Seeking Refuge

by Alana Terry

  Matthew looked at his hand, then hers, then laughed rapturously. “Aww, I’m the one who’s sorry, girl.” He shrugged his shoulders then winked. “I hear it’s the best way to become friends.”

  She lingered with Mrs. Cooper and Andrea at the first aid station longer than she intended, trying to shake off the embarrassment of her encounter with Matthew while Andrea covered all the blisters.

  Rose had already been cleaning the other cabin for half an hour before Hadassah joined her. She must have wanted to make up for not helping with the shoveling; the place smelled like a swimming pool and resembled sanitary.

  “The bathroom is done.” Rose didn’t even pause as she scrubbed a desk. “I’m cleaning the bureaus and desks. Do you want to wash the bed frames before we wash the floor? Hey, what happened to your hands?”

  Hadassah looked at her bandages. “Just a few burst blisters. It’ll callous before I know it.”

  “I hope so. Thanks, by the way. It was kind of you not to say anything.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I was thinking—why don’t we pray for Dave and Matt while we clean their cabin?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you start?”

  While she wondered the whole time whether or not this was appropriate, Hadassah scrubbed the thick wooden bed frames and prayed with Rose for the men who would sleep there. But Rose’s prayers were hard to disagree with:

  “Lord, keep them pure, both in heart and in mind, and keep them under the shadow of Your wing. Give them each a greater love for You and for Your word, and a deeper revelation of Your heart.”

  By the time Hadassah and Rose turned back to their own cabin, Christina and Priscilla had joined Matthew and Dave. All four of them were scrubbing the place on their hands and knees: walls, floor, furniture and the small bathroom. How thoroughly the cabin was transformed from when Hadassah had first opened the door—from even an hour before.

  “I hope this pays the debt for the maggoty trash cans.” Christina beamed at her.

  “Thanks.” Hadassah fought another swell of jealousy toward her friend. “You didn’t owe me.”

  Matthew looked up from scrubbing one of the bureaus. “Wait, what maggoty trash cans?”

  “On Thursday’s workday she cleaned three trash cans with maggots crawling in them because I couldn’t stomach it. And she did it without getting sick once. I was impressed.”

  Hadassah’s face grew red. “It was nothing, really. Hey, how did all of you have time to help us?”

  Priscilla looked up, her face glowing with a quiet joy. “Mr. Murray said you two were the most behind. We finished ours almost an hour ago.”

  “Are you unpacked, too?” Rose asked.

  Christina stopped scrubbing and wiped her brow on her arm. “Mr. Cooper didn’t want anyone to get bags from the van until we could all get them together.”

  “Well, thanks so much,” Rose said. “I’m glad Hadassah didn’t say it, but it’s mostly my fault we were so behind.”

  Mr. Cooper stood at the door carrying one mattress while Mr. Murray held the other. “Are you ready for the mattresses yet? I suspect we’re going to hear the dinner bell any moment now, since Amelia was almost done when we looked in on her. Yup, there it is.”

  With a glance around the cabin Mr. Murray sniffed the air twice. “It smells so much better in here. I think you two got the worst of the cabins.”

  Hadassah laughed nervously. “We suspected so, but didn’t want to say it first.”

  Mr. Cooper set the mattress into the frame. “Just so none of you thinks Mr. Murray lazy, the dining hall and offices in the Lodge looked twice as bad when we first bought the place.”

  AMELIA HAD PROVED HER culinary skills when they all sat to dinner in the Lodge. Each plate had liver and onions sautéed to perfection, with a side of mashed potatoes that melted in Hadassah’s mouth. On the table was a salad of romaine, spinach and dried cranberries with a strawberry vinaigrette—a perfect melding of light, sweet and tart with the rich main course.

  Most everyone was too hungry and the food too good for there to be conversation. Christina, however, laughed loudly after the first bite and exclaimed, “Worth it! Thank you, Amelia!”

  This produced laughter from Amelia and “Thank you!” from everyone else.

  “Tonight, everyone washes their own dishes so we can all get some sleep,” Mr. Cooper announced. “In the morning we’ll meet here for breakfast and worship. Then you’ll have a free day before we begin on Monday.”

  HADASSAH SLEPT MOST of the free day. Her arms ached and her blistered hands throbbed unless she was sound asleep. Having church at the dining hall with this group was delightful, but none of the sore recruits expressed themselves too wildly. Tameka sang an old song, one of Misty Edwards’s—“Beautiful Heart,” all about Jesus’ humility and meekness. Her version was just as ethereal as the original. Hadassah sang it in her dreams.

  When she woke from a nap in the late afternoon, she opened the large box of parting gifts from Mom. Three wool hats, four pairs of wool-lined leather gloves, three coats fit for Siberian winters, a pair of snow boots, an all-in-one pocket tool kit, a deck of cards (They fold out into maps of different cities, the accompanying note said), the slim LED flashlight that fit in the little pocket of her new boots, and a set of mirrors and magnifying glasses of varying strength which fit into a case no larger than a compact (Because you never know, the note said). She missed Mom so much already. She packed the gifts away under her bed with the rest of her belongings and went back to sleep again.

  THE WHISTLE TO WAKE everyone came earlier than expected on Monday morning, and Mr. Murray’s voice rang loud and clear over the megaphone:

  “Ten minutes to roll call! Everyone up! Greet the day. Remember, His mercies are new.”

  The jackhammer pounding of Hadassah’s heart made waking even more painful. I could use some of that new mercy, Abba. She felt sorer than the day before.

  Rose had already turned the light on and was stretching. “Mind if I use the bathroom first?”

  Hadassah marveled at Rose’s cheerfulness. “Go ahead.” She propped herself up on her elbows and smiled at her cabin-mate. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  Rose had decorated the walls with tasteful and beautiful art, and the accompanying scripture verses were poignant. The one over her dresser read, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul and all of your strength.’ She remembered one of Dad’s sermons. This verse was prophecy as much as command; she would be given power to love the Lord as much as she desired to love Him. As quickly as she thought this, it transported her back to her usual seat in the Brooklyn church, watching Dad give his sermon. In her mind’s eye he looked so handsome, so confident, so thankful for the ability to love the Lord. She longed, suddenly, to be able to love God with the same devotion. She lowered her aching body to her knees beside her bed and asked the Lord to fill her with this love.

  A vision, brief but thorough, streamed through her. Children all across the globe trapped in gross slavery, women kidnapped, men held hostage, and Jews, her own flesh and blood, sold for a kilo of coke, a bottle of ecstasy or even a loaf of bread. “Love Me,” she heard in the vision. “Love Me. Love Me.”

  “Yes, Lord, I will,” she replied aloud, and wept. She suddenly knew why He could ask her for this. Because He loves me with all of His heart, all of His mind, all of His soul, all of His strength.

  When the door of the bathroom opened again, Hadassah pushed herself to her feet and pulled her newly issued fatigues into the bathroom, wiping her cheeks of tears along the way. By the time she stood under the stream from the shower, she had set her resolve to her Abba Father’s will. Her Abba Father’s will! Where Saturday’s anger and jealousy jolted her then left her exhausted, this proved to strengthen and awaken every weary muscle and sinew.

  Chapter 21: Classified Lessons

  HADASSAH OPENED HER eyes and looked around the empty cabin on
yet another Monday morning. Three months had slipped by like a spy plane over Russia.

  At least Rose left the decorations on the walls when she moved back home, a pleasant reminder of the sweet girl. She understood why Rose had to go. That bout of the flu was terrible. Her own fever took three days to leave.

  Three months in and Hadassah still awoke sore every morning. Mr. Murray seemed to want their limits pushed as much as possible. Stretching her stiff muscles, she glanced at the pile of clean fatigues that needed to last the week. She determined to get to the shower before Mr. Murray’s voice sounded through the megaphone, but her weary body employed every Monday morning excuse.

  Too late.

  “Rise and shine, morning glories! Roll call in ten minutes.”

  Another quick shower, but this became second nature two months ago.

  She stepped down from the porch and into line between Tameka and Hyun before the first hints of sunrise kissed the sky. The routine push-ups and pull-ups were much easier without blisters covering her hands. Those first few days were unforgettable with throbbing, soreness and stabbing pain threatening all her steadfastness. Now there was just a constant dull ache in her refining muscles.

  “How’d you sleep?” Tameka asked, panting during the pause between the 1,020 sit-ups. She spoke in Tagalog, their language for the month.

  “I slept well. How about you?” Last month’s Italian was much easier, but she was starting to get the gist of this language. At least Priscilla tutored her. But all this talking was agony when her abs groaned.

  “Pretty well. Hyun and I had the last laundry tickets last night, so we were up late.” Tameka gave a genuine smile. How she could produce it at this hour, Hadassah simply could not fathom; remembering to speak in Tagalog was as much as she could manage.

  “Staying up gave me a chance to finish the homework for this week,” Hyun said.

  Hadassah wished she had the same eagerness on Sunday nights. “Have you guys noticed that there are no earthquakes here?”

  Tameka winked at Hyun before answering. “Coming from Pasadena, I noticed it pretty quickly.”

  “I think that’s why Mr. Murray and Mr. Cooper chose these campgrounds,” Hadassah wondered aloud. “Don’t you?”

  Hyun smiled at her knowingly. “Come on, girls, we want to get to breakfast before 8:00am, and we still have our hike.”

  Hadassah’s body resisted the hike. Mr. Murray had increased her pack weight another five pounds since Friday, bringing the total to forty-five. After the flu last week, she had little endurance and slept every extra minute, which put her behind on her homework. Then she remembered Dad’s question all those months ago: would she have enough stamina for this program?

  There had been no word from Mom about Dad, and every thought of him weighed upon her heart worse than the backpack weighed upon her shoulders.

  For the eleventh morning in a row—or was it the twelfth?—Matthew walked up beside her. She smiled for the first time since yesterday morning.

  “You alright this morning, Tsigele?”

  “Goodness sakes!” She tried not to smile too wide. She tried not to like him walking so close, or all those accidental times of hands brushing against each other. “Whoever taught you Yiddish needs to teach you a better term of endearment than the word for ‘little goat,’ Matthew.”

  “And I keep telling you to call me Matt. My mom calls me Matthew.”

  “There was this pot-head in my school back in Brooklyn who called me Tsigele. Every time he said it I wanted to expose his stash of weed which would have landed him in juvie for a few years.”

  “Good thing I don’t have a stash of weed, eh?”

  Mr. Murray tromped by on his way to the front of the line. “Speak in Tagalog if you’re going to talk.”

  “Yo, Mr. Murray, how do you say ‘dude’ in Tagalog?” Matthew called out to him.

  Mr. Murray glanced back briefly. “Don’t lag, either.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” Matthew told Hadassah in Tagalog as soon as Mr. Murray passed. “You’re just one of the coolest girls I ever met.” He smiled shyly. “And your hair looks really nice today. Like a flock of little goats on the hills of Gilead.” He jogged along to catch up with the larger group ahead.

  How dare he say a compliment like that! Hadassah stopped briefly to glare at him before jogging to the larger group. “I’ve noticed you’ve let your hair grow.”

  Matthew smiled in return and turned his gaze to the ground as they ran.

  Zeke, who had been walking beside Priscilla at the tail end of the large group, caught up to them and glanced at Matthew, then Hadassah. “Did you know that he took the Nazarite vow?”

  He flashed an awkward grin at her. “No more grapes or raisins. But I’m sure you could teach me all about the Nazarite vow, Hadassah.”

  “I think it’s great.” What could she say to get him to say her name again? Especially with that Tagalog accent. Her stare lasted far too long. She dropped her gaze and her pace to walk beside Priscilla at the end of the line.

  “We’re almost done with a month of Tagalog.” Priscilla’s countenance brightened. “Do you think this means we’ll be doing a mission to the Philippines by this spring?”

  “Mr. Cooper said we’d be training for a year first, but I’m with you—I’d rather go sooner than later.”

  “I hope I can handle the operations when we go. I mean, Mr. Murray only has my pack at thirty pounds, and I know it’s lighter than anyone else. What does he have yours at?”

  “Forty-five.”

  Priscilla watched her feet as she hiked through a denser area. “What did Zeke say when you talked to him?”

  “Just something about Matthew.”

  “Oh. Thanks for walking with me. I know I’m always at the back of the line.”

  “I like your company. Besides, you’ve helped me so much with the language this last month. And who else have I hung out with these last three months?”

  “Did you do your homework for Mr. Cooper’s Countries class?”

  “You mean memorizing the major blood types in the black market cities in China? I found it easier when I memorized facts and didn’t think about the implications of the perfectly healthy organ donors.”

  “Did it scare you as much as it scared me?”

  “Especially when I heard Vladimir Therion’s name attached to one of the cities.” Hadassah shrugged, then thought of the Tuesday afternoon class. “I’m still trying to calm my heart rate over Explosives with Mr. Murray. I’m sure once I calm down I can tell the difference between the Russian and Italian land mines. Or remember how to dismantle a simple C4 fuse.” She didn’t want to tell how much she enjoyed this class for fear of boasting. She loved the thrill of it.

  “Maybe we aren’t as ready as we need to be, but I want to be ready to go soon.” Priscilla’s countenance fell again.

  “Let’s pray for your sister again at Wednesday’s cell group meeting.” It felt trite as soon as Hadassah said it, but all other words seemed just as threadbare.

  AS SOON AS SHE ARRIVED in the Lodge for Tuesday evening’s class on Song of Solomon, and found a seat as far away from Matthew as she could, she noticed that something about the classroom was different, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  This was by far her favorite class. At first she hesitated liking Song of Solomon, with all of its potentially sensual poetry, but Mr. and Mrs. Cooper tag-teamed the class and stretched all of Hadassah’s paradigms about how she could draw near to Yeshua and Abba Father.

  But tonight, Robert and Hannah stood at the front of the class holding hands. Holding hands? What had she missed? Granted, there had been enough to occupy her attention, but she should have noticed a blooming relationship. All of her training was about learning how to notice. Maybe she needed to get out of her cabin more often.

  Mrs. Cooper grinned from ear to ear. She stood beside Hannah while her husband stood beside Robert. “Okay, y’all, we figured this would be the bes
t time to announce this.”

  “This is both sad and exciting for us,” Mr. Cooper added with his same stoic expression. “Tomorrow, Robert and Hannah will be packing up and leaving the Lighthouse to get married. We wanted to bring them forward to express that this is the way we want it done. They came to us and told us plainly without sneaking around. We planned together, and they remained pure. If they decide to come back in a year the decision will be up to them, but we heartily invite them.

  “Tonight, I want all of you to stretch out your hands to Robert and Hannah, and let’s pray a blessing over them and the next stage of their lives.”

  Stretching out her hand, Hadassah pulled her glance away from Matthew and had to close her eyes not to see him in her peripheral vision, not to wonder whether he glanced back at her. She had been looking forward to the distraction of learning tonight, whereas praying for Robert and Hannah reminded her about Matthew and the way her pulse quickened under his gaze.

  While she prayed her blessing over the couple, she thought about the homework for Wednesday’s Cultures class. What was the proper response to a compliment when in Manila? Maybe these thoughts would help her ignore this swell of emotion. But extending her hand toward her friends without focusing on the Lord struck a bell toll of guilt within her heart.

  The next day, as soon as she bid farewell to Robert and Hannah, she poured all her thoughts into her studies.

  “I’M SURE ALL OF YOU have noticed our new guest speaker, Captain Roper,” Mr. Murray began the following Monday afternoon. “He and I will be tag-teaming a class on handling torture.”

  Maybe Hadassah imagined it, but it seemed as if everyone in the room began to breathe just as shallowly as she did. Did Mr. Murray’s words pull the oxygen from the room?

  “Your work will be twofold,” Mr. Murray continued, “to release captives who are in physical and spiritual chains, and to pray for their captors who are in deep spiritual bondage. So every team we send out will have two components: the reconnaissance team, which will do the search and rescue, and the intercessory team. You’ll go in together; you’ll come out together.