graduation – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

Rumors were buzzing of a tech revolution set to break across the planet. A history-shaping phenomenon spanning nations, sporting a lackluster brand – www.

While the World Wide Web was poised to take the universe by storm, sizable bands of missionaries scattered about remote regions of earth remained for the time being pretty much in the dark. No surprise. Through all of mission history new and curious cutting-edge advances – from transistor radios to laundry softener sheets (this one triggered puzzlement and wonder for Ann at our first furlough) – usually left the developing world sprinting to catch up.

Thus, a snail-mail missive bearing my signature made its leisurely way from Moshi Tanzania to the Colorado offices of International Students, Inc. In it I asked if there might be a place for me to offer some cross-cultural services during our temporary time in the U.S. (I smile now at the qualifying term ‘temporary’). Surprisingly, the response came swiftly.

“Mr. Lout, if you are able, please come by for a visit. . . (furthermore) We have a staff member serving on a university campus in Tulsa, OK. You should be hearing from James Tracy.”

Lord, is this you working?

D-Day for leaving Africa sped our way, a list of priorities getting checked off every few hours:

Ministry task handoffs
Miscellaneous paperwork
Eight-year-old Amy’s hard goodbyes to friends, and to Africa – the only home she knew

A border crossing northward to Kenya.
Also, Ann fashioning a full wedding garment. Our firstborn, Julie, would marry not long after our arrival stateside. She and her mother hoped the dress would fit nicely. It did.

Receiving sporadic updates on our parent’s health (Ann’s mother, my Father)

Graduation Day. An exciting time, watching Scott all capped and gowned make his way across the Rift Valley Academy stage. Mere hours before our plane’s lift-off from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta.

The coming season would usher in a flurry of emotions, all tethered to precious events and people. The receiving of a new son-in-law. The passing of a parent. The reorienting to life in a familiar yet strange land.

For Ann and me, the job of tackling and navigating our larger future would be met in due course. We drew comfort in the assurance of God’s presence and care over us and of our loved ones. He had gone ahead before us in times past and would somehow show his faithfulness yet again.

Taking our assigned seats in the big plane we buckled up, catching the excited buzz of our fellow passengers – home-bound tourists for the most part. I took in a few long breaths. My taut shoulders relaxed. Choctaw, Oklahoma, here we come.

A line in the dictionary offers up a succinct definition: “Either end of an airport runway, critical points of takeoffs and landings”. The word being defined –Threshold.

klip-Thump – klip-Thump – klip-Thump.

My shoes mocked me. I never thought a set of footwear could mock. Or embarrass. Or harass. But in the world of a self-conscious adolescent they could. And did – with an impish tinge of spite.

The worst places by far were school hallways.

The polio virus had sent me to the hospital after I started Fourth Grade. Released months later I resumed my schoolboy life.

I’ll never forget my first day back to school. How awkward it felt, keenly aware no one but me was bumbling down the hallway with a pair of accessories called crutches. When time came to retire the crutches I was overjoyed. I felt like skipping, and on the inside I did.

I was probably the most self-conscious kid in the history of Wilson Elementary – and afterwards of Preston Junior High. The crutches were long gone but not my limp. Nor the reason for my limp, and that aggravating klip-Thump mantra.

The culprit was the arch of my left foot – rather the absence of an arch.

My first polio bout left me with this keepsake – a left foot with a diving-board-flat arch, and non-functioning tendons. I had nothing to give the foot lift. So the left shoe didn’t know how to step – only to flop or Thump to the floor. My right foot, by contrast, was arched especially high, like a startled cat. So the contradicting sounds my shoes made when crossing any surface was striking. Efforts at treading softly were futile. To my anxious introvert-ears the klutzy sounds of my cadence still sounded – with embarrassing annoyance.

It strikes me as humorous sometimes now – my shoes and me. Our perpetual, private shouting match of those years.

KLIP-THUMP!, KLIP-THUMP! – “shouting” upward from the hallway floor at me. Me scowling downward with a silent retort, Just SHUT UP!

My high school graduation ended all the years of limping self-consciously through school corridors. It was then I started seeing it. I was surprised. And more than a little embarrassed.

I had wasted a lot of time looking down.

Today I try to remind myself (when my lazy left foot catches and sends me into a clumsy stumble or the like). Obsessing over my deficiencies serves a purpose. But not a noble one. It shifts my attention from the All Sufficient One to my pitiful, inadequate self-sufficiency. It leads me to choose anxiety over peace. A really bad tradeoff.

It seems our most paralyzing afflictions aren’t necessarily the physical ones. Indeed, a lot of my limping – my unbelief-limping – issues out of paying attention to concerns that are really of no concern at all.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. – Psalm 23

Tag: graduation

Choctaw Landing

‘Arch enemy.