June 2025 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

June 26, 2025June 25, 2025

Turbulent Times

Yogi Berra’s famed quote, “It’s déjà vu all over again”, popped into mind Easter weekend here at our new home of Ada, Oklahoma.

An F-1 tornado slammed the town Easter Eve just weeks after Ada’s first twister of the season assailed us with her mischief on March 4^th. While Ann and I knew our early March move to this fine college town would be somewhat eventful, neither of us guessed Mother Nature would make such a fuss. We’re left wondering how often we may find ourselves hunkering down afresh in the little “safe space” inside our modest abode.

Oklahoma residents, along with plenty of our bordering “tornado alley” neighbors, can call up stories – from entertaining, to instructive, to deeply sorrowful – from the vast numbers of twister touchdowns across our windswept plains. Once, on a nighttime drive on Interstate 40, I got captivated by a large continuous light show as a sprawling thunderstorm edged toward Bristow and its environs. All was pitch dark except for the spectacular flashes of lightning. Pulling to the shoulder, I drew out my iphone, set the camera to video and caught several seconds of the light show. And discovered upon reviewing the clip the next day that a quite-visible cloud-to-ground tornado had been captured on my device.

And, then there was the heart-stopping moment when Ann and I discovered that our son Scott – en route to his college campus after a weekend away – narrowly escaped a direct encounter with a 200 mph Category Four. He had intended to swing into Bruce’s Truck Stop, Catoosa to air up a low tire, but a minor carburetor issue delayed him a few minutes. By the time he was approaching Catoosa, traffic had backed up as emergency vehicles raced to the site. Tragically, seven lives were lost in the vicinity, six of these at Bruce’s Stop.

Citizens of the Sooner State are found every year keeping their human radar keenly sharpened (eyes to the skies, ears to the meteorologists). Particularly in the Springtime season stretching from early April to early June. This is a time to mindfully employ the counsel of an especially wise Rabi of long years past (and present),

“Watch and pray”*.

June 19, 2025June 19, 2025

Tropical Twister

As I guided my Suzuki dirt bike onto the path leading to our remote Africa home, something felt different. What was it?

The narrative unfolds in detail in the Amazon-published memoir, Giants in the Rough*.

A distressing spectacle now caught my eye. Just adjacent to my family’s home stood our African pastor’s house. . . its’ roof missing!

The past hours had found me miles away on a pastoral visit to another leader’s home.

While the land of Kenya was no stranger to the occasional disturbances of nature (mild earth tremors along its ancient Rift Valley, floodings from torrential downpours), the thought of an Oklahoma-style tornado blowing in seemed quite remote.

Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam. . God is our refuge and strength. Psalms 46:1-3 NIV

To my relief, I found my wife and our two little ones safe and unscathed in our still-in-tact dwelling.

I crossed the few meters over to Pastor Moseti’s place. Large remnants of twisted corrugated metal sheets and shredded lumber – the makings of his former rooftop – adorned the limbs of nearby Eucalyptus Trees. The pastor, who survived the horrific storm without a scratch, recounted, in measured disbelief, his up-close encounter.

As a deluge of rainfall and raucous winds assailed the mission station, William Moseti stood gazing out his front window.

“I was watching the roof of your own house over there”, he exclaimed. “It was lifting, then settling. . . lifting then settling, and I thought, surely that roof might get taken away!”

Suddenly, Moseti heard a great ripping and crashing above him. Able now in the aftermath of it all to relate his story from a place of safety, the pastor concluded with his trademark smile,

“And now I was quickly getting very wet.”

June 12, 2025June 11, 2025

Sign Of Spring

“You’re from the Sooner State, eh? Isn’t that called ‘Tornado Alley’?”

We Oklahomans have gotten used to being associated with such a dubious label. Not surprisingly so.

My wife and I got another up close and personal reminder a few weeks back.

We had moved from our longtime residence of beautiful Tulsa to the lovely south-central town of Ada (growing expansion of family through one’s adult children carries a magnetic tug). The move remains a little bitter-sweet, as T-town has for a lot of years served as a special spot on our map to call home. Yet, we’re still in Okie-land, still citizens of the notorious Alley.

In the wee hours of our fourth morning settling into our new address, Ann and I began getting acquainted with our apartment’s little hallway. Crouching there in our “safe space” as tornado warning sirens blared, we rode out the minutes with reasonable calm.

A bit later the storm moved on and life resumed as normal. Sort of.

As dawn emerged and the day stretched forward, we and our fellow Ada-ites reflected thankfully that – while the town suffered significant structural damages – the community was spared any dire personal harm.

And then a curious revelation.

A couple days after the twister’s westward-to-eastward dance across town, we spotted a stationary metallic object poised upright near a young tree behind the apartment. It was a common kind of object, we realized. And, in a different circumstance and place, would have generated no cause for puzzlement.

The stop sign, fully intact – complete with sturdy support post – stood upright, freshly transplanted, half-hidden amidst immature branches of our young backyard tree.

While signposts of this design are universally known as alert mechanisms calling for keen and immediate attention – on this occasion, mere feet from our back door – the surprise drop-in guest did indeed give us pause!

And now (who knows where?) there likely sits at some town intersection, another, but a bit forlorn, red-and-white octagonal marker. Troubled by the abrupt absence of a fellow loyal guardian in the noble service of public safety.

June 5, 2025June 4, 2025

An Island Revisited

Irish pirates had kidnapped Patrick as his family was enjoying a holiday at the sea. He was just days away from celebrating his sixteenth birthday.*

Appealing in prayer to heaven during his six years in captivity laboring as a slave, Patrick met the Lord and readily yielded up his life. A dream alerting him that he would be rescued was followed by another dream, notifying him that a ship awaited him. The ship would bring him back to his homeland. Patrick set out toward the port and soon found himself aboard the vessel.

Patrick’s time back in Britain eventually drew to a close as a result of yet another dream. This dream featured a voice with clear Irish accent calling out,

“We beg you, come back and walk once more among us.”

His appeal to church leaders about returning to Ireland as a bearer of Christ’s love was met with sharp resistance. Everyone feared the barbaric Druids who ruled much of the island would come after Patrick and kill him. Responding to his heart’s prevailing conviction he set out on his own, and the saga of an island nation’s spiritual transformation was born.

Patrick’s years of fruitfulness – proclaiming Christ in his adopted Ireland – were nevertheless marked with intense opposition time and again. At least one attempt was made at finishing him off with poison. He writes,

“As every day arrives, I expect either sudden death or deception, or being taken back as a slave or some such other misfortune. But I fear none of these, since I look to the promise of heaven and have flung myself into the hands of the all-powerful God, who rules as Lord everywhere.”

So, Saint Patrick’s account, penned in his own Confessions, brings to us the gift of – as Paul Harvey would have said – the rest of the story.