Walking Together
As we reviewed our 30 years together in preparation for going forward into the next leg of the journey, it has been encouraging to see the variety and magnificence of what we experienced with the Lord. We share these snippets with family and friends and anyone else that cares to read them as a testimony. They are a reminder of the trying times as well as the good times.
- Paul and Beth King
Chicago
- Talked along the shore of Lake Michigan while at Moody Bible Institute.
- Carried groceries in a backpack through the snow blocked streets of Chicago.
- Waited two hours at a freezing, snowy bus stop because we did not know about snow routes.
- Attended “How Should We Then Live?” a seminar with Francis Schaeffer.
- Flew over the Pacific with a young baby and took a midnight taxi ride in Bangkok.
- Slept on rice mats laid on a wooden rack
- Took a shower under the eves in a rainstorm 2000 feet above the valley floor.
- Walked home along a Himalayan trail by the light of a full moon.
- Ran a guest house and company store in a remote Himalayan village.
- Sold “The Book of Life” from Zondervan with only limited success.
- Gathered Shaggy Mane mushrooms on Black Butte in Central Oregon.
- Were dive bombed by birds who wanted our lunch at Todd Lake.
- Drove over Mt. Ashland at night in a blizzard with chains that barely helped.
- Smelled dead dogs and garbage alongside the road as we walked to school in Haiti.
- Celebrated 4th of July beside stagnant, polliwog filled swimming pools at Club Med near Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
- Waited at home behind high walls while listening to French and Creole news reports of another coup in Port-au-Prince.
- Ran a business with a view to providing multimedia resources for homeschools; a good learning experience that was ahead of its time.
- Slipped on black ice in Portland.
- Created a spreadsheet to calculate drapery pleat distances.
- Picked blackberries as we walked beside the slough outside Inverness Jail.
- Picked pears and apples on a farm in Washington.
- Volunteered at Free Geek to recycle and rebuild computers.
- Taught beginning computer classes using Linux to bilingual and Arabic speaking adults.
- Took editing, field camera, and studio classes at Multnomah Community Television and Portland Community Media.
- Dubbed program tapes for Light For All Nations to be turned in at MetroEast Community Media for local cablecast.
- Searched and filmed in Lone Fir Cemetery, one of Portland's pioneer cemeteries.
- Watched a total eclipse of a full moon in the wee hours of the morning.
- Shot footage, edited the video and made DVDs of weddings, Portland, Oregon, the Columbia Gorge, a lecture, Tillikum Retreat Center. Recorded an Operation Mobilization fund raising event with Louis Palau.
- Created video Arabic language PSAs for the Arabic Christian Church to air locally and on satellite TV across North America.
- Slept on the ground with the family beside a back road listening to the heartbeat of Texas oil wells across the fence.
- Watched satellite TV in a mud-floored hut in Mexico.
- Met an angel when we got lost trying to find a friend's house in Amman, Jordan.
- Attended classes at the University of Jordan alongside Australian, Chechen, Danish, English, Irish, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, and US students.
- Cautiously ate lunch and drank tea in a hidden nook behind the Language Center during Ramadan at the University of Jordan.
- Took TESOL training and taught English in Amman, Jordan.
- Accompanied an Egyptian pastor and his wife on church visitations in Jordan.
- Drove and flew across the continent multiple times.
- Changed a flat tire on a Los Angeles freeway during rush hour only to find the spare was barely usable.
- Shopped for food, gifts, books, clothing without knowing the language.
- Worked at learning Koine Greek, Nepali, Haitian Creole, and Arabic.
- Sang songs with Jewish, Nepali, Mexican, Haitian, Canadian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Sudanese congregations.
- Got around in Nepal, Haiti, and Jordan using the public buses.
- Washed dishes while gazing over the grandeur of Eastern Oregon, British Columbia and the moonscape of Wyoming.
- Learned to cross-country ski with five young children.
- Swam in a glacier fed lake with a waterfall near Mount St. Helens.
- Cooked over a lakeside campfire in the silence of a late September twilight with only the deer and owls to entertain the children.
- Read and discussed a wide array of subjects: the Bible, Discipling Nations, Islam, Iraq, Jordan, history, biographies, scheduling theory, What Color Is Your Parachute and more.
- Determined to do everything possible to avoid getting settled into a comfortable American lifestyle to the neglect of the Kingdom of God.
- Invested our time, effort and money (treasure) in raising five children for the Kingdom.
- Operated King's Service Academy International, the homeschool for our five children until they finished 12th grade.
- Repaired our 90 year old Portland fixer-upper home with our children working alongside us.
- Gardened, tended fruit trees, mowed, weeded, moved boulders, terraced.
- Made often futile attempts to control common pests such as flies, mosquitoes, aphids, snails, mice, rats, chipmunks, dogs, cats, raccoon, deer.
- Chauffeured family and friends to various events. Made airport runs at all times of the day or night. Gave guided tours of Portland and the Columbia Gorge to guests.
- Folded 250 gold origami cranes for a wedding.
- Shared meals and worked together for 30 years.
- Enjoyed living without credit cards for 30 years, without a television for 20 years and without a car for five years.
- Enjoyed our daily bread provided by the Lord and not the government.
- Paid off the mortgage on our Portland home.
- Prayed and cried for wisdom in order to get a vision for how to put these experiences to use for the Kingdom of God.
- Raised frogs, bison, or kangaroos on a ranch in the Australian Outback.
- Gone scuba diving for Spanish treasure, in the Red Sea or under the Arctic ice.
- Sewed a circus tent or silk sari.
- Flown a bi-plane or hot-air balloon over England.
- Gone metal-detecting or gold-panning on the Yukon River.
- Helped demine the Jordan Valley or Afghanistan.
- Built a house in a cave, made an igloo or an adobe abode in Arizona.
- Gone door-to-door sharing about Issa Almessiah in Baghdad.
- Sold commercial real estate in Italy or Cairo.
- Explored the ruins of the underwater cities of the world
- ....
- Travel by canoe from one end of Lake Teslin to the other.
- Live in ... (fill-in the blank).
- Live in a fire lookout, in a cave, on a boat, or in a Bedouin tent.
- Run a butterfly or insect ranch.
- Operate a guest house.
- Make a video documentary.
- Make a stained glass window highlighting some of the grandeur of our creative God.
- ...
1 comment:
i liked reading about your experiences, but stephen seems to think his birth should be included under the Nepal section. he's feeling unloved. :) haha.
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