Abu Digan

A local, free weekly newspaper, The East Orlando Sun, was desperate for news last week and included a two page spread on the Hersmans. If you are interested in reading it please visit here.

I’ve been in Dallas all week. The temperature here has been going up and down like the hormones of teenage boy at a girl’s swim meet. We’ve had tee-shirt weather and “where-are-my-gloves” weather. These two photos are from Tuesday and this morning. Fortunately we’ve only had a inch at a time. Fifteen miles north of here, the totals have been up to eight inches. I’m very grateful to be on the south side of Dallas. Now if I can just get out this afternoon and back to sunny Orlando.

Okay, it has been forever since I last blogged…so sue me.

Today we celebrated the birthday of our first born. We won’t discuss which birthday it was, but I’ll give you a hint that it begins with a three. My baby girl is all growed up and soon to be the mother of her own baby girl. Wow…she’s already made me a grandpa three times…but she’s breaking the testosterone gender barrier now and having a girl.

Birthdays are times of recollection. I like to sit back and relive memories. I can remember the day we had her dedicated to the Lord at our church. Pam used to like riding draped over my forearm. Some of the ladies at the church are still talking about it!

I still have an old 8mm film of Pam pointing at a horse and calling it a “bithie” and prancing around the yard with her long, flowing, curly hair. She was beautiful–and still is.

She excelled in sports in junior high and high school. I remember her competing against the ninth graders when she was a seventh grader. I think her school record for the 200 meter dash at Rift Valley Academy is still standing nearly twenty years later.

She was also a naturally gifted artist that only practiced her gift in her senior year. Her art teacher was so disappointed she hadn’t started sooner. He considered her one of the best. I bought some of her works that year to help her finance her trip to Lamu. I still display them at home and work.

So she must have been perfect. No. Just ask about Kingfishers, the Carnivoire, locusts, bridge jumping…they all have a great story behind them. She is very human.

Now she’s this awesome Christian wife and mother, a fantastic sister(-in-law), aunt, and friend. But for me, she’s still this incredible daughter…my first born…and she’s all growed up and doin’ me proud. I heard a new Carrie Underwood song the today on the way to church. It’s called “All American Girl”. Whoa…talk about singing my/our story. Find it and listen to it.

Simon and Garfunkel sang a song “Old Friends” Some of the lyrics are below.

Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends

Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sun
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy

We spent a lot of the past month with old friends…people we grew up with when we were in our teens. Some of those friendships span 30-40 years. Friends are really God’s gift to us wrapped up in unique packages. They fill our lives in ways that no other individual can.

That got me thinking about other old friends that God has blessed me with and used to shape my life. Like my buddies Dan and Denny. We were the three amigos of Juba in the early 80s. We worked together, lived next to each other, played and prayed together. But one of our all time favorite things to do was hunt together.
We hunted only partially for pleasure. The main reason was to get good meat. The beef that was sold in the market was so tough that it defeated the best of pressure cookers. Pounding on it with hammers only wore out the hammers. There was more juice in the sole of your shoe. So we hunted everything from duikers to warthogs to haartebeests to water buffalos. We shared it among ourselves and the rest of our friends. We usually had to part with a gazelle leg just to get back across the Nile bridge. Then we would be “friends” of the bridge guards. Nearly 30 years later, we’re still friends. We don’t see each other nearly so often, but we sure value our friendship.

I had another friend in those days in Sudan. I’ve mentioned him before about two years ago. Lochilade. He was a Toposa man who kind of took me under his wing when we lived among the Toposa in 1979/80. He never could quite get my name right. Instead he called me Rushman. Just like Lochilade was an unusual name to me, my name didn’t make any sense to him. Most Toposa male names start with “L” so I was all mixed up in their world. Actually so was Lynda. She had what seemed like a male name to them, so when Lochilade’s wife had a baby boy in 1980 they named him “Lynda”! Unlike Denny and Dan, who continue to move in and out of my life, I’ve totally lost contact with Lochilade. Civil war has a way of doing that to people. I’d like to sit with Lochilade on a parkbench (or on little three legged Toposa stools) someday and find out what his life was like. I’m sure it will be entirely different than mine. He gave me that pipe in the picture. I don’t smoke it, but I do treasure it.
If friends are really gifts from God, then I have been the recipient of many, many gifts. Some of them are people I get to work with every day, like the senior leadership team at Wycliffe. Talk about God’s gifts! I look around at them and can’t believe I get to work with such talented, dedicated people. I’m pretty sure I bring the average I.Q. level of the group down, but I hope I add to the fun quotient.

It will be a privilege to some day sit on that parkbench at seventy with any one of these friends…which by the way, is a lot closer than it was when I first heard Simon and Garfunkel sang this song.

I couldn’t believe it yesterday when I was driving along the road and found the community of “Wycliffe” in Modesto, California. I just had to drive into it. It is off Scenic Drive overlooking a river bed and an orchard. The houses look like they were build in the 70s and are very up scale. Then I came upon the corner of Wycliffe Drive and Wycliffe Court. Now I know where I want to retire. What could be more fitting for someone who has spent their life in Wycliffe.

We’ve been in Modesto the past few days visiting Lynda’s parents. Lynda has been a couple times this year, but this is my first time back to Modesto in ten months. The difference in her mother is astonishing. When I was here previously Mom was pretty out of it. Now she is alert, sharp witted, inquisitive and just fun to be around. Her body has pretty much let her down in terms of recovery, but her mind is definitely back. Occasionally she will tell a story about a bear in LA that traveled up to Portland and changed colors along the way, but hey, after the stroke she had, she’s earned the right to have mess with our minds. The rest of the time her memory is far better than mine. God has graciously given us our mother back. We’re grateful.

We’re about half way through a three week trip to Oregon, Washington and California. Basically we are meeting with many of our ministry supporters, filling them in on what is going on in Bible translation and in our lives. But there is a subtle sub-theme that runs through our visits. We are also catching up on the lives of our dear friends. Lynda, who could have been an interrogator in a previous life, asks a zillion questions. Then she takes notes of kids and grandkids. And before we leave, we usually have a time of prayer for our friends. It energizes us and connects us in ways that would be impossible if this trip was only about raising support.

Last week we were with four generations of the Russell family. Wally and Ellen have been dear friends and prayer warriors for many years. I went to school with Bruce and Lynda, and Lynda is the one who introduced me to the gospel. Rachel is their daughter and works at Wycliffe. She and Gage are restoring a fabulous historic home. And two weeks ago they brought Brinley Baxter into the world. Together they represent a dynasty of faith.

Earlier this week we spent two hours with Dick Anderson. I might not be a believer today if it had not been for Dick carting me to and from church when I was in middle school. He’s 86 now and lives in an assisted care facility near Tumwater. His dear wife, June, is in a different facility to care for her condition. I was so blessed by the way he honors her. They’ve been married nearly 63 years and he loves her deeply. It was such a privilege to spend those hours with Dick. At the end of the time, rather than offering to pray, I asked Dick to pray for us. I wanted to hear him pray one more time. Great choice! Nothing like being in the presence of a saint totally in love with his savior.

Last night we spent with a couple that has really been pulled through a knot hole this past year. He was deathly ill and in the hospital for more than five months. We prayed often for them during that time and it was such a pleasure to walk up and hug Bob and Linda last night. He is back at work nearly full time and doing amazingly well. Don’t tell me prayer doesn’t work!

A week ago we were at an annual missions conference that is also a camping weekend. The incredible thing is that this is not a church run event. For fifty years (yes, that was FIFTY years) the Shulke family has sponsored the Shulke Missionary Conference on a part of their chicken farm converted to a camp ground. We were first there 31 years ago and have been back 5 or 6 times. We love it! But mostly we love the Shulkes and all the other folks we’ve been blessed to meet over the years/decades. These are lifelong friends and ministry partners.

Tomorrow I get the privilege of bringing the Sunday sermon at Lake City Community Church, the body that commissioned and sent us out in ministry over 31 years ago. They have been an incredibly faithful and supportive church through all these years. In that time there have been five different pastors and who knows how many other people going through the church, but they have never forgotten us in their prayers, encouragement or support.

Next week we head down to California where we will see more of God’s wonderful people who make it possible for us to remain in ministry. I feel a little bit like I am inside a sequel chapter to Hebrews 11 as we meet with these young and old heroes of the faith. We’ll be blessed and hopefully we will leave a blessing in return.

Every where we have ever lived, Lynda has planted trees. I searched out our former home in Juba, Sudan on Google Earth, and you can’t see the house because it is covered with trees Lynda planted. The same is true of our homes in Nairobi. Trees, trees and more trees. If you Google our old place in Orlando, the same thing is true. Everyone else’s backyard looks like a normal patch of grass with one little tree in it. But not our place…it looks more like a rain forest. I think her penchant for trees has to do with her love for dogs. If she couldn’t plant trees, she would probably erect fire hydrants.
It’s happening again at our new home, only this time we have family and friends helping us. It started with Lynda and I digging up a bunch of the smaller trees in our old backyard. Pam and Rinnie planted them around our new front and backyard. Then this past weekend our friends blessed us with a Jacaranda tree–considerably smaller than the one shown here, but we have great aspirations for it and the other one we brought from the old home. They are going to make an beautiful canopy over our driveway someday.

And a Live Oak tree (about the same size as shown).

This one was a riot to move and plant. It is roughly 12-15 feet tall and with a root ball that weighs about 250-300 pounds. It took six of us to wrestle it into the back of our pick-up. Then it was laying over the drivers side and sticking about 8 feet into the on-coming traffic lane. Fortunately we only had about 6 miles of country roads to travel and space to pull off the road whenever there was a car bearing down on us. Lynda and I dug a hole the equivalent of an elephant grave, backed the truck up and dumped it in the hole. Now it is standing nicely in the middle of our front yard.

There’s something about trees that you just have to love. We sure appreciate the gifts of love that these friends blessed us with. Soon we’ll start taking a few of the pines out to make room for more flowering shade trees like the Magnolia, the Frangipani and the Crepe Myrtles that have already been transplanted. Our dogs have taken to drinking extra just so they can have sufficient marking material.

We are expecting to get the keys to our new home this Friday. Whoa! This thing is moving at breakneck speed…and we couldn’t be happier. We’ve had several different kinds of inspections and nothing has appeared that would make us turn away. The more we meet of the neighbors, the better we like it. Yesterday all six grandkids were over and the five year old girl next door came over for a couple hours to play in the back yard. It was great.

The community has a park which we have driven by, but not seen other than these pictures. Looks great to me.

Lake Mary Jane (our lake!)

Yes, I think I am going to like this. And just in case you missed the post last week…its six minutes to the office!