Post by TheStoryTeller on Sept 29, 2006 5:06:11 GMT -5
Sometimes You Have To Travel
By: Stephan Saint
Part 1
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For years I'd thought Timbuktu was just a made-up name for the ends of the earth. When I found out it was a real place in Africa, I developed an inexplicable fascination for it. It was in 1986 on a fact-finding trip to West Africa for Mission Aviation Fellowship that this fascination became an irresistible urge. Timbuktu wasn't on my itinerary, but I knew I had to go there.
Once I arrived, I discovered I was in trouble. I'd hitched a ride from Bamako, Mali, 500 miles away, on the only seat left on a Navajo six-seater airplane chartered by UNICEF. Two of their doctors were in Timbuktu and might fly back on the return flight, which meant Id be bumped, but I decided to take the chance.
Now here I was, standing by the plane on the windswept outskirts of the famous Berber outpost. There was not a spot of true green anywhere in the desolate brown Saharan landscape. Dust blew across the sky, blotting out the sun as I squinted in the 110-degree heat, trying to make out the mud-walled buildings of the village of 20,000.
The pilot approached me as I started for town. He reported that the doctors were on their way and I'd have to find another ride to Bamako.
Try the marketplace. Someone there might have a truck. But be careful, he said. Westerners don't last long in the desert if the truck breaks down, which often happens.
I didn't relish the thought of being stranded, but perhaps it was fitting that I should wind up like this, surrounded by the Sahara. Since I arrived in Africa the strain of the harsh environment and severe suffering of the starving peoples had left me feeling lost in a spiritual and emotional desert.
The open-air marketplace in the center of town was crowded. Men and women wore flowing robes and turbans as protection against the sun. Most of the Berbers robes were dark blue, with 30 feet of material in their turbans alone. The men were well-armed with scimitars and knives. I felt that eyes were watching me suspiciously.
Suspicion was understandable in Timbuktu. Nothing could be trusted here. These people had once been prosperous and self-sufficient. Now even their land had turned against them. Drought had turned rich gpkmtyolrlands to desert. Unrelenting sun and windstorms had nearly annihilated all animal life. People were dying by the thousands.
I went from person to person trying to find someone who spoke English, until I finally came across a local gendarme who understood my broken French.
I need a truck, I said. I need to go to Bamako.
Eyes widened in his shaded face. No truck, he shrugged. Then he added, No road. Only sand.
By now, my presence was causing a sensation in the marketplace. I was surrounded by at least a dozen small children, jumping and dancing, begging for coins and souvenirs. The situation was extreme, I knew. I tried to think calmly. What am I to do?
Suddenly I had a powerful desire to talk to my father. Certainly he had known what it was like to be a foreigner in a strange land. But my father, Nate Saint, was dead. He was one of the five missionary men killed by Auca Indians in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956. I was a month shy of my fifth birthday at the time, and my memories of him were almost like movie clips: a lanky, intense man with a serious goal and a quick wit. He was a dedicated jungle pilot, flying missionaries and medical personnel in his Piper Family Cruiser. Even after his death he was a presence in my life.
I'd felt the need to talk with my father before, especially since I'd married and become a father myself. But in recent weeks this need had become urgent. For one thing I was new to relief work. But it was more than that. I needed Dad to help answer my new questions of faith. In Mali, for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who didn’t share my faith, who were, in fact, hostile to the Christian faith, locals and Western relief workers alike.
In a way it was a parallel to the situation Dad had faced in Ecuador. How often I'd said the same thing Dad would have said among the Indians who killed him: My God is real. Hes a personal God who lives inside me, with whom I have a very special, one-on-one relationship. And yet the question lingered in my mind: Did my father have to die? All my life, people had spoken of Dad with respect; he was a man willing to die for his faith.
But at the same time I couldn’t help but think the murders were capricious, an accident of bad timing. Dad and his colleagues landed just as a small band of Auca men were in a bad mood for reasons that had nothing to....
If Dad's plane had landed one day later, the pkmtyolmacre may not have happened. Couldn't there have been another way? It made little impact on the Aucas that I could see. To them it was just one more killing in a history of killings. Thirty years later it still had an impact on me.
And now, for the first time, I felt threatened because of who I was and what I believed. God, I found myself praying as I looked around the marketplace, I'm in trouble here.
By: Stephan Saint
Part 1
<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
For years I'd thought Timbuktu was just a made-up name for the ends of the earth. When I found out it was a real place in Africa, I developed an inexplicable fascination for it. It was in 1986 on a fact-finding trip to West Africa for Mission Aviation Fellowship that this fascination became an irresistible urge. Timbuktu wasn't on my itinerary, but I knew I had to go there.
Once I arrived, I discovered I was in trouble. I'd hitched a ride from Bamako, Mali, 500 miles away, on the only seat left on a Navajo six-seater airplane chartered by UNICEF. Two of their doctors were in Timbuktu and might fly back on the return flight, which meant Id be bumped, but I decided to take the chance.
Now here I was, standing by the plane on the windswept outskirts of the famous Berber outpost. There was not a spot of true green anywhere in the desolate brown Saharan landscape. Dust blew across the sky, blotting out the sun as I squinted in the 110-degree heat, trying to make out the mud-walled buildings of the village of 20,000.
The pilot approached me as I started for town. He reported that the doctors were on their way and I'd have to find another ride to Bamako.
Try the marketplace. Someone there might have a truck. But be careful, he said. Westerners don't last long in the desert if the truck breaks down, which often happens.
I didn't relish the thought of being stranded, but perhaps it was fitting that I should wind up like this, surrounded by the Sahara. Since I arrived in Africa the strain of the harsh environment and severe suffering of the starving peoples had left me feeling lost in a spiritual and emotional desert.
The open-air marketplace in the center of town was crowded. Men and women wore flowing robes and turbans as protection against the sun. Most of the Berbers robes were dark blue, with 30 feet of material in their turbans alone. The men were well-armed with scimitars and knives. I felt that eyes were watching me suspiciously.
Suspicion was understandable in Timbuktu. Nothing could be trusted here. These people had once been prosperous and self-sufficient. Now even their land had turned against them. Drought had turned rich gpkmtyolrlands to desert. Unrelenting sun and windstorms had nearly annihilated all animal life. People were dying by the thousands.
I went from person to person trying to find someone who spoke English, until I finally came across a local gendarme who understood my broken French.
I need a truck, I said. I need to go to Bamako.
Eyes widened in his shaded face. No truck, he shrugged. Then he added, No road. Only sand.
By now, my presence was causing a sensation in the marketplace. I was surrounded by at least a dozen small children, jumping and dancing, begging for coins and souvenirs. The situation was extreme, I knew. I tried to think calmly. What am I to do?
Suddenly I had a powerful desire to talk to my father. Certainly he had known what it was like to be a foreigner in a strange land. But my father, Nate Saint, was dead. He was one of the five missionary men killed by Auca Indians in the jungles of Ecuador in 1956. I was a month shy of my fifth birthday at the time, and my memories of him were almost like movie clips: a lanky, intense man with a serious goal and a quick wit. He was a dedicated jungle pilot, flying missionaries and medical personnel in his Piper Family Cruiser. Even after his death he was a presence in my life.
I'd felt the need to talk with my father before, especially since I'd married and become a father myself. But in recent weeks this need had become urgent. For one thing I was new to relief work. But it was more than that. I needed Dad to help answer my new questions of faith. In Mali, for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who didn’t share my faith, who were, in fact, hostile to the Christian faith, locals and Western relief workers alike.
In a way it was a parallel to the situation Dad had faced in Ecuador. How often I'd said the same thing Dad would have said among the Indians who killed him: My God is real. Hes a personal God who lives inside me, with whom I have a very special, one-on-one relationship. And yet the question lingered in my mind: Did my father have to die? All my life, people had spoken of Dad with respect; he was a man willing to die for his faith.
But at the same time I couldn’t help but think the murders were capricious, an accident of bad timing. Dad and his colleagues landed just as a small band of Auca men were in a bad mood for reasons that had nothing to....
If Dad's plane had landed one day later, the pkmtyolmacre may not have happened. Couldn't there have been another way? It made little impact on the Aucas that I could see. To them it was just one more killing in a history of killings. Thirty years later it still had an impact on me.
And now, for the first time, I felt threatened because of who I was and what I believed. God, I found myself praying as I looked around the marketplace, I'm in trouble here.