Looking Up

“I have to forgive my mom.” Woah. I knew the Gospel was powerful, but didn’t expect it to be that powerful. Only an hour earlier, my new friend Simon* was describing the emotional pain his mother had spilled onto his life. His dad had been a seafarer, a job which often means 6-9 month absences across the world—a recipe for relational strain. His mother, back home in the Philippines, had decided to run off with another man when Simon wasn’t even 6 years old. Enter life with a stepmother who played favorites. Ironically, the profession that ripped his family apart would bring Simon closer to God. On his fourth year working as a seafarer, his ship docked in Seward, Alaska for a few days. He had been to a seaman's mission in Norway before, so he decided he might as well check out the Seward Seaman’s Mission on his break. About 8:00 pm on a Monday night I found him lounging in one of the worn plastic chairs out back. Instead of devouring the free Wi-Fi, he was absorbing the mist-...

When in Whittier, Alaska, about the only thing you can predict is the weather—a generous serving of precipitation with a dollop of fog. Historically, the town’s claim to fame has ranged from a Gold Rush pit stop to a Cold War military stronghold.   It’s a living collage of half-buried history, awkwardly-named fishing boats, and weird smells (not to mention people). These days, Whittier entertains more tourists than anything else, thanks to Princess Cruises. As part of the team of volunteers at the Seward Seaman’s Mission this summer, I have the privilege of traveling to Whittier to service the crew members of the cruise ships that dock there from May to September. Two days a week, we down some coffee, pile in a mission van, and wind through the Chugach mountains for 88 miles to arrive at Whittier. I almost forgot—after we pay a toll and inch our way through a damp 2.5-mile tunnel through a mountain—we arrive at Whittier. You’ll find the Whittier Seaman’s Mission tucked in a ...

My fingers pressed into the shaking hand of my friend a little harder as I watched her pretty brown eyes melt into watery pools. She was sitting in a hospital bed, exhausted and questioning God. “I feel cheated.” She felt cheated of being able to have life untangled in IVs and medication charts. She felt cheated of being able to maintain relationships or to ever have a “normal” life—you know, get married or have children. My car mumbled underneath me as I waited for four vanilla-flavor- ice-substance cones to be handed out the McDonalds drive-thru window. It was a school night, and I was driving some kids home after AWANA. They live a different life than I did as a young child—a life filled with instability, uninvolved adults and even racism. “Are you da mom?” a little voice came from the backseat. I tried to explain that no, I'm an adult but I don't have kids. To them, someone my age, who is able to drive a car and purchase some snacks, pretty much HAS to be a mom. It’s a...

As a new graduate student, I’ve spent a lot of my first semester hiding in the spacious Kathryn A. Martin library at UMD. It’s one of my favorite places to decode French art song texts and bleed out research papers (if you can have a favorite place for that sort of thing). They let you eat chips at this library, and headphones mean you can fine-tune the dull art of Googling Sergei Prokofiev while jamming out to…uh, well, probably more Prokofiev for that upcoming jury you should be practicing for.  Mercifully, people rarely look at you unless you talk to yourself or sneeze or break your 6-second limit for discreetly removing contact lenses. However, I people watch more than I’d like. I can’t help it—people are so fascinating. Everyone walks around with a life story zipped up in their backpack, and sadly, those stories often go untold. The other day, however, I heard a story that wasn’t meant for me. While standing at a printing station, my eyes took in an upperclassmen girl wrappe...

Imagine this: You believe there’s some sort of God—a God who intelligently designed you and the world you live in. But other than what you see in nature, you know nothing more. Well, you have some ideas of what God could be like. You live in a country that is approximately 87% Muslim, and about 10% Christian, and those populations certainly seem to think they know. You watched a movie about Jesus once, so you have a vague idea that he was a martyr who sacrificed his life for the good of all people (and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to you). But that’s it. So it was with my new friend from Indonesia, Eka (a common Indonesian name meaning “firstborn”). He was done using the Wi-Fi at the Seward Seaman’s Mission and plunking out a mellow tune on the janky (but well-loved) upright piano. I slid in next to him and questioned him about his playing, his language, and his home. There was songbook in front of him with Indonesian Christian songs, so I asked if he knew any. He didn’t...

“It was a sign from God.” A pair of coal-black eyes, embedded in a troubled expression, met mine from across the Seward Seaman’s Mission’s kitchen table. In one hand he clutched some freebies he had snagged from one of the mission’s tract shelves—a world map, a key ring of English Bible verses, a little post card. With the other he paged through an old mission photo album, looking for faces he might recognize. I sensed he was looking for something else, too. A full kitchen table at the mission. “I found a little—how do you say it—pamphlet in an elevator on the ship this morning, and I think it was a sign from God.” he continued. “It talked about a woman who died and stood before God. Your name had to be in this book, or you couldn’t go to heaven. And when God opened the book,” he leaned back in his chair, “God said ‘Your name isn’t there.’” He looked like he had just heard about an incoming comet or something. “Ah, I see. That is very interesting,” I nodded. It was clear G...