January 2008

I hope that the following story doesn’t give the impression that I’m a nervous traveler. Sure, in the past, I’ve been known to freeze at border crossings. And once in the past I blurted out, “just some hats” as a nervous reaction because I didn’t know what else to say when asked if I was bringing anything into the United States.

But that was a long time ago. I’ve since mellowed and learned a few tricks to help me relax when people with guns and huge heaps of power are asking me questions about my travels.

There are times still when I hear of people doing things in their travels that make me shudder. Recently that person has consistently been my wife. For example, when entering New Zealand we saw signs everywhere warning of the penalties for bringing food into the country. Signs warned of fines and jail time, and I think even death (I could be wrong on that last one) for the fool who would bring food into the country without declaring it.

Sheena said we didn’t need to declare the snacks we were carrying, and checked the customs form in accordance. This made me nervous. I was ready to declare everything that could possibly be food related. I even threw a few crumbs of something out because I didn’t want the dogs saying I was carrying something. I was anxiously sweating profusely. I don’t know how a guy who looked as guilty as I did got in.

Last night Sheena was packing for a trip to Calgary to visit friends. She was packing some medical supplies to give to my sister who will be leaving shortly to spend some time volunteering at a hospital in Pakistan. The medical supplies are all things that hospitals here throw away. Things like scissors that were only used to cut a piece of tape, and blood free tourniquets. She wanted to keep them all securely in a bag and thought that a discarded bio hazard waste bag would do the trick.

I don’t know about the baggage screeners in Comox, but if I saw luggage containing medical equipment with a bio hazard waste warning on it, I’d be shutting the place down. There would be guys in special orange suits coming in to take readings and safely remove questionable luggage and all other luggage that came into contact with it.

There’s no way I’d be trying to get that on a plane.

At least it wasn’t a sharps container.

Am I a Hero of a Villain?

The other day I was listening to a message Donald Miller gave at mars Hill church in Grand Rapids Michigan and he said something that keeps rattling around my brain:

“Do you know what the fine line between the hero and a villain is? A hero can have a drinking problem, a hero can have depression, a hero can have low self esteem, but do you know what a hero can’t do? A hero can’t think of themselves as better than other people. The second the hero thinks of them self as better than other people they become a villain.”

Just something to think about and chew on. I know I am.

If you want to hear the rest of his talk you can look it up with the rest of the Mars Hill podcasts on iTunes.

Just before going to sleep last night Sheena uttered familiar words: “Don’t let the leeches haunt you in your sleep.” That wasn’t the first time she said those words and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Her words stem back to an incident in Malaysia two months ago. It was an incident that haunted me for weeks.

While in Kuala Lumpur we read about a forestry research center near the city that allowed you to learn more about he plants native to Malaysia and also hike through the trees on a walkway in the sky with great views of the area. It sounded awesome. The awesomeness of the place was confirmed when we saw wild monkeys as we entered the grounds.

We eventually found the office to get a map of the park. Disappointingly, we were told that the walkway in the sky was closed for maintenance, but we were given maps of the other trails in the area and brochures outlining the trees and plants we’d see including the worlds largest bamboo. How can you not be excited about the worlds largest bamboo. We were lastly cautioned that there “could” be “a few” (her words not the ones I would have used) leeches on the trails.

This made me nervous but I wanted to see some crazy Malaysian trees so we ventured cautiously onto the trails. Sheena was far less nervous about it than I was. She gawked and took pictures and paused to read signs. I marched through with my had pointed down searching for leeches. Occasionally I looked up when Sheena seemed overly excited about something and I was certain no leeches were in the vicinity.

After a couple hours of leech free hiking I let my guard down and we proceeded along one last path on the map. Perhaps we went down one path too many. On the map the trail seemed a short cut to a sight of interest. Shortcuts were important that day because of the high level of heat and humidity: the less walking the better sometimes. Half way down the trail I noticed some black “worms” on my shoes. I turned to Sheena, “Hey Sheena, check out these…” “Worms!” She screamed.

Suddenly our walk in the woods became a sprint.

We stopped only occasionally on logs and non leech covered surfaces to brush them off our shoes. At one point on the trail I looked down and saw a few dozen leeches staring up at me with crazed looks in their eyes. It was like in a cartoon where one character is so hungry they fantasize about their friend or companion being a large pork chop.

We eventually made it out of there and onto a paved, leech free, road. We were exhausted, physically from the running in the heat and mentally from the stress. However, we couldn’t rest just yet. We were still covered in leeches. These were aggressive suckers too, trying to wiggle through the mesh in our shoes and socks. Sheena even lifted her pant legs and found one latched firmly to her knee. So glad I didn’t wear flip flops that day.

For weeks I had dreams where I was running from and being attacked by leeches.

I’m beginning to wonder if there are times when I’m like a leech: latched to a life source sucking the blood out of it and growing fatter. I suppose that is true if the life source is a cookie jar. I must admit that the cornucopia of christmas baking before my eyes has led to some weight gain this Christmas season. However, what if I was latched onto the Bible the way that leech was latched to Sheena’s leg?

What if I was aggressively pursuing the word of God the way those leeches were aggressively wiggling their way through my shoes?

Those leeches instinctively head towards blood to grow fat and live on. Do I instinctively move towards the Bible to grow and live on?

Perhaps not as aggressively as I should. And even worse, I let go too easily of it. It was not easy getting those leeches to let go of their prize.

Perhaps, I need to hold as firmly to the Bible and work just as hard at getting more of it in me.

Perhaps I need to be more like a leech.