Category: Jerry’s Reflections

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Behind The Scenes

“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous”. Einstein’s quip leaves me wondering whether the renowned Physicist had some family of returning missionaries in mind.

With us no longer living and serving overseas, Ann and I found the Twilight Zone our new address. We talked, we dreamed some rather feeble dreams, we pondered. . . And prayed.  “Guidance”, Loren Cunningham wisely noted, “is first of all a relationship with the Guide”.

A question surfaced in my thoughts over and over as I again strolled the lovely Tulsa campus, What if I requested and was given approval by the University to register as an international student volunteer organization? What then about a ministry ‘covering’?

Elim Fellowship of Lima, NY had through all our Africa years served as our sponsoring organization. Deep friendships and spiritual camaraderie had been forged between us and fellow Elim team members through our many ups and downs of Christian service.

I am not a brilliant man, but I’ve been given the sense to suspect it is almost always a bad idea to strike out in the Lord’s work as a lone ranger.

Enter an Einstein coincidence.

To my utter surprise word came that our mission agency (Elim) had just elected to create a new department. Its central focus being to extend Christian friendship and service to college students – but not just any college students. Elim Fellowship was right now poised to launch its first-ever international-student-ministry department. Christening the arm as All Nations USA. A seasoned servant-leader, David Spencer, would be tending the helm at the NY office.

The timely development of such an unlikely script indicated, it seemed, the handwriting of divine providence. Signed, Anonymous.

©2023 Jerry Lout

 

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Conundrum

During unsettling times, from the terrifying to the mild, a prevailing hope in many is to catch sight of some proverbial North Star.

For centuries and for throngs of people in numberless settings a wildly diverse company of pilgrims called Jesus followers, have centered and then re-centered their trust in this one person. The carpenter’s son. The Messiah. The Good Shepherd. . . (It seems interesting that a noteworthy feature of any credible shepherd is that he leads).

So, What now, Lord? The days going forward found me itching for resolution. With my mentor (Jim) now off the scene what am I to make of this teasing draw toward international student ministry. Am I to press forward along the intriguing but ill-defined road? Or, shall my wife and I – as advised by one pastor – suspend missions work altogether since we are not now overseas, “Take up pastoring”?

Day by day I kept being drawn to the student community. Apart from whether or not a ‘call from above’ was in the works, a couple factors loomed large.

Do I have what it takes? (Obviously, I was skating toward the ‘Lord, help my unbelief!’ zone)

Undertaking Christian service among a diverse company of university scholars from around the world (“the brightest and best” goes the phrase) would mean something far different than what I had known.

The other factor playing on my mind was the question, to whom or what would I hitch my faith wagon to? Until this point, New York’s Elim Fellowship had been serving as our overseeing body.

In the end, several answers to the puzzlements had already started making their way my direction. The surprising turn of events would mean the end of my two-fold conundrum:

  • With what group might God have in mind for us to work alongside?
  • Any chance my limited knowledge and experience could pass muster?

©2023 Jerry Lout

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Classical Crossroad

Jim’s leaving caught me off guard.

Once I got an introductory taste (it seemed that someone had dropped a savory appetizer on my plate) of the school’s environment with its diverse cultures, I returned for more of the same day after day.

Still, these were not familiar waters. I felt unsure of myself much of the time and was clearly nowhere ready to plunge into the deep end. Although his own history in campus ministry was just barely out ahead of my own, my good campus sidekick Jim T served as a buffer of sorts. He always took the lead. My place was to follow, which certainly worked for me.

Still, for anyone launching into a vocation for which serving people is central, it is important to give time to reflect on whether a particular shoe fits well. “How am I best suited to serve? Is my disposition and are my skillsets compatible for serving this particular kind of community?” To his credit Jim had paused and pondered.

He realized that his sweet spot would best be realized in places where high school classrooms and chalk dust mesh together with eager young minds in lively pursuit of understanding. Jim was a teacher at heart. When a position opened in a local Christian Classical high school, Jim captured an interview and soon a new job. Crossing a fresh threshold of his own.

© 2023 Jerry Lout

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Horizons

  • “Hi guys, Welcome!”

It’s a suspicion of mine that only a handful of people in the world can offer a smile that truly lights up a room.

It was this kind of smile we saw glowing from Cathy’s face that day.
Cathy Ambrose was a volunteer with TU’s Wesley Foundation, a campus ministry of the Methodist tradition. She stood at the open doorway when Jim and I made our way across the threshold.

“What brings you fellas our way?” Cathy offered.

The unpretentious warmth and the pleasant environment of the setting signaled the Genesis of one of the foremost adventures of my lifetime. I was unaware in the moment that through coming years much of my sense of belonging in a college environment would be nurtured and reinforced by an easy camaraderie found at this very spot.

My mentor-friend extended his hand offering an introduction, “Hi, I’m Jim and this is Jerry. We’re on campus looking to serve international students”.

The three of us chatted briefly. Cathy turned aside to acknowledge an approaching gentleman.

“Charlie, meet Jim and Jerry!”

“Guys, this is the Director of the Wesley, Charlie Spears.”

The friendly back-and-forth that followed was brief, but I felt it would be no surprise if our paths crossed sometime again. Perhaps soon.

Jim and I moved on across the college grounds, taking in as we went attractive architectural design dating back generations.

Lord, could there be a future for me here. . . on these grounds? For a season, anyway?

I sensed a response to my musings may be nearing, to be disclosed maybe sooner than later.

© 2023 Jerry Lout

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New Normal

Funny how conditioning works – not that of the hair treatment variety.

A person flies off to another land and settles into the things of life and work. Some years later, having grown conditioned to her adoptive culture, the person returns to her homeland only to find life disorienting.

Depending on how deeply entrenched he has settled into that ‘other life’, the reentry and reorienting process for the returnee may leave him reeling. I’m clearly a misfit, he reasons.

Such a person  may feel more at ease in the company of the clerk tending to the nearby Asian or Latin-run convenience store than with many of his acquaintances of an earlier time.

It happened with me at the intersection of Sixth and Birmingham. Where aromas of Indian Curry and Chinese dumplings hung in the air.

ISI’s area director Jim Tracy had reached out, inviting me to accompany him on his rounds – connecting socially in informal friendship with international students hailing from lands abroad. Malaysia, Venezuela, China, the Middle East. . .

I fussed with upside-down feelings day by day as I routinely shadowed Jim, venturing along from one apartment dwelling to the next. Where we happily sipped hot chai offered up by our gracious, momentary hosts. (But wait. Aren’t we. . . us ‘Yanks’. . . meant to be hosting them?)

I grew mildly surprised sensing how the needle of my social barometer tilted in uncommon directions. Feeling less at home within my own mainstream American culture than with the young college students coming from places far, far away. I had hardly begun to know these ‘outsiders’ yet an easy kinship felt more in reach.

For a while this tug-of-war left me unsettled, musing over my ‘space’ and my identity (aren’t I the same red-blooded American fellow who merely relocated for a while those years back?).

In time I made peace with befuddling but pardonable reality. I had changed.

Change had happened on the inside of me. Living in Africa for a couple decades among people groups of varied customs and languages had ruined me – in the best kind of way. Components of my worldview had shifted, broadened. My preferences on many fronts had tweaked. In short, I had taken up a strange and intriguing and somewhat messy cross-cultural identity.

This new normal, it’s going to need some time.

©2023 Jerry Lout

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Oxygen

Meeting with Steve and allowing him to engage me in conversation over struggles stemming from my past became the threshold across which further steps toward freedom could eventually pass. Professional counseling became a game-changer to my health. mental – spiritual – emotional. In time my shackles of fear and shame would begin loosening their grip.

Getting episodes of trauma and emotional dysfunction brought out into the light of day meant exposing more than one blind spot. Contrary to some prevailing assumptions, us Christian folks can collect and harbor blind spots along with the best of them. It is true of me.

Over time, the Lord helped me see just how skewed my understanding was of the religious term, ‘Christian Ministry’. Christ’s building of his church, for instance, pushes forward through the contributions of a marvelous and diverse array of loving servants – Counseling clinicians being counted among them.

My session with Steve that day, and others following, signaled the first of many welcoming inhalings of oxygen to this set of weary lungs.

Throughout my younger formative years, I had drawn assumptions about various vocations and professions. A number of these notions got shown over time to be things falling far short of reality.

My religious upbringing had (with no actual intention I’m sure) conditioned me in some instances to ways of thinking that weren’t often helpful. This developed, for example, attitudes that diminished or even discarded any notion that the social sciences could – or should – be considered useful. Particularly in relation to believers, i.e. the Church.

The infusion of a transformative life, I was discovering, can come to us packaged (as with the natural element we call oxygen) inside a curious hodgepodge of vessels. Stepping from the counseling session I drew in a deep breath. The gait in my walk seemed quickened.

©2023 Jerry Lout

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Sliver of Light

My sister, visiting the Okmulgee Cemetery prior to our father’s passing, had spied a lone leafy tree standing poised like a sentry keeping watch over her modest collection of ‘final resting places’ nearby.

“We want a spot near a shady tree”. Betty’s voice was resolute. Decades have passed at this writing. The same sentry remains faithful at her post, casting summertime shade over the added headstone marked, Clyde and Thelma Lout.

Oklahoma towns are known for their distinctive names. Ann and I selected a home in Broken Arrow, a community sitting a stone’s throw from Tulsa. Several colleges dotted the nearby urban landscape. We still had no specific ministry roadmap in place yet were drawn to locate at a spot in easy reach of international students.

Amy, our Africa-born, fish-out-of-water nine-year-old, assumed her stateside academic career in a virtually foreign environment – a region called the Sooner State.

We linked up with a church pastored by a brother of our missionary friend, Jon Stern. It was here, in a nondescript office adjacent to a hallway water fountain, I would take my first halting steps beyond emotional trauma traced back to early childhood. The layers of crippling secrecy would start getting peeled away.

My unhappy experience stretching back to pre-adolescent childhood days had featured a much older boy. The dark-of-night violation carried memories too distressing for a kid’s mind to process – much less to manage. Thus, the matter had been left undisclosed, its attending confusion and trauma kept under wraps. No one knew.

The secret would one day, through my own telling and to my immeasurable relief, come to light. Waves of hope would follow. But not just yet. It seems that God – his understanding and compassion, deep beyond measure – chooses to postpone bringing some things out of the shadows until a preferred time. The right time.

“Hi”. The gentleman’s smile was kind, disarming. He stood poised but relaxed at the entrance of the room whose doorway stood open, “I’m Steve”.

Until that day I had never drawn on the professional skills of a clinical Counsellor.  Steve Blahut was the right pick.

©2023 Jerry Lout

 

 

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Home

They come to most people who’ve lived life awhile. Periods we label roller-coaster seasons.With jet lag and the landscapes of Africa behind us Ann and I pondered how life might look going forward. Her mother’s passing from this world was surely nearing as leukemia would bring its final assault. My father’s homegoing, too, drew closer in by the day.
Meanwhile, the peal of wedding bells lay immediately ahead.

My wife, smiling broadly, yielded a sigh of happy relief. The wedding gown project for her firstborn had come together well. How beautiful Julie was as she took my arm at the head of the church’s center aisle.
“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” Darrell Stinnett – the groom’s father and officiating minister – smiled my direction. The two weeks since landing at Will Rogers International had raced by. In mere minutes I would enter a long-established fraternity – father of a bride.

Returning to Okmulgee, the land of my upbringing, I resumed my vigil at Dad’s bedside. His breathing grew more labored. One late morning I stepped outdoors and took in the surroundings of the old home place. My son’s voice came from the front porch, “Dad, can you come?”
Slipping in to pay a visit at his grandfather’s bedside, Scott was quick to witness the change. It was September 1, 1992, exactly a month short of his 80th birthday. Grandpa was gone.

Crossing life’s final divide – the temporal to the hereafter – Dad had run his course. And finished well.
“To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”.*
© 2023 Jerry Lout                                                       *2 Corinthians 5:8

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Sweet The Sound

I was not well prepared for it, seeing my father in this state.

Since my last in-person visit with him five months prior, the ugly villain Mesothelioma had altered the physical frame of this good man I called Dad.

The disease, spawned and fueled through years of exposure to asbestos would rob yet another household of yet another industrial craftsman before their time.

I was thankful for the good people of Hospice, seeing to it that Dad’s heart desire would be realized. Of spending his final days under the same roof at home with my mom, his wife of 57 years.

Herself weakened through added hardships of her own, my mother had grown unable to see to Dad’s needs on the off days between Hospice visits.

That large host of adult children whose role ultimately involves the care of an ailing parent comprises a sector of humanity occupying a precious, even sacred, space. Arranging now a mattress and bedding on the carpeted floor alongside Dad’s bed I was entering such a space. Difficult as some moments became, I afterward reflected on the special honor God had truly afforded me.

Music helped.

Taking up a spot on a simple stool at my father’s bedside I settled in with an acoustic guitar. The sessions of strumming and offering up melodies from yesteryear ignited a spark of life all their own. I sensed my dad’s heart being sweetly moved. Even as potent pain meds would escort him again and again to either edge of consciousness, musical pieces themselves introduced to the soul their own unique medicinal properties. Each of his favored set of lyrics – several he had been heard humming during my childhood – were, I prayed, bringing him an added measure of peace.  The Old Rugged Cross – Victory in Jesus – Amazing Grace.

The folks specializing in personality types would classify me as melancholic. Occasionally, sitting perched on the guitar stool, I caught my mind projecting forward. Should the passing of my own closing days be drawn out over a bit of time, someone might think to flavor up the environment, smuggle a little music into the room.

In the company of sacred sounds, dad lay quiet. Soon he would begin bridging the divide, with God. Heaven songs to receive him.

©2023 Jerry Lout

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Mixed Sensations

Choctaw, Oklahoma.

By the time our plane touched down at Will Rogers Airport, the four of us – typical of any who’s just traversed nine time zones – were ready for an environment change.

From our plane’s starting descent to Will Rogers, I had begun pondering afresh the hazy landscape stretched before us. The vast and wondrous place we had grown to call home – the continent of Africa – lay in our past, at least for now. Images called up through the rearview mirror can stir a special gathering of comforts to the soul. Especially when one is alternating between nostalgic scenes of the past and a fog of bewildering landscapes out ahead.

Shifting my mind to the immediate future a sense of happy anticipation began to rise. Similar stirrings of emotion found their way to Ann and Scott and Amy. Our reunion with Julie lay just ahead. How had she grown up so fast? In a mere two weeks from now she would take my arm to be escorted – my beautifully-gowned princess – down to the wedding altar and her waiting groom. Meanwhile, here in the present moment above OKC the bride’s ever practical mother tweaked her set of musings, Will the dress fit well?

Catching sight of Julie – her bright smile signaling the pleasure of spotting family – stirred our feet to pick up their pace. Two years before, having brought her to the States after high school, we had bid some teary farewells. Our journey back to Africa brought home a too-obvious fact. Our family’s usual ‘fifth passenger’ seat sat vacant, a fact offering nothing to elevate our mood.

A handsome young man donning western wear stood at Julie’s side as we approached.

Seeing her daughter’s fiancé for the first time Ann’s mind went momentarily to that particular garment in the works. A near-complete, carefully arranged wedding dress – making its way right now (hopefully) toward the baggage claim carousel.

The drive from Oklahoma City to Choctaw and to the ever-welcoming presence of my sister and brother-in-law was covered in minutes. Betty and Gene’s residence with its tree-festooned landscape had, since the early 70s, served in some measure as our home base during mission furloughs. Soon we were shuttling a parade of luggage pieces across the entryway into their home.

Further transitions lay ahead. Into just what? We hardly knew.

©2023 Jerry Lout