight, the bravest of all knights.” He replied in a raspy voice.

At the time, I didn’t realize it represented the full armor of God. In the months following his awakening from his coma, our conversations were on a maturity level well beyond his five years. The night before he died, he told me he had to leave. In the days, weeks and months following his death I tried to put myself back together. The best glue I found was to acknowledge I had been blessed with a beautiful son for five years and his return from his coma came as an answer to my prayers. God gave him back to me so we could say good-bye.

Celebrating all life became the best way to honor my son. Contentment came in the knowledge that our time has limits. Every day God gave me, beyond my own five years are bonus days, not to be wasted but to be celebrated. When you are broken and know there are still others depending on you, you gather up the biggest pieces and struggle on. For years you discover the many little pieces still on the floor. You may never find all of them and it will take years to fit them all back where they belong.

Going forward wasn’t easy, and becoming a Christian isn’t an overnight success story. Endure, find contentment, identify your blessings, and be aware—expectations can lead to disappointment and stunted growth. God wants to see your transformation, and your refinement. Mistakes plague me in the past, present, and future, but I continue to reflect on false steps, confess, seek forgiveness, and try my best to right things.

In our troubles, we learn empathy, gratitude, forgiveness, and values, so be grateful for what you have. In the end God restored Job. Even so, Job carried all his losses with him. Job never lost his faith, his most valued attribute.

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One

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One
Thursday, February 29, 2024 by Brave Knight Writers

One

But test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

Four in the morning, a world asleep. An empty street runs beyond the glow of neon in tavern windows. The streetlamps wash into the resolve of non-being. Halfway from nowhere, on my way to nowhere, I sit on my ego in a one-stoplight town. Short on patience, I wait, but not for the go light. Less than okay and bound for the fringe, I need a why. Flashed by deadly neon and awash in eerie mercury vapors, I’m stunned. Only a thin encasement of glass confines the gases creating these sick illuminations. Shadows deepen beneath a moonless night.

 Stricken with irony, I grin. Electricity is my livelihood. I know well that neon gas causes headache, dizziness, fatigue, vision disturbances, confusion, and death, the perfect medium to lure customers into bars. In addition, mercury vapors induce gastrointestinal issues, mood swings, memory issues, and sensation disturbances.

My abandoned head and heart flash with weird thoughts. To clear my head, I self-confess. These less-than-okay sentiments result from bad choices, not toxic gasses. Tonight, a friend invited me to celebrate his upcoming wedding, his happy time. His flamboyance induced cascading emotions and a deep disdain for my own bad choices. I maintained an outward appearance of good humor, while under a skin as fragile as glass, I seethed. My friend raved about his future as we downed a few bottles of ego booster. Our constant laughter sealed the cracks that had formed in my thin skin. An invincible shroud confined my raw emotion as I headed off into the night.

Miles from the laughter, stopped by this light, I lack a reason to move.

At age nineteen, I had owned the choices which put me on this road of hard knocks. Now I pay the tolls, with bits of spirit, and chunks of joy. Premature adulthood meant long hours of work, a ‘do what it takes’ commitment. Blinders in place, I donned the yoke of family. Yet, nothing can alter another’s dissatisfactions or a partner’s destructive choices. Nothing could smooth the bumps, not even a road crew of professional counselors. The end came with an abrupt crash—our son’s death, and complete spousal rejection.

Scars will form, but these wounds are fresh. My crushed dreams are nothing but aggregate on the footpaths of friends, neighbors, and other conspirators. To soothe my ego, I bought this motorcycle. But loose sand can’t fill voids in a broken heart. Without a dream, chaos reigns as I drift toward the fringe. Home is where I want to go, but I can’t get there from here.

Once powerful intentions now ebb away. No momentum forms, or even a vision of the way home. Empty streets, just paths into the abyss, so I sit in the sick illumination. Negative tapes roll in my head. Secret troubles—I have no support. Shame blocks my way, and death gains a certain appeal.

 In my mirror a singular light tears the ebony curtain at the edge of town. A roar shatters the night, and Satan himself rolls up next to me. A hulking powerpack comes to rest so close, dragon’s breath spewing in my face. His arrival triggers the light to go green. We rev, pop our clutches, and speed into obscurity. Thin headlamp beams center our focus. Concentric circles of vision dim, and a tiny patch of asphalt twenty feet ahead becomes the world. My odometer hits 85, then 90. I pull ahead, or maybe Satan backs off. In either case I declare I win.

Residual pockets of sun-warmed air linger in blackened flats in the valley. Crossing a bridge, pockets of chill break my flesh into shivers. The feel, smell, and taste of the road stimulates a sense of freedom undefined by words or rules. Turn after turn I dance, throttle down, lean in, and then accelerate. Nothing else offers such exuberance. This is spiritual.

Our graduation theme song, “One” by Three Dog Night, reverberates in my head. Speed has taken me back in time, to where this road of hard knocks began.

In my mirror, Satan’s headlight fades. Still, I crank the throttle in ignorance of a strained speedometer. Alone, my mind freed, bad vibes get swept away in the passing wind.

All the ugly cliches of the suburbs—phoniness, fake chatter, pretend friendships, parties, predators, and selfish choices—swirl off into the arena of nonbeing.

Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

This conclusion slaps my face. No one had done what they did, to harm me. Their actions centered on self, not me. Everything had happened around me, not to me. None cared but for themselves. In their defense, none even led me on with words of love or declarations of loyalty. Even my wife stated before our wedding that she didn’t want to marry me. None of my dreams found her acceptance. My insecurities and a desire to do right for a child drove the union. Joy and trust stripped away by age 27, in a loveless union.

In need of change, new stand-alone choices, I search. The biggest change will be to control all of my reactions to the conduct of others. Ten cents worth of consideration could buy labels for the innocent and the guilty. Whatever it takes, whatever my loss, I will take care of my children and their mother. She is not a wife, but always their mother.

In an instant, somewhere above the road, time slows with an injection of adrenaline. Twice my motorcycle rotates end over end, each time pounding the front wheel tighter against the engine’s frame. Unleashed forces overcome my will as I crash to earth. Several bounces on asphalt turn into a slide. The motorcycle bounces alongside me, and above me. In slow motion a vision forms, six hundred pounds of steel crushing my body.

As I spin out of control, my feet find the gas tank and push it aside. My helmet shreds and cracks. A ramp of road crud launches me over the curb. Airborne in a gauntlet of trees and shrubs, the branches welt my flesh until the railroad bed catches me. My body slams onto the steel rails, splintery ties and sharp gravel, leaving my insides jarred. In the dark, breathless, and in a state of nothingness, and soundlessness, I have no pain.

Shock, a walking death, offers its form of mercy. I heave myself to my feet, but drop to all fours to climb the embankment to the road. Touching the twisted iron of my bike, I stand too dumb and numb to take the next step.

A voice sounds down the tunnel of my stupor.

“What are you doing man?” Satan grabs my arm.

“I have to get home.”

“You need to lie down, you’re a bloody mess. And your bike is totaled.”

The biker explains as I fade “This crossing on a bend has tossed a lot of cars into those guardrails, otherwise you would have been cut in half. Tracks three inches higher than the road surface caught your rims. You must not be familiar with this road.”

I knew better. I’ve been on this road before. When I wake in the ambulance, they are cutting away chunks of denim and making notes of my visible injuries. Sprains, no broken bones, but skin loss on my hands, shoulder and buttocks. My shoes had torn away along with foot flesh; the paramedics noted white bones in bloody red meat.

Broken and alone but not dead, my body turns purple from the neck down.   Six weeks unable to walk, I make my way from the spare bedroom to the bathroom in a crawl. An infection in my foot requires antibiotic footbaths with some talk of amputation, but the flesh heals.

Six weeks in bed gives me time to think of long-term resolutions and a need for God’s strength. One thing I know, to salvage a life takes resolve, and you can’t out run the Devil.

A new structure, forward movement, a focus on what is best for my children and their futures. A two-parent household, even damaged, offers the most hope.

When my son was dying, I prayed a lot. I also cursed a lot. God has touched me, it’s a story in and of itself. I came to terms with my loss and saw it as a five-year blessing of a wonderful child. Gratitude offered comfort, God blessed me.

But although I persevere, I had refrained from glorifying God. As guilty as Israel in the Old Testament, I had witnessed a miracle before my son’s death, and moved on without embracing or glorifying God.

Physical restraints leave my mind free to embrace spiritual answers. Turn everything over to God, let it be by His will, not mine. Given this second chance, I need a new focus. An answer forms as God’s will vs my will, grace instead of my disgrace. Even so, new mistakes and bad choices lay ahead. My destroyed trust, the secret of a troubled marriage still plague me but I fend off bitterness. Disgrace gets tucked away in the shadows. Self-doubt, vulnerability, and a fragile ego surface. Comfort arrives with the light of truth—a belief that everyone’s fate lies between them and God, not them and any other person.

“What is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

A salvaged life requires ownership, confessions, and God’s forgiveness. Revenge belongs to the Lord; he can deal with offenders. I need to get on with life, celebrate a second chance, and enjoy my children. The key to maintaining sanity is to embrace gratitude for all the little blessings.

Luke 6:37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

1 John 3:18 Dear children let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

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#Jumping out of a #C-47

 

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This is what it is like to jump from a C-47 in peace time. Imagine doing it with flack blast, machine gun fire in the middle of the night.    

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Our story is based on actual actual flight logs, photos, personal notes, verbal anecdotes and research.

A personalized tale of war through the eyes of a young radio operator.

Invasions of N, Africa, Sicily, Italy, and night landings behind enemy lines in the Balkans.

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#Trumpets Topple Towering Walls?

 

Trumpets Topple Towering Walls?
Wednesday, January 31, 2024 by Brave Knight Writers

Writers make propositions. For this blog post, I chose a statement I have heard more than once, “The Bible is a book of fairy tales.” Do people who say such things ever read or comprehend the significance of the stories in the Bible? Does science or archeology dispel Bible stories or support them?

In recent days I watched a video on the Biblical story of Jericho. We must admit, to believe the Israelites brought down the walls with a seven-day march and blowing horns takes strong faith. Or does it? As I watched the video, I used my imagination and went beyond the focus of the narrator. His objective was to demonstrate whether the city of Jericho did or didn’t exist and if it did, to question if it was in a certain frame of time. To the secular world a failure to correspond to the exact historical movement of the Israelites after being freed from Egypt would dispel the Bible story for chronological errors.

 In my research, I read additional articles with an obvious slant to dispel the story as inaccurate based on secular research.

 Below, I share a link for you to do additional research.

My focus centers on the plausible destruction of Jericho’s city walls. In my mind, I questioned how the walls might have crumbled. I’m just an author, not an archeologist or Biblical scholar. An opinion is just dust in the wind, the truth exists without my help or understanding. So, if you will, open your mind to imagine the days of Jericho’s wall collapse. The following Bible quotes are taken from Joshua 5:13-6:27 New International Version.

 Joshua 5:  13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” (this took some courage)

 14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

 (Note the word neither—very interesting to think about this one word.)

15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Joshua 6:  Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.2 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.   3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.” (This would take a lot of courage and faith to execute such a plan.)

This is where the fairy tale label of the nonbeliever comes into play. Such an act could never crumble fortress walls.

 Or could it?

You can visit YouTube  http://tinyurl.com/JerichoUnearthed   

Jericho Unearthed: The Archaeology of Jericho Explained, provides more background for the existence of Jericho.

Here, I offer an author’s imagery of the day’s events and possibilities. As a writer of fiction, historical fiction, and creative non-fiction, my experience is in making plausible arguments for events.

In the video, archeologists in fact do find the ruins of Jericho. An explanation of the architectural structure of the walls gives insight as to the plausibility of their flawed construction. There existed a two-tier wall system, the base wall or retaining walls were older stone walls to hold back the earthen base of the city. On top of the stone walls existed the city’s mud brick walls. To the Israelites, this structure had to look impenetrable. A direct affront would cost the lives of many soldiers.

Now, view the situation from the perspective of someone within the city. Imagine a huge army approaches, you know their intentions to attack, but you have no idea what their tactics will be. They march around the city on the first day, while the guards on the wall watch. Sure the guards can repel any advance, but an advance doesn’t occur.

When the witnesses on the wall tell of what they have seen, rumors and excitement spread. The next day another Israelite parade takes place, this time perhaps the wall guards are joined by civilians to see the spectacle. After the parade disperses, many of the folks of Jericho remain on the walls waiting, in wonder of when the next show will be, Perhaps some returned home with word of what they saw.

The city walls are made of mud bricks, but of what vintage? The spot where Jericho stood had human habitation for a thousand years. How much stress did the extra traffic impact on these old walls? Every day, the crowd on the walls increased as rumors and stories spread and grew. Tensions among the city dwellers grew in anticipation of an impending attack. Throughout the week, speculations grow. Many never leave the walls, and as the next marches occur, more and more people rush onto the walls to witness the event. The city dwellers’ thoughts and insecurities toy with them. The burden on the walls increases with everyone climbing up and down. Witnessing the damage, the guards turn on the hordes. The rabble resists the city’s authorities and continue to overburden the walls.

On the seventh day, with tensions at fevered pitch on the walls, the Israelite priests sound their horns, long and loud. Every person on the wall is frantic, fearing the time has come.

(Note: Isaac Asimov, in his book, Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament, delves into the psychological effects of the Jericho siege. Asimov was a vice-president of Mensa and a prolific writer and editor with over 500 books to his credit. His work on the Bible is more of a literary and historical study.)

Few had slept during the past week, and when the Israelite soldiers shouted in great unison—as instructed by God—panic ensued. The movement on the weakened mud walls triggered debris to begin to fall. The initial crumbling further arouses fear. A snowball effect occurs as the crowd tries to disperse. The crumbling mud bricks tumble down in front of the stone walls to form a perfect incline for the Israelite army to scale and gain entrance into Jericho.

A plausible secular explanation, maybe, but as in all truths there is much unseen, especially the less obvious details. Before anyone writes off the Bible as a book of fairy tales, it might be best to follow up with a little science.

In the case of Jericho, my belief embraces the courage and belief which rattles the non-believers.

 The walls tumbled down; this is an archeological fact. The debris formed an incline against the stone wall which offered access to the city. Jericho’s ruins offer these facts. The Bible documents the event, and all these years later, we can read the text and analyze the data. This is, in and of itself, a miracle. There is room for debate on what crumbled the walls, and many will still refuse to accept the story as true. A messenger claimed to be from God and the Israelites listened to him, accepted the advice, and triumphed. Not by their will, but by God’s will. 

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When a #soldier returns.

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Coming Home
Monday, January 1, 2024 by Brave Knight Writers

 

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

 

My head bumps the window as the bus swerves to avoid a pothole. My painfully thin body has fallen limp from exhaustion and stress. So deep in thought. It would be better to sleep, if only I could. The boys sleep beside me, young and skinny. Together they don’t fill the seat. The oldest rests his head against me, his brother against him. So innocent, yet sensing an irreversible change. They lack an in-depth comprehension of their world’s end, but so do I. Sounds echo in a hollow heart, images blur in smoked mirrors. Truth eludes love’s patsies. How many soldiers return from war on buses? How many old movies begin with a woman’s return on a bus after years of absence? The bus drops into yet another pothole, stirring the boys but not waking them. Potholes let me know we are nearing home. Three years on the autobahn had let me forget such things. There were no bumps on German roads… just the ones we carried with us.

We left the deep south on a midnight express, the most economical way to travel from Sumter to home. After nine years of military life, I have nothing except these little guys by my side and two bags of clothes stuffed under the seats. It will take all my resources and my family’s help for me to return to Germany, wherein I believe lies my one hope. In times of war, desertion has severe consequences.

Ironically, our nation experienced nine years of military peace during my enlistment. The wounds I suffer won’t be recorded in my military records, nor his desertion. My situation isn’t a case for a military tribunal. It came in the way of a spiritual abrogation. I deliberately head bump the window in self-punishment for acts of stupidity. The battle existed in my imagination—none of it was true, or so I have been told. The pain feels real. Yet my days in Hunsruck possess a surreal quality, as we travel by bus toward home. My military counselor in Germany shared wise advice, “base nothing on words written in sand, hold fast to those in stone.” If only I had known her ten years ago. 

My parents raised the eleven of us in a Godly home, where rumors of spiritual warfare were spoken. No longer rumors, the spiritual battles have left me wounded, even broken. The thought chills me. I have been emotionally broken. My father has been physically broken for many years now. My body functions. I must not wallow in self-pity. Confessions are due, as I too, am a deserter. Nine years on the run from God has left me hollow, with no way to provide for the spiritual needs of these innocent victims.

Utility poles, trees, shrubs, all bathed in the morning sun fly by as the greyhound weaves off the interstate. With only fifteen passengers on board, many of them stretched out on empty seats during the night. In the morning light passengers stir with annoying chatter. My ear catches softly spoken German sprinkled in the blather behind us. The night’s silence and darkness had been a false comfort, I knew we weren’t traveling alone. Earlier, I had wondered why people travel where they do. Our small town has a college, a cheese factory, and a large Amish community in the surrounding countryside.

Basic training in our home was rather tribal, our parents set a good example but with eleven recruits at various stages of development we lacked a training manual. The older siblings stepped up to fill in some of the missing pieces, and a lot of the pieces came from their own unsolved puzzles. By the time I reached my teen years, I knew of things, but I didn’t know things. So, I tried to imitate the older siblings and fell to the pressures of my peers. None of it prepared me for the unraveling of so much that I held as truths. Clearly, at my lowest point, those I loved most embraced pretty lies over ugly truths and I sought an escape. It took the pain of hard knocks to really know, instead of knowing of.

How many lives have been ruined by running away from things we only know of, before we invest the time to know the essence of truth? My Mom loves the Lord, she knows the Lord, and she told me about Him. What I wanted from her was protection, but her focus on the good left her naïve in some respects. My trust shattered, I had run.

Mom issued subtle warnings about the road I had chosen, but those warnings fell on closed ears. Sadly, she had valuable insights which I did not heed. Even though she proved to be right, her heart will never allow her to say, “I told you so.” Instead, she will offer patient love and support, this I know. When I escaped to the military, I left God behind.

Satan the liar and murderer seeks the bereft. In hot pursuit, he tracked me down with offers to fill the void left by God’s absence. A murder took place, not of the flesh, but of the spirit. The murder of  belief, a marriage, the children’s childhood, love, and my last ounce of trust.

When I had said goodbye to Dad to board the bus for basic training, his only advice was, “If this is what you are going to do, be good at it.”  The women’s movement had drummed into all of us girls, we could be whatever we wanted to be. Dad’s words had a different message. In it all, I learned women can do everything or anything, but to be the best requires a specialty, generalities never bring excellence.

As a recruit, as a sergeant, I worked to be good at my job and eventually supervised an F-16 avionics maintenance crew of two dozen. Other aspects of my life weren’t the best, and I knew it. So I walked away from things I excelled at to be the best mom.

When I walked away from my military career, I entered enemy territory. A mine field spread into the distance, etched with meaningless words. Spiritual warfare has no periods of peace, just quiet periods between attacks. When the explosion occurred, it shattered my heart, as well as my children’s childhoods, and created a questionable future.  

Penniless and broken, no F-16’s in sight, I headed home in hopes of a second chance. Home offered refuge, a place built around struggle, and populated by those familiar with tragedy, with knowledge gained by pain.

When I was a child, my father’s legs had been left paralyzed in a near-fatal accident. Tough men don’t cave, they get tougher. Unable to remain employed in the mill, he managed his apple orchard, opened a hardware store, and even with his physical challenges managed to build a house. My parents knew the pain of a dying child. The loss of my sister at ten years old had devastated them.

In retrospect, I realize my mother’s focus on goodness has been her survival technique. Enough hard times had been dumped on her, she isn’t compelled to seek more or indulge in drama. No one will want to hear excuses from me when I arrive, they’ll simply support me and help me move forward. True Christians know the meaning of turning into a pillar of salt and the need to focus on distant mountains.

The airbrake whistle and downward groan of the bus’s engine announce our arrival in town. The shops along the main street are the same as the day I left. The sun illuminates their facades, the windows gleam as Mrs. Lindsey polishes them for the millionth time. My boys continue to sleep until the last passenger exits, only then do I wake them.

The first to exit the bus are four college-aged guys only slightly younger than me, who joke and push one another with total disregard for my sleeping sons. Next, an elderly woman using a cane mumbles to herself as she passes our seats. Lastly, an Amish couple and their eight children, the father leading the way. He gives me a nod of acknowledgement and his wife gives me a meek smile as her gaze leaves my children and rests on me. The eight Amish children come by according to height, smallest to tallest. They give us a quick glance but are as quiet as mice.

 With a nudge my boys are awake. Awkwardly, I clutch our bags with one hand and hold my youngest son’s hand in the other. The oldest jumps to the sidewalk and I descend the steps behind him. A familiar voice startles me. Oh, so many things about home had slipped from my heart.

“How was it?” A simple enough question from our town legend, Bobby Short.

Pausing, I can offer no simple truth answer. Any details I might offer would go right over Bobby’s simplistic head. So, I just reply, “it was an adventure.” He accepts my response, as he accepts everyone’s responses. He had surely asked each passenger the same question as they stepped from the bus, even the Amish children. Bobby has reached legendary status in our area; he had always been a simple boy, whose parents gladly turned him loose on the town. Early every morning since he was a child, he was a feature on the main street. One of his favorite pastimes included waiting at the bus stop to greet newcomers.

It is the opening scene from my new movie. After so many miles on wrong roads, I determine what I had always wanted was some of what my Mom has. To love and be loved by God and my children.

When we go AWOL during spiritual warfare, God welcomes us back with open arms.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZH3M6ezhqk

 

#Congolese #refugees, Cleveland, Ohio

 https://braveknightwriters.com/blog/53-Congolese-Refugees-and-Envision-Cleveland

Why are there Congolese refugees in America? In recent days I traveled to a Congolese community in Cleveland Ohio, to help winterize gardens. My knowledge of the organization Envision Cleveland consisted of a Sunday service message but little more. My venture and contribution stirred curiosity about the situation, so I’ve done some research, as I do for all my missions. The core belief of Envision Cleveland is: Every person matters. Empowered neighbors, strengthen neighborhoods

Below I draw a quote from a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Metro section, April 2018, By Brian Albright. “In recent years ethnic strife and war has claimed more than 5 million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. The conflicts have been particularly brutal, marked by mass rapes, abductions, forced recruiting, use of child soldiers and sexual violence.”

The Congo region of Africa has been unstable with ethnic strife since gaining its independence from the Dutch in 1960. Many of the refugees arrived in Cleveland around 2016-17. 1355 Congolese arrived in Ohio while 84, 994 resettled nationwide. One refugee said in the Congo you may find a way to survive, but since coming to America he feels he has a chance to live. Desperation can be a great motivator, even though it requires courage to overcome situations.

Most people of any ethnic or racial background simply desire to live, love, eat, and create families. A trade or craft supports a family. Handouts destroy the human spirit as much as any other attack (such offerings should be viewed as temporary support). Much of the Congolese community desire to contribute toward success, but human spiritual frailty and an easy support system can allow evil ways to surface. A revenue flow must be linked to accountability to have successful results.

The organization Envision Cleveland works to address community safety, stability, and skills issues by securing properties identified by the city as crack houses and turning them into garden spaces. Some properties are now converted into play areas for children, while the gardens have picnic tables and raised beds for growing vegetables.

Just as our military veterans suffer from PTSD, these same issues can affect civilian refugees from war-torn areas. Envision addresses the issues by offering the community a career center where interested men and women can learn a trade. Rehabilitation of the community, individuals, and families is a must to battle alcoholism and drug addiction.

My arrival in the Congolese community came before sunrise on a Saturday, none of the other missionaries were there yet. When not familiar with the area, one must maintain an alert posture. Several figures stumbled about, and it was obvious they weren’t on their way to work. Most of the homes in the area consist of rental properties in poor repair. Waiting in a gas station parking lot, great relief came in the form of a man emerging from a van at the gas pumps. It was Tall Paul, the mission leader, who must stand 6 foot 8 inches, and with a hefty build. Inside the van were three additional mission volunteers. Reflecting on my own uncertain feelings, I imagined how a refugee must feel, plucked out of Africa and dropped into a strange neighborhood in Cleveland. Surely a better situation, but nothing familiar.

Our mission work started with collecting trash, beer bottles, cans, papers, all while on guard for needles. To me this is a sign of great disrespect for our efforts and a method evil uses to shut down the human spirit (all part of spiritual warfare).

With daylight, a vehicle with church families arrived to pull weeds and refresh the raised beds. The children had a picnic table full of snacks, and at one point gathered for a story-time break in a corner of the garden. In the battle of spirits, setting a good example and praying for others to follow is good ammunition. The battle can’t be won by force. Victory is a decision, a choice each individual must make.    

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this blog are those of the author (Brave Knight Writers) and not necessarily those of the Envision Cleveland Organization, any of their other volunteers, or staff.” 

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