Call of A Coward: The God of Moses and the Middle-Class Housewife

CALL OF A COWARD

Thomas Nelson

Chapter One

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

—Anaïs Nin

* * *

I lowered the sheet from over my head. Slits of daylight squeezed through the gaps in the curtains and tumbled into the room. My eyes swept the walls, probing every corner. The eight-inch lizard that had disappeared behind the curtain the night before was nowhere in sight. Lily, our ten-year-old daughter, slept beside me, a mummified mound under the sheet. My husband, Bob, had tried to block her view as the long-tailed creature scooted across the wall just before we got into bed, but she had noted the look of alarm on his face and turned in time to see it.

I stared at the motel's whitewashed stucco ceiling spotted with brown bug splats. Today was Sunday, the day we would cross the border into Guatemala, the place we planned to live for the next year, the place we had been traveling thousands of miles from our home in New Jersey to reach.

We felt stronger now, more confident than we did three days ago when we had lingered in the dusty Texas border town of Brownsville and looked southward, reluctant to leave the security of the United States but determined to go. Trepidation gnawed at the edges of our courage as we considered how different that border crossing would be from the previous crossings over state lines. We went to the zoo, and then the bank, and made one more trip to the Laundromat. When we finally ran out of familiar things to do, we gathered our courage and drove across the Rio Grande.

To our immense relief, the actual crossing was relatively uneventful. Although there had been much discussion with our non-English-speaking clerk about how long our car was to be in the country and why there wasn't a watermark on our registration, in the end, we nodded, smiled, signed the forms, and went on our way.

People warned us about the dangers of driving through Mexico—the tire-eating potholes, the mountainous speed bumps that guarded the entrance to every little town, the banditos, and the perils of night driving. Never, but never, be on the roads after dark, they cautioned. Mexican drivers had some particularly disconcerting habits, such as driving with their headlights off and abandoning their cars in the road. Not to mention the stray animals and tipsy night revelers who traveled the centerline with equal abandon and unconcern about fast-moving vehicles.

More than a thousand miles stretched between us and language school—miles where we would have to buy gas and food and lodging. Neither of us spoke much Spanish. The fact that we were relying on my rudimentary vocabulary resurrected from high school lessons many years earlier wasn't very reassuring. I didn't have a good ear. When I had asked the person who answered the phone at the Guatemalan consulate in the States if he could speak English, he responded, "I am speaking English."

Although I could ask for directions, I couldn't understand the rapid, softly slurred responses and often misunderstood whether we had been told to go derecho (as in straight up to the volcano) or derecha (around the right side of it), a rather critical difference.

Bob, with his phrase book and handful of basic expressions, enthusiastically tried to communicate with everyone we encountered. He drew outright smiles from pan-faced gas attendants as he asked them in his thick Brooklyn accent, "Llene mi tanque," but they nodded their understanding and filled the tank.

In one town, a policeman approached us as we pored over a map at the intersection, a confident smile on his face and a long gun hanging from his side. He rapped on Bob's window and said something that sounded more like a request than an offer of help. When we pretended not to understand, he tipped back his head and held his cupped hand to his mouth, indicating he wanted money for a drink. Condensing the whole thought that we were Christians and didn't want to pay bribes, Bob blurted out one of the few words he knew well, "Ah, no—Jesucristo." We blinked in amazement as the man threw up his hands in surrender at the mention of this name and retreated to the sidewalk.

Although in the past several days we had covered more than nine hundred miles of Mexican highway without mishap, we were edgy from being in a constant state of alertness. Our emotions raced back and forth between the excitement of adventure and the fear of unknown dangers.

Then, on the third day, unable to find a suitable motel, we were forced to continue late into the night. I kept my eyes glued straight ahead, watching for shadowy specters to rise out of the darkness. Except for an occasional "What's that?" no one spoke. Just when I thought my body could not possibly contain any more adrenaline, two red eyes pierced the blackness ahead of us.

It is doubtful that angels take the form of semitrailer trucks, but we welcomed it as one and hugged its taillights for miles, following it straight to the motel.

* * *

Bob stirred in the twin bed on the other side of the room. He searched the floor before pulling his feet from under the blankets and sat up. I smiled a little good-morning grin of victory. Wearing our triumphs over potholes and pesos and fear like souvenir pins on a hatband, we prepared for the final run to the Guatemalan border. I finished in the bathroom, stuffed my nightgown in my suitcase, and checked for six-legged creatures before closing it.

"Make sure you use the bathroom here," I advised Lily, well aware it might be the last clean one we would see in the next two hundred miles.

A few minutes later, Lily shrieked and bolted out the door. "There's a frog in the toilet!" We all peered over the bowl at the little sucker-toed green frog clinging to the sides of the toilet I had just flushed. I raised my eyes in a sigh of thanks that it had not decided to leap to safety while I was sitting there.

Closing the door of the room we shared with the lizard and the frog, we settled Lily in her nest among the trunks and bedding in the backseat. I folded the map to the southeastern part of Mexico as Bob turned onto the highway. We still had several hours of driving ahead of us through Chiapas, that turbulent Mexican state fraught with rebel activity and the consequent military roadblocks, before reaching the Guatemalan border.

It was a clear October morning. Mountain ranges rimmed the horizon. Lean, white cows stared dully from behind flimsy fences. Scrawny dogs ambled dangerously close to the edge of the highway, eliciting a few gasps from Lily. Chickens scurried aside, fluttered their wings, and settled back to pecking the hard dirt.

About the time the Pan American Highway bent its southerly course eastward, our animated chatter about life in the future replaced conversation about life in the States. We speculated about how we would communicate with the family we'd be living with while attending language school in Antigua, whether Lily would meet kids her age, and what our life would be like in the remote Mayan village where we intended to work with orphaned and widowed survivors of Guatemala's bloody civil war.

Unbeknownst to us, miles to the east at the same Guatemalan border we were heading for, young men with dark, slicked-back hair, older men wearing straw hats and baggy trousers, and poker-faced men in camouflage with big guns slung over their shoulders—the money changers, the translators, the guards, the vendors, and the hustlers—were gathering on this Sunday morning, as they did every other morning, waiting for opportunity to drive in from the west.

Signs warned us of the frontera ahead. We slowed for the approach to the border. Apprehension permeated the silence as we stared ahead at the throngs of people lining both sides of the road. The sight of our car, adorned with our Sears cargo carrier and trunks, energized the crowd. In animated unison, they moved toward us. Like long-awaited celebrities, we were swallowed up in the chattering mob. As we inched toward the barrier, brown arms clung to the car and banged on our windows. A cacophony of voices shouted out proffers of assistance.

"I help you get papers. I know what you do. Change money. It's Sunday, you no have problem; I help you. Speak English. Come with me. I show you."

I turned to Bob as he took a deep breath and prepared to enter the sea of grabbing hands. "If they make us open the car carrier and trunks, we might as well kiss everything good-bye. I'm afraid this mob will strip us clean," I said.

Bob opened the door, pointed to a guide, and disappeared in the throng. Lily and I sat inside the car, windows up, doors locked. Some of the more audacious boys sidled alongside the car. White-toothed, smiling faces peered at Lily. She stuffed her Walkman in her backpack and stared back at the bold, curious faces. We waited. My fear receded, regrouped into annoyance, then into boldness.

"Stay in the car," I ordered as I opened my door and faced the crowd. Looking straight into the faces of the ones closest to us, I silently dared them to touch our things—things we had so carefully chosen for our life in our adobe village. The crowd parted, settled back a few steps, and waited. Waiting for opportunity was their strength; defending my family was mine.

It was to be one of the first times, but by no means the last, that I took my stand and defied anyone to violate me or my family. Long minutes passed with no sign of Bob. I was getting worried but didn't dare leave the car to go find him. Finally he emerged, the chosen interpreter and an official stuck to his side. Once again, we and our car, properly stamped, inspected, and documented, were permitted to cross the imaginary line that defined the end of one world and the beginning of another.

As we passed beyond the crowd, I breathed a slow, deep sigh. It was a short-lived moment of relief. One of the tourist books I had read warned that just when you thought you were through, there was yet one more official who always asked for "two dollah."

We inched forward. He rose from his stool, his languid wave turning palm side up. He grinned and said, "Two dollah." Bob smiled and handed over two dollars. We would retake our stand against bribery another day.

Although it was late in the afternoon, we were determined to make it to Guatemala City where our contact, Raúl, lived.

"Why are all the cars turning off through that muddy field?" I asked as we kept on going straight ahead. Bob slammed on the brakes just short of an unobtrusive row of rocks. Lined up like miniature soldiers in silent formation, they blocked our passage. We had become quite familiar with most of the foreign road signs but were completely perplexed about this. We realized we had left the world of flashing barricades and orange cone markers but still expected something more official looking to mark a point of danger. Bob got out to investigate.

"There's no bridge," he said, getting back into the car. Apparently it had been blown out, a tactic we knew the leftist insurgents favored as a reminder that Guatemala's bloody, thirty-year-old civil war wasn't over. We backed up and took our place in the detour through the slippery mud-rutted field and crossed a low spot in the stream.

I tried to engage Lily in bright, brave mother-talk in order to stave off my anxiety, as it became increasingly clear we were once again going to be caught on the highway long after the sun had disappeared. At what we hoped was our last gas stop, I asked a man for directions. Trying to keep my eyes fixed on lips that hardly moved and arms that did, I gathered, from the last wave of his hand, that we were to turn right at the end of the street. That road, he said, would take us to the city. Carefully I repeated his instructions. He gave me a thin smile and a barely perceptible nod.

Invigorated by the prospect of the final lap, we headed down the street and turned the corner. Bob eyed the lonely stretch of rough road and came to a quick stop. "There's no way this road leads to a city."

Signaling to a man about to cross the street, we asked about the road. Both his English and his warning were clear. "No, no. Don't go that way. It goes to the volcano. It is very dangerous. Many bandits." He pointed to the way we were to go—completely opposite from the way the first man had directed. Thanking him and God for saving us from harm, we drove off into the night.

It was absolutely dark by the time we reached Guatemala City. Raúl wasn't answering his phone. We had no idea where to go. Horns blared, cars cut us off, and one-way signs directed us up one street and down another. We were exhausted. I saw a wedding party gathered in the doorway of a reception hall. The sight of their laughter, hugs, and intimacy, silhouetted against the warm hall light, drew me to seek their help. Bob double-parked the car. I jumped out and ran up to the group to ask directions. Although caught by surprise at the abrupt appearance of a distraught North American woman, they quickly understood the one coherent word I kept babbling—hotel—and all joined in offering suggestions and directions.

But it was too late. There wasn't one single synapse in my brain left firing. I understood nothing. Neurons stood at the edge and keeled over, unable to leap across the gap and make the connection. I thanked my kind advisors and got back into the car. Bob and Lily watched as my emotions came undone.

First, the intensity of being a stranger in a strange land seeped out, followed by the frustrations of spending seven days in a car. Then, like a suddenly freed logjam in a spring flood, all the fears, anxieties, and exhaustions of the past several months raced down the river and breached the dam. Everything washed away—the stoic wife, the brave mother, the obedient woman of God.

Bob noticed planes overhead and knew there had to be a hotel near an airport. By the time we checked in, with the exception of a few whimpering sounds, I managed to contain myself. The innkeeper, noting my distress, eyed Bob questioningly as he led us to our room.

Lily wrote her first letter to our home church: "We arrived in Guatemala. Mom cried a lot."

Chapter Two

It's difficult to get your mind around trust. You just have to do it.

* * *

We had come to Guatemala because we believed God was nudging us out of our well-meaning, comfortable lives to work at the home for widows and orphans that Bob had visited on a church mission trip the previous year. It had taken a lot of prodding on God's end and praying on ours to get to this point.

We were living in northwestern New Jersey at the time, not far from the Delaware River. On a pleasant but otherwise unremarkable summer afternoon while Bob was in Guatemala, I was busy laying a patio from some slate slabs I had discovered behind the garage of our hundred-year-old house. Quite unexpectedly, a singular thought pierced my Martha Stewart–homemaking moment.

Bob is going to come back and tell me he thinks we should move to Guatemala.

That's absurd, I countered to my unseen speaker. Guatemala is a violent, dangerous place. Thousands of people have been killed in its civil war, and it's not even over. There are still pockets of guerrilla activity. Dismissing the idea, I fitted another slab into position.

Bob came home two days later. "They need a couple to oversee the project" as the home for the widows and orphans was called. "Marsh, I believe God is calling us to Guatemala," he said.

Years earlier we had pledged to follow the Lord wherever he led, but after ten years of marriage, my fervor had settled around me like a cozy comforter on a winter's night. Zealous promises made on a beach under a starry sky lay buried under the security of paychecks and health insurance. Bob's return from his mission trip with the conviction that we go to Guatemala unleashed a torrent of fears that shattered my tidily defined world. Perhaps the Lord had tried to soften the impact by forewarning me, but my response was immediate.

"What? Are you crazy? Guatemala's dangerous. I don't even dare go there, to say nothing about taking our daughter. How can we possibly take Lily?" Besides, I challenged, how could we be sure it really was God who was calling us and not just a case of mission-trip afterglow?

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from CALL OF A COWARD by MARCIA MOSTON Copyright © 2012 by Marcia Moston. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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