A shrug. “It’s a big church, Rachel Marie. We keep our ears to the ground, and there are several families with kids at Stephenson. So you’ve got your gifts and doing due diligence is one of mine. Pastor Mike and I both are very excited about the difference we think you could make for the Lord out in Bangkok even in just a single school term.” She began gathering up her things. “Don’t get me wrong. The school’s bumping along okay. We’re not going to send you out there, and two months later the place goes into a death spiral and does a Chapter Eleven. But the current trajectory for BCS and several sister schools in the huge metro area there . . . well, it could be better. This coming year’s really kind of important for the entire business of Christian education in Bangkok. And that’s important even beyond what I’ve told you so far.”
“How come?”
“Well, here’s the facts. In a setting like Asia, we want for Christianity to establish and maintain a credible foothold. And there’s three basic ways to do that. One, have really good hospitals. Bangkok has several. But when a person’s bleeding from a car crash and staggers to the ER, they basically care that the sheets are clean and the doctors know what they’re doing. A Christian chaplain coming by to say hi and offer a prayer is nice, but it doesn’t exactly galvanize a nation.”
“Okay.”
“Then there’s churches. And Thailand’s are doing a heroic job swimming upstream against a pretty stiff current of Buddhist nationalism. But the reality is, you’re just not going to get churches exploding in growth up to two, three thousand like happens here and in places like South America. Not going to happen.”
“Ah.” Rachel Marie got the point immediately. “So a big, exciting Christian school is our best bet.”
“Exactly. We need for all of them, but especially Bangkok Christian School, to be full-throated winners. ‘Cause then we can save kids, or at least plant gospel seeds, hundreds at a time. And we have a lot of confidence that God might be specifically calling you to help us pull off a miracle turnaround.”
“Wow.” She didn’t know what else to say
CHAPTER FOUR
Seattle’s Space Needle twinkled through the huge picture window of the picturesque Mexican restaurant. Rachel Marie reached out for another tortilla chip, treasuring the all-American moment.
“You may not have a meal like this for a pretty long time,” Dad teased.
“I know. But everybody says that Bangkok has just about every kind of restaurant you’re looking for.”
“Except Baja Fresh and Taco Bell.”
Rachel Marie laughed. “I’ll get by.”
Her mother beamed as the waiter brought three heaping plates of enchilada combos and set them before the Stone family. “Everything’s hot, folks. So watch your fingers.”
“Okay.” The family had already said grace, so they dug in with gusto.
“It’s sure great seeing you guys before I go,” Rachel Marie said, taking a gulp of soda.
Her father put a hand on her arm. “Well, honey, Thailand is a long ways around the world, even with the Internet. I’m just glad we could get you a route through Seattle without it costing us an extra million baht.”
“Pretty good memory, Daddy.” It had been fifteen years since Bucky came home from a mission trip and proudly showed his family the colorful red and brown pieces of currency from Bangkok. She still remembered sitting around the kitchen table, goggle-eyed, just a kid in her pajamas, and hearing him describe a poisonous viper slithering toward him during a monsoon. And a pretty Thai girl–yet another of his many romantic crushes–being baptized in a mountain stream above Chiang Mai.
“You guys about ready?” Dad took charge, glancing at his watch. “Either of you want dessert?”
Both women shook their heads no. Rachel Marie mopped up the last bite of beans, forcing the food past a growing lump in her throat. Ten months at Bangkok Christian School loomed as an exciting adventure, but she suddenly felt painfully alone.
Reading her thoughts, Mom scooted her chair closer and gave her daughter a hug. “I can see it on your face. But you’ll be okay, Rach.”
“I know, Mom.” Tears sprang into her eyes, but she forced a grin, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
“We’re both very, very sorry about Adrian.”
There was a whole litany of things she couldn’t say in response, not with her father sitting there. So Rachel Marie simply reached out and took her mother’s hand. “Thank, Mom. It was hard, but I finally figured out what I wanted. And that wasn’t it.”
“You’ve had kind of a hard month, baby,” Dad said gently.
“Yeah. The whole job thing. Then Jisoo dying. And having to break up.”
“Well, thank God these folks in Bangkok found you just in time,” Mom said. “‘Cause you’re going to do a wonderful job for them, honey.”
“Actually, you know what, you guys? The way I look at it, right now I feel like I need a miracle from Bangkok Christian School a lot more than it needs one from me.”
Dad handed over a credit card to the waiter and then took her hand. “Sweetie,” he said gently, “you and Bucky mean the world to me. I admit I didn’t initially vote for this big adventure, but now that you’re going, you know you always have my support. And you also know that your old pop is hugely proud of you. Always. Anything you need, holler. You can call home for about ten cents a minute, or email, or whatever. If you’re lonely and can’t stand it, ditch school for a few days and just come here. I’m good for a quickie plane ticket anytime you need it. You just fly back to Seattle and sit on Daddy’s lap like the old days.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Daddy, you’re so awesome. That really means the world to me.”
“I mean it. And look. Let’s say this whole thing isn’t cracked up to be what you thought. Just leave. If that happens. You pick up and come home and teach in California just like before. Or down the street from your mom and me. We’ll rent you a room real cheap. ‘Cause you don’t owe these people nothin’.” He said the last with a teasing smile.
“I know.” She looked out at the glorious Seattle skyline. “I’ll be okay.”
“You bet.” Dad pushed his chair back and then moved over to Jennie’s. “Come on, Mama. Let’s take little R.M. to the airport so she can go to summer camp.” They all laughed.
The late-night traffic was a sparse scattering of headlights on the I-5 as they glided toward Sea-Tac Airport. In the front seat, Mom held Dad’s hand, contented, and Rachel’s mind flooded with irrational doubts. Is this all a colossal mistake? Am I running clear around the world on an idiotic goose chase because I somehow insist on a spiritual unity–some unattainable nirvana–that most normal people never find? Mom and Dad seem to be doing fine.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it.
“Who is it?” Mom asked, turning her head.
“Bucky.” She tapped on the cell phone screen. “Hi.”
“Whooh! I’m glad I caught you.” His bass voice filled the receiver. “You guys on your way to the airport?”
“Uh huh.” The soft glow of the car’s digital clock reminded her it was the wee morning hours in Boston. “Oh, man, it’s really late back there! I’m sorry.”
“How you feel?”
There was no sense denying it. “A little freaked out.”
“I know.” His voice softened. “It was easier for me ‘cause I was traveling with lots of cool people. Plus it was just two weeks.”
“Yeah.”
“Look,” he reminded. “The minute you get there, a whole bunch of great Christians will be at the airport, and they’ll take care of you. Where to stay, what you do, everything. You’ll be part of a family the minute your plane touches down.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “For sure?”
“That’s what’s so amazing. You’re in a family, R.M. All the teachers there are just like you. You love the Lord; they love the Lord. And they’ll take care of you.” He lowered his
voice. “It’s great how they think you’re the one who can revitalize their whole school. I’m way proud of you.”
She glowed at the generous words. “Don’t forget your promise. You and Lisa will come see me?”
“I’ve already started saving for it,” Bucky said solemnly. “We put a quarter in a mayonnaise jar above the fridge just last week. So we’re practically ready to go on Hotwire and shop for plane tickets.”
“Bucky!” she pleaded. “I’m serious.”
“We’ll do it. Cross my heart. You can take us out for some kow paht.”
“What’s that?”
“Fried rice. The most yummy kind you ever had.”
Rachel Marie felt a shiver of affection for her big brother. “You’re the best in the world. I mean it, Bucky.”
“I’m blushing. Anyway, safe trip and all that. Call us when you get there.”
“I will.”
They pulled up at the departure curb and Dad helped pull two large suitcases free from the trunk. “Let’s get you a cart.”
She gratefully accepted the gift and snuggled in his arms for a last hug. “Thanks for everything, Daddy.”
“You bet, hon.” He fished in his pocket. “Let me give you some extra money just in case.”
“No, I’m fine. Everything there’s paid up for the first month.”
“But you don’t know what else you might need. Taxi rides and stuff. Here.” He thrust three $100 bills into her pocket.
She hugged him again, then turned to her mother. “‘Bye, Mom.”
“I guess L.A. versus Bangkok isn’t that big a difference anymore,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “We can phone you or email you either place. It just seems like such a long way off.”
“I know.” She remembered, oddly, that Bangkok was fifteen time zones later–but only nine time zones away. “But I’ll email you guys all the time.”
“Ten months will go by quick,” her father assured. “I guess that’s it, then.”
If it had been just Mom, they would have shared a farewell prayer together, Rachel Marie thought to herself as she waved to them through the big glass window of the terminal. But now it was just a faux cheeriness while blowing kisses through the lettering on the sign. She watched forlornly as the taillights of her parents’ car disappeared into the gloom of the August night.
She had prepaid the extra fee for her two bulky suitcases, so in just a few minutes she checked in and accepted her pair of boarding passes. The attendant was near retirement age, with thinning white hair combed over his gleaming scalp. “Looks like you’re staying away from home for quite a stretch.”
“Uh huh.” She flashed him a smile, eager now to get her adventure underway.
“Have a good time.”
She threaded her way through the short security lines, as just a few travelers made their way to various gates for red-eye and long overseas journeys. Padding through the X-ray machine in her stocking feet, she retrieved her purse and carry-on bag. It was a long walk down to gate C-43 where a large group of travelers jostled to get in line.
“Your attention please. We are now boarding rows thirty and higher.” The announcement blared in several languages, and she idly wondered if she would be hearing Thai conversations during the long flight to Taipei and then her new home in the Far East’s proclaimed City of Angels.
A young Asian man with a playful face accepted her pass and ran his scanner over it. “Try to get lots of sleep,” he advised.
“How long is the flight?”
“There are bad headwinds tonight. Maybe thirteen hours.”
She made her way down the gangplank and stepped into the huge jet. Long rows of neatly prepared seats seemed to stretch down interminable twin aisles, with pillows and blankets already in place.
“Service is a little better when you go overseas,” a college student ahead of her observed laconically to no one in particular. “Free pillows.”
Rachel Marie settled into her window seat close to the rear of the plane, and noticed gratefully that her seatmates were a demure senior couple. She fastened her belt and gazed idly out the window at the flashing red lights on the various airport vehicles shuttling around the aircraft.
Beautiful flight attendants, all from Asia, fanned into the aisles and demonstrated the safety features of the plane. Just once, Rachel Marie heard the female voice over the loudspeaker add a kind of kah suffix to a sentence. That must be Thai, she thought, remembering Bucky’s playful efforts to teach her a few words.
The jet thundered down the runway and soared into the foggy skies north of Washington as Rachel Marie gazed out at the receding lights of her home country. Lord Jesus, she murmured, hardly realizing that she was praying, I give you this journey. I’m choosing to go to be your servant and your ambassador. Please bless everything that I do. Bless every child that I’m privileged to teach. They want me to go out there and be spectacular, and with your help I’m going to do that.
The cabin lights were dim as attendants wheeled through the wide-body cabin, serving a modest 2:00 a.m. snack. Rachel Marie, still pleasantly full from the restaurant feast with her parents, picked idly at the food and was thankful when the trays were removed and most of the passengers sank into a quiet time of rest.
But sleep eluded her. Romantic movie scenes danced on the tiny color screen in front of her, but Rachel Marie was enthralled by the view outside her window. A rich canopy of white clouds formed their own gentle continent, spread out to a vast eternity beneath the quiet aircraft. A full moon slowly ascended over the coastline of Alaska, spilling its silvery light throughout the heavens. It was a glorious evening, and she wondered about her friend Jisoo. Was there really a soaring away, an escape from the bondage of this beautiful but ravaged world and its cemeteries? Beyond the distant twinkling stars that surrounded this humming machine, was Jesus measuring a construction site and building a mansion for her departed friend?
A quiet resolve stole over her as the miles slipped away and the approaching land masses of a faraway culture remained shielded from view below. There were certain core realities that God’s children simply had to choose to always believe. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. There in the wee, darkest hours of an interminable journey, all Rachel Marie could see were the ghostly beams of a removed but reflected sun spilling through the clouds. Her vision of life and truth had been reduced for the moment to this tiny window in a piece of Airbus machinery. America had slipped behind the curvature of the earth; the skyscrapers of Bangkok were yet to come.
She remembered a line from her treasured, dogeared copy of Mere Christianity. “We must exercise the habit of faith.” After her irrational screams of despair on the 210 freeway, it was her Christian duty to calm down, repent, read God’s promises in her own Bible, and then decide by an act of fragile human will to believe its words. Men with shovels and blank unfeeling faces had pushed the rectangles of sod into place over the holy corner of earth where Jisoo’s remains were laid to rest. But now God invited her to summon a continuing belief in the realities of a new, eternal life on the other side of those silvery clouds.
Rachel Marie reflected back to the feast of enchiladas and chips, so quickly a vast ocean away. And the simple image of Mom holding hands with her life partner across the gap between two bucket seats. Her parents did have a sweet partnership, she mused. And Dad’s noninvolvement with the things of God wasn’t a sinister or stubborn thing. He had simply never grappled with it, and Mom, tender and wise, hadn’t pushed for a decision.
Yet how could the daughter sitting in the back, peering through the split between the two front seats, possibly know how many rich moments of shared faith had been forfeited? How many prayers her mother had said in solitude? How many crises of faith had been survived as a lone soldier? Would it be possible to catalog or even comprehend the gap, the human shortfall, of living a life so separated in spirit from your life mate?
The sky outside darke
ned and she drifted to sleep, determined that she, Rachel Marie Stone, would find a full partner to share in seeking the kingdom where Jesus reigned.
* * *
The smaller airplane wasn’t as full as it lifted off from Taipei for the short hop to Bangkok. Now in a center row of four seats, she sat next to a perky Thai couple and their three-year-old daughter. “She’s very cute,” Rachel Marie commented, trying to be friendly despite her growing fatigue and a gnawing tightness in her lower back.
The woman nodded, barely comprehending the compliment. “Senk you,” she managed.
The three hours, punctuated by restless dozing, passed in erratic slowness, but the jet finally dipped and banked to the left for a final descent. Peering across the laps of several passengers, Rachel Marie could see the lush greenery and rectangular squares of rice paddies, with spires that she supposed might be Buddhist temples. She caught a glimpse of a two-lane highway, with tiny cars and buses creeping along on the left side.
Scattered cheers erupted as the plane touched down and squealed its way along the massive runway leading to Suvarnabhumi’s terminals. The velvety voice of the lead flight attendant, punctuated by a myriad of polite kahs, reminded passengers that contents in the overhead compartments might have shifted, to have a pleasant stay here in Bangkok where the local time was 4:15 p.m., and to please fly with them again.
Airline employees stood in the concourse, pointing the weary travelers toward the customs department. “This way for stay in Bangkok, please.” A short, squat woman in a navy uniform motioned for her declaration card and swiped Rachel Marie’s passport through the digital reader. “You stay here long time,” she observed, reading the dates on the card.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The official peered closely at the form, finally nodding her approval and stamping both documents. “Welcome to Thailand.”
She managed a tired smile. “Thank you.”
There was a moment of semi-panic when just one of her bags seemed to have made the journey to Asia with her. But after walking nervously around the entire carousel three times, she saw the second suitcase suddenly pop free and slide down to the slow-moving metal plates as they lurched around the mechanical track. A nearby rack indicated that luggage carts were complimentary, and she wrestled her two bulky bags onto the nearest one and began to push it toward the exit.
Love In a Distant Land: Rachel Marie Series Book One Page 5