An Ordinary Life, An Extraordinary Life

Our next destination was Venice. I wanted Laura to see this amazing place I had lived when I was younger and I wanted to try find where the ship had been. But to get to Italy on the train, we had to go through what was then still communist Yugoslavia which is now divided into about six different countries. It was another overnight trip so we were in a sleeper car. There was room for six people in a car with two rows of seats against the walls, one facing forward and the other backward. At night, the seats slid together to make four places to lay down and there were two spots higher up. However, there were only three of us in our car because of the blessing of our one other companion. Whenever you take a long train trip, you always have concerns about with whom you will have to share the car, especially for a female. There are a lot of creeps out there travelling on trains. Laura and I were relieved to see that we were alone in the car when we left Greece. But as much as you hope, we kn...

The following day we went on another adventure where we discovered one of our major differences as a couple that has played out often in our marriage over the years. When I go somewhere new, I like to explore. Laura likes to just relax on a beach and read a book. I feel like you can do that anytime. If I’ve paid all this money and taken all this effort to get somewhere, I’m going to take advantage of it and discover new things. We figured out a compromise. We rented a moped and rode along the coast until we found a decent beach. It was somewhat remote but there were a few other people. I hung for a little bit to make sure Laura was safe then went off on the moped to explore some more. The next day we took a bus to the eastern end of Crete to catch the ferry to Rhodes. The capital of the island of Rhodes is also called Rhodes or Rhodes Town which is famous for being the location of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - the Colossus. It was a 108-foot high statue of the sun god...

Chapter Eleven - Marriage 22 – London, Greece, Yugoslavia, Venice, Switzerland, Paris, California, Austria Upon our return to London, we stayed with the Dale-Thomas’s in Clapham, the family Laura had stayed with when she visited. We got to the Clannad concert but they have very ethereal music which can be sleep-inducing when you have jet lag. I managed to keep my eyes open but Laura went out. We wanted to get Eurail passes, which allow you to travel on the train anywhere in Europe for the period of time for which you buy them. Unfortunately, the maximum age to get a Eurail pass was 25. Laura was 26. Instead, we got plane tickets to Greece and a train pass back to London that allowed us to stop anywhere along the way for up to two months. Our only deadline was to get to California in time for Carolyn’s wedding.  Being the cheapskate that I am, I got the cheapest plane tickets I could find which was an overnight flight. We got to Athens very early in the morning and took a bus to the...

Only one thing marred the festivities, albeit only for two people and only later did I discover it. Once again, I didn’t know wedding etiquette. I didn’t realize that the bride and groom don’t really give speeches at their own weddings. If I had known, I probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. This was a moment of great import for me. I was about to move on into a whole new phase of life. Before I did, I wanted to give tribute to the people who had helped get me to where I was that day. I’m not good at giving speeches but I had spent much time writing and refining what I wanted to say. Through my relationship with Laura, I had discovered a major flaw in my life. At the beginning of our relationship, I found that I could not accept her love.  I discovered that, while I had friends, I didn’t feel like I needed them. Part of that was that I didn’t want to be vulnerable. I didn’t want to open up so much that I had the potential to get hurt. Part of it was my investment-type view of friend...

The day arrived. It was a bit of a stormy season and thunderstorms were expected that day. It was a little windy but the rain held off and we even saw the sun. We had asked Don Stephens to officiate the ceremony to which he graciously obliged. However, we weren’t quite sure if he could legally do so. The ship chaplain, Jack Hill was also standing by to officially pronounce us man and wife at the end. As Laura walked down the aisle, she winked. It took me by surprise and I turned to Samuel incredulously only to hear him say,                  “She just winked at me.”  Don began by telling everyone the story of how he had been praying for Laura the year before and felt like a big change was coming for her and that he was happy to be part of the fulfillment of that change. Yet, despite this being a day of joy, there was an underlying sadness to it. I really missed my father and wished he could have been there. I was contending...

Shenanigans continued back at The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory. There were often people who drank a little (or a lot) too much. One night, someone discovered that all was not well in men’s bathroom. There was a guy in there who had smashed one of the sinks completely off.  Apparently, he had dropped his ring down the drain and in his drunken state, the only solution he could think of was breaking everything in the way of getting to his ring. He did get the ring but he also got detained until the police came to take him away. The wedding drew near and I bought my ticket. Cherilyn was also coming to the wedding so we were going to travel together. Morehead City is kinda in the middle of nowhere so there is no major airport nearby. There was a guy that they had gotten to know in Morehead City whose brother lived near Philadelphia and he agreed to drive us down. We found a special deal into Philadelphia That was one of the craziest drives of my life. Most of the drive down was on Intersta...

We decided that if Laura was going to come live in London after we got married, she should come visit beforehand to get a feel for it. Also, if she could survive London in the middle of winter, then she would probably be okay. We planned a five-week visit for February and part of March. I found a place for Laura to stay with a family south of the river in Clapham Junction. As with every city, there are certain places in London that had a negative stigma attached to them. I felt that way about south of the river. There had been volatility and violence over the years and it had left its aura. Clapham was one of those places but the house was not too far from the tube station and it seemed safe enough. We wouldn’t be spending much time there anyway. Laura had a friend named Cherilyn from New Zealand living in London who used to be on the ship. She was working as a live-in nanny for an American family. Laura had some contact info. and wanted me to try find her so she could see her when she...

Sundays turned out to be some of the most lucrative days to work at the restaurant. It was slower so there were only two busboys and you got to bus more tables. The restaurant would open later so I could go to church, then go in. The funny thing about Sundays is that all these East Indian families would come to the restaurant. There are a lot of Indian small business owners in London. They are very hard-working but I guess Sunday evenings were their downtime. However, it was funny to us that they would come to our restaurant. Chicago-style pizza and American fare in general didn’t seem like the type of food they would be interested in.  The Indian families also had a plethora of children with whom they seemed very hands off. The kids would wander about the restaurant when they were finished eating, getting in the way and being a general nuisance.  There were two doors from the restaurant to the kitchen, one going in and one coming out. The doors had kick plates at the bottom s...

Back at the Pizza Pie Factory, I created my own drama. Although I was quite sheltered and innocent growing up, I still felt like I was prepared for the wider world when I left home/YWAM. However, I had a sense of superiority. I had the idea that, because I grew up what I considered so well-behaved and was a “good” Christian, I was somehow better than most people. I was self-righteous. This attitude was going to get a smack-down in the coming years but for the time being it made me very judgmental towards others around me. When waitresses would say something that I thought was offensive, I would judge it as evil and just stop talking to them. They didn’t know why I had turned cold toward them. Somehow I thought that they would eventually ask why and then I would be able to tell them what they did and that would make them change. There were two waitresses in particular that I did this to. But as the relationships festered, I began to see that what I was doing was wrong. I realized that I...

It was during my time at The New Rainbow that I started to participate in an aspect of Christianity that I had not tried before. In Charismatic circles, dancing in church is a customary practice. At The New Rainbow they strongly encouraged it. There is plenty of Biblical evidence for dancing but one of the practical arguments for it is that if you can dance at a music concert or anywhere else, why would you be embarrassed to dance for God? There were a lot of chairs set up at the New Rainbow but as it was so big, there was still plenty of empty space. The unofficial dancing spot was down at the front left and it was mostly filled with young people. Week after week, as we were encouraged to dance again and again, I would look over at the dancers with uncertainty.  I could see the Biblical evidence of it and I understood the reasoning for it. What I kept coming up against was my own self-consciousness. I thought that if I actually did go ahead and make the leap, I would be so self-fo...

On the home front, interesting developments were taking place. When I had been on the ship recently, the person that had originally put us in touch with my landlady in London had some concerns about me still living there. My landlady was not the happiest person in the world. Granted, she had a lot of health issues. But the atmosphere in the house tended to be rather gloomy. I usually worked as much as I could and found things to do on my days off. So I didn’t spend too much time there. Other people would come to stay from time to time and when I got back, there was a family living there. When they weren’t around, my landlady would gossip about them, complaining about this and that. I felt like I needed to let them know what she was doing. Maybe there were things that needed to be addressed and they could work it out. When I told them, they told me that she was also complaining to them about me! That’s when I realized why the person on the ship was concerned about me still living there....

Chapter Ten - Laura Laura and I began our long-distance relationship through letters but soon it was tested once again. There was a postal strike in England so she did not hear from me for weeks and she had no idea why. There was no email in those days and as international calling rates were exorbitant, I couldn’t afford it. She was wondering if I had abandoned her. When I got back to London, I signed up with a temp agency doing jobs where they sent me each day. When the postal strike ended, they sent me to work at the post office to help sort out the backlog. Someone on the ship mentioned to Laura,                “I bet you’re happy that the mail strike in England has ended.”  Then it all made sense.  For a little while, she started getting about a letter a day from all of the ones that I had written before the strike had held them up. So our long-distance communication commenced. I was still trying to model but in the meantime, I ...

Once again, arriving in the United States, I ended up in the special immigration room. My ticket back to London was out of New York, yet I was heading to California and I didn’t have any money to get to New York. They didn’t understand. Because Laura was American and I was a foreigner, we had entered through different immigration lines. She didn’t know what was taking me so long. Fortunately, someone who knew Laura and I were together had seen me go into the special room and let her know what was up. Somehow, I finally convinced them that I would somehow make it to New York to exit the country and they let me go.  Since Laura and my tickets were purchased separately, we were booked though different layover cities for our next flight segments. However, I wanted to try to get on Laura’s flight. She had waited until I got out and her connection was leaving soon and we had to run. When we made it to the gate, the plane had boarded. We quickly explained to the gate agent what we wanted ...

My mom arrived and King’s Kids got underway keeping me busy. Once again, I was a performing staff member so I was learning new songs. Laura and I still found time to hang out though. One night we were sitting together in the evening on the Promenade Deck. We were holding hands, watching the sun go down. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, we looked at each other and I said,                      “That was probably the ugliest sunset I have ever seen.”  She agreed. Everything was a monochromatic gray – the sun, the sky, the water. It is something we still laugh about today. King’s Kids performed at a few places around Port Antonio but our plan was to travel around the island. We had a bus for the team to travel in and a van for the equipment. I was going to drive the van. And since we needed to keep the equipment secure, I was going to sleep in the van as well. Laura and I said our good-byes and off we went east t...