Precious Gift

I’ve spent the last few days at a retreat centre in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with a small group of fellow pastors. The setting is magnificent and the weather has been surprisingly cooperative for springtime in Alberta. There’s been plenty of unstructured time for walking in the forests and reading by the river or just sitting and contemplating the vast beauty of all that God has made. It’s been good for the soul.

There are, of course, sessions to attend, “content” to absorb, worship and prayer to attend to. This, too, has been good. But for me at least, God often speaks most clearly on the edges or outside of officially sanctioned content. Yesterday, we were sitting outside for a session, and it came time for the Scripture reading. A South Sudanese brother had been asked to read parts of John 14 in his native Nuer tongue. I’ll call him Peter. We sat. we listened. Appreciatively, respectfully, perhaps even reverently. Uncomprehendingly. Obviously.

As I watched Peter pore over his well-worn black leather bible, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, I thought about the stories he has shared with me over the last decade or so. Stories about growing up in the wilds of Africa, of village life, of hunting and swimming and growing and harvesting and encountering dangers that seemed (and seem) exotic and alien to my Canadian ears. Also, stories about war and unspeakable violence. Of the grinding boredom and dull dread of nearly a decade spent in the hellish limbo of a refugee camp. About being spat and sworn at by the locals outside the camp. About being caught in the crossfire of gun fights. About being locked in a pen and treated like an animal. About the miraculous deliverance of God.

I thought of what I knew of Peter’s life in Canada since he has been here. Of long hours spent doing manual labour in work many Canadians would feel to be “beneath” them. Of night shifts and tight finances. Of never enough sleep. Of the agony of watching a few of his many kids get into trouble. Of trying to shepherd a small community of his people in a strange new land. Of looking for a vehicle large enough to get as many of them as possible to church on a Sunday morning. Of a life that seems hard in so very many ways that I can barely comprehend. Of a heart that is divided between his new home in Canada and the land he loves and misses terribly. Barely a prayer time passes at any gathering where Peter is present where he doesn’t plead for us to pray for the people of South Sudan.

Yesterday afternoon, I was reading in the afternoon sun on a hill when I looked down to the river far below. I saw Peter wandering around down by the river. He was taking pictures of the river, the mountains, the trees. I could almost feel his smile from across the distance (he is rarely not smiling). He cut such a strange figure, his jet-black skin, his rake thin body, his dress shoes and colourful slacks. Strange and beautiful. I can never look at him and not think about all he has endured, about what a miracle it is that he is even alive, much less here, on a retreat with a bunch of other pastors in the shadow of the Canadian Rockies.

After Peter had read John 14 in Nuer, I think the plan was to have someone else read it in English. But a colleague and friend (wisely) asked Peter if he would be willing to translate it himself from his Nuer bible. Peter smiled. Of course. And so, slowly, reading half a sentence in Nuer and then half in English, we heard the words.

And I will ask the Father…and he will give you… another… helper?… to help you and be with you forever…

I will not leave you as…

orphans.

I will come to you.

I may never hear those words the same again.

Later that day, our facilitator asked us to reflect on the question, “If your life were a book, what would its title be?” Predictably, many of our titles had ourselves at the centre in some form or another (including mine). Our journeys, our quests, our stories, our whatever. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that our assignment was to think about, well, our story.

When Peter was asked what he would call the story of his life, he smiled, looked around the room and said, “Precious gift.”