A Fork (Truck) in the Road
It had been a long drive and we were all tired. Seth and his friend, Mitch, were fast asleep in the back. I was driving along a narrow two lane road with our local friend, John, navigating from the passenger side. This stretch of rugged Haitian road had us ascending mountainous terrain. The view to the right was as amazing as it was dangerous; there was no edge to the road, just a steep drop off to the base of the mountain far below.
We were heading to visit a school that we had been supporting. It was tucked away in a poor community off this main thoroughfare, still some two hours away. I looked ahead at the curve in the road and was caught off guard by an abandoned truck sitting stationary right in our lane, directly in front of us.
I had only a split second to make an instinctual move - go right or go left. Going right brought us close to the edge of a drop to certain death, but left was a blind curve that would have put us in the lane of oncoming traffic. I was left with two equally dangerous options. At that moment I chose to head to the right, around the truck. John sat silent as I turned our large SUV, hoping upon hope that I had enough road. Only five seconds into this decision, I saw a large Mac Truck come barreling toward us on the left. My heart stopped. I knew if I had gone left we would never have survived. Even if we could have withstood the head on collision, the vertical terrain on our left and drop off to the right would have found us descending off the edge to our death. I swallowed hard as I drove slowly around the abandoned truck, hugging it tightly and praying that there would be enough pavement below us to keep us on the road.
John, was as shocked as I was. I could hear it in his voice. “Mitch, I was going to tell you to go left, I just decided to stay silent. I don’t even know why.”
I felt like I knew why; it was God looking out for us. Had John spoke up and told me to go left, I know I would have gone left and it would have been over for all of us. It wasn’t our time. Yet as I write this I wonder, is that how it works? A few months earlier there was a group of four people from a church in Grand Rapids that died on a similar narrow road in the mountains of Haiti. They all fell -- terrified I’m sure -- to their deaths at the base of the mountain. The danger we faced that sunny afternoon was real. Why were we spared our lives when those six perished? It’s an unanswerable question. They were there to serve the Haitians, just like we were. I simply don’t have a clue and I suppose it’s not for me to know why them and why not us. What I do know is I was given the gift of more days and I must work hard to not waste them.
If I’m honest, there is a part of me that thinks meeting my end in a developing country while serving the less fortunate would be so cool. I’m not saying I would ever want to die falling off a mountain, but I do think it would be neat to have a great death story when I’m in heaven. I imagine meeting someone new up there saying, “So, tell me about your death-to-eternal life story.” I would much prefer to be able to say, “Oh, I fell to my death while on a mission trip serving others” rather than, “I had a stroke when I was 87 in a nursing home”. I can just imagine the listener saying, “Interesting. Oh listen, I have to run to an appointment on cloud nine. Nice chatting though.” No need to elaborate on that story!
The Apostle Paul’s reflection on life and death comes to mind as I write this blog. As he approached death he longed to be with Christ and saw it as gain, yet he continued to live on this earth completely for Christ and his purposes.
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage (and really cool stories) so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death (he was decapitated - that’s impressive). For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!”
(Philippians 1:20-22) NIV