Remembering 30 years on - Oklahoma City Bombing

On April 19, 1995, I was in Côte d'Ivoire in my very first months in West Africa. 
I had just traveled several hours north for our group conference and was getting settled into the second floor of the guesthouse at hour training center. I had made my way to the central kitchen area to get some water and Cathy Davison was listening to the BBC news on the radio. She told me there had been a bomb in Oklahoma City and my first response was, "That's not the sort of thing that is supposed to happen" back home. 

Back in 1995, there was no internet to speak of. I got on the phone in our guesthouse and finally got a call through to my family back home. After supper, I watched a 3 minute segment on the Ivorian news that night. Then I waited the better part of a week for the Newsweek to come out with pictures and more details. And I wrestled for the first time with terror and its place in our world. 

I now have lived long enough to see the face of evil in so many places I have been: Bamako, Gao, Timbuktu, Ouagadougou, Nairobi, Paris, Beirut, Yemen, Grand Bassam. And I know now that this is not something that any place can say they are exempt from.

But in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, we saw people come together in spite of their differences with hope and resilience. And I have seen that in the other places mentioned above. Love and hope are stronger than hatred. 

On this 30th anniversary of the bombing in Oklahoma City, it is Holy Saturday. I think it's fitting that we sit with this remembrance of evil on this day between Good Friday and Easter. On Good Friday, Christ endured all the evil the world had to give, and it seemed like death won. On Saturday, we sit and remember but we look ahead with hope to Easter, when Christ conquered death and evil and sin.

One of my favorite parts about the Oklahoma City Memorial is the unofficial memorial that Saint Joseph's Catholic Church erected just across the street from the site, well before the official memorial was finished. It's called "And Jesus Wept", showing Jesus with his back to the bombing site. He is in white and surrounded by black granite columns representing the children whose lives were lost and a wall with a hole for each victim. We are reminded that Christ enters into our suffering with us and is grieved by it. 

The pedestal of the statue has the inscription "And Jesus Wept". 

The official memorial is across the street with two large black walls  bookending a reflecting pool. 

There are glass chairs for each of those 168 people who lost their lives. 

Lastly, there is the "Survivor Tree" that somehow managed to survive the blast and became a centerpiece of the memorial and a reminder of endurance and hope in the face of evil. 

We remember but we do not grieve or despair like those who have no hope.

I Thessalonians 4:13 

 

  

OKFreewheel - Day 0 - Hollis to Border

Saturday June 6, 2015 – Hollis to Texas Border            

So Ed Bussa drove down from Grand Rapids last night and we headed out to Hollis, OK about 8:30 this morning.

Hollis is in the far South West corner of Oklahoma. 

Population 3000, according to the woman who served us homemade ice cream.

We got to Hollis around 11:30 and were lucky enough to get a good campsite out of the sun.

After getting organized and set up, we headed out for the border at 2:00 pm.

Here is the Route we did today.

25.6 miles. We actually crossed the border twice, once on the southern side across the Red River into Texas, where we were instantly attacked by Texas-sized horse flies. 

The second time we crossed the Western border, also into Texas.

Today was challenging in that we were riding from 2-4 in the heat Ic the day, 92F.

But a good start, all in all. 

Tomorrow is 70 miles, riding to Frederick.

Oklahoma Freewheel 2015

You may remember that back in June 2011, I did a 500-mile bike ride across Oklahoma, from South to North. Below are some pics from that time as well as links to blogs.                                                   Day Zero (Durant to the border and back). Obligatory pic at the southern border. 

Day 1

Day 3 - Wewoka to Checotah, The "House of Overalls" in Henrietta and a big storm in Checotah, but no sign of Carrie Underwood. 

Day 4 and 5 - lots of pics

Day 6 and 7 - The final push to the end. And a pic at the Kansas Border. 

Well, this is to let you know that I am about to set out on Oklahoma Freewheel 2015 with my buddy Ed Bussa coming down from Michigan to experience this with me. 

Our schedule is below. If for some reason you're in the neighborhood and want to come hangout along the road or something, text me and let me know. The specific route maps are below in blue. 

We will normally leave around 7 a.m and roll into the host community anywhere between 11 and 2 pm. 

• Saturday June 6, 2015 – Hollis to Texas Border –  Day 0  
• Sunday June 7, 2015 – Hollis to Frederick –  Day 1 
• Monday June 8, 2015 – Frederick to Elgin –  Day 2
• with a climb up Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, where we should see some Bufffalo. Mt Scott Option
• Tuesday June 9, 2015 – Elgin to Lindsay –  Day 3
• Wednesday June 10, 2015 – Lindsay to Ada –  Day 4 
• Thursday June 11, 2015 – Ada to McAlester –  Day 5
• Friday June 12, 2015 – McAlester to Poteau  – Day 6
• Saturday June 13, 2015 – Poteau to Fort Smith, AR –  Day 7
• Saturday June 13, 2015  – Day 7 Optional Cavanal Hill Climb

I'll try to blog and post pics on facebook from time to time but connectivity and cellphone battery will be limited. If you do twitter, you can follow Freewheel at @OKFreewheel

Please pray for 

• God's protection, 
• good weather 
• enjoyment of his creation
• and a good break from work. 

50 years – The Third Decade: ’82-93

Setting a Solid Foundation – The Time Between Times

This is the third blog post and it treats my third decade. This one runs from my 18^th year (starting college) to my 29^th (departure for French study).

Places lived: Oklahoma and Texas

• Norman, Oklahoma (1982-86: University of Oklahoma, BA in Linguistics),
• Dallas, TX (1986-88: Grad school (SIL Dallas, MA in Linguistics UT Arlington)
• Norman, Oklahoma (1989-93, Teaching English as a Second Language).

I lived in the Walker Tower dorm at OU, all four years of my undergrad. And I realized at the end of that time, that it was the longest I had lived in any one building. This was a record that would stand until I lived in my apartment in Bamako for 13 years beginning in 1999.

Life-Shaping events:

I came back to the US in the middle of high school where everyone else knew each other. I was pretty much clueless about American culture: music, movies, cars, football, what was cool.

Going to the University of Oklahoma (OU) was a time to really come into my own as a person. The freshman year is a time when EVERYONE is making new friends and starting over, and so it was a time for me to start fresh when everyone else was equally new.

I chose to plug into the Baptist Student Union (BSU) starting with the “Freshman Ministry Team”.

Freshman Ministry Team 82-83 Shirt (The Eternity Fraternity)

It was a major time of spiritual growth and foundation laying. It was here that I found lifelong friends, got grounded in the Word of God, and spiritual disciplines of quiet time and scripture memory.  Thanks to Max Barnett, Ralph Neighbor, Dave Edwards, Ron Dinnocenzo, Nelson Leong and others.

1985-86 Ministry team group: Me, Todd Perry, Alan Rhea, Brian Goree, Jeff Maness,

Back row: John Strappazon, Randy Kluver

I went off to the University of Oklahoma as a Civil Engineering major and wanted to study languages as well. I knew I wanted to live overseas and had received “a call” to missions.  I had the idea in my head that I could go to a country and build bridges and dams, and then on the side I would learn the local language and translate the Bible into that language.  Obviously I had no clue as to what is involved in language learning and translation work. I also did not know there were organizations that actually DO Bible Translation in minority languages.

In my freshman year, the BSU challenged us to read “Through Gates of Splendor” in anticipation of a week-long conference with Elizabeth Elliot. I was challenged by the story of the 5 men who gave their lives to reach the Waorani (Auca) and also surprised to learn that Jim and Elizabeth Elliot actually did training in linguistics in the Summer Institute of Linguistics held each summer right there where I was studying. (In 1985 I did SIL courses in Norman and taught there in 1987).

teaching Phonology II at Norman SIL, 1987

In the fall of 1983, my sophomore year, I decided to get a German-English New Testament to keep up my German until the next semester. It was at first eye opening to read the gospels in German -  everything was fresh and different. What must it be like to read the Bible for the first time in my own language? 

But then I got to Romans and realized that I was not getting much out of the text at all, even with 4 years of German under my belt. Could we expect uneducated people to go very far in their spiritual walk if they could only read the Bible in a second language?

So that is when I decided to change my major to linguistics and pursue Bible Translation.

Grad School:

I did a Masters in Linguistics at SIL and UT Arlington for 2.5 years. It is interesting in retrospect. I made a lot of quality friends there, some of whom are still colleagues today. Dallas-Ft Worth became my second home area in the US. And I got involved in at Hope Church in Fort Worth. This was a key time of learning how to make my faith work in a small group setting and away from the college context where everything is structured for you.

And I studied Linguistics, and really enjoyed it. It is something that has been important to understand in my current work but not something I actually use from day to day.

Back to Norman – The Time Between Times

After grad school, I moved back to Norman and got a job teaching English as a second language at the English Language School on Campus Corner.  This was a good use of my linguistics and I really enjoyed teaching, interacting with students and planning fun activities for them (Field Trips, Dances).

ELS staff with two students on Graduation day

I knew I wanted to go overseas, and was doing this to pay off my school loan. Was this advancing me towards my end goal? At some point, it seemed like I was wasting time, spinning my wheels. I see now, though, that God had a purpose in it. He is truly “the God who wastes nothing”.

My First apt in Norman, OK

In this “Time between Times”, I was gaining valuable experience in the “real” work world. I had my first car and apartment and bills to pay on time.

I was making life-long friends and getting established in a church. We were learning how to make our faith work in the real world.

And when it was time to raise support to go overseas, these relationships provided a strong base for that.

Also in this decade my brother Todd married Maria Countryman.  A super addition to our family!

---

Roommates:

At last count there have been 60+ guys with whom I shared a living space for at least a month. In this decade I had 25 different roommates. Roomies that stand out in this decade:

• Les Perkins, Frank January (OU).
• Charles Hilliard (my first summer of SIL)
• Robin Wenger (SIL Dallas)
• And the guys of “Chatauqua House”: Burke Nail, Wade Baker, Kerry Knight, Brady Birdsong, Lance Tate, Craig Brooks, John Allgood. What a fun year living in a big old house with wooden floors near the university. We were all fresh out of school and in our first jobs.

Jann, Brad, Alan, Frank, Les, Russel (last 4 were roommates)

Charles "Chuck" Hilliard at Norman SIL

Languages:

So I’m studying linguistics at university which means I get asked about once a week, “How many languages DO you know?”

• German – 3 years in high school, 1 year in college.
• Mandarin – 1 year in university
• Cheyenne, Hmong, Korean – for linguistic projects and analysis, not actually learned.

Rides:

My sister Tammy in the convertible

• Skateboard: When not riding my bike to class, I rode my skateboard back and forth to class at OU. I never did do any tricks.  Some will remember me skateboarding to class when I was teaching Phonology II at Norman SIL.
• When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a very fun 1979 VW convertible bug, - definitely the most fun vehicle I have had.

Reading:

• The Bible. Switched to NIV. Started Memorizing scripture and had the obligatory “verse pack”.
• Through Gates of Splendor, Elizabeth Elliott.
• Charles Colson: Loving God.  We read this in our Discipleship Group at the BSU.
• Frank Peretti: This Present Darkness
• Stephen Lawhead: the Pendragon series (esp Merlin) and pretty much anything else he wrote. 
• CS Lewis: Mere Christianity, Space Trilogy(esp Perelandra), the Great Divorce.

I find that God speaks to me a lot through narrative stories – fictional or biographies. This was especially true in this period. I’d rather read an allegorical novel by Lewis, than his non-fiction.

Tunes:

• Russ Taff, Michael W. Smith,  Amy Grant, Steve Taylor, Farrell and Farrell, DeGarmo and Key, Sandi Patty, Petra, U2. Harry Connick, Jr.

• It was in this decade that I widened my horizons from beyond just Christian music – though I had absorbed a lot of “secular music” by osmosis, it was not until the age of itunes decades later that I would fill out my collection with 80’s pop and rock and dance tunes.

Movies:

• Back to the Future,
• Star Trek II, IV, VI.
• Batman (the REAL ones with Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer)
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• Wayne’s World
• Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

TV:

• Family Ties, Cosby, Seinfeld , Cheers, SNL
• Star Trek: The Next Generation, LA Law, 30-something (a show about “old people”)

Asymmetric Warfare ..... Asymmetric Compassion and Service

I've only recently become familiar with the term "Asymmetric warfare" or "asymmetric tactics". The context I have encountered it has been in description of the the change in tactics by the Islamists in Mali now that the war has been "won", and they have been largely chased out of the territory they controlled in January.

They no longer have a large base to operate from and have weakened numbers and resources, and so rather than traditional fighting - army to army, they have turned to asymmetric tactics - suicide bombings against civilian targets in Mali and against 2 major targets Thursday in NIger that took 30 lives.   
What makes these "asymmetric" is that countries in question are playing by traditional rules (not attacking civilians) and using traditional military forces (army, air, etc). The terrorists do not have the same resources but are in turn leveraging the strengths they have: ability to travel quickly through the desert and blend with local populations, willingness to sacrifice their own lives and to take civilians lives, using vehicles with some cheap explosives as suicide bombs. 


Also in the news this week has been the massive F5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma that took 24 lives and flattened between 12,000 and 13,000 homes, affecting 33,000 people.  My cousin and his family were among those who lost their homes.  

So what does this have to do with Asymmetric Warfare? Well, I have been blown away by the asymmetric response of people in my home state in taking care of folks hit by this. It is not like we don't have practice: the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing changed us forever, and then the 1999 tornado also in Moore left lots of devastation.

Watching this on facebook, I have seen just an outpouring of love, compassion and giving asymmetrically, without expecting anything in return.
This includes

• a million dollar check from Kevin Durant
• $2 million from Hobby Lobby
• People giving through Red Cross and the Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief fund
• concerts from Norman highschool students and country superstars 
• churches like FBC OKC, FBC Moore, Victory church and literally 100s of others collecting supplies, providing lodging, going out to communities that are hard hit to help out. 
• One apartment complex giving away free apartments
• A car dealership letting people use rental cars for free if their car was lost
• My alma-matter, the University of Oklahoma, opening up dorms for 300 or so people with churches providing free day care so parents could go deal with their houses. 
• Giftcards from Walmart and Target, food from Buy for less

Donald Miller's storyline blog has than incredible write-up on this: "We are Oklahoma.
This is what we do."  It includes this quote from NBC’s Brian Williams tonight, as he was speaking with Governor Fallin:

“I watched your entire briefing today, you had heads of all State Departments, including churches and conferences of churches. You almost have a faith-based FEMA here, as well as FEMA.”

So alongside the symmetrical response of FEMA, we have this enormous groundswell of asymmetrical response by ordinary people.

If suicide bombers can leverage their limited resources in Asymmetric Warfare, how about we start a campaign for Asymmetric Compassion and Service:

• Leveraging the good things that we know how to do
• striking where love is least expected
• and expecting nothing in return except for asymmetric results.

Admittedly, this already happens in so many missions and churches and NGOs and inner-city works:

• our faith-based NGOs may not come in with the budgets of the World Bank or USAID, but we can do asymmetric things like going and living with the people, learning their language and teaching them to read in their mother tongue, building relationships in their communities. 
• little churches and inner-city ministries can maintain food closets, and after-school reading programs, and ESL classes, clinics, big brother programs, etc. 

It is hard to go down this asymmetric compassion path very far without thinking of God's very asymmetric offering. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." Against all logic, at huge cost and for a huge benefit.

I Corinthians 1: 18 -28  The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God...    God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish...... 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful..... 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

 Luke 9:23 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 

 So let's get busy getting asymmetrical!

Oklahoma Freewheel - days 6 and 7 (June 17 and 18)

It's been almost 2 weeks, so I need to finish up the last of my commentary on the Oklahoma Freewheel bike ride before I forget.

Friday, June 17: The next to the last day. Pawnee to Tonkawa - 55 miles.

After not sleeping very well in Pawnee due to action at the nearby Sonic, police cars blazing by around midnight, and finally rain at 2:30 a.m, I was feeling very tired. I really wanted some coffee but Subway only made 3 pots and I didn't want to wait.

Kevin on the road to Ponca City - pretty flat

It didn't take us too long to do the 40 miles to Ponca City, where my riding buddy Kevin is from. We stopped in at the chamber of commerce to see his brother-in-law and get our pictures taken for the chamber of commerce magazine. I was also given 2 souvenir coozies. (- a new word for me. A coozy is an insulated holder for keeping canned or bottled drinks cold).
Kevin and I went on to visit his wife Candy at her office which makes and sells equipment for oil pipelines.
Ponca City is a big oil town - home of Conoco oil company.

Heading in to Ponca City, I was showing an average speed of slightly about 18 miles per hour, which was my fastest ever. This dropped off going through town to 17.5 and so I decided to push all out on the remaining 15 miles or so to see if I could get it back to 18 mph. I pushed as hard as I could on the straight flat rode, but it was hot and we had a crosswind. When we pulled in to Tonkawa, my average showed at 17.94. Another 100th and I could have rounded it up!

Kevin offered for me to stay at his house that night in a real bed. Nothing beats a shower, nap, and a real bed in AC if you have been out on the road for a week. Kevin also took me on a tour of Ponca City including the the Pioneer Woman statue

and the impressive Marland Mansion. Built with oil money in the 20s at the time of Prohibition, it has a secret tunnel to a pond which allowed alcohol to be delivered clandestinely. It also has a secret room off the big fireplace where dignitaries would hide from police raids. Nothing was too good for the future Governor of Oklahoma, who later ended up marrying his adopted daughter, making her the First Lady (/daughter)

On the way back into Tonkawa, we stopped and found the grave of my Father's grandparents, Isaac Dalton Walker, MD and Mary Elizabeth Walker, who moved from Kansas to Tonkawa between 1900 and 1907. My great-grandfather was the town doctor for many years.

Tonkawa Grain Silo. These always remind me of Oklahoma.

Friday night was the final night of Freewheel and time for the big celebratory meal and music - entertainment provided by the "Mid-Life Crisis band". It was HOT but some of us danced. I was pretty sure they should have provided us a fruit and gatorade stop along with the dance. We did go home pretty early so we could get a good night's sleep.
SO nice to sleep in a real bed.

---------------------------------------------------

Saturday, June 18, the last day. Tonkawa to Caldwell, KS. 40 miles. After days of riding 75 and 87 miles, this really seemed like a day in the park.
The weather was beautiful when we pulled out at 7 a.m, though there was a cross-wind for most of the 26 miles to the border.

The countryside was flat with cornfields and windmills. It just seemed so very Oklahoma-like, and as we were getting to the end of our journey across the state, I was inspired to sing "OKLAHOMA, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains". I sang it through several times, like Kevin Kline's character in the movie "Dave. As I passed groups of riders, I kept trying to get them to sing along. Kevin was further back and he did say that he had heard some of them join in. 

You can't really sing "Oklahoma" for 2 hours, so I through some other songs into the mix: "And Can it Be?", "Amazing Grace", the Vegie Tales theme song and "the Pirates who can't do anything". "More Love, More power" and "Hello, Blackwell" (to the tune of Hello Dolly). But "Oklahoma" was in heavy rotation in the mix until we finally got to the Kansas border at 10:15 a.m.

The Texas Border, June 11, 2011

The Kansas Border, June 18, 2011

From there it was just another 14 miles to Caldwell, Kansas, which was the real finish. We had a tailwind of about 20 mph and the road was newly tarred, so I was hitting speeds max speeds of 30 mph on the flat outs.

What a joy to arrive there and realize I had done it.
My final stats were:

504 miles (812 km) ridden over 8 days (average of 100 km per day).
Total ride time was 30 hours 26 min.
Average speed was 16.56 mph or 26.6 km/h.

I am grateful to God for the opportunity to go on this great quest, which ended up being the icing on the cake for my sabbatical. I'm thankful for safety - no accidents or technical problems, not even a flat tire.
It was so great to meet new people, see the beauty of our state and experience the small town communities which make it great.

Thanks for coming on my trip with me. Start training now for 2012. . .