The Gospel Under the Northern Lights — Excerpt (3)

The following is an excerpt from The Gospel Under the Northern Lights, a book I’m working on about my experiences as a missionary in Fort Babine, British Columbia.  This is from chapter 4.  The events described took place in 2002.

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Now what I’m about to tell may be hard to believe.  When I’ve told this story to people from Smithers and elsewhere, I usually get looks of “Yeah, sure!”  But I assure you that this really happened and in exactly the way I’ll tell it.  I have witnesses.

I was bringing the stuff for Emma up to Violet’s place.  As I was going up the hill, Lyle and a bunch of other kids jumped in the truck.  I gave them a ride up there.  At the top of the hill, at Violet’s house, there was a nasty black and white border collie.  Skipper was his name.  He was always there and he was always unhappy to see me.  On that day, Skipper attacked my truck.  He bit a massive hole in the sidewall of the driver’s side front tire.  As I got out of the truck, I could hear the air hissing out.  I could hardly believe that a dog could do such a thing.  But it happened.  As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.  Before losing all the air, I moved the truck to a flat place for the inevitable tire change.  I brought the stuff for Emma in the house and then got to work on the truck.  I winched the spare tire from underneath and found another flat.  Two flat tires in the middle of nowhere!  Fred William gave me a ride back across and we were able to arrange the transport of two tires via a couple of elders from the Smithers church who were coming to visit us the next day.  That was the day we started keeping TWO spare tires with us in Fort Babine at all times.

Not long afterwards I was at Violet’s place again.  This time for a visit.  I had been watching some videos by R. C. Sproul with my catechism class and Violet mentioned to Rose that she wanted to watch them too.  So we watched the first video together – Violet’s mom Emma was there as well, so was Mary Michell.  Afterwards, we talked.  We got on to the topic of church membership.  I suggested that she could become a member of Wit’at Reformed Fellowship and outlined what that would entail.  She thought it was a good idea and agreed to start taking instruction from me to that end.  So, soon after this, I began regularly instructing her in the basics of the Christian faith.

That meant that I was going up to Violet’s place more often.  And encountering Skipper.  He finally got what was coming to him.  I knew that he was always waiting there to make my life miserable.  I had a couple of cans of bear spray lying around the house.  If you don’t know, bear spray is a high octane cayenne pepper product used to ward off bear attacks.  Apparently it also works well at teaching border collies some respect.  Never had a problem with Skipper after that.  But a word of advice to all you kids reading this (and adults too):  always wash your hands after using pepper spray and definitely before going to the washroom, especially if you’re a guy.  Trust me on that one.

The Gospel Under the Northern Lights — Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from The Gospel Under the Northern Lights, a book I’m working on about my experiences as a missionary in Fort Babine, British Columbia.  This is from chapter 3.  The events described took place in 2001.

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In late May we had one of our first big disappointments.  For some weeks we had been laying the groundwork for a Bible study.  It was to be held on Monday afternoons at the Fellowship Centre.  Several people had told me that they would for sure come.  So, there I was at 2:00 waiting for people to show up.  And I waited.  One of the people who’d promised to come even walked right past.  It was very strange.  After waiting for about 45 minutes, I accepted that this was a bust.  I went home and commiserated with my wife.  We reflected on what was happening.  The temptation there was to go into the village and round people up and more or less coax them to Bible study.  But we both agreed that while this might get people in the door, they would probably come for the wrong reasons.  We were hoping that people would come to our Bible Study because they actually wanted to study the Bible.  Despite what people were telling us, it seemed possible that we weren’t yet at that point.

Nevertheless, there was compensation for such disappointments.  Springtime brought out the bears again.  Grizzlies and blacks.  One memorable sighting took place on my way into the village on an early June evening.  The septic field for the village was located about three quarters of the way down the access road.  I always thought it was surrounded by barbed wire, but apparently not all the way around because there was a massive grizzly grazing on the grass in the field.  He was consumed with his dinner, didn’t even notice me.  This allowed me to park on the side of the road and just watch him for a good 10 or 15 minutes.  I did that until Ron Aslin came up the road from the village in his old beater of a truck and scared him off.  Those kinds of moments were special, doxological even.  I mean, how could you not praise God at the sight of one of these beautiful, dangerous creatures?  He could tear you to pieces with his teeth and claws, but there he was eating grass like a cow.  Impressed?  You bet.

We didn’t give up on the Monday afternoon Bible Study.  The next Monday morning I went over to the village again and extended direct invitations to eight people.  Most of them were noncommittal – nobody there ever came right out and said “No.”  However, I did get three people who said that they’d be there.  So there I was at 2:00 again, hoping and praying that God would give something different this time around.  He answered my prayers, but not in the way that I had hoped for.  On this day, his answer was “Not yet.”  Nobody showed.

Finally it happened.  The week following I decided to try something slightly different with the Bible Study.  Instead of letting people know a few hours beforehand, I would try a few minutes.  They would still have to come on their own, but the immediacy might be the key to getting people to come.  Perhaps they were forgetting or getting distracted by other matters or, especially, relationships.  So, I went through the village fifteen minutes beforehand and invited everyone I saw to the Bible Study starting at 2:00.  I didn’t have to wait long before I had five people.  Only two stayed for the entire time, but I was very pleased to finally be able to connect with some of these people and give some teaching from the Bible.  I spoke about the Bible in general, speaking about its nature and authority.  The two who stayed, Randy and Mary, seemed to be interested and they interacted with me and asked lots of good questions.  Afterwards I asked them for prayer requests and we prayed together and did some singing together.  Obviously, I was pumped after that.  Sure, the numbers were small, but it was a start.

I had made a common missionary error.  I had my ideas of time and events.  If an event is taking place at 2:00, I expected people to remember the event, drop what they were doing, and make their way over to the Fellowship Centre.  Like with many cultures in the world however, this was an unrealistic expectation of the people of Fort Babine.  They were not oriented to the clock, but to relationships.  The relationship presenting itself immediately always received the priority.  That was why inviting people 15 minutes beforehand was far more effective than inviting them 3 hours before.  I wanted them to study the Bible because they loved the Bible (and its Author), but for them, this was about Wes coming to their door and their relationship with him.  Now we might look at that and say that there’s something not quite right about that – and it’s true.  But how do you begin the process of change?  Where do you begin?  If you can’t teach them the Bible, how will there be any change?

The following week I tried the same strategy – with a similar result.  Two people showed up (different people than the week before) and we had an excellent time of discussing the Scriptures.  However, the week after that we were again back to nobody.  We chalked that up to the encroaching summer.  Because of the good weather, many people were out and about and seldom home during the day.  We would try with the Bible Study again in September.

Coffee and Bears

This is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the book I’m working on.  Just a rough draft, but you get the idea.  Enjoy!

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When I arrived at Mary’s place, I had a wonderful visit.  Before we moved to Fort Babine, I was never really a big coffee drinker.  I could never understand the kind of people who could drink a whole pot in one morning all on their own.  Well, here I am all these years later and I am that person.  Sure, I can get by without it – I don’t get withdrawal symptoms if I don’t have it.  But I do enjoy a litre or two of the darkest brew imaginable on any given morning.  There’s a saying that “Coffee, like love, should be stronger than death.”  I learned that in Fort Babine and I blame it completely on Mary Michell.

At Mary’s house, I had the opportunity to ask lots of questions and get a few answers.  For instance, I asked her about how many people speak Babine (or Carrier as she called it).  According to Mary, quite a few still spoke it, most could understand it.  The young kids, however, were a different story.  Their level of comprehension and speaking ability was quite superficial, though it was taught in the school by a local woman.  Mary herself, like most adults in the village, was more fluent in Babine than in English (although her English was very good).  I also asked about other aspects of the traditional Babine culture.  She told me that many people still go to Burns Lake for potlatch feasts.

Her sons Lyle and Jason were also there that day and so I was able to meet them too.  Before I left, Mary forced me to eat three pieces of freshly fried bannock – very tasty!  Before I left, she made sure that I took home some more bannock for my family and some sockeye salmon.  I was thinking that I could get used to this place.

One of the things that took getting used to was the presence of bears.  That fall there was a young grizzly bear roaming around the village.  He usually showed up at night and would rummage through people’s garbage.  One evening over at our house, I ran into a black bear.  The building where we were staying had a loft and that was where I had my study set up.  However, to get up to the loft, I had to go outside and go to the stairs at the back of the house.  There were only the one set of outside stairs going up there.  There at the back of the house I saw him and he gave me quite a fright.  I remember camping in the Rocky Mountains as a kid and while the rest of my family was safely in the trailer, I had to sleep outside in a tent.  In bear country.  I heard sounds.  One time I was outside taking care of business and I was positive that I saw a bear and ran for the only building nearby – the bathrooms.  My dad heard the commotion and he came to get me and showed me “the bear.”  It was our portable barbeque sitting on the picnic table.  It was black and it was dark outside – it sure looked like a bear to me!  So, I have a history of bear frights.  My turn to frighten a bear or two was coming.

The Queen Mary

My friends and I had nicknamed it ‘the Queen Mary.’  It was big — a little more than two meters wide and about five meters long.  ‘It’ was my first car, a 1980 Pontiac Parisienne.  It was a full-size, four-door, luxury vehicle.  White with metallic blue trim and a dark blue interior that still looked as good as new back in 1991.  It was meant to be a family car, and for many years it had been exactly that.

At least until the day my dad decided that he’d had enough of her.  He’d only been the second owner, having bought her in 1981 as barely used.  As I was looking for a decent and dependable car, my dad offered her to me for a reasonable price.  This was one of the last behemoth cars of the 1970s and early ’80s, but it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Despite her size, she offered a lot in the way of driving enjoyment.  She may have been a boat, but she was a smooth-sailing boat.  I could put her in cruise control, stretch out my lengthy legs and relax, all the while looking out through the acres of glass and enjoying the view.

There were those who questioned my sanity in buying the old Pontiac.  “You’re too young for a big boat like that!”  “You won’t be able to afford that gas-guzzler!”  “It’s a family car!”  “It’s probably slower than molasses.”  Well, age wasn’t a hindrance.  I was still at the stage of life where I could afford skiing, and for ski trips there was nothing better than a big boat.  I could easily pack in five of my friends and all their luggage without any problems.

As for gas mileage, there couldn’t have been a better car for its size.  One time I took her from Edmonton to Vancouver and made it on a tank and a half.  In fact, I made it to Kamloops without filling up.  As I figured it out later, the mileage worked out to nearly 40 miles per gallon.  It helped, of course, that I drove her at 90 km/h the entire way.

But just because I drove her at 90 doesn’t mean that the car had some kind of speed impediment.  No, the Queen Mary was fast.  How fast you ask?  Once a friend and I took her from Edmonton to Thunder Lake (a distance of about 110 km) in just under 30 minutes.  The needle on the speedo was buried, so you do the math.  This was one of the stupidest and most dangerous things I’ve ever done, but the point is made:  this car could hustle.  She just kept on accelerating.

Moreover, she got us there in one piece.  She was a fine car — in every way.  Maintenance-wise, you couldn’t have asked for anything easier.  Most of the work I was able to do myself.  Working in a service station made it even easier, since I had access to tools, equipment and the expertise of the technicians.  I owned her for two and a half years and rarely had anything go wrong.  The only thing that still sticks out is a fan clutch that outlived its usefulness.  That’s it.

Some people found it hard to imagine why I’d want a big car like the Queen Mary.  It was easy to rationalize it.  Sure, it was a family car, but it was far more practical than any sports car I’ve ever seen.  I mean, how often do you see a young fellow taking five buddies skiing with him in a Corvette?  Case closed.  So, I didn’t care that people laughed at my car.  She was mine and when it came to other practical things like maintenance and fuel economy, this was the car to have.

Then there were the folks who most likely wondered what my wife Rose thought of such a big boat of a car when we first met.  When we first started dating, I tried to make the best of it and patiently explained to her all the benefits of having an ocean-liner for a vehicle.  She nodded politely and listened, pretending to be interested.  Thankfully, it turned out that she didn’t really care what kind of car I drove.

There sure were a lot of good memories in the Queen Mary.  The ski trips.  The trips to the lake.  Driving down desolate mountain roads.  Driving through farmer’s fields.  Driving through the park behind my parents’ house (don’t ask, it’s a long story).  The first time I kissed the girl who would become my wife.  The Q.M. meant a lot to me.  The only time I’ve ever felt the slightest emotion in selling a vehicle came when I had to get rid of her.  Rose had a smaller vehicle which she felt more comfortable driving in the city.

So one day in December, I took the boat to the auction market, removed the old license plate BRC-727, and said farewell to this signficant character in my life.  I made the stupid mistake of not putting a reserve on her (nobody told me!) and so she was auctioned off for the paltry sum of $400.  Whoever bought her got the deal of a lifetime.  I often wonder what happened to her.  By now, I’m sure she’s gone — though every now and then I do see a Parisienne of the same vintage, so it is possible that she’s still out there motoring around.  At any rate, as I drove away from the auction lot that sad day, I recall the song that was in my head, a song my friends and I had bastardized to describe the fine old lady:  “Pontiac, Pontiac, long and white, shiny and bright…”