3/25/2012 Flight to Trinidad in the twin engine Piper Comanche
We pass a cumulus gorilla with a fine chiseled face for being made of vapor, and I think of angels sculpting clouds. What mighty figures will they form on that great day when the Son of Man comes? Will he sit on the palm of an open hand, or come in the vengeance of a clenched fist?
While we fly, I write. The first time in awhile. The changing scenery of a journey seems to wake me some, as if the loft of wings has given some elevation to my thought. I feel I finally have a moment to think beyond my quotidian list of “what’s next.” The toil is still present (so is the turbulence as we bounce through a cloud) but the view is better. The rainbows are longer and closer to full circle. I pray.
I’d like to journal like the prophet Samuel, write a registry of God’s great works. If I could be inspired, not by some foul muse, but by the very Spirit of God, what would I say to wake the righteous and still hush them to reverence the Almighty Holy One?
My wife and I ride with three men, missionaries. Their first visit to Bolivia was several years ago, but they’ve been missionaries for a lot longer than that. In front of me sits Corrections Officer Audie “Hawk” Hawkins, from St. Luis, Michigan. He is a senior sergeant at the Saint Luis Correctional Facility, a level four security men’s prison. Hours ago I watched him joke and grin while handing out goodbye gifts to our students. He still wears his navy blue windbreaker suit that he used to frustrate the ubiquitous insects, in spite of the heat which brought him to my house every day for a glass of ice-cold Gatorade.
“No, I don’t do that” he said when I asked him to give the sermon on Sabbath. “I don’t do that up front stuff. I get too nervous!” So I was surprised to see him walk to the platform to give the mission report Sabbath morning. That was the first time he showed us the badge.
“I’ve been working in the prison for over 20 years” he told us. “For the first 11 years, I wasn’t a Christian. I wasn’t a very nice man!” he smiles and shakes his head. “But then the Lord got a hold of me! I’m still not as nice as I should be, but I’m a work in progress! The Lord gave me victory over alcohol, tobacco and swearing and my life had a complete turn-around!”
Now Audie talks to the inmates less like a warden and more like one who knows the joy of soul freedom. He always carries GLOW or some other literature with him. “I’m not allowed to proselytize, but if somebody asks me my opinion, I can tell them what I believe. Since I’m one of the senior officers, sometimes I have to administer tests. When the inmates are out on yard, I’ll call one of the prisoners over. His eyes get real big ‘cause he thinks he’s in trouble, but I explain to him, ‘you’re not in trouble man, I’m just testing the new officer to see if he’ll realize that you are missing. So we go hang out in a side room, and I have about half an hour to sit and talk with the guy one on one. God is really good, so far every time it’s been someone who is open and wants to talk about spiritual things.”
“So what do you do on Sabbaths, wasn’t it hard to get them off with the job that you have?” I asked him.
“Well, for a few years after my conversion, I still worked on Sabbath. My pastor had told me that prison work is just one of those jobs like caring for the sick: it has to be done all week long, even on the Sabbath. But then we got a new pastor and he challenged me to study the topic and rethink my position, and as I read the Bible and prayed about it I was convicted that I needed to be faithful to God’s commandment. If that meant losing my job, God would take care of me. When I went to work I found out that one of the senior officers was being transferred to another prison, and I was the guy next in line to have his spot! My schedule was for five days on two days off, and since I had seniority I got first pick of which days I wanted.”
“That all happened in three days!” the other missionary says exultantly. “We were praying for him that Wednesday night, and he was in church on Sabbath!” Speaking is Audie’s friend and spiritual mentor, Grandpa Deon Swanepoel, a giant South African of Dutch decent with a heart as big as he is. Mr. Deon is one of our best teachers, though his classes run for only two or three weeks perhaps twice a year when he comes to visit and help us out. His background is no less unlikely than Mr. Audie’s. He tells spine-tingling stories of his years as a construction foreman in a country where private residences are fortified like prisons against a society of cutthroats and renegades who run the streets at will. Just the fight to survive in such a place can bring out the worst in a person. On leaving South Africa he said, “it was either that, or lose my salvation.”
This spring he and Audie came to finish the primary school classrooms. We canceled regular classes for a week and all the kids worked with Mr. Deon. He makes them work hard, but he loves them and they know it and they give him 100%. He barks out orders in a mixture of accented English and Spanish accompanied by plenty of gestures and the kids very quickly learn to understand.
He preaches about the importance of faithfulness in the little things and points to two small diagonal supports that keep the whole roof from folding.
“I tell you what, these kids really surprised me.” He tells me later. “Those three little freshmen boys, I don’t know their names, but I challenged them with digging that trench and wow! Did they ever work!” As a reward for his faithfulness, Mr Deon moved Juan Jose, one of the three boys, to cement mixing. When the mixer broke down, instead of sitting around waiting for it to be fixed, Juan Jose went and asked Grandpa if he could go back and keep digging the ditch well he waited!
“Wow, that is the first time I have seen that from one of the new kids!” Mr Deon is impressed. “That really says a lot. And that other first-year girl, the real quiet one. She doesn’t say anything, but she just keeps going and doesn’t get distracted for anything.”
When I thank Mr. Deon for coming to get the classrooms finished, he can’t stop bragging on the kids. “These kids are the ones who did it!” Mr. Deon tells me triumphantly. They are the ones that keep him coming back year after year. Most of the senior class gathered around and lingered long when it was time for Mr. Deon to go.
At pilot is Herman Gonzales. He gave up a lucrative job as flight instructor at Andrews University to come fly in Bolivia as a volunteer. He’s been here two years without a paycheck. Does he regret it? No way, he says. This has been the best experience he could have imagined, and his faith has grown like never before.
So how is that I met these men here, a hemisphere away from home? I ask myself. What keeps them coming back year after year? I know what it is. They believe in education. Not the boxed-in, curriculumized, letter-graded foofaraw that ends with a fancy paper in the hands and a few more letters appended to the last name. Oh no. But a whole life-work. Raw character building: a helping hand, unselfish service, eternal-life preparation, complete transformation. In a word, redemption. The realest, truest, education there is. They believe in it because they believe in the Good Master Teacher. They believe in it because they have lived it and are living it still.
