"Jesus came to liberate us so that we could die up front and then live. Jesus Christ wants to take us to places that only dead me and women can go."
Erwin McManus in The Barbarian Way

This quote reminded me of another quote. A prisoner condemned to die was asked what he wanted for his final meal, and he replied, "Mushrooms." When asked why, he said, "I've always been afraid to eat 'em."

ghost chair
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

My parents have built a nice house out in the country near Bush, Louisiana. The house is on a pond with excellent bass fishing, and they've noticed that I make it down to see them more often lately. This photo was taken on the neighbors' pier. In the springitme whenever they get a good rain the pier gets submerged.

Working with Katherine Paterson

Some months back I got in just before midnight from a meeting in Huntsville.  I glanced at my emails before going to bed and saw one from some lady who said she was writing a book about a family of Kosovar refugees and wanted to know if I would advise her.  Without even reading the email thoroughly I quickly dashed off a reply saying that I would be happy to help.  After replying I glanced back at the email and noticed that its author had included this url in case I wanted to check her out, so I clicked on the link.  

Imagine my surprise to find that I was corresponding with the author of Bridge to Terabitha!  If my mother, my wife, or any of my sisters had been the recipient of the email, any of them would have recognized the name of Katherine Paterson instantly, but I wasn't very well-versed on children's literature.  She is one of the leading children's authors in the nation and a two-time winner of both the Newberry Medal and the National Book Award.  In addition to Bridge to Terabithia she is the author of Jacob Have I Loved, The Great Gilly Hopkins, The Master Puppeteer, and many others. Interestingly, I learned that Katherine was born in China to missionary parents.  As an adult she served four years as a missionary to Japan before marrying a Presbyterian minister and embarking on her career as an author.

It turned out that Katherine's church had sponsored a family of Kosovar refugees, and she had written a series of fictionalized articles based on that family's story.  Her publisher had suggested that she turn the articles into a book.  However, she felt that she didn't have enough knowledge of Kosova to attempt to write a book about a Kosovar family.  She had located me through my flickr site and decided to contact me to see if I would be willing to serve as a kind of consultant.  

As someone who has devoted his life to being a friend to the Albanians, I would have been willing to help anyone who wanted to write a book portraying them in a positive light. But it has been especially thrilling to work with Katherine.  All of our contact has been by email.  She has been sending me drafts of the chapters of the book, and I have been making suggestions and corrections based on my experience in the Balkans.  Also, I sent her several long letters with various bits of information about Kosovar Albanian customs, language, dress, etc.  This part of the process is now complete.  Just today I received the complete manuscript for a final review-- this time a hard copy by post.  

I haven't really begun to dig into it yet, and of course I'm not going to give anything away -- with one small exception.  The dedication page reads as follows:  "This book is for Muhamet, Saveta, Elez, Yllka, Almedina, and Aridon Haxhiu whose family planted the seed and Mark Orfila without whose help it would not have come to fruition."  Can you believe it?

As it now stands, the book is called Country of the Heart.  I don't know when it will be published, but I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I find out.

Addendum:  The book should be available for sale in September 09.  I know, that's a long time.

War

The following quotes were gathered in Blood Against Blood, a book written by prominent Pentecostal leader Arthur Booth-Clibborn and published in 1916:

"War is hell."
General Sherman

"I cannot fight, for the spirit of war is slain within me."
George Fox, when offered a captaincy

"God is forgotten in war; every principle of Christianity is trampled upon."
Sydney Smith

"Our religion teaches us that it is better to be killed than to kill."
Tertullian

"Shall Christians assist the Prince of Hell, who was a murderer from the beginning, by telling the world of the benefit or need of war?"
John Wesley

To Booth-Clibborn's quotes, I would like to add one more.  This one comes from Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead:

Already, I recognized the incompatibility of religion and the military. The opposite of this assertion seems true when one considers the high number of fiercely religious military people, but they are missing something. They're forgetting the mission of the military: to extinguish the lives and the livelihood of other humans. What do they think all of those bombs are for?

Like having a baby

"Deciding to start blogging is like deciding to have a baby. Once you've got it you've got to feed the thing."

A good friend of mine explaining why he doesn't blog.

The psychology of fishing

A couple of posts ago I wrote about what I see as the connection between photography and fishing. My sister commented with a question: Doesn't fishing require more patience?

In fact, the way I practice both pursuits might look like patience to someone who didn't know any better. If you watched me stalking a butterfly or a snake trying to get the perfect pose you could be forgiven for thinking me patient. But the dark truth is that I am no more patient than the gambling addict who sits in front of a slot machine all night hoping for a payout.

Back when my wife was in college she learned in her psych coure that the behavioral reinforcement of fishing is very similar to that of gambling and that fishermen often make compulsive gamblers. I've never tried gambling, but I don't doubt that this is true.

Let me explain it like this. It's very difficult for me to quit fishing once I start. If I'm catching 'em, I can't stop till I've caught just one more. If I'm not catching 'em I can't stop till I catch something. It's not patience, it's compulsion. Fortunately the addictions of trying to capture a fish or a photograph are relatively harmless (except to the fish of course). And I make sure not to go anywhere near the casino or the racetrack.

I picked up Rags near Meridian, Mississippi not far from the spot where I picked up that guy who singlehandedly brought down the Soviet Union. Rags was as polite and pleasant a traveling companion as that other guy was pugnacious and paranoid.

He told me his real name, but I'm going to stick with "Rags" here -- the name by which he was known during his long career with the carnival and the name he continues to use in his new business detailing big trucks. He is a diminutive man, wiry and weather-beaten with piercing blue eyes. He was carrying a pup tent, a sleeping bag, and a backpack.

Rags told me that he got his start in the carnival when he was 12 years old. Here's his version of the story: "I had this pet goose that I kept at home. I used to cluck my tongue a certain way, and that thing would follow me wherever I went. So one day the carnival came to my town, and my parents took me to the show. There was this game with a live goose, and you had to try to throw a wooden ring around the goose's neck. They had a big stuffed bear, and I decided I wanted to win that bear for my mama. When it came my turn, I clucked at that goose just like I did with my pet goose back home, and it just walked right up to me. So I just layed the ring around its neck easy as you please. The guy who ran the game said, 'I don't know how you did that! Nobody's ever done that before.' And he asked me if I would like to help him out with the game.

Rags fell in love with carnival life. For the next four years anytime the carnival came anywhere near his town, his parents would take him there on weekends, and he would help out with the games. When he was 16 he quit school and went on the road full time with the carnival. He continued full time on this career track till last year. He is now 56 years old, so that makes 39 years that he lived on the road as a carny.

When asked what the skills are that make a good carnival game operator he laughed a kind of embarrassed laugh and said, "Being a good thief!"

"Are you serious?" I asked. "Is it really all rigged?"

"Not so much anymore," he said. "Nowadays they've got special policemen that dress up like ordinary folks and come play the games. There's a book out there that tells you how to win at carnival games every time. These policemen have read that book, and they know how to play. So if they lose you're in trouble. But in the old days, you didn't win unless I decided you would."

I pressed him to tell me some the tricks. He described a target shooting game in which the targets were marked with red. He said that he kept a tube of lipstick hidden under a counter. Whenever he took down a target to show the shooter his results Rags would touch his finger to the lipstick then to to the target. He told about another game which involved releasing a mouse onto an enclosed area with holes and betting on which hole he would dart down. Once the bet was made Rags would secretly dip his finger into ammonia then touch one of the holes. The mouse inevitably chose the hole with the scent of ammonia. He said that at first he didn't mind but that over time he became ashamed of ripping people off, especially children.

According to Rags, drug and alcohol abuse is less prevalent among carnival workers than in the past due to the widespread practice of random drug testing. Carnival work can be dangerous, and a drunk or high employee, especially one working with the rides, can endanger more than himself. Rags admitted to having been a heavy drinker in the past, but he says he quit some years ago due to health problems.

Speaking of danger, he said that he has seen quite a few people get hurt through the years. The most gruesome was a case in which the operator of a Kamikaze darted under the ride to pick up change that was falling from the pockets of riders. For a handful of change the man's head was knocked from his shoulders. Rags says the he witnessed this first hand. (I did a little hunting on the internet and couldn't find a report of anything like this, so I don't know.)

The carnival season generally starts in April and lasts till Thanksgiving. A lot of carnivals try to head to Flordia for the winter to keep on working, but intense competition makes it hard to turn a profit. Rags eventually took to detailing trucks to make ends meet through the winter, and he came to realize that he could make more money by making the chrome on trucks shine than he could under the bright lights of the carnival.

But this career change hasn't meant settling down. Rags still lives on the road. He travels from truck stop to truck stop to carry out his craft. Sometimes he sets up outside the truck stop with a handheld cb radio and make his sales pitch to drivers as they approach. Other times he walks among the refueling trucks holding high a bottle of polish. He says that he usually makes $70 for polishing 6 wheels and the fuel tanks, but he can make up to $300 for doing the entire truck.

Even though he hitchhikes, Rags sometimes fears for the safety of those who pick up people like him. He told a story about a lady with a small child who gave him a ride once. "Ma'am, please don't misunderstand me," he told her. "I really appreciate the ride. But please don't do this anymore. You're putting yourself and your child in danger."

"My daddy told me that whenever I saw the ones with the bedroll and all I could trust them," she said.

"Maybe it was like that when your daddy was little, but it ain't that way anymore," he told her.

Of course the hitchhikers are at much greater risk than the drivers. He mentioned the case of a serial killer who has been killing hitchhikers. Sometimes the danger comes from unexptected sources. He claims to have spent 13 days in jail in Hammond, Louisiana without ever being charged with any crime.

When I asked him how I could pray for him, he said, "Just that I'll be safe on the road."

Blight and delight in downtown Jackson
I doubt it would make a silk purse, but it does make a passable sandwich
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

This past weekend I attended a conference at the Edison Walthall Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi. The conference was good, but the once elegant hotel, located almost within spitting distance of the governor's mansion and state capitol, has really gone to seed. I've stayed in a lot of lousy places through the years, but even I was shocked at how poorly the Edison Walthall is maintained and managed.

Anyway, a friend at the conference, knowing my proclivity for off-the-wall foods, recommended that I try the pig ear sandwich at the Big Apple Inn, a soul food joint on Farish Street just around the corner from the Edison Walthall. My lunch at the conclusion of the conference was covered in the conference cost (which was generously paid for the Mississippi District of the Assemblies of God), so I elected to eat a club sandwich there at the Edison Walthall first.

"I'm looking forward to trying the pig ear sandwich, but I want to fill my belly first in case I don't like it," I told my friend.

"Oh, don't worry! You'll like it," he assured me.

After lunch, another friend and I walked over to the Big Apple Inn. Although it really wasn't far from the hotel, at first I wondered whether I had lost my way. Farish Street looked abandoned. No, worse than abadoned. It looked like a war zone -- and believe me, I know what a war zone looks like! Maybe worse than a war zone --like a scene from some apocalyptic movie. On the left side of the street we walked past a row of buildings with every door and window smashed, leaving the rubble-littered interior on display to passers by. Drops of dried blood on the sidewalk formed a trail leading to a thick congealed puddle in one of the entryways of the ruin. Not a soul was stirring on the street. I doubted the directions my friend had given me, and even if he was right, surely the place had long since shut down. But we eventually found the restaurant, heavily fortified with iron but still inviting with its bright red sign and awning.

Inside there was a friendly young lady behind the counter and a couple of kids running around and playing among the bright orange and yellow plastic chairs. The menu on the wall listed the following: smoke sausage, pig ear, hamburger, hot dog, and bolonga -- all one dollar, tax included; hot tamales -- $5 for a half dozen or $8.50 for a dozen; pops, chips, and two kinds of beer.

I ordered my sandwich and got a grape soda from the pop machine to wash it down, which seemed somehow the appropriate accompaniment to a pig ear sandwich, but I don't know why. Everything was available in "hot, mild, or no hot." I chose hot. After all, I'm from South Louisiana. My mama put Tabasco in my baby bottle!

So how was it? It was ok. It was midly spicy but not unbearably so (at least not for a South Louisianian). The bun reminded of the ones they use for those little Krystal burgers we used to call "gut grenades" when I was in college. It stuck to the paper when I opened it. The texture of the pig ear was a bit gelatinous. Overall, I would say that it's something you eat for the experience, not the taste. But it wasn't bad.

The restaurant is located at 509 Farish St. For another blogger's experience with the same restaurant, click here.

I picked up a fascinating hitchhiker today. But that story will have to wait for another post. Stay tuned!

Photography and fishing

I visited an old childhood friend over the weekend. My friend is a country vet in Mississippi who keeps a few livestock, and his cow pond is loaded with big 'ol catfish.

Note that I have the camera case strapped around my chest and the fishing rod in my hand. Photography and fishing are my two thrills. I may offend both photographers and fishermen by saying this, but I see a link between them. I've noticed since I started posting to flickr that one of the most common compliments paid to photographs is "nice capture". For me, that comment defines the common thread between the two pursuits: the thrill of the capture.

In an earlier entry I wrote that I wanted to cultivate photography as an act of worship. So which is it -- the thrill of the catch or the glory of the Creator? Hmm, I'll have to think about that. Maybe the first of these is my real motive and the latter the motive to which I aspire. Or maybe the two of them really are compatible somehow.

Which one's uglier?
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

came across this
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

I was going through some old photos to put together a slide show and I came across this. I wonder why I didn't think it was worth posting back in August of 06 when I took it. Maybe it's because whenever you post a flower picture there are already 500 kajillion other ones out there just like it only better. (Same thing with sunsets.) On the other hand, maybe the real question is not, "Why did it escape my notice before?" but "Why did it catch my eye this time?" I'm pretty sure I know the answer. So far it's a cold, blustery March here in Birmingham, and I'm hungry for some signs of spring.

My man, Gerti Gjoni

Gerti is a good friend of mine who was in the youth group of the International Church during my time in Tirana (95-97).  He is a very gifted singer, and he really loves Jesus.  I just have one  criticism: Personally I wish he would sing more Albanian stuff rather rather than doing Sting and Phil Collins impersonations.  (I've got a recording of a demo of an Albanian song he wrote himself, and it rocks way more than what he sings on TV!) Anyway, these clips on YouTube are definitely worth checking out.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LctYNFeXxUI
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VH0KI_qg6NQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bCQtk0NLroE 

Check out this for a delicious little foretaste of Rev. 7:9-10.

Christopher Hitchens on Kosovo

As a Christian and a pacifist, I suppose I'm an unlikely candidate to be reading Christopher Hitchens, but I faithfully  follow his column at Slate.com. I usually find his writing entertaining, often find it informative, and on rare occasions I actually find myself agreeing with it. In his recent piece on Kosova, he stated the case for independence much more eloquently than I have seen it anywhere else.

Congratulations and a challenge for Kosova

I called a bunch of my Kosovar friends today. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Hey, this is Marku calling from America."
My Kosovar friend: "Hey Mark! How are you?"
Me: "Well, I'm ok but to tell the truth I'm pretty angry at you!"
My Kosovar friend: "Really? Why?"
My: "I waited 10 years with you guys for this moment, and you couldn't even wait another 4 months till I come back so we could celebrate it together!"
(This followed by racous laughter from my Kosovar friend.)

This really is a bittersweet moment for me. I wish I could have been there to share the joy with the people I love. I want to take this moment to publicly congratulate my Kosovar friends -- and also to issue them a challenge.

It is often said, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." (a slight misquote of George Santayana). From my experience in the Balkans, it sometimes seems that it's the remembering that dooms people to repeat history. History is often rehearsed in such a way as to stoke the fires of hatred and to insure that the current generation of victims will become the future generation of perpetrators.

(Not that the Balkans has a lock on this kind of thing. I often wonder if there isn't a similar sentiment behind the "9-11 - We won't forget" bumperstickers.)

Nevertheless, I think that remembering is important. In the Bible, we read how the people of Israel suffered for 400 years as slaves in Egypt. When God set them free through Moses (Hazreti Musa), He commanded them to remember their slavery so that they who had once been oppressed would never become oppressors.

I wish to say to my Kosovar brothers, "Please do not allow yourselves to become what you hate. You have an opportunity to create a state where everyone -- Serbs, Gypsies, Turks, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox can experience justice, peace, and freedom. You know what it is like to be refugees; please don't force other people to flee their homes. You know what it is like to be treated with contempt; please treat the minorities among you with respect. You know what it is like to lose loved ones; please don't make more widows and orphans."

I hope I don't sound condescending. I know that we Americans have our own ugly history and our own challenges in the present. I will keep praying for God's blessings to flow through Kosova like the rivers flow down from the Albanian Alps to water the Plain of Dukajgin. I hope to be back among you this summer.

One of the things that I love about Albanian culture is the blessings that they use for specific occasions.  The Albanian language actually has a distinct verb mood that is used only for blesses and curses. (The closest English equivalent would be to the use of the word, "May" as you'll see in the examples below.)  Here are some of the more common ones.

- “May it be good for you!” - If you see someone eating, or if you serve someone food (especially if the guest thanks you or blesses you for the meal.)

- "May the Lord give you a harvest." - If someone gives you something to eat or drink.  (This is one of my favorites.)

- “May your hands rejoice!” – If someone makes something nice with his/her hands. This would include food but could include anything else made with the hands.
- “May your mouth rejoice!” – If someone says something wise or sings beautifully.
- “May your feet rejoice that they brought you to visit me!” –

- “May the Lord give you a harvest!” – If someone shares food with you.

- “May the Lord leave you healthy!” – to someone who has lost a loved one
- “May you be healthy!” – the reply

- “I worship to your honor!” – This is the literal meaning of the Albanian version of “Thank you.”
- “May you be with honor!” – You’re welcome. (In response to “Thank you.”)

- “May your honor increase!” – Another way of saying thank you, most commonly used when someone offers you a cigarette. (One shopkeeper used to thank me for my business with a slight variation: “May your salary increase!”)

- “May you wear it with health!” or simply “With health.” – When someone has a new item of clothing or a new haircut.
- “May you have health!” - the response

- “May you be inherited!” – When someone engages or marries a son or daughter.

- “May your work go well.” – Used most often to get the attention of a busy shopkeeper.”

- “Marshallah!” – Used when admiring someone or something – a baby, a pretty girl, or even a nice fat cow.  Many Balkan people believe strongly in the evil eye i.e., that they can unwittingly curse someone by admiring them. This blessing is used as an antitode.

- "May you live to be 100!" - To wish someone happy birthday.

Organic fertilizer

I came across the following quote while listening to a Soularize podcast.

"There is good and bad soil. And the Bible’s not silent about where you’ll find each, and one of our phrases that you’ll hear a lot is, 'Bad people make good soil; there’s a lot of fertilizer in their life.'"
Neil Cole

"Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!"

I used to hear other kids saying this quite a bit during my childhood days. I don't think my friends and I really comprehended the gruesomeness of it. This saying came back to me today when I stopped to reflect on a phrase in my study Bible: "self maledictory oath."

Many covenants in Bible times were sealed with a self maledictory oath, and sometimes a bloody ceremony to act it out. Circumcision was one example. According to the NIV Study Bible, circumcision meant: "If I am not loyal in faith and obedience to the Lord, may the sword of the Lord cut off me and my offspring as I have cut off my foreskin." To paraphrase Genesis 17:14, "Either cut it off or God will cut you off!"

Sometimes animals were slaughtered and torn apart as in the case of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. The shocking thing about this story is that it was God not Abraham who took upon Himself the curses that would come as a consequence of violating the covenant. Of course God did just that in an ultimate sense on the cross.

I may be getting in over my head here, but I wonder if there might not have been an allusion to a self-maledictory oath in Jesus words at the Last Supper: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you." (Luke 22:20)

Eating weird stuff

A while back I was speaking in Ohio and someone asked me what was the weirdest thing I had ever eaten on the foreign field. I replied that I'm from south Louisiana so I ate all the weird stuff before I ever left the US! Here are some of the stranger things I've eaten.

• scrambled eggs and squirrel brains: The ultimate redneck dish.
  
• live grasshoppers: This is kind of a performance art thing for me. It's one of those things (like preaching) that you can do if you were born to perform but you have no talent. It started when I was doing youth ministry. I had this theory that you have to be weirder than the students if you want them to respect you. Now I've got quite a reputation and whenever I'm outdoors with friends, they want me to do eat a grasshopper for them, and I always oblige.
• rattlesnake: I've always wanted to try this, and I finally got my chance a couple of months ago. There's a steakhouse near the entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that sells a fried rattlesnake appetizer. It was kind of tough and stringy to be honest, but I guess no one eats rattlesnake because it's tender and tasty.
• alligator:  Not really a big deal in south Louisiana.

There was a time when I would have included sashimi on this list, but that's not strange anymore. With our organization we live our life in cycles of four years abroad and one year in the States, so I get this kind of strobe-light look at American culture. I had a Chinese roommate in college who taught me to use chopsticks. Not so long ago that was a nifty skill that was mildly impressive to my friends. (Remember I'm talking about the Deep South here, not California!) But nowadays every $6.99 Chinese buffet in Mississippi has a sushi bar, so eating with chopsticks no longer marks me as a man of the World.

The only thing I've ever eaten in the Balkans that I really had to choke down was some chicken-skin soup that a Roma (Gypsy) family served in Macedonia.

This just in! I've got another one to add to the list. I got invited to a wild game supper at a Baptist church today, and they had (among other things) coon on the menu!

I pick up hitchhikers.  I have a couple of reasons.  One is that I have this fear that one day I'll stand in front of Jesus, and he'll say, "Remember that hitchhiker you blew by that day when it was raining and 40 degrees*?  Well that was me.  Get over there on the left with the goats!"  The other reason is this fascination I have with stories.  Hitchhikers often have fantastic stories.   I mean "fantastic" in both senses of the word.

I've encountered some hitchhikers who were truly delightful traveling companions.  Quite a few seem to be sincere brothers in Christ.  (It's not always easy to tell though.  Apparently, they get preached at a lot, so some of them have a strategy of avoiding the sermon by striking first with some stock Christian phrases.)

Quite a few are drug addicts or alcoholics of course; and a significant percentage are certifiably loony.  Those are the ones with the best stories.  I picked up one like that in Meridian last Saturday.   He claimed,to have brought about, pretty much single-handedly, the downfall of the Soviet Union.  He once found that he was on a KGB hit list, so he obtained his own list of their top 100 assasins and disposed of every single one of them within a week's time.  Jason Bourne would be envious!

Every time we passed a church he told me that it was built on property stolen from him.  He said that he had a degree in theology.  He went to Bible school for a week he said, and all they talked about was how to steal money from people.  So after a week he got Ronald Reagan to call the school and persuade them to let him go ahead and take the final exam for his degree, which he passed with flying colors.  Whenever he talked about preachers he strung together every expletive I'd ever heard.  (And I used to work the oil fields, so I've probably heard most of them.)

At some point in the conversation, he mentioned Angola, pausing to explain to me that it was the Louisiana State penitentiary and that it had a really rough reputation.  

I interrupted him. "I know.  I've been there.  I was on death row,"  I said being deliberately vague.

For the first time on the journey he interrupted his monologue and turned to look at me.  "You were on death row in Angola?" he asked.  There was undisguised respect in in his voice.

I thought it was time to drop the bomb.  "Yes, but not as a prisoner.  As a preacher."   I waited for a reaction.  

There was none, other than maybe disappointment.  "Oh.  You're a preacher."  Then he picked up where he had left off.

Here are some of the other highlights:

• Hillary Clinton wanted to have sex with him to get Bill back.  He nobly refused.
  
• He had killed more than 6,000 people, but they were all murderers and deserved it.
• The FBI had paid him 39 million dollars for his work, but he couldn't collect his money till he retired, which was one month away.
• He didn't claim to be a Christian, but from his study of scripture, he had concluded that Jehovah is Jesus' Father, and the Holy Spirit is Jehovah's parents.

I didn't say much, other than an occasional "Hmmm,"  or, "Is that right?"  After a couple of hours like this, he finally said, "You think I'm totally crazy don't you?"

I smiled and said, "I haven't decided whether you're crazy or just a good storyteller."   He briefly protested that it was all true then resumed the monologue.

I offered him some food, but he said he had some already.  He asked if I could pay for him to get a motel room.  I declined.  I figured I was safe; by this point I was pretty sure he wasn't Jesus.

*A note to my European friends:  We're talking about fahrenheit here. 

Ray Janway
Originally uploaded by kosova cajun

I meet a lot of fascinating people on my travels -- preachers and atheists, hunters and vegetarians, hitchhikers and cab drivers, war-lords and peace activists, Albanians and Serbs, Christians and Muslims... I'm enchanted by the stories of these people, and one of the things I hope to do with this blog is to share some of those stories.

In that spirit, I'll start with a story told to me by this man, Ray Janway. Ray and his wife Betty recently opened their home to me for a few days while I was on business in North Louisiana. The hospitality they showed to me was truly amazing! Anyway, here's the story:

When Ray and his older brother Cecil were young children in southern Arkansas, their mother was a churchgoer, but not their father. He worked hard all week and fished all day Saturday and Sunday. He said that he didn't want to go to church because he figured that he couldn't be held responsible for what he didn't know. He would always take his boys fishing with him on Saturdays, but on Sundays he made them go to church with their mother.

One Saturday Ray and Cecil and their mom and dad were out in the boat fishing. They had fished for hours without so much as a nibble. Ray's father jokingly taunted the fish: "That's ok, don't bite. I'll just come back and catch you tomorrow. You won't get away!"

"If we caught a mess of fish, would you come with us to church tomorrow?" Ray's mom asked.

"Yes, if we caught a mess of fish, I'd come to church," he answered.

No sooner than were the words out of Mr. Janway's mouth than Mrs. Janway's rod bent double.  She shouted,  "Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus!", as she landed a large blue channel catfish. After that the fish were practically jumping into the boat. They caught one after the other and many different kinds -- catfish, bluegill, bass, crappie.

The next day Mr. Janway was dressed for church before any of the rest of the family. He attended that week and the next and the week after that. After a month he asked to be baptized.

Cecil, the older brother, grew up to be a beloved pastor and eventually a denominational official in his organization, the Assemblies of God. Ray became an electrical engineer but was always active in church. Today he is retired, but he is a volunteer with the Gideons and helps to lead a ministry to the local parish lockup.  (Louisiana has parishes rather than counties.)