Chapter Seventeen

   "CHRIS," called Eileen up the narrow stairs. "Are you coming down to breakfast, or shall I throw out the rest of this batter?"

OK praise God I'll take a thatched cottage by the lake if one's available I'll need a key I said I'll need a key to stir up this batter Ugh Who wants breakfast after My mouth tastes like the inside of a cameldriver's mitt Hey that's pretty funny What time is it I wonder if it was the pillow on my face when I thought Belial had his forearm up against my throat Didn't I go on that trip Didn't I get stuck in that creek or fight off those birds or spend two days in prison Didn't that jailer batter me with his hose Batter stir the batter Eileen Boy is my mouth dry Batter bought a bit of butter I did talk to You God didn't I You did stamp my forehead and say I belonged to You didn't You But what about Rusty and those whisky bottles Did I almost die Is that why I dreamt about the helicopter I don't have the key It was in my wallet Oh good grief here I am back in the old hometown No Paradise Inn No sandy beach in the sun Just a list of Sunday customer calls to make and. . . .

   "Chris! Did you hear me?"

   "Yaaaah. Aaaaah. I'm comin'."

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   "Will you drive us to Sunday School, Dad?" asked Jeffrey. "The teacher's taking us on a hike up Big Top afterward."

   "Huh?" Chris stood by the kitchen table, blinking watery eyes—he held a coffee cup in a trembling hand and stared distractedly at the waffle iron, then at his son. "What's all that racket out there?"

   "Oh, just starlings," said Eileen. "They'll go away. Will you take the boys or won't you?"

   "Starlings!" Chris shuffled to the window and looked out, rubbing his head with his free hand. His gaze fell upon his oldest son opening the garage door.

   "Now what's he doing with that Mustang?"

   "He's washing it," barked Dean. "What do you think he's doing? You told him to."

   Chris ignored him and turned to Eileen. "You wanta go?" he asked.

   "I've got a roast to put in. Some man called you over an hour ago. Woke me up."

   "Who was it?"

   "I don't remember. Hess or Ness or something like that."

   Chris's eyes opened wide. "You're kidding," he said.

   "Dad," said Dana.

   "What's the matter with you?" demanded Eileen. "Why don't you stop stumbling around and sit down and eat your breakfast?"

   "Was it Rusty Ness?"

   "How should I know who it was? His number's on the pad over there."

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   Chris sat down. "All right, pipe down everybody," he announced. "Was this food ever prayed over?" There was silence in the room. "Then let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we ask a blessing on this manna—this food, and give us grace, and, uh, oh, in Jesus' name, Amen. More coffee, please!"

   "Dad," said Dana.

   "I think Dad's been on a trip," said Dean. "I bet Mom put some LSD in his coffee."

   "I'll LSD you," mumbled Chris between mouthfuls of waffle.

   Jerry came in the kitchen door for some hot water. ''Hi, Pa, he said. "You got some new dents in your chassis."

   "Humph," said Chris.

   "Dad," said Jeffrey.

   "See the picture of our new coach in the Sunday paper?" Jerry asked. Chris shook his head. "Look!" Jerry put the sports page in front of his father, and there was the erstwhile bulldozer operator himself, ugly face and all, staring at him. Chris looked at the title (Dimsdale Times it read) and the name in the caption ("Coach B. E. Lisle") and promptly spilled coffee on his pajamas.

   "Will you take that paper away?" he asked testily. ''This stuff burns, you know." As Jerry removed the offending pages Chris noticed the front headline, ASIA CRISIS BREWING.

   "Will you take us to the Sunday School, Dad?" asked Dana.

   "OK, OK, now leave me alone, will you? I've got

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to think." He reflected a moment, then called the two smaller boys back. "Here, I've got something for you." He gave them a squeeze and a kiss. "You're all sticking with me, understand?"

   Fifteen minutes later, after placing the telephone call, Chris summoned the family once again to the kitchen where Eileen was washing the dishes. "Here's what's up," he said. "A friend of mine has invited us to some special meetings at Lakeview Church, and I want us all to go tonight. If they like, the boys can ride with Jerry."

   "Not with me," said Jerry. "I'm surfing till dark."

   "We won't get back from Big Top in time," said Jeffrey. "It's a long way."

   "There's something on at the city park," said Dean.

   ''All right," replied Chris. "I'll put it to you. If you want to eat this week, be here at seven o'clock."

   "But, Dad," said Dean. Dana started to cry. Chris walked out of the kitchen, went upstairs and prepared to shave. He glanced out the bathroom window and watched Jerry move the Mustang to let another car through the alley. He noted that the driver was an older person; then he looked again. The man smiled and waved as he passed Jerry. No doubt about it; it was Guy Wise, or his double. Chris returned to his shaving with a hand that trembled slightly. After his shower he came into the bedroom to find Eileen tidying the dresser.

   "Why did you spring this on the boys all of a sudden?" she asked.

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   "I don't know," he said. "Maybe because someone just sprang it on me."

   "Who is this person?"

   "Oh, he's a fellow who used to sell computers for a competitor. I knew him."

   "What's he doing now?"

   "He's in some kind of church work. Told me about this fellow that's preaching tonight at Lakeview and I said sure I'd come. I know the guy; he's great.

   "Where did you run into him? I see by the paper he's a Frenchman."

   "Well, I met him at a barbecue."

   Eileen straightened up from her bedmaking. "When did you ever go to a barbecue?"

   Chris ran a hand through his hair. "I just ask you to come and bring the boys as a favour to me," he said.

   At a quarter to seven that night the Anders family went through another crisis. "Where's my passport?" Chris demanded in tones not particularly gentle.

   "Your what?" echoed Eileen.

   "My pass—my Bible. Where's my Bible? Somebody's taken it out of the bookcase." One after another denied knowledge of its disappearance until Jerry came in the front door at one minute to seven.

   "Marcia borrowed it over the week-end," Jerry admitted. "She had to write an essay and I knew you never used it. How come it's suddenly a top-priority item?"

   "I was reading it just last week," Chris said. "And who is Marcia?"

   "She's the new girl across the street."

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   "Would you kindly retrieve it from Marcia so I can take it to church?"

   Five minutes later a bouncy, smiling teen-ager with long yellow hair came to the front door, Bible in hand. Chris answered the bell and found himself staring at her rather unduly. "You're Marcia?" he inquired.

   "That's me!" She handed him the Bible, and he came to himself and thanked her. As she turned he stopped her. "What's your middle name?"

   "Don't have one."

   "No other name?"

   "No." She laughed embarrassedly. "I did have one but I dropped it a long time ago. It was awful—kind of a family thing they kept going for generations. You see, our people came from New England."

   "I can tell you what it was," said Chris with a grin.

   Marcia frowned and looked a bit frightened. "What?"

   "Discretion."

   Marcia gasped, turned and ran across the street.

   The rest of the evening seemed to Chris almost as much a dream as had the long sleep of the night before. The Anders family showed up late at the church and promptly got into an argument because all four boys wanted to sit in the balcony. Chris and Eileen finally agreed to accompany them upstairs. They were escorted by an usher who, if he were not Mr. Upman the roadworker, certainly looked like him. Chris had some difficulty seeing clearly in the church, as the lighting was not too effective and the distance to the pulpit was considerable. Nevertheless it seemed to

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him that the men's trio that sang bore a marked resemblance to the three hikers he had seen on Gordon's Calvary. Moreover, the man who made the announcements and took the offering—evidently the minister of the church—reminded him strangely of Ernie Van Gelst.

   The speaker of the evening was, as Rusty Ness had promised, none other than M. André Labourd. Instead of being a shepherd from the Delectable Mountains, he was an international conference speaker known as the "Basque Bible Teacher." The church bulletin stated that he was conducting a one-week "deeper life mission" at the Lakeview Church in which other churches were co-operating. M. LaBourd, it said, was the founder of a prayer fellowship that kept him travelling around the world on Bible study missions. Next week, he would be in Cassopolis; his colleague, Mr. Ness, was there already, helping to organize prayer groups in the churches.

   Memories of the barbecue Gospel meeting kept flooding into Chris's mind as he studied the lean, brown face that broke into wrinkles with every smile. What a personality! And what a message! LaBourd had chosen for his text the Twenty-third Psalm. Simplicity and rugged honesty marked his presentation.

   "What are you looking for?" he asked. "So many people in evangelical churches today are looking for spiritual excitement, a big revival, no? But perhaps God's idea of la gloire—the glory—is different from ours. Perhaps Jesus did not raise the storms so much as quiet them down, I think. So our business is not so

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much to see revival as to be one of those being revived. Sometimes we can pray too much. Sometimes people don't want your prayers for revival, they want your testimony of revival.

   "I would suggest that we do not talk so much about renewal or revival or spiritual awakening as we talk about Jesus. He is renewal. He is revival. He is spiritual awakening. There is no need to look for something beyond the Lord Jesus Christ, any more than there was need for Jean-Baptiste to ask, 'Are you the Coming One or should we look for another?' Instead of looking for an extra-special gift of the Spirit at this meeting, just come back to Calvary. If you received Jesus Christ on that mountain, you have all the power you need. Comprenez-vous? We do not receive things by prayer, we receive them by Jesus.

   "Perhaps you came here tonight to pull up your spiritual socks, eh? Perhaps you came to get what you call 'lifted up,' but I tell you it is Jesus who needs to be 'lifted up.' You want a big testimony to give your friends? I will give it to you: Just stop testifying to yourself. Stop giving out eloquence about being a stand-up Christian, and make a sinner's testimony. You think your Christian service is an answer to 'Christian' sin, n'est-ce-pas? It is not. It is a substitute. Vraiment! It is a polite substitute. Come back to the cross and learn to be dust, and let God breathe into you the breath of Life. Let Him lead you out of the valley of the shadow into the house of the Lord."

   Was this really the man whom Chris had heard in his dream, when he knew him as the shepherd of the

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Delectable Mountains? The accent was the same. Could it be a case of extrasensory perception? But he had other things to think about and did not try to speculate further.

God I wish I knew what You were up to tonight What my friend up there is saying is so true I know it's the answer to life He's getting through to me but Lord why did it seem so much more real in the dream Tearing through Beelzebul's Principality in that Mustang I felt like a hero but just sitting here flapping my ears at a preacher is so tame I'm trying to think of those verses You taught me that set fire to the car radio and opened the jail door I know now You've got the power that a man can live by Jesus I know about the blood I know You're coming back and taking over soon I know You brought me into Life City and wouldn't let me stay there but sent me back to get my family OK here they are Lord but I can't do any more It's up to You now to draw them into Your Kingdom I'll try to set an example but it's going to take more than that What about Eileen How do you make a wife understand what's happened to you Sure I know pray pray pray Well shoot I am praying but speak to me God I'm going to drop all kinds of bricks in the Christian life I need help badly Maybe if I maybe if I Now he's coming to the close If he gives an invitation to come to Christ maybe if I go up the others will come too Maybe they won't Maybe if they do go up it won't mean a thing in the world but God I've got to do something after what You did for me. . . .

   Gently the Bible teacher brought his message to a conclusion. Were there any who would like to come forward in dedication of heart and life to Jesus Christ? Any who wanted to make a fresh start? He was not, he

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pointed out, an evangelist; he thought of himself more as a pastor of souls, a shepherd. Yet the Holy Spirit had been speaking to him in an unusual way during the past few moments, and he felt constrained to ask if someone—perhaps someone upstairs there in the balcony. . . .

   Chris pressed Eileen's hand, stood up and stepped out into the aisle.

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