The Visitation Part 27

I tried to ease gently into the subject. "We've just had someone move to Antioch that we thought you might know." I handed her the photograph and we watched her face closely.

Her eyes grew large and her hand went over her heart. She drew a little gasp and then looked up at us. "He's in your town now?"

"Yes. He's living on a ranch and preaching under a big circus tent. You may have read about it in the papers."

She was puzzled. "No, not Herb . . ." She figured it out. "He's preaching?"

"People think he's Jesus," said Kyle, "and he's letting them believe that."

She gasped again. "I did read about that! That's Herb?"

I pointed to the photo. "If Herb is the man in this photograph, then it's Herb."

"There was never a picture in the paper and I think the name wasn't the same."

"He's going by a different name now."

She was afraid. The hand holding the photo was trembling and her other hand was still over her heart. But she looked up at us and said pleadingly, "He's a wonderful man. You have to believe that."

"Well . . ." Kyle had to swallow before he spoke. "There are many people who are impressed with what he's doing."

"He's a good man! I would never do anything to harm him in any way. He knows that."

I asked her, "Does the name Brandon Nichols mean anything to you?"

She gawked at me, still plainly terrified.

"Did Herb ever mention that name?"

"No . . ." Her eyes seemed so vacant, as if looking into another world. "Herb's a wonderful man, very sweet."

Kyle asked, "Did he ever work at a ranch around here?"

"He was a good worker. Abe loved having him around."

"Well, yes, but did he ever work on a ranch?"

"I don't know. I only know that he worked for Abe for a while."

"So-"

"He rode horses. He went somewhere once to ride horses."

"A ranch around here, I suppose?"

"He was quiet, and clean, and never missed a rent payment, and he was courteous."

I asked, "Did he impress you as being a spiritual man?"

That got her going. "Oh, yes! Very religious! You knew that just being around him! He wouldn't hurt anyone, and I know he won't hurt me!"

"Did he-"

"Because I'm on his side. He doesn't have to hurt me, I'm his friend, I'm his neighbor. I'm Hattie. He knows me."

"Where's he from originally? Any idea?"

"California. He talked about Southern California once in a while, but always fondly. He liked it here too, and we liked him, didn't we? Of course we did."

I was getting a very creepy feeling. She wasn't looking at us, but beyond us. Kyle shot a quick glance over his shoulder just to be safe.

"Hattie?" I asked, trying to get her to meet my eyes. "Are you all right?"

She pushed the photograph back at me. "Please leave him be. I'm his friend and he knows that. He's the most wonderful man in the world. I loved having him for a tenant!"

Kyle spoke gently. "Hattie, do you need us to pray for you?" He lightly touched her shoulder.

She jumped as if he'd given her a shock. "NO! No! I don't need any praying, not by you!" She looked past us as if seeing wolves lurking in the neighborhood. "I haven't really talked to you, have I? I haven't told you anything."

"Don't be afraid," said Kyle. "It's all right."

She gave a little yelp and ducked inside her door, slamming it after her. We could hear her whimpering behind the door, "Go away! Just go away!"

Kyle squeezed his eyes shut and extended his hands toward her door. "Lord G.o.d, we bind the enemy in Jesus' name!"

I pulled him by the arm. "And we leave Hattie in peace. Amen."

Neither of us said much on the drive back to Antioch. In the silence, my mind began to move through a series of inexplicable connections. Brandon Nichols . . . Herb Johnson . . . Abe and Hattie . . . and then further back, into the past, to places I thought I'd never go again. . . .

16.

TRAV," said Marian, her arm tightly around me-it was a new and wonderful sensation. "Let's go ice-skating."

It sounded cold, and I'd just gotten warm after my dip in the West Bethel pond. "Ice-skating?"

"It's how I'd like to celebrate!" she said.

I'd never been ice-skating before and the very thought, well, chilled me. I'd done plenty of roller-skating with my old youth group, and Marian insisted it wasn't that much different. I suppose she had visions of us skating in tandem like those Olympic figure skating duos, arm in arm, one leg stretched out straight behind us and our smiling faces turned directly into a sixty-mile-an-hour wind while stirring orchestra music came out of the sky. I had serious doubts that vision would ever come true, but, hey, I'd gotten her father's blessing, my folks were ecstatic, she was wearing the ring, I'd been thrown in the pond-what else was there? We went skating.

We did skate arm in arm our first time out, mostly to keep me from falling and making a fool of myself in front of all those little kids on the rink who could skate circles around me. The first half-hour or so, I tried to enjoy it. Marian was having the time of her life. After an hour, I really did begin to have fun, and my progress earned me a kiss once we were safely stopped and gripping the side rail. After another hour and a cup of cider in the cafe, I stepped up to Marian, bowed with a flourish, and said, "May I have this lap?" She graciously accepted, extending her hand, and we managed to work our way around the rink several times, my arm around her waist and my other hand in hers-kind of like dancing, but it was skating, and that's different. The music over the sound system was rock-'n'-roll and not very stirring. We weren't sticking one leg out straight behind, and I wouldn't say we were graceful.

But I remember the moment it connected for me: We were coming around the turn near the cafe for the zillionth time. Her face was so young, so close. I was holding her hand. The cafe was pa.s.sing behind her in a soft blur. There was a light in her eyes and a special smile that told me, I'm yours. It's going to be us now, you and me, and I couldn't be happier.

When we stepped off the ice to sit down and rest, she thought I had something in my eye and I was too embarra.s.sed to tell her I'd gotten all emotional out there. That look! I could actually feel the depth of her joy, the laughter in her heart. Our love became real in that moment. I could finally believe it. Ever since that night in the hospital waiting room, I never believed that such a lady as this would so gladly accept my love and love me in return. I just didn't feel that lucky or that blessed, and I still thought I had to be dreaming when I saw that ring on her hand. But that moment, when she gave me that one special look, I knew. I finally knew.

She would give me that one special look the day of our wedding. I would receive it across the breakfast table almost every morning and from the front pew every time I preached, year after year. I would look for it and find it each night as she rested on her pillow and reached to turn off the lamp. I would always catch a glimpse of it when I took one hand from the steering wheel to grasp hers for just a moment. It spoke volumes without a word. It was life to me. To the end, it never faltered, and before she slipped away, she summoned it once again, for one, fleeting instant, grasping my hand.

But this was the first time I saw it, and I can see it even now.

MARIAN AND I WAITED two years to get married. It gave us time to test the relationship and decide if we could really stick together for the long haul. It gave us time to finish our schooling-mine at West Bethel and hers at a business college. It encouraged discipline and diligence in our lives.

It almost drove us crazy.

It was a good policy, however, especially for me. Having been bowled over and burned by love before, I was able to think just a shade more clearly even while I climbed the walls.

Sister Dudley kept her eye on us, so we found times and places where G.o.d could watch but she couldn't. Brother Smith didn't seem to worry, and we gave him nothing to worry about.

She graduated in 1976 and worked until I graduated in June of 1977. A week later, we were married in the Baptist church Marian's family attended, the daughter of a Baptist marrying a flaming Pentecostal. She was giddy with excitement and I wasn't even nervous. Marian's sister, Lisa, was her maid of honor. My brother, Steve, was my best man. By now, Dad was back in the ministry, and he performed the ceremony. With obvious pride, he pointed out to everyone that I was graduating, marrying, and taking my first pastoring position all in the same year, just as he did over thirty years before.

As we stood in the reception line greeting our guests, it was like having my whole life pa.s.s before me. Two old friends from the Mountain Victrola showed up. The mandolin player was pumping concrete for a living and had a baby daughter. The dobro player was now a partner with his brother in the fruit and produce business.

My old friend Vern had married Susan-the gal with the shrill voice-and they were still attending Christian Chapel. She was expecting and his hair was getting thin.

Mrs. Kenyon was still beyond plump but had finally quit smoking and was attending a Charismatic Episcopal church in Seattle. Her son, David, who first introduced me to the KenyonaBannister praise meetings, was pastoring a small church in Chehalis, Washington, married, and raising two kids.

Karla d.i.c.kens, still wearing gla.s.ses, was married to an accountant and had a daughter.

Andy Smith, the diabetic, was divorced and teaching at an avant-garde music school in Seattle.

Clay Olson was about to leave for the mission field in Kenya.

Benny Taylor was still a long, tall, nerdy-looking fellow, still brilliant, and hoping to get a job with a little garage-sized company called Microsoft.

Harold Martin, our born-again purveyor of pot, wasn't there, and I couldn't find anyone who knew where he was.

Brother Smith kissed the bride, shook my hand, and said, "I'm at least as happy as you are."

Sister Dudley gave Marian a gushing, loving hug. I expected she would just shake my hand and move on, but she grabbed my shoulders, pulled me into a hug, and gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she told me, "You're gonna love it," and winked.

She was right. We loved it. We took our honeymoon in two shifts, first in Ben's parents' cabin on Camano Island in Puget Sound, and then in Victoria, B.C. After that, we moved into a little apartment on a busy artery in Seattle. On the first Sunday in July, we dressed up nice, walked into a struggling Pentecostal Mission church in Seattle, and began our ministry.

The year that followed was a greater education than the previous four. We learned things they never taught us in Bible school, probably because no one ever lived to come back and tell us about it.

Did I say it was a struggling church? That's incorrect. The pastor was struggling. The church was content.

The pastor was Olin Marvin, an old Bible school chum of Dad's who contacted me only a month before graduation. "Hey, come aboard," he told me. "We need fresh blood, someone with vision, someone with the old Jordan fire." Marian and I figured this was the hand of G.o.d. The only other offer I'd had was from a church in Pocatello, Idaho, and that seemed so far away from our friends and family that we hesitated. When Pastor Marvin offered us a position with a good salary and an apartment right in our own neck of the woods, that sounded right. I would take charge of the youth program, he said. I would preach on Sunday nights, and he and I would be like partners in ministry. Marian wouldn't have to work, so she could be as involved in the church as she desired.

In the intense days before graduation and the wedding, Marian and I talked about our upcoming ministry as if it were a done deal, a plan set in stone, the will of G.o.d. We would be married, we'd settle down in Seattle, and then be part of a marvelous move of G.o.d. Almost every night I lay in bed imagining what it would be like to preach to a whole roomful of young people. I envisioned hundreds coming forward to receive Christ while Marian played the piano and everyone sang an invitational song, something like "Just As I Am." I could hear myself holding forth on Sunday nights, see myself helping Pastor Marvin lead his church into revival, awakening, and explosive growth. I had ideas, ideas, ideas, and couldn't wait to implement them. We were going to take the city for Christ.

On the first Sunday in July, there was no revival or explosion, but there was an awakening.

Northwest Pentecostal Mission was a generally unheard of little chapel nestled in the center of a closely packed Seattle neighborhood. Without detailed directions through that complicated grid of streets you'd never find it, and I suppose there were many folks who never did. Pastor Marvin met us at the door, informed us there would be a board meeting immediately after the morning service, and then hurried away. It was Sunday morning, and he was understandably busy.

The sanctuary was pretty standard: dark, gluelam beams forming a sharp A-line roof, red carpet running up the center aisle and down the sides, a soaring chancel with a big cross hanging over the baptistry. The pews could hold about two hundred. The Sunday school rooms were in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the undersized parking lot was on one side.

When the Sunday school hour began, everyone-adults, teens, and little kids-gathered in the sanctuary for opening exercises, singing songs like: Deep and Wide

Deep and Wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide.

Deep and Wide

Deep and Wide

There's a fountain flowing deep and wide.

(hmmm) and (hmmm)

(hmmm) and (hmmm)