London – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

November 17, 2015August 28, 2017

Angel Walk

I walked my youngest daughter down the aisle last Saturday.

Her waiting groom beamed, taking in her beautiful smile. I looked to her eyes again. Gorgeous. Memories stirred, some from distant places. . .

Branch out, guys. She can’t be far. . . but Heathrow’s a big place!

The airport lies 23 kilometers west of London. Heathrow buzzes each day with 200,000 arriving and departing travelers. A sea of strangers were likely sweeping our four-year-old Amy along and we had no idea where.

Amy had been standing beside me at an airport kiosk during our family’s wait for a connecting flight. I bought something in U.S. currency. My change came in British sterling. In the seconds it took to interpret the coins my little girl was gone.

Catching my urgent tone Amy’s older siblings, Julie and Scott, hurried into the stream of humanity – its patchwork of luggage trailing, emitting a low rumble throughout the terminal. My wife had fractured a toe shortly before our Kenya departure. From her wheelchair Ann did what she could do. She prayed. Five minutes into our search, the public address mic crackled. The voice was male – distinctly English.

All passengers, may I have your attention, please. A young girl by the name Amy Bethlout is looking for her parents.

I didn’t worry at his blending her middle and last names. Relief washed through me. The voice continued, Please make your way to airport security. . .

I learned that Amy – attracted by the buzz of airport activity – had stepped into the sea of travellers and wandered off. In time, discovering her isolation in the crowd, she tugged at an elderly man’s coat. He stopped and looked down.

Do you know my daddy?

When we left the area – Amy’s hand securely in mine – we moved again toward the kiosk. A father-daughter visit lay ahead. I knew my assignment and hoped for understanding.

Hey sweetheart, let’s get a donut.

Settling into a dining booth I surveyed her pre-kindergarten face. Amy lifted her milk glass. Two gulps chased a bite of pastry down and her eyebrows lifted approvingly. A slight donut remnant shared a spot on her upper lip with a newly-fashioned milk mustache. Charming innocence, I thought. I was moved freshly by the care a father can feel for his children. My smile faded. How vulnerable children are. I stifled a shudder and began.

Amy sweetheart, Daddy needs you to understand something about airports. . . really about any places where there are people – you know, strangers – around. I held her gaze a few seconds before the not-yet-finished donut, resting at her eye-level, won out. I waited till the pastry was further reduced. My pet name for her was Angel. She again looked my way. Being a parent means limping toward wisdom and often finding it illusive. Fifteen years parenting children left me still feeling a novice at times. I felt that way now.

Amy Bethlout sat patiently as I painted one scenario, then another – making my best effort to instill caution and not paranoia. Inhaling slowly, I barely introduced my final case on the importance of sticking close to daddy and mommy. Amy issued a soft sigh. Daddy.

In a poised, self-assured tone she continued. Daddy, I already heard you the first time.

Instinctively I knew my drill was over – while thinking, Oh baby, I hope you have. I sure do.

Now here we stood. Before the minister under a sunny and crisp November sky. David, her handsome groom nearby. Amy’s mom moved to my side.

Thank you Father for bringing her safely, wonderfully to this place. Thank you.

“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” The minister’s voice was clear, strong.

“Her mother and I do”, I announced – hoping my manner was poised – my tone self-assured.

April 11, 2017August 28, 2017

Airport Angst

I was sorting British currency at one of earth’s busiest airports when my two-year-old girl vanished.

Amy had stood quietly at my side seconds ago as I made a kiosk purchase. In a quick, awkward 360 degree swirl I scanned what I could of this piece of Heathrow’s bustling throng. Amy! My little girl was no where in sight.

We had flown here from Nairobi, Kenya. Our family’s connecting flight to the U.S. would receive passengers in a couple hours. I sprinted the short distance to my wife, Ann, and the two older children. Because of a fractured toe from the day before, Ann could only stay seated, her leg out before her with the bandaged foot resting atop a lower piece of luggage.

“Julie! Scott!” They jumped to action when told their little sister had disappeared – striking off in directions indicated by my commando-like hand signals. I took in the many and varied images of travelers, their luggage pieces trailing behind like obedient pets. Nationalities and languages from all parts. My eyebrows furrowed. Some 75 million travelers pass through London’s Heathrow yearly. Lord. Where? Where can she be? Help us, Lord.

My movements were a vigorous, graceless waltz, craning this way and that, continuously turning, specially scoping for signs of ‘little people’.

Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours.

In something over five minutes the airport’s public address system gave a pop, then hummed to life. The voice was male.

It was even. Strong. Indisputably English. Voices have a way of projecting personality. The person back of this voice was clearly gentle and good-humored.

“Heathrow travelers, I would like your attention, please.” The din of luggage casters clacking and shoes clicking and people clamoring only barely faded as the announcer went on. “Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have a young lady, an Amy-BethLout (he blended the middle and last names to sound as one, sparing himself the awkwardness perhaps of associating the unflattering term ‘lout’ with any of his esteemed airport guests.) Regardless, the gentle, good-humored security fellow had got my attention. “Thank you, Lord”, I breathed.

It seems Amy had become sort of spellbound, taking in the grand throng of men and women and children. And their pigmentation. Since her East Africa birth only a tiny fraction of people she had seen had a skin color common to her own. Absentmindedly, after a mere few steps, she had drifted into the river of humanity.

Now I was holding her in a close hug.

”So Amy, tell us, how did you get to the nice man with the microphone?”

“Well,” she swayed back and forth slightly, “after awhile I looked around and I couldn’t see you anymore.” An old man with probably his wife was near to me. So I reached up and pulled down on his jacket. He looked at me and I said, “Do you know my daddy?” And so they got me back to you.

Her smile was unlabored, spontaneous, wonderfully naïve. “I’m glad we found each other daddy.”

I smiled back, only now aware my heart rate had begun normalizing again.

“I am too, Amy.” I hugged her again. “Really glad.”

August 1, 2017August 28, 2017

Pluck

My plucky wife slipped the medical release document between unmarked leaves of her passport. Stamped Canandaigua, N.Y.,, her doctor’s letter had okayed this, her first-ever overseas flight. We would board for Africa May 26 – our first child (we didn’t know the gender) to be born in under two months.

***
“Where have you been?” The director’s voice carried an edge, the tone anything but casual.

A day earlier Ann and I had travelled the 5 ½ hours from upstate New York to Brooklyn. We would lodge at an inner-city Mission before passing through one of JFK Airport’s many international gates to then ascend into friendly blue skies.

The Mission sat in a more sullied neighborhood where pedestrian traffic sadly displayed prominent signs of addiction and vice. We probably should have known better than take our stroll around the block.

“We took a stroll around the block. . . maybe a couple blocks.”

“Please,” the Mission director’s eyes were pleading. “Never do that in these neighborhoods – day or night – not without at least one of our staff along.”

We nodded meek compliance.

Next day a gregarious volunteer-driver with a heavy gas-pedal-foot chimed, “Hey guys, on our way to the airport, let’s go via Coney Island.” I loaded luggage into the old van and helped Ann settle on to a bench seat partway back.

Street conditions citywide have trended downward somewhat since 2012, according to the Mayor’s Management Report.

So reads data filed by New York City’s Independent Budget Office. But based on a 1972 Coney Island van ride with an expectant missionary wife on board, the recent trending downward had not been the first. Of things hoped for in the nation’s biggest city, traversing Coney Island pot holes at head-clunking speed was not counted among them.

Nine years after Idlewild was renamed John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport we shuffled our way into the cavernous belly of America’s most-renowned passenger aircraft of the times. A behemoth of an aircraft, the Boeing 747, commonly tagged Jumbo Jet.

Our seat-belts fastened, we took each other’s hand and I voiced a prayer. The moment felt surreal. Here we were, really off to the great Africa continent. To serve – hopefully for years to come.

The leg to England was relaxed, given our adrenaline-charged hours leading to it. We would need relaxing, considering what lay ahead.