The noble causes of life have always seemed foolish to the uninspired. But this is of small concern. I worry less about the crucified than those who pounded the nails.
THE LETTER
WHENITURNED NINETEEN, I sold my car, and using all the dollars I had managed to squirrel away, I volunteered to serve a mission for my church.
I was sent to the city of Kao-hsiung, in southern Taiwan. My only previous contact with Taiwan was the Made in Taiwan label that seemed to be attached to everything that wasn’t made in Japan.
Taiwan is a tobacco-leaf–shaped island, a lush, tropical country about a hundred miles off the southeast coast of China. Culturally it’s a microcosm of mainland China and is largely populated by the Chinese nationalists who fled Chairman Mao and the Communist Party.
Educationally my time in Taiwan was a remarkable experience. I learned to speak Mandarin well enough that I once got in an argument with a Chinese woman on the telephone who thought I was lying when I told her I was an American. The food was good and the climate, with the exception of a couple of typhoons, was tolerable.
The work was another matter. Teaching Jesus to Buddhists and Taoists was not a highly successful proposition. I should have gotten used to rejection, but I never did. It hurt just as much to have a door slammed in my face my last day in Taiwan as it did the first.
In many ways I grew up in those years. I learned that standing for what you believe in often meant standing alone. And in spite of my frequent bouts of homesickness, I learned that I was fortunate to have so much to miss so badly.
I did see a few lives changed, and maybe that’s the best you can take with you. That, and the lessons. It was in Taiwan that I learned the very real power of prayer.
Once, my companion and I were riding our bicycles in the country outside Chang-hua, a city in central Taiwan, when a motorcycle gang took an interest in us. Actually they were a motor scooter gang; the hoodlums in Taiwan rode Vespas, not Harleys. They got off their scooters and began gathering rocks, then they revved their scooters and headed toward us, no doubt intent on stoning us. We were alone on the road and had no place to go. We both said silent prayers and rode our bikes ahead as if we were unconcerned. As one of the motor scooters neared me, less than three feet away, the man on back threw his rocks at my face point-blank. I heard the rocks hit my bike and all around me, but not one of them struck me. I looked back at the rider, who had a look of astonishment on his face. I saw him shake his head as they drove off.
On another occasion we were driving a new Ford van to a remote town on the east side of the island when the van broke down. We were probably fifty miles from the nearest mechanic and we hadn’t even passed a car for more than a half hour. After opening the hood and looking around for something that didn’t look right (which is something all men do even if they don’t know a carburetor from a cantaloupe), we knelt and prayed.
Within ten minutes a car appeared in the distance. The car slowed as it neared us, then pulled over, and a man got out. He was a mechanic. Not just any mechanic, but a Ford mechanic. And he just happened to have his tools in his trunk. He fixed the van and, refusing payment, drove away.
No matter how skeptical you may be, the odds of that are past ridiculous. I would be intellectually dishonest to call that a coincidence and ungrateful to not credit providence.
