Boston trip

I had wanted to journal our trip to Boston, because quite frankly, parts of our trip were simply quite amazing. It wasn't my plan, however, to 'journal' about it first here though...sometimes you just don't always have time to do everything. Has anyone else noticed that the older you get, the harder it seems to keep up with it all?

Part of the essence our trip was that it may have been the last wild and crazy trip that we take before, you know, we become responsible-like.

The reason I can say it was a 'crazy' trip is that we left at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning and with some delays on I-95 and I-91, made it to Boston at just the right time for Friday rush hour...Boston is reputedly one of the worst cities in which to drive in the United States (aggressive drivers, small, confusing roads, and a lack of road signs) which made our arrival all the more tenuous! As 'luck' would have it though, we mistakenly arrived directly at our destination - even with incomplete directions and driving through a very confusing part of town...one of those go 0.4 mi. and then make a u-turn, followed by another 0.3 mi. and an immediate right, but not the first right you come to kinda confounding drives. Mapquest is nice, but sometimes the most direct route is not your friend. A big part is that I wasn't on top of preparations as much as I'd like to have been and was wary of some of the things we were planning on doing...I'm not much the 'big city' type and was hoping to avoid undesirable situations and people as much as possible. We left the following day at around 2:00 p.m., with only about three hours to poke around the city. So that was about 18 hours of driving for a benefit concert in which the feature singer we wanted to see, Natalie Merchant, sang three songs and had laryngitis! So we didn't know that Natalie had laryngitis beforehand, but it was a crazy trip to make. One reason I was interested in making it is because with the prospect of going to China, starting a family, and getting older and more 'responsible-like', it was worth it to 'treat' ourselves now not knowing when the next time we'll be able to do it will be. It was also nice to treat my wife to a nice birthday - the last two times I tried to go all out for her were decided against. Camping/getaway vacation for her birthday last year and a weekend away for our anniversary. So now that she wasn't pregnant and we had the ability to leave the baby with Grammy, it was nice to get away, just the two of us. The drive in itself was fun...just getting to talk and play games together.

God (in ways than we hadn't seen so clearly before) provided for us big-time on our trip, and for that we praise Him. It's so awesome to SEE the work of the Lord in your life. It's so easy to forget that He's there sometimes, when you allow yourself to get caught up in daily life, routine, and in all reality taking care of things yourself without considering the Lord. We just praise Him for being faithful and for providing for us. I truly think that because we seek to follow Him and try to apply Christ-life continually in what we do, He honored and took care of us during our trip. Not because of who we are, but who He is and because He's promised to take care of those who seek Him. Applying godly principles and seeing the benefit of His promises at work in your life is the best man, it really is.

So, this may not be as significant to all of you out there in cyberspace, but this was supposed to be an entry in my personal journal...it was very significant to us and that's why I'm recording it.

Arriving at our hotel directly, even though with the chaos of Boston's rush hour and directions that weren't the best, was taken by me to be more of a coincidence. Maybe it was, but what happened that night left no room for doubt that God was orchestrating events and people, even - for our benefit, teaching, and provision.

Here's another crazy part of the story. The concert hall is kind of a 'project', in that the city is investing into an area of town that is not as good as it once was. I didn't feel unsafe, but when the concert was done at 12:30 and we were relying on city transportation to get us back home, it wasn't the most desireable of situations.

During the concert, we were entertained by three different performers. We missed the first act, and also a speech by the mayor of the city because we arrived 45 min. late due to taking the metro, a 50 minute wait for a city bus (which buses are supposed to arrive every 20 min.), and the three jams on the interstate and rush hour we went through. The first act we saw was Mario Frangoulis, a very talented, more Vegas style performer who performs in English, Italian, Spanish, and Greek at least...maybe more languages than that. His enterouge included a pianist and guitarist that were both comically passionate about the music they made. The guitarist had huge facial hair (moustache and eyebrows reminding me of a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Einstein) and he would do this face twitch thing that accented his facial hair even more. It was interesting and it made me wonder if maybe in Europe they try to get all the performers involved in the act of entertaining, rather than just the lead singer as is the most common method here in the U.S. Frangoulis was good, and did a little cha-cha that I think my sister would like. (Jael, we hope to get the DVD when it comes out and maybe we can show you.)

The second act was Mighty Sam McLain and he may have been my favorite. He apparently has been dubbed at one time the 'torch-bearer of soul' and he had a distinctly black, Christian, soul, funk style that was captivating. At one time, he himself had been homeless, which made him an impeccable choice for participating in the 'Give Us Your Poor' concert - which was a benefit for homelessness.

Natalie was last and as I mentioned before, was not at her best. Still, it was neat to hear her even if not at full-strength - she has a very powerful voice.

During the intermission, we skipped out to get some dinner as we didn't have time to eat beforehand trying to get to the concert as quickly as possible. We stopped by a Chinese restaraunt just outside and were joined by a homeless man at our table. Working with the street ministry at the church here in Winchester has more enabled me to handle situations like that well and it was very interesting that after going back in the concert hall that Mighty Sam was performing and talked and sang about his previous life of homelessness. Just the dynamic of actually talking with and helping a man on the streets to go back into a middle to high income atmosphere where they were talking about the very thing that we had just witnessed was fascinating. It really makes you feel helpless in that it seems so hard to be able to contribute significantly to the homeless. We gave him conversation, our attention, concern, respect and our tofu mixed vegetables with rice. I tried to witness to him, but was largely ineffective. I pulled out my 'Jesus is Lord' card that Brett Emerson gave each of the guys in our 'Faithful and True' group in college. He had thought, strangely enough, that I was a biker and was telling me, after he learned that I wasn't, about the freedom in riding the open road on a bike. That's when I pulled out my card and told him that having Christ as Lord is true freedom. Even though it may have been minimal, sowing seeds, no matter how small can be effective if the Lord is calling someone.

OK, after much adeiu, here was the amazing part of our trip and the part where we couldn't deny God's intervention in our lives. We went outside after the concert at 12:30 a.m. and caught the bus to go back to the metro station. I had seen that the last buses ran until a little after 1:00, so we caught that bus without problem. It arrived almost as soon as we got to the bus stop. That turned out to be a very good thing, as no sooner than we arrived at the metro pick up, the last train came rolling by to pick us up. Five minutes later and we would have missed it and been stranded in Boston in what was probably a worse part of town than where the concert hall was. Apparently, taxis are scarce in Boston, so I'm not sure how easily we could have gotten one at the metro station. I'm still thinking coincidence at this point, but the most amazing part to me was that after we arrived at our final metro stop, the attendant locked up behind us and there were four buses waiting for any passengers that caught the last train. At this point it's about 1:30 and the drivers are anxious to leave. So anxious, in fact, that as I'm asking the attendant that just locked up behind us if he knew which bus we should take, three of the buses speed off like they're in the NASCAR circuit. I'm not kidding, I haven't seen a bus speed off that fast since riding the maniac buses in China. It was crazy...so there's one bus left now and the attendant asked us if that was our bus. He didn't know and I said, "I'll go find out." So I go running up to the bus, at which point the driver starts to speed off...very nice. I look back and the attendant signals to the driver to wait - though not very effectively. I still am running up to the bus, but of course it can go faster than me...and it's sort of going just fast enough to keep ahead of me, but not really that fast. The driver even did a stutter stop or two. We did this for about twenty feet before I realize that he's not going to let me catch up to him. I'm not sure why, and I turn around and put my hands in the air - signaling to Vikki confusion and giving up. We're used to this 'China' treatment - but what's bizarre is that it's happening in the "good ol'" USA. So, the driver actually stops after I throw my hands in the air and have given up - and I run up enough to actually be able to enter the bus at which point I signal to Vikki to run up...she's a good 40 feet behind us. As I get on the bus, the driver says to me in his Boston accent, "Hey, yuhreally pushin' yuhluck hehr buddy." Mentally, I am in agreement with him, and thank the nice man for stopping. What's 'funny' is that I'm not exactly sure that I'm on the right bus...I mean, it's a 25% chance, right? However, I did happen to notice 'Riverside' on the bus before I hastily jumped on - which is where we want to go, so all is well - thank God! Had we been stranded at the metro station, Vikki had noticed a couple of cabs there, and we weren't too far from the hotel - so really in that case, we only saved a little money. But, the fact that he was the only driver that 'waited so patiently' for us and that it happened to be the right bus, was a little too coincidental for me - and especially in combination with the other events of the evening I just had to be in awe of my heavenly Father who, in spite of our own selves - our weakness and inadequecies, provided so adequately and wonderfully for us. With God all things are possible, even when they are 'pushin' yuhluck' from a worldly point of view. I don't believe that He had to provide for us in that way, but it sure made our evening a lot nicer, a lot more awesome, and perhaps saved us from a potentially precarious situation.

Lastly, I want to share with you scriptures that the Lord used to teach me recently that all things do come from Him. We don't typically think, in our culture, that events necessarily derive from God - but I think the more proper biblically-based worldview is that ALL things are either done through Him or done in the tolerance of His will, with His foresight and foreknowledge. Even the smallest circumstances are in our life for a reason. Whether we're walking in the perfect will of God or not, all things are either from Him or permitted by Him and can be used by Him.

Consider the viewpoint of David and Abigail in 1 Samuel 25:23-34. It's evident in that passage that they considered God to be a very integral part of the ebb and flow of their lives. I'm going to try to keep that perspective in mind. To realize that the events that I'm surrounded with, and even the choices that people make (like our friend the bus driver, half-waiting for some strange reason to give us a ride back to the hotel) derive from God. That we are in the position that we are in, 'for such a time as this' (Esther 4:14).

The picture below is of Faneuil Hall, really the only place we were able to see while we were in Boston. It was too cold for most of the vendors and street performers to be outside, but there were a few of them. A human statue, a bottle, bucket, tin-can drummer, a break-dance team, a group playing Christmas bells, and a very nice (for our memoirs of Peru) ethnic South American Indian pan-flute band. Nice trip - we forgot to take our camera out, but I bought Vikki a children's book by Martha Zschock that details a lot of the important sites so we can always remember our 'crazy, you're only 29 once' trip to Boston.