Have You Asked?

Wildflowers highlight the camping trips we take every spring. We enjoy them all, but Pat and I have one favorite – the Calypso orchid. This exquisite blossom is found only in older forests. It is VERY difficult to see on the forest floor because of its small size, muted color, and limited season. Finding one is truly serendipitous … an unexpected blessing.

One spring found us camped at Loup Loup Pass. I was standing in a patch of yellow violets and white shooting stars when I got the impression that I should look more closely at the ground in front of me. There was a tiny Calypso orchid right by my foot! I scanned the area for others, but there were none. I made note of nearby landmarks so I could locate this tiny blossom again, then I went to get Pat to show him “my” Calypso.

Since that first sighting we have visited “our” Calypso nearly every spring at Loup Loup. And every spring it has greeted us … until last year. A new water line had been laid through the area. Familiar landmarks had been removed. There wasn’t any way for me to locate the orchid again – if it still existed.

I was surprised to discover that the loss of that single tiny flower had an emotional impact. We have discovered others over the years, but this was my first Calypso – a special blessing at a special place.

Pat and I returned to Loup Loup again this year, and I revisited the place where the Calypso had been. Brush covered the old site, so I crossed a tiny stream to a nearby patch of yellow violets and white shooting stars. I began searching through the flowers for a tiny orchid. As I scanned the forest floor, I told the Lord how much I missed the Calypso, and that I knew that He was the one who had brought it to my attention in the first place. Then I paused and thought for a moment. Why not ask again? So out loud, I said, “Lord, could I please have another Calypso to replace the one that is gone? It was such a blessing to me … and I really miss it.”

It was an overcast day, but a sunbeam broke through the clouds as soon as I had finished speaking. It illuminated a spot on the forest floor about four feet away from where I was standing. I looked at the spot … and there was a Calypso!

God used this experience to teach me two lessons. The first is that He delights in blessing His children with gifts that speak uniquely to them … but He wants us to ask Him and then to acknowledge that He is the source of the blessing. So much of what God does for us we call coincidence, and this brings no honor to His Name!

The second is that we tend to focus on what was – to mourn what was lost – and to forget that God has a different perspective. His plans are perfect. Loss and change are parts of this life … but they can also be new beginnings.

Finding the first Calypso was “serendipitous.” I asked for the second one. And the Lord of the universe blessed me with far more than a tiny orchid—He blessed me with His presence!

He wants to do the same for you … have you asked?

Pastor Kit

Different Journeys, Same Grace

Pat’s and my parents grew up just forty miles from each other in rural West Virginia. It was in the 1920’s and 1930’s, a time that had its own challenges; a time (and a place) that was more isolated than today. Because of this, our parents had much in common during their “growing up years.”

But Pat and I had very different childhoods. I was born in Spencer WV and lived there through high school. Pat was born in Japan. He lived in France during his elementary school years and in South Korea during his high school years. Then his father retired from the army and moved back to West Virginia.

Our children, in turn, have had different upbringings from their cousins on both sides of our families. But we have been able to take them back “home” to show them where their grandparents and mother grew up. We have been able to introduce them to the Appalachian culture and to their great aunts and uncles. Although “home” is across the continent, it is still accessible.

But our children aren’t going to have it that easy, especially our oldest son, Brandon. Brandon married an ethnic Chinese girl, Hiu Sze. Her mother swam from mainland China to Hong Kong before Hiu Sze was born. And Hiu Sze was raised in Hong Kong by her paternal grandmother until her late teens when she immigrated to the United States to rejoin her mother. One of Hiu Sze’s uncles is an ethnic Cambodian whose first family was killed by the Khmer Rouge. Each one of Hiu Sze’s aunts and uncles has a story of how they escaped from communist China and began life anew in a foreign land. Brandon says that he feels honored to be a part of Hiu Sze’s family because they have overcome hardships that are so different from the experiences of middle-class Christian Americans.

The words of an old hymn have taken on new meaning for our family: “In Christ there is no East or West, in Him no South or North…” Any time two individuals with such different backgrounds turn out to be so well suited for each other, you know that it is a result of God working out His purposes in both of their lives long before they met. It is an encounter with Divine Grace.

Having a Chinese daughter-in-law reminds me to be less complacent... to no longer take freedom for granted... to remember the persecuted church... to pray for Christians everywhere. And to remember that it is grace “that hath bro't (us) safe thus far, and grace will lead (us) home”... whether we are from West Virginia, Washington, or China.

Pastor Kit

What If Today...

When Pat and I go camping we often take the opportunity to explore local back country. On one trip we decided to drive the Chewuch River road to its terminus at Thirtymile Creek. I wanted to check out the campgrounds and Pat wanted to visit the site of the 2001 Thirtymile Creek fire which had claimed the lives of four young firefighters.

The road starts out as a scenic byway up a pleasant river valley. It passes expensive homes and well tended ranches. Then the road narrows and open fields give way to forest. The scent of Ponderosa pine fills the air. As you near the site of the fire the road narrows even more and the pavement ends. The forest becomes wild, thick, and tangled. The Chewuch River becomes shallow—not much more than a small creek—and certainly not a likely place to take refuge from a wildfire.

There was a shocking transition as we entered the fire zone. The river was choked with downed, burned trees. Everything was black. This fire had not skipped around as so many others do. All vegetation as far as we could see was dead, black, burnt. And then we saw it—a new patch of pavement on the west side of the rough washboard road.

We parked the truck and followed the path up to the memorial, built to blend in with the rock scree. The first thing that caught my eye was their pictures—two young men and two young women, all about the age of my own children. I had seen their likenesses in papers. I had watched reports on TV. But suddenly seeing them memorialized at this remote site—the very site where they had died—affected me far more than I had ever anticipated.

When I saw the faces—especially the ones of the young women—my thought was, “These were someone’s children. … They could have been my children!”

I will never forget one day when my oldest child was about five days old. Suddenly I was gripped with the thought, “What if he should die? How would I ever survive?” The Lord replied, “He is My child. He is only yours for a season. You must always be willing to give him back to Me.”

From that moment on I have had to remember to continually give my children back to the Lord, especially now that they are adults. My job is to pray for them, to love them, to model my understanding of what it means to live like a Christian. But it is not my job to control them—even when it comes to matters of faith.

We don’t want our children to fail. We don't want them to be hurt. And we certainly don't want them to make us look bad. But our children can’t inherit our relationship with God. They must choose to seek Him on their own, to develop their own relationship with Him. And, in turn, we must rely on our heavenly Father to teach us how to love and support them without meddling; how to give His children back to Him.

Pastor Kit

Thirtymile photo credit: USDA-Forest Service. (link)

Into The Night

Spring Canyon National Park is well named. It sits on the south shore of Lake Roosevelt just to the east of Grand Coulee Dam, an oasis in the high desert. Pat and I love to camp there in the late summer for the daytime warmth, the nighttime insect chorus, the view of the lake, and the locally grown produce. Deer and quail regularly visit the lush campground, which is largely deserted after Labor Day.

We usually take some or all of our pets with us on our “camping” trips. Their antics liven up the days and often provide grist for stories. Squeak, our wannabe barn cat, accompanied the two dogs and us on this late summer outing.

Squeak is an opportunist who has a history of waiting for suitable moments to escape the confines of our RV. On one cross-country trip she escaped three times—twice in Minnesota and once in Montana. Each time she returned of her own free will and we began to be less concerned that she would actually run away. Now that she is an older cat, she is usually content to look out the windows and observe the passing show.

The nights were warm, the dogs were outside most of the time, and Squeak—possibly feeling left out—seized the opportunity to rush the door as I stepped outside at dusk one evening. True to form, she didn’t run off... she simply stayed maddeningly out of reach. She would bound up to me out of the gathering darkness, rub up against my leg, and then disappear again before I could grab her. It was as though she needed to flaunt her “freedom,” but still needed the reassurance that I was there waiting for her.

This game went on for about an hour, and then she simply disappeared into the night. Squeak’s disappearance wasn’t our real concern—it was her lack of awareness of the danger that had us alarmed. Rattlesnakes and coyotes lurked in the darkness just beyond the borders of our campsite. Owls perched in the trees. These predators threatened her safe return.

Many of us aren’t so different from Squeak. Disappointments, boredom, responsibilities, stress, getting older—a host of things cause us to want to seek our “freedom” from whatever we perceive to be confining us. We tell ourselves—and God—that we know what we are doing. We don’t see the danger waiting to ambush us as we stray farther away from where we know we should be. We may even occasionally return to make certain that people will still welcome us and that God “still cares.” But we stay just out of reach of making a commitment that might limit our personal freedom… because we really care only about ourselves.

Squeak did eventually return. It isn’t too late for you to do the same.

Pastor Kit