by Amy Peterson
Two months into the semester, when Lisa and I began to feel lonely and isolated, we simply bought train tickets to the capital for a weekend. We ate hamburgers and milkshakes at an Australian restaurant, bought DVDs of Friends, and stole English novels from the shelves of our country director, Camille. We spoke English at a normal speed, using our full vocabularies. For weeks we had only been speaking slowly, using simple words and lots of hand gestures to communicate, and it had started to feel like we were forgetting our native language. We attended an international church, found multicultural community.
I planned to go back to the university a day earlier than Lisa, so on Saturday evening I packed my satchel and hopped on a motorbike taxi, asking the driver to take me to the train station. He dropped me off at a station that seemed different than I remembered, but it was certainly a train station. I already had my ticket, so I sat in a plastic bucket chair in the open-air terminal. I tried to decipher the signs on the walls to tell when my train would arrive. I knew from experience that trains normally ran an hour or two later than scheduled, so I was mostly unconcerned about the empty station.
An hour passed. The light faded and the first stars emerged. I was basically alone in the terminal, though I noticed men across the street. I hadn’t seen a single train come through since I’d arrived, and it didn’t look like anyone else was waiting. I must have made a mistake.
Embarrassed, I suddenly realized I must not have spoken clearly enough to the taxi driver. I should have recognized right away that this was the wrong station. And then I became afraid. It was dark, and I was alone—a small, twenty-two-year-old foreign woman. God, please help me get back, I prayed.
I walked until I found another motorbike taxi, and handed the driver a business card with Camille’s address on it. I sat sidesaddle behind him, praying he would take me to the right place until I finally recognized the streets again, then saw Camille’s gate. I paid the driver without haggling, just raising my eyebrows to show him that I knew he was swindling me. Then I went back into the house, briefly telling my friends that I had gone to the wrong train station somehow, but that I would just go back tomorrow with Lisa after all. I escaped upstairs before I would have to answer any more questions.
For the first time I realized how vulnerable I was, how easy it would be for me to disappear. Typically, I traveled with the confidence of the young and privileged. We tend to believe we are invincible, moving with careless confidence, trusting the world as it comes to us, believing in the essential goodness of humanity. I’d shared sleeping quarters with strangers in hostels across Europe, taken solitary hikes in Switzerland, slept in train stations in Germany. I’d hopped into taxis alone and ignored the advances of the flirtatious men in French parks. I’d walked by myself down deserted Asian beaches.
I’d like to say that my confidence was founded on faith in God’s providence, but that wasn’t really it. It was simply that I was twenty-two, and I believed I was safe and strong. I believed in adventure.
That night, for maybe the first time, I was shaken by my naïveté, by what could have happened as the shadows lengthened. But back at Camille’s, my fears dissipated quickly. Maybe too quickly. I could have used a dose of caution with what the rest of the year held for me.
Only a few weeks after our visit to the capital, Lisa and I traveled by train again, this time to a southern coastal town for a Thanksgiving celebration with the English teachers from our training class. I couldn’t wait to talk about books with Camille, to swap CDs with the adorable Jack, and to chat with his energetic teammate Joanna.
Lisa and I woke before dark, having arranged for our usual motorbike taxi guys to meet us at the university’s back gate at 3:30. As we trudged groggily down the stairs, a light rain began to fall. When we got to the back gate, we realized—of course!—that it was locked every night, and we couldn’t get out that way. We scrambled to the front gate, but couldn’t find our moto drivers anywhere and began praying as the rain fell more and more heavily. Finally we saw a man on a motorbike, and convinced him to take us to the train station. Both of us sat behind him, our backpacks hanging off to the sides of the motorbike.
We sighed with relief—we would make it, after all. Until the driver took us to a hotel. Our pronunciation was so bad that he didn’t understand where we wanted to be. After the hotel, he thought we were asking to go to the chicken market, and he showed us that it was closed. Finally the lightbulb switched on; after we repeated the word for “train station” two dozen times with various inflections, he got it and smiled broadly. We made it to the station with five minutes to spare, only to wait an hour for the train, which was, of course, late.
After a full day on the rocking train—nodding off on hard seats, waking to watch the countryside pass, eating packets of crackers and drinking warm Cokes—we finally arrived. The teachers who lived in this gorgeous, beachy town helped us get settled in at the Australian bed-and-breakfast on the water. They told us we’d already lost two members of the party; one of the teachers had been diagnosed with a bleeding ovarian cyst, and flown to a hospital in Bangkok. Camille had gone with her. Other teachers were still en route, so we had a quiet evening and went to bed early.
The next morning I woke as usual at six, and took my laptop out on the empty deck to journal while I listened to the waves. A few minutes later Jack came out.
“Hey,” I said, smiling. “Did you just get in?”
“Yeah, we had an overnight train that got in about an hour ago. I thought I’d take a nap, but I can’t sleep,” he answered. He folded his lanky body into the chair next to mine and pulled out a novel by Zadie Smith. I typed quietly, pretending I wasn’t buzzing with electricity at his proximity, just journaling and checking e-mail.
I hadn’t heard from Charley in about a week. Getting him to actually write e-mails was sometimes like pulling teeth, and his last message had been despondent and whiny. When we finally chatted on instant messenger, he’d been evasive and defensive: “I’m afraid you’re angry at me,” he’d written. “I know I haven’t e-mailed. I have the usual excuses. It’s been a hard week. I’m afraid of teaching my class tomorrow. I’m not getting along with my teammates, except Cady.” We had to communicate if we wanted a relationship, I told him.
Charley:
I’m afraid of our relationship.
Amy:
I don’t know what that even means.
Charley:
. . .
Charley:
I know that we need to talk about things, but it just takes so much emotional energy that I don’t really want to do it.
Amy:
Okay.
Charley:
Do you think this is good?
Amy:
What do you even mean? I don’t know what things you think we need to talk about! If you do want to say something, then say it. But if you don’t, I’m not going to sit here encouraging you to share your emotions if you don’t think you have the energy to do so. Either be in this relationship or be out of it, but don’t ask me to beg for it!
Charley:
See, that’s what I mean.
I wondered what he wanted to talk about: Did he need reassurance that I cared for him? Or did he need to confess something? Had he kissed Cady? I was tired of dealing with him, of dealing with our relationship. I put in my earbuds and watched the waves. Jack and I settled into a companionable silence until the others came down.
That weekend we all took long walks on the beach, swam, clambered over rocky cliffs. We feasted: roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, green beans, carrots, bread, and
even pumpkin pie. We went around the table saying what we were thankful for. I talked about Veronica. We sang hymns and praise songs with an acoustic guitar, then stayed up until two in the morning playing raucous card games.
8
The Backstreet Boys and Salvation
Human nothingness, divine sufficiency.
from Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret
As Christmas approached, the weather was far from frightful, no chance of snowmen or sleds in our future. Temperatures hovered in the seventies during the day, and overnight our rooms, not equipped with heaters, just barely began to feel chilly. One bookstore in town had a picture of Santa in a window, but other than that, there was no sign that we were in either the holy season of Advent or the commercial season of Christmas.
I was feeling farther and farther away from my life in America, like I was existing in some other realm, outside of time altogether. But it wasn’t homesickness.
Life had begun to feel almost normal. In the mornings I woke up early and plugged away at the book I was writing, a catalog of all the ways the church in America had adopted American cultural values instead of holding to true scriptural faith. Lisa and I taught our classes, hung out with students, took motos over to our favorite restaurant for fried rice, and watched The West Wing. On Sundays we went to the beach with Tina and her friends or other groups of students, walking in the surf, ordering fresh-caught crab, and eating under a beach café tent.
I’d been so warmly welcomed from the time I arrived in the city that I’d started to feel at home here, at ease. I was beginning to admit to myself that I didn’t want to go back to America when my year of teaching was up. I wanted to stay another year, or longer. Maybe forever.
I guess it was the sense of safety I felt that allowed me to forward the e-mail. One morning in my in-box, I read a horrifying account my mom had sent me from the Voice of the Martyrs. A witness spoke of dozens of Christians from a minority tribe murdered by police in the hills of my country. I could hardly believe it—here, in this hospitable country, among these warm, caring people? I absently forwarded the message to several other teachers in the country, adding “Something to pr about.” We used abbreviations for explicitly Christian words like pray, knowing it was likely that government programs scanned all e-mails for certain “high alert” words.
A response came back swiftly, a reply-all e-mail from Camille. In terse language and no uncertain terms she scolded me for sending an unverified report that did not honor our gracious hosts. I instantly realized what I had done. I’d somehow remembered to abbreviate “prayer” without even thinking about the content of the rest of the e-mail. I’d compromised not only myself, but every other teacher I’d sent it to.
Mortified, I apologized. Camille sent me a private message explaining that she needed to respond harshly just in case anyone was reading our correspondence, but that I did need to be more thoughtful. We had communication guidelines that we were supposed to follow. I had to force myself to remember, despite evidence to the contrary, that this beautiful, warm country was still dangerous—for me and others.
I closed my computer and hurried to my writing class, struggling to ignore the weight that felt like a boulder on my chest, the sense of personal failure. Four students came in late, neglecting to duck their heads and say “Sorry, teacher,” as they entered. They were effectively disrespecting me, and another group failed to pay attention as I spoke. I snapped at the class, telling them to open their notebooks and free-write in silence for ten minutes. Then I turned to face the board, winking back tears.
I was a failure as a teacher, a missionary, a Christian. I walked slowly up and down the rows of desks, looking at the students’ writing. One had passed a note to another, in English: Miss Amy seems cried, it said. I pushed my feelings of inadequacy away. “You can put your notebooks away for now and open your textbooks,” I announced, calmly taking my place at the front of the class.
* * *
My despondency faded as the sun set. I knew that the heaviness I felt was not really about fear or guilt or worry; it was simply that my pride was hurt. I hated making mistakes, especially public ones, especially in front of Camille, whom I adored. I hated being wrong. I confessed my pride and self-righteousness to God, and tried to get on with the work in front of me.
Veronica was coming over that night. We’d almost finished our study of Luke, and she’d been reading other parts of the Bible on her own, too: some of Genesis, all of Mark, and her favorite, Ecclesiastes. Her responses were inquisitive and emotional. “I don’t understand why the disciples left Jesus in the Garden. Why did they run away? The story doesn’t say, but it doesn’t seem right!” She wrote her own poems in response to the lyrical verses in Ecclesiastes, and she told me that she was praying to God for help in her life. Once I had shown her a diagram that I’d been taught, long ago, depicting humans and God separated by a chasm. I’d explained that humans were created to be with God, but our sin had separated us from him. The result of our sin was death, but God loved us and sent Jesus to die in our place. I drew the cross in the chasm, making a bridge from humans to God.
As we studied together, I always tried to answer her questions and ask some in return. I never suggested that she invite Jesus into her heart, or confess her sins, repent, and submit to the Lordship of Christ. I never told her that she could pray a prayer and be assured of eternity in heaven. I never asked her if she knew what would happen to her if she were to die tonight. I disliked those forms of evangelism, but I also felt the cultural dynamics were too tricky. In this culture, students were expected to say yes to whatever teachers, or their elders, asked. Sometimes I’d invite students to come over to watch a movie. “Can you come tonight? Around seven?” I’d say, and they’d smile and murmur, “Yes, I think maybe.”
But they never came. I finally learned that when students said maybe, it was simply a polite way of saying no. They couldn’t say no to me. I didn’t think I should ask Veronica if she wanted to follow Jesus, because she’d feel pressured to say yes, whether she meant it or not.
But that night as we wrapped up our study, Veronica said to me, “This is true, isn’t it?”
“What?” I asked.
“I know this story is true. But I’m not good enough to be a Christian,” she said.
We sat facing each other on the woven mat on my apartment floor, our plate of pear slices and cups of green tea forgotten. I looked at her thoughtfully, and asked her to tell me what about the story she thought was true. Veronica had fire in her eyes. “God loves us,” she said. “God loves us even though we don’t deserve it. Jesus really lived, and died, and rose again. What Jesus said in this book is the most beautiful way of life I’ve ever heard of,” she insisted. “I can never live up to it.”
I looked into her serious, troubled eyes, and felt a smile creeping into the corners of my mouth. “Veronica, if you believe that, you already are a Christian. You’re already part of the family of God.”
We both paused. Joy and disbelief exploded across her face. “Really?” she said. She couldn’t stop smiling. Normally melancholy, even cynical, now her face opened up.
“Yeah. You don’t have to be good enough to be a Christian. You only have to believe in Jesus, in God’s grace and love for you, and the Holy Spirit will come into your life and begin to change you. You already believe. That’s all God asks.”
We talked more, and we both prayed. Veronica hugged me and left, and I could tell by the look on her face she was treasuring up all these things in her heart, and pondering them.
I knew Veronica was coming to faith with a variety of motivations, including her obsession with pop stars who claimed the name of Christ. She already felt like an outsider and a failure in her culture, and had come to me looking for something to belong to. But I also knew she hadn’t done anything out of a desire to please me. She truly had been captured by Jesus’s vision of another way of l
iving, and she had fallen in love. I hoped that Jesus, to paraphrase the title of a Backstreet Boys song, wasn’t playing games with her heart.
9
Christmas Parties
I had a really delightful time teaching the children [I had just met], both boys & girls, out of the catechism. Then I made them repeat after me the first stanza of “Happy Land” & sung it over with them many times.
Lottie Moon, February 25, 1876
Lisa and I hosted parties in our apartments every night during the week leading up to Christmas. One by one, we had our classes over for some traditional holiday cheer. On Monday evening around seven, Tina brought the first students to my room, where they sat cross-legged in a big circle on the floor. Girls leaned together, and boys put their arms around each other, normal gestures of same-sex friendship. Tina stayed a full foot away from her boyfriend, an older guy whom she’d brought to the class party so we could meet him. He looked awkward behind his glasses, and Tina seemed particularly ghostly. She’d been applying a face-whitening cream many Asian women used to look “more beautiful,” and she looked like she’d lost weight. I passed plates of gingersnaps and sugar cookies in her direction, but she just handed them on.
Grabbing the guitar, I led the students in a Christmas carol, and then Lisa read what we called “the Christmas story,” Luke 2, explaining that it’s the reason we celebrate this holiday. Imagine that you know nothing of the Christian faith, that you’ve never heard of Jesus, and someone tells you that the biggest holiday in her country commemorates this story:
It was about that same time that Augustus Caesar sent out an order to all people in the countries that were under Roman rule. The order said that everyone’s name must be put on a list. This was the first counting of all the people while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone traveled to their own hometowns to have their name put on the list.
