stories of travel, medical missions, and more
Whether desert or jungle or lost upon
a range of mountains,
where there is no clean water or fountain
(or anything at all),
those places most forgotten or barren
and filled with the wild things of this life,
rife with beauty
and trees
and seas
all lonely and wonderful;
here, in the quietness, is found the works of the maker
(every bit savored).
And if you hold very still,
He will come to you like a breeze—
and meet you in that jungle of trees.
anthony forrest
I recently spent some time in the Peruvian jungle. I worked with a medical team, bringing healthcare and the Gospel to a people who need both. Here’s a few tales.
A detriment to foreign missions is the romance of it all.
I grew up with tales of the intrepid missionary selling all, gathering his or her things into a small leather case, kissing loved ones goodbye, and stepping out into the void, never to be heard from again. Their ship sails to a foreign land, where they disappear into the jungle, or the depths of the Chinese interior. Thousands hear the Good News of Jesus. And wiz! bang! the rest is church history. And some of it is fairly recent history. The story of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian gripped me as a child. They left the States (with their wives who would later finish their work) and ventured into the darkness of Ecuador with the goal of reaching an uncontacted people group. The same group of men landed a plane on a beach and were later speared to death by the same tribe they sought to reach. That was 1956.
More recently, missionary John Chau attempted to reach the Sentinelese people on an island in the middle of the Bay of Bengal. Though his attempt to make contact and spread the Good News to this people is disputed and highly controversial, the fact remains that people like the Sentinelese do exist.
One of these groups is found in Peru, the Mashco Piro. These people live very close to where we held our second clinic during my recent trip to Peru. According to some of the local folks, this tribe of yet-uncontacted people occasionally attack their homes, raiding food stores and even killing residents. In the past couple of years, I have had the chance to stand on the shore of the Las Piedras River and gaze into the jungle, imagining what it would be like to see one of these people.
It’s all so romantic, isn’t it?
The far-off places, jungles, boats, planes, tribal people, high-risk situations, it all scratches the itch of romantic adventure and Indiana Jones-esque longing that we all have.
Have you ever heard of a boring adventure story? They don’t exist. It’s hard to write a boring account of someone risking it all and going to a land far away.
But maybe that’s what we need.
Maybe we need to read about the boring missionary stuff.
A missionary couple go to language class for 6 hours a day, four days a week. But the train ride there is an hour-and-a-half. So they have to get up at 4:00 a.m. to make it to class. Finding a baby sitter that can come that early is murder.
Another missionary spends 10 hours a week prepping for an upcoming class he’s teaching on a book of the Bible.
Yet another goes to the city to finish some visa paperwork for his wife and kids. He stands in line for three hours only to find out that he doesn’t have the right form. There’s a new one that he didn’t know about. That’s another trip to this dingy office he wasn’t counting on.
A knock on the door comes during dinner. It’s a man from church. He’s crying. His wife is about to leave him. He’s invited in and stays until 10.
Nightly Bible studies, weekly counseling sessions, trips to nearby towns to meet with people interested in the Bible, and stopping for diapers along the way makes up their time.
It’s not all spears and canoes. Nor should it be.
Because the adventure and romance of it all pales in the light of the real reason a missionary goes to a foreign field. People need to hear about a loving Savior who came to this earth to die for you and me. Missionaries are real people who have real needs. They go to the places we can’t go to reach the people who don’t live where we live.
The romance wears off fast in the immigration office. But the Good News of Jesus lasts forever, and it’s certainly a far better adventure story than anything I can write.
anthony forrest
Check out the other stories in this series:
“Further up and further in!” Lewis instructed—
So we begin:
Steadily and readily
We go
And bring hope
Of God
To a people who know nothing of Lewis…
anthony forrest
I recently spent some time in the Peruvian jungle. I worked with a medical team, bringing healthcare and the Gospel to a people who need both. Here are a few tales.
Shave Number One
Our travels up the Las Piedras River in the jungles of Peru had taken us hours upon hours. Each day brought us farther and farther from the luxury of a clean bathroom and sink. We’d made it to the furthest point of our week—a settlement deep in the heart of the Amazon basin. The medical team I traveled with spent 6 hours on a motorized 70-foot, flat-back-canoe on the first day alone. But that was nothing compared to the next day: 15 hours of boat travel. In one long day, the boat had become our refuge, our bed, our dining room, our bathroom. And now there we were on day two, trekking back toward our original start point of Puerto Maldonado.
Every day reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity stifled us non-Peruvians. I broke out in a heat rash immediately. But that’s okay, the sunburn made it hardly noticeable. Ratty hair abounded. Clothes became rags. Try drying off after bathing. You’re still wet and now your only towel is too. Most us had become…unkempt.
But nothing can spruce up the weary jungle traveler like a nice shave.
Ah, the glories of a good shave. I hadn’t shaved for days and it was noticeable. At one point, our doctor literally offered to share his razor (he giggled, but he might have been serious).
I turned him down, laughed, and walked away. But then I saw Eric with his shave kit.
“You shaving, Eric?”
“I think so,” he said.
Eric is a different generation than me. He’s the dad of one of our nurses.
A thin, but study hand at the outdoors, capable of all and smiles throughout, this was Eric’s first trip to Peru. He managed nicely.
“I’ll go with you,” I said, caving to the peer pressure. If every other guy on this trip was going to clean up, I’d better fall in line. But we both knew what a shave meant. We would both need to go to the river and shave over the side of the boat. I went to grab my stuff.
“Bring your cell phone,” I cried over my shoulder. He had a blank stare in his eyes. But I got my kit and met him at the river.
I set up my cell phone with the camera facing me and started the process:
Wet face with brown river water.
Lather up with tiny hotel soap.
Rinse razor.
Shave face.
Don’t cut face.
Continue until camera shuts off automatically.
Turn it back on.
Repeat.
I was shaving, leaning over the side of the boat and balancing all of my accoutrements when my shaving companion looked up.
“Oh, I see what you meant!” Eric said laughing. “Well, here’s where the old meets the young. I’ve got a few tricks myself.”
He unfolding his shave kit and got set up.
“First,” he instructed, “Chapstick. Rub it on your face before the soap.” He did so and I watched.
“It’ll make the razor glide nicely.”
I held my razor midair, stupefied.
“Then I use this,” continued my Sensei. He held up a tiny mirror that looked like a shining silver dollar. He was operating in another dimension.
“It’s one of my wife’s broken compacts.”
Here I thought I had skills. Sure, my camera worked great. But this guy came loaded for bear, wielding lip balm like a samurai sword. I was playing checkers and he was playing 3D chess. Sure, we both learned something about shaving in the jungle.
But I think I got the better lesson.
Shave Number Two
“Do you want to get a haircut?”
The question came up at the end of our trip. We’d made it back to Puerto Maldonado after a long week in the jungle. With only one day left, somebody another team member mentioned a haircut before heading back to the States. It sounded like a good idea. And there’s something fairly romantic about doing the mundane, every day things, in a foreign country. Going for groceries is a trip to an outdoor market—a bazaar of goodies and flourishes. Getting a refreshing drink is a stop by a juice stand where the lady fresh squeezes oranges (one free refill). Knowing when to tip is a puzzle worthy of Will Shortz.
And a haircut, something so personal, feels riskier than taking a giant canoe up a jungle river. What happens if it’s not good? What will my family say? Do Peruvians know what cool sideburns look like? All great questions.
“Yeah, yeah, I think I will get a haircut,” I hesitantly decided. Others had and returned already. And they looked sharp, and dare I say, Peruvian.
But I wasn’t going alone.
“Eric,” I turned a sideways glance to my new friend, “how ‘bout you? Are you going?”
He put his hands on his hips and gave a nervous laugh.
“Well, Forrest, I’m doin’ whatever you’re doin’!” It was settled. In no more than 15 minutes, we both sat, side by side, in little roller chairs at a little salon along a side street. It was a corner shop, two of its sides opened up to the street with roll-top doors. We were on display, two gringos in the hands of Peruvian stylists.
I don’t care where you go in this world. Whether Minnesota, North Carolina, or a jungle-town in Peru, hair dressers are the same the world over. They chatted rapidly over the music blaring in the background; our two gals wore fingernails and a few strands of brightly colored gaudy hair done up over-the-top. They went to work on us with rapid fervor.
My hair dresser paused only long enough to ask questions about my sideburns. After a little translation and explanation, she whipped out a plastic handle and began fidgeting with it.
She turned around and produced a straight razor.
“Have you ever seen a straight razor?” asked our translator. I had, but it had been a long, long time. She was using it to trim my neck and sideburns.
“Can I also get a shave?” I asked.
Of course I could.
“Eric,” I hollered without turning my head. “Are you getting a shave?”
“Forrest…I’m doin’ whatever you’re doin’!” came the reply.
We hooked Eric up with the works.
But my laughter dimmed to through-the-teeth-breathing when the razor came to my face. All of the sudden, the river shave seemed safe and easy.
Every time the razor came down, a little more sweat pooled under my plastic cape. Eric’s nervous laugh came back. At one point I heard his dresser talk about his “sensitive skin.” I was nicked one time. I didn’t bleed to death. At the very point I thought doom was written for me, she set down the razor, and started moisturizing my face. I glanced over and saw Eric getting the same treatment.
We made it. The most nerve-wracking shave of my life.
And it was now time to pay the piper.
“How much?!” we balked.
We counted out the 10 Soles each. And gleefully we went on our merry, well-shaven in the heart of Peru.
The best $3 haircut and straight-razor shave we’d ever had.
anthony forrest
We never stop the steps forward
Crossing borders
To a place—meet a person—tell of a thing
A string
Of ideas
Of this truth held together
Like adhesive
We believe this
Good news of a Man who is God
Sent from abroad
And cross-ed His own border
To end strife
Bring life
To the unliving soul of the lost
And all it costs
Is a few steps
Forward
anthony forrest
The first time I had Turkish Coffee, I sat in a small square in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem. We had spent a great first day in Jerusalem and found a tiny spot to stop for a quick coffee. After 12 hours of flying and 2 hours on a bus, followed by a night of questionable sleep, we lunged headfirst into seeing it all. And the Old City blew us away. But this story isn’t about the Western Wall, or history, or the forever conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It’s about coffee. (It’s also about the COVID-19 restaurant restrictions between 2020 and 2021.) This was several years ago. I was much younger, and my love for coffee has only grown since then.
Turkish Coffee is not a type of coffee, but a coffee preparation that originated in ancient Turkey, namely the Ottoman Empire. Since then, it spread to all over Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Turkish coffee consists of a finely ground coffee and various spices, such as cardamom. It is also served with sugar. The coffee is typically served with only a few ounces of boiling water. The server will scoop the grounds, spice, and sugar into a small copper pot with a small handle and heat it to boiling several times. After it has met with his satisfaction, the coffee slurry is poured into cup. The drinker then waits for the grounds to settle to the bottom of the cup, hence most Turkish coffees are served in glass. After the coffee has had time to steep and settle, the drinker tucks into probably the most powerful cup of coffee they have ever tasted.
I hadn’t found a place in Minnesota that served Turkish Coffee until I made a stop at a small Egyptian café on University Ave in Minneapolis. I stood at the counter, shocked that I had finally found a hookup for the good stuff. Over the next few years, I frequented the café many times. The owner, Adel, and I talked quite a bit each time I patroned his shop. (Not the same Adel heard on the top 40 list.)
He lived above the restaurant with his family. He would regale me with stories of visiting his mother in Cairo and guide me through the menu of great food items he served, and tell me what it was like to emigrate to the US. One time he was held up in his café. The man had a gun and forced Adel to make him a sandwich before he stole all of his money. “No onions! No onions!” the man screamed, holding a gun barrel held to Adel’s head. But he pressed on, and grew a successful business. Ah, the American dream.
Two years ago, things changed. The COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. Fifteen days of closures and restrictions turned into something more like 15 months. Wide varieties of industry suffered. Grocery stores fared well. Amazon did just dandy. Food delivery, online video meeting services, Netflix, internet services, and politicians all made more money than they know how to spend. All of the companies designated as, “frontline” or “essential”, thrived during a time of vast economic drought.
And one of the largest industries to suffer was the restaurant industry. Sure, some places could stay open and offer takeout. But many couldn’t. A recent Time article reported that the industry lost $240 billion in 2020 and 80,000 restaurants have shut their doors. But don’t think that your favorite burger chain was the place to suffer. Reuters reported that over 80% of all restaurant traffic during 2020-2021, took place at fast food chain restaurants. It’s the locally owned and operated cafés and restaurants that suffered and closed their doors.
I got a text from a friend yesterday. It was a screenshot of the Egyptian café we used to visit. Its doors have closed permanently. And such is life now. The pandemic revealed what we as American culture value. If you want a McCafe or a Chalupa, you’re in luck. Those places are thriving and building new franchises. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a small Egyptian café, serving excellent falafel and Turkish coffee. You’ll be hard pressed to talk to a smiling immigrant pouring you another cup of cardamom-flavored coffee as he tells you about his family in Cairo. The personal touch of the local café may be dying. But we can do our part.
Eat local. Don’t drive though. Sit down. Try the new stuff. Smile at the wait staff. Be patient if you have to wait a while. Leave a nice tip. Listen to the stories of strangers. If you don’t, you might miss out. The world does not need more fast-casual dining. The world needs real people, serving real food, and real coffee.
anthony forrest
Teary-eyed, we drive into the sun
Ending day rays
Begun
Simply to end in a grey-dark brooding night
Sunlight gone now
As quick as it started
Teary-eyed, we watched as the sun set
Sat down below
The road
In front of us
Bright day behind and our tire tracks
Leading West
Trying our best
To chase the final vestige
Of a light always fading
Clear-eyed, we drive into the night
This nighttime-reflection
Introspection
We can only assume this darkness
This darkness
A gift
anthony forrest
I have been lonely occasionally in my life. Though for the past decade and a half, the perfect companionship of my wife has easily pushed away those feelings.
But 17 years ago, I spent the better part of a year in the mountains of Bolivia. That time formed and shaped my life into what it is now, or at least greatly contributed to it. I lived with a few missionaries and other English-speakers for several months. And soon, some of them left to go back to the States for a while. I was left on my own, helping to look after a dairy farm owned and run by an American missionary.
My days were filled with occasional things farming. I milked a few cows, planted a bit of corn (by hand, dropped into a planting tube on the back of an ancient tractor), helped to maintain the water tower, and fought for my life against the evil of South American spiders.
Other Americans lived in the nearby town of Vallegrande. I saw them several times a week. But not always. The traveled around the area doing their own thing. And every couple of weeks, I walked into town and caught a bus (microbus-pronounced meecrowboos). After a relatively uncomfortable ride for three hours, the bus finally pulled into the Andes Mountain village of Pucará. American friends of mine lived there, teaching the Bible and raising four crazy boys (He now pastors a church in Montana where his family also has one of the largest goat farms in the State—it is as cool as it sounds). I relished the time I could get to their home and rile up their kids and eat their food.
But I wasn’t always able to go. Weeks would go by during which I would speak no English (my Spanish is terrible) nor see other expats. I was a stranger in a strange land. I remember waking on a Thanksgiving morning with plans to take the broken down 1975 Honda Super Cub into Vallegrande and have Thanksgiving dinner with an American family. It took me a minute to register the sound of heavy rainfall on the tin roof. I peaked outside and saw a raging downpour. No trip to town today.
I dressed and ran from my room, through the courtyard of the hacienda-style home, to the kitchen. My Thanksgiving would consist of oatmeal and coffee mixed with sweetened condensed milk. I felt a vague nagging at my heart. I was much too young to know what it was that I felt. Youth misses so much. Or maybe time gives us eyes to see. Either way, I know now what deep loneliness feels like. It’s an uncomfortable restlessness of uncertainty. It’s a nagging sorrow which can’t really be understood when you’re going through it. I spent my day sitting in the kitchen, listening to John Denver’s Fly Away, playing my guitar, and reading. Today, that sounds like a glorious afternoon. But then it felt like milquetoast. Loneliness, longing for the company of someone who understands your context and being, turns the good things into white gummy paste.
And I was only in Bolivia for the better part of a year. These feelings of loneliness and separation come to a head when an expat comes back to the States. It took me quite some time to feel like I was an American again.
I have expat friends who’ve experienced this far more than I. They feel a “cultural homelessness.” The idea is that as an American goes to another country to live or work, they begin changing to adapt to that new culture. But they are American and will never truly lose that. So they remain an outsider, no matter how much they change. And what if they go back to the States? They’ve become an outside there as well. They’ve lost a little (or a lot) of their own culture and adhered to another.
If the American is blue and the new country is yellow, after a while, the American turns green. He’s no longer blue and he’s no longer yellow. He’s a little bit of both, mixed together. He’s culturally homeless.
“Wow,” you say, “this is terrible. Why would you tell me this? People should just stay home then! Why would I want to go anywhere or see anything if I’m just going to be changed into a lonely green blob?!”
Because green isn’t all that bad.
The world needs more green people. Green can converse and understand the cultures of blues and yellows. These third culture people tie into the cultures of others. They inevitably speak two or more languages. This type of mixed identity fills the seat of the UN, sends ambassadors to foster peace deals, teaches the Bible in other languages, ends racism in the US, forms agreements for the safety and security of mankind, and loves their neighbor as themselves.
But as the great philosopher, Kermit the Frog once proclaimed, “it’s not easy being green.” The loneliness of travel can often be unbearable. Understanding simple things about a culture is exhausting. Just eating strange food strikes fear into many Americans. Try driving on the wrong side of the road; then come back to the States and get behind the wheel—lookout world. Talk to people; try not to offend them; be the butt of jokes when you make a language mistake. It’s lonely.
Kermit also said that, “green is the color of Spring, and it can be cool and friendly-like.” The rewards of travel greatly outweigh the woes. I have a friend who is moving back to Southeast Asia in a couple of weeks. To him and all the other brave souls out there building a better world, I say, “cheers!”
“You look beautiful. Green is definitely your color.”
anthony forrest
Great Father and keeper of Time:
I raise my heart and hands
to you who
understands,
and commands
another year.
I come to you
in Gratitude
and celebrate this date
of my start.
I cry thanks also
for the time since you
found me,
rescued me,
reclaimed me,
resurrected me;
and how you breathed life into my soul.
I am now whole,
and my life not a dull
dim death.
Grant me now
another year of closeness to you.
And may the passing of
time be but
sign that
reminds me
of the ever-present
care
of our Lord.
anthony forrest
On a recent visit to Missouri (more of which you can read about here), I had the opportunity to talk with several retired missionaries. So many of these people had spent the entirety of their lives giving of themselves to God, caring for the people of this world.
When confronted with all the craziness that is the near-cultlike American Christmas Gift-Giving, I have found myself asking why?
Why do we spend so much time, effort, money, and mental strain on selecting or making the perfect gifts for our friends or family? I confess that my heart tends toward the cynical. My immediate reaction is that Americans are so obsessed with self-image, that even giving gifts is a form of social status marker. It feeds into a culture of reciprocity that turns into an ugly cycle. We spend money on stuff to give to others, which causes others to spend money on stuff to give to us, and so on it goes. We might as well all just keep our money and buy whatever we want and forgo the embarrassing clothing exchange at Kohls. No, you did not get my size right!
Of course, this is all hogwash. Sure it may be true to some degree and in some situations, but again, I’m far too cynical.
I heard a honking car outside. We had been visiting with a couple who had lived and served as missionaries in Russia, when we were interrupted. I slipped outside to find a gentleman who I met earlier that day waving me over to his silver Oldsmobile. He and I hit it off right away. He collects clocks. And I happen to really enjoy pocket watches. Smiling, he passed me a very old, silver pocket watch. He regaled me with information and stories about watches and railroad timekeeping.
Most people give gifts out of the kindness of their heart—for Love, which is this week’s Advent theme.
Humankind was formed to be the image of God (Gen. 1:27). This image refers to not only bodily form and the spiritual nature of God, but to the characteristics of God. And His prevailing characteristic is love. Christ’s tale of coming to Earth, living a self-less life, teaching and preaching, and saving Humankind culminates in a very special gift—the gift of self-sacrifice. Christ came to Earth. And that’s what we celebrate now, during Christmas. But He came for a reason, to die in our place.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15). Self-sacrifice is the ultimate gift. What more in the name of love?
We remember probably the most famous verse in the whole Bible—that, God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
anthony forrest
Follow along with the Advent tradition! Here are a few passages of Scripture for this week’s theme:
Love
And be sure to check out each one of this year’s Advent stories:
Advent, Part One on the Idyllic Christmas
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