David: Karen, in America, it feels like we have been in this election cycle for many, many months now.

Karen: Certainly, the election cycle that never ends. But we are coming to an end.

David: Yeah, that’s right.

Karen: Next Tuesday is the final day for casting ballots. Then the votes will be counted and sooner or later we will all know the results, hopefully.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author, Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David: As I review what’s happening in these campaigns, I want to quickly say that I’m still deeply, deeply grateful to be an American. An election can be contentious, this one has been, but it’s much better than living in a country ruled by a strong man where our opinion carries no weight whatsoever.

Karen: And in those countries, as we’ve seen in news reports, if one speaks out too vociferously, that could result in imprisonment or even worse.

David: Yeah, it’s scary, isn’t it? Freedom. I was trying to define that in my own mind and it probably is not a very good definition, but to me it means not being under the control of some other power. Maybe it’s the words of Lincoln, government of the people, by the people, for the people. In God’s providence, Karen, you and I have visited a number of countries of the world, I think over 50 now, even more than that. Some nations value freedom, others are more characterized, by the word I would probably use is oppression, and there are variations between those two.

Karen: I think when you travel like that, you begin to appreciate your own country even more. I never come back to the States without being so glad to be home. I love the journey, but we’re deeply grateful you and I are to be Americans and we have both already voted. We get our mail-in ballots as soon as we mail them off and look them over, make sure we fill them out, right? We see voting here in the States as a privilege, a wonderful privilege. It’s not known by people in all too many places.

David: Yeah, it’s this gift of freedom, not being under the control of another power. And it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It was 1981, Karen. How old would you have been in 1981? You were born when?

Karen: In 1943.

David: So you are not yet 40 years old. So that’s when the book came out called The Fragile Curtain. You were actually asked to write that book.

Karen: Food for the Hungry, which is an international relief and development organization. It’s Christian. The leader of that, his name was Larry Ward, and he liked my writing and asked if I would like to go around the world with him and travel with his wife through all of the work that Food for the Hungry supported around the world. It was an extraordinary invitation. I was gone for seven weeks.

David: Yeah, you don’t have to tell me. I was in charge of our four kids.

Karen: You did a great job. It says so much about you, David, that you would kind of push me out the door and say, “I’ll stand in and take care of everything so you can have this opportunity.”

David: But the book that you wrote was called The Fragile Curtain and it chronicled those various countries you visited. I picked a section out of that I would like for you to read. It’s a little bit more than normally would read on a podcast, but it’s about this whole area of freedom. Okay, can you just read that and then I’ll ask some questions.

Karen: Somewhere in the triangle of high sea between Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, 54 Vietnamese boat people were being fished out of the waters. The fishermen were crew members of the Akuna, a second World War fighting ship now recommissioned for another kind of battle. Although the engine of the refugees’ boat had been disabled and they had floated without food and water for three days, these were fortunate people. They had been unmarauded by pirates. In the previous Akuna rescue, an older woman had climbed aboard only to collapse once on deck. Her two young daughters have been raped numerous times before her horrified eyes.

The refugees who had been gathered from the waters that March day in 1980 had been fortunate to slip through a keyhole in the violent seasonal weather, leaving the night-choked coastline of Vietnam some five days before they had trailed the monsoon season. Their stealthy March departure had also avoided the typhoons, which raged from July to November, rising pugnacious in the South China Sea, and then belching across Indochina and the Philippines.

They had ended their journey with their starting number of passengers. They were a most fortunate 44. Some estimates at that time placed the toll of sea deaths for the previous year that would have been 1979 as high as 300,000 Vietnamese of Lien, Vietnam. I was told in that Akuna means a meeting place in the waters. If so, it was a propitious meeting for these who would only know how really fortunate they were when they reached their first place of asylum and began to compare tales with other refugees. The stories of the atrocities of the pirates who leech life from the vast archipelago that tattoos these waters are enough to convince any skeptic of the innate depravity of man.

An account reported in the boat people is unfortunately all too typical. The pirates tied them up and threw them into the water. The remaining people were tied up too and locked in the hold after being stripped of their belongings. After this, the pirates came again to our boat to pillage and rape people. One person was killed after being dealt a blow with an iron bar.

Another had his finger cut off because he was unable to pull off his wedding ring. When everything was looted, the pirates hurried to go. They released the men they kept in the hold and kicked them back to our boat. Some fell into the water and drowned with their hands bound behind their back.

I’m at the 54 who had just been rescued by the Akuna on March 29, 1980 in Singapore Harbor where they had been delayed by the inevitable machinery of immigration red tape. A tarp had been spread over part of the ship’s deck for them to live beneath it as they waited for permission to disembark. They gathered in front of it and then the news was given. Offloading would take place today. Smiles broke, cheers battered the air, children clapped their hands, they bounced. Genial commotion announced itself.

My eye caught a young woman who squirmed when the question was asked if anyone spoke English. No, no, she protested. My English, very bad, speak very little. I was undaunted however, whatever little she spoke was world beyond my non-existent Vietnamese. Besides, I had learned that words often convey less than we want them to. The language of the soul of emotion had become more important to me since I had arrived in Asia and I was becoming a master at detecting the meaning behind the words.

The young woman was 27 years old and had brought with her a sister, 25, two younger brothers, 16 and 14, then an extended family member, perhaps a cousin or niece, who was around 18. She had left her mother, age 56, one sister, 22 and a small brother, who was 10. My father, she explained, she crossed her hands at the wrist to show me. He sold your officer, communist jail him, you understand? Well, I was beginning to, and normally opened it to sleepy eyes. She continued, telling me that the captain, that man over there, had made the boat. He was lounging silently, watchfully against the sight of the canopy, while his little wife, soft, fleshed and full of shy smiles, gathered their possessions, a few bundles, and their children into order. I counted eight children, one in infant sleeping contentedly in the middle of the confusion.

Without words, I understood the captain’s grim silence. He was a man who had successfully completed a task. Weather-beaten, his face hardening into set lines and ridges, he had built a boat. His hands had planed the plank, slivers piercing his finger pads, soft shavings curling to the floor. He had fitted the joints, caulked the seams, smoothed the hole. His set jaw determination had worked seaworthiness, had willed it into the craft. A new Noah, destiny, had closed the door to his existence in his own land. He had sailed out of the deluge, piloting wife and children to freedom. Were you not afraid of pirates? I asked the young woman. She shook her hand, no understanding crossed her eyes. So I wrote the words on a piece of paper, fear capital letters, afraid capital letters. She shook her head again. Her English did not include these terrible words.

Excuse me, she said. We all fix food. Excuse me, please. I watched her go, glad for the interruption. I needed a moment to absorb what I had just heard and what I had not heard. Here was a young woman who had left her homeland, had said goodbye to a mother she would most likely never see again. She had taken upon herself the responsibility of the lives of younger siblings and had turned her face to chance to an absolutely unknown future. In order to escape detection, she had been captured once before while attempting to flee. She had brought nothing more than the clothes on her back. Why? What forces these kinds of choices upon a young woman, one alone with no adult male to protect her, to die for her? Suddenly from the ship’s gallery, she reappeared. My sister and I, we changed. She cooked food. Why did you come? I asked and then to catch her answer. Her voice dropped. A flash of grief charred her glance. I love my mother. I love my Vietnam. I’m very sad. I lost my Vietnam. I lost my home. I lost my family. But we decide it is better to die at sea than live under commune.

The immigration officer arrived to Vietnamese who had been a refugee himself and had returned to Singapore to help his people in the resettlement process. Hurriedly, I took a piece of paper, wrote my name and address on it and on the back the words, we will sponsor and handed it to her. Mentally, I began converting the family room into a dormitory with space for five people. Someone wanted a picture. We stood together and she slipped her hand around my waist. I have never been held so tightly by a stranger. Thank you, she whispered. Thank you for your kindness.

I was stunned. My kindness? What kindness? It was she who was overwhelming me. Taking my pause for misunderstanding, she persisted. You know kindness? Here I write. In my notebook, she wrote it in big block letters. K-I-N-D-N-E-S-S. Did I? Did I? No kindness. The family groups began to disembark, boarding the immigration crafts that had come alongside. My friend and her brothers and sisters were among the last to go. She stood beside me, her arms still tied around me. I had the feeling that she felt secure here among the known, the defined parameters of this familiar ship. She was reluctant for that moment to leave, forcing her to face the next step of the revocable journey she had begun. Yet she was alone. The family had. She smiled at me, but her fingers nervously worked the corner of the paper I had given her.

Finally, the last boat arrived. The last group started down the ladder. Oh wait, I cried, thinking of one more thing. When did you leave, Vietnam? I will write it for you, she smiled. She scribbled in my notebook, then hurried down the steps carrying no possessions in her hands, and the immigration boat sped away. We waved. Farewell. Farewell. She waved, oh please, I plead it inwardly. Fare. Fare they well. Emotion aborted the Akuna. I looked about. We were all wiping tears, even the crew.

David: Yeah, I’m glad you read it.

Karen: Why do you come? I’ve asked that question all over the world of immigrants. You ask to those who come to the states here. To be free. To be free. That is the answer I hear all the time. To be free. Our daughter and son-in-law are using iTalki, which is an app to teach English. And they have clients from all over the world. One woman from China have 500 dance studios all across China. She was very well known in schools. And she left it on, came here, and she’s settling here, and no one knows anything about her. And Melissa said, why did you come? And her answer was the same one, to be free. To be free. It’s extraordinary. It’s just extraordinary.

David: Yeah, that little section in your book, Fragile Curtain, was about Vietnam. What other countries did you visit?

Karen: We went all across Southeast Asia into a northern part of India, which has its own refugee and immigration situations. And then Food for the Hungry had a lot of feeding posts and development work in the major cities, because that’s where refugees come to. They come from the countryside, particularly when there’s starvation and whatever, to the cities. And it’s just an extraordinary load on the infrastructure of those cities. And then Africa, the tip of Africa, we were in Africa, Mogadishu, and Somalia, and Kenya. And then Larry Ward wanted to get back up into Geneva, so we could go to UN headquarters in that area. And we just couldn’t fit it into the trip. And then came home. But it was life-changing. There’s no doubt about it. It may have been 37 years of age. I’ve never been the same since. You know, you just are not after you’ve had a journey like that.

David: Yeah. I have not had that intense an immersion into the refugee problem. I’ve been in former Soviet Union countries.

Karen: You were just in Kazakhstan, not too long ago. The Billy Graham Association working with him.

David: Yeah, been a while. Most recently, probably, where you realized what people live under was in Nigeria, Africa, which is the most populous of the nations of Africa. Up in the northern part were the Boko Haram.

Karen: The northern frontier district, I think it is.

David: Yeah.

Karen: The Boko Haram is a gruesome group. They are the ones who kidnapped those 200 schoolgirls.

David: But you’re aware of what an incredible privilege we have to be in this country. Freedom. It’s not the only place in the world, obviously. There are many countries that have freedom, but it’s very easy to take it for granted. And just to assume this is the way it is everywhere.

Karen: I think we do all the time.

David: It wasn’t because I was so intelligent that I was born here. It just happened. Did you ever see this person again? This woman you wrote about?

Karen: Do you remember they came?

David: I do, yes.

Karen: To Chicago, and she and her family, the whole family that was on the boat. Her sister was getting married and we were invited to the wedding. It was just charming. And I remember her accent her saying, I said, how are you doing? And she said, oh, your technology is so bewildering. And they eventually settled in the Houston area because there were a lot of Vietnamese immigrants who had settled there and they liked to be in their community like that, which is great.

David: Yeah, I’m going to make a switch here and I’m going to keep talking about freedom, but not in a political or governmental sense. I want to talk about freedom in a spiritual sense, not being under the control of some other power. Non-Christians, they would understand what we’re talking about. But also Christians, you can be someone who has found freedom in Christ and then through one means or another you give up that freedom. And the enemy is very quick to move in and take over and show his power in your life.

Karen: He’s waiting for it actually.

David: Jesus, when he talked about the devil said he was a murderer from the beginning. In fact, he used a little of the humor of Jesus. You see it in numbers of places, but Jesus said he’s a liar. He speaks his native language, which is lying. Some people speak English, some people speak Russian, some people speak French. The devil speaks lies. That’s his communication process. He’s just a filthy liar and he does it all of the time, but once he gets control, that’s a bad thing. You’ve given up something that is wonderful. That’s why in scriptures you read passages like 1 Peter 2:6. I could have chosen a number of these. I’ll just read it because it’s clear and people will understand what we’re talking about. Peter says, live as free men. He’s writing to Christians, but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil. Don’t allow your freedom to become licensed in your life. A lot of people are that way. What are some of the things that are characteristic of people who, even though they are believers to some degree, have lost that freedom or have bargained it away foolishly in some way or another?

Karen: Well, I think the addictive process would be an illustration of that.

David: Addicted to?

Karen: Addicted to anything. It can be drugs; it can be watching too much television. It’s just something that you can’t control. You no longer control. It has control over you.

David: Even shopping.

David: Shopping, eating. Anything good, too much of it that we can’t control can be turned into an addiction. I think, David, there are probably some listeners we have right now who are struggling with an addictive area in their life. We want to tell them that they can be free from that.

David: One of the signs of the enemy having moved in is a guilty conscience. I think another would be a self-image that is bad.

Karen: A self-image has been, you no longer have a healthy self-image. You negate yourself. You say, why did I do that? I’m such a jerk. There’s a name calling that goes on that comes because you feel like you’ve failed.

David: There’s a fear of being exposed.

Karen: Right. So I’m just going to find out about this, then I’m done for. Think about a promiscuous relationship in a spiritual leader. The enemy has control of that person’s life because they have given into that temptation.

David: There’s the inability to enjoy the phenomenal closeness of God. Okay, I don’t want to go any further. We’re talking about the problem, but how do we find solution for those situations where the enemy has infiltrated and taken away your freedom?

Karen: Let me define what that would look like. We can do that in a very simple way. We’re told that we are to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. Now if the enemy has in control of our life, that’s not happening. Neither one of those things are really happening. So that’s one of the indicators that we’re under his control. We’re not loving the Lord, our God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. And we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves or the people we come into contact with.

David: We may even be pulling away from the things of God. There’s a tendency to stop going to church.

Karen: Right.Not reading the Bible anymore.

David: So it’s a self-defeating process. Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. Karen Christendom is divided into Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant. Within the Roman Catholic world, the confessional is quite a big thing where people are accustomed to talking to a priest. It’s usually in private. They’re not looking at each other, but they’re confessing their sins. And there is a certain release. I presume it can become ho-hum after a while, but I’m not really sure. I think it’s very personal.

Karen: For my conservative past, that was disapproved of because we’re supposed to make our confessions unto God. And yet there is scripture that says confess your sins one to another. There’s power in telling a friend, telling a spiritual leader or director or family where we have sinned in confessing that and inviting them into our healing process from that to an accountability level. There is power in that.

David: Let me just go back to the Catholic Church has that. Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, confession is quite a major thing again.

Karen: Particularly before you take the Eucharist or the Communion.

David: And you’re confessing to clergy again. It’s not necessarily in a booth, but it’s a big part of that. When you get into the Protestant world, it’s not emphasized as much. It is there. I know from my background, when Communion was served in church, there was always the warning, don’t do this in a cavalier fashion. You need to examine yourself. Either do that or you may eat and drink damnation to yourself. That was it.

Then there are also situations where you can be in a church where Communion elements are served and nothing is said. And it goes pretty quickly. I’m not criticizing as much as saying there are people all through the church world who need to experience the beauty of confession, where they can be freed from those sins which haunt them and which tear them down and which don’t allow them to enjoy the beauty of walking with Christ on a daily basis.

Karen: I have another suggestion is that they need to develop the habit of self-examination. And one of the things I do, I have a prayer journal. Prayer journals are very different in their formats. But I always enter into my time with the Lord with reading scripture and asking it to speak to me in any way I need to hear it speak to me. And then I praise the Lord for one quality that I think is remarkable about him. So I enter into that with praise. But I always then go to confession to look inward and say, is there something here I need to work with?

David: What if the Lord in your conscience says you said something you shouldn’t have said it wasn’t true. I’m just making it up. What do you do with that?

Karen: Well, you have to act on it. You have to confess it. Say, I’m sorry to the Lord. And then if you can rectify it, make it right. Say, I feel badly about this. I over spoke yesterday. I shouldn’t have been as judgmental as I was. And I’ve been convicted of that. So if you can make it right, then go ahead and do it. But the point of all of that is that we will not do it anymore. One of the things that being under the power of the enemy does in our lives is it keeps us from becoming the full person that God has created us to be. He looks at us and says, you have remarkable gifts that I have given to you. And when we’re under the enemy’s power, when we are not free spiritually, then we cannot become what God has created us to be in the beauty of that before him, which often surprises us when we discover who it is we really can be.

David: I’m very grateful that I have been allowed by God to live as long as I have. In these last years, I have found myself as I go to church in communion, examining myself and not being able to find anything I did through the course of since the last time.

Karen: It’s come into mind.

David: And it’s learned, you know, I’m getting old and I don’t remember as well, but I can’t think of anything. And that’s such a wonderful feeling.

Karen: Now, wonderful feeling of freedom.

David: I’ve never racked up two or three of those times in a row. But I have known some of those times when I say, Ok, Lord, I think I can participate in the elements and I have nothing to say to you. You know, here I am. It’s quiet. If you want to put into my mind. And then I just said, that’s a remarkable closeness.

Karen: How wonderful. What a thing to look forward to.

David: If I get two in a row or three in a row, I think I’ll go right to heaven.

Karen: Well, that’s the benefit of walking with God for decades of living, right?

David: Yeah, it’s a beauty. You were watching television here recently. You got hooked on a series.

Karen: Oh, I did. I it’s called Call the Midwives. It’s on PBS. It’s the story of midwives who live in a nunnery. It must be Anglican nuns.

David: They’re Anglican.

Karen: They’re not Catholic. Anglican nuns.

David: Doesn’t matter if they were Catholic or Protestant. They’re Anglican.

Karen: It’s set in one of the very lower income populations of London right after the Second World War. It is just the most life affirming and life acclaiming thing I’ve ever seen. One of the few right up there at the top. But it’s a series. I mean, they’re in their ninth season now. I’m still in season three or four trying to catch up. I’m bingey. I watched more than I should have last night because I was sitting there with tears just streaming down my cheeks saying to the Lord, Oh Lord, help me to write like this. Help me to portray your love and beauty like this.

David: Goodness, yeah. Freedom.

Karen: And goodness and the freedom of being those kinds of people. But the point of it is it wasn’t goodness just to make yourself feel good. It was goodness so you could serve God in the world. And every one of those shows in these series are just extraordinary portrayal without propaganda because they just let the story tell its story. They don’t have to explain the message. It’s there of the beauty of what it means to be a Christ follower and to serve him in the world and in one another. I highly recommend Call The Midwives.

David: Okay. I want to put into a sentence what it is I believe we’re saying. The gift of freedom, not being under the control of some other power, should never be taken lightly. It’s a wonderful gift that God would like to give the gift of freedom, not being under the control of some other power, should never be taken lightly. Then I’m thinking in terms of just going back a bit, a person listening to the podcast to say, I don’t have that freedom.

Karen: Well, let us say to that person, you can be free. God loves you despite what you have done and how you feel about yourself. And we know this because we have seen this action in hundreds of people’s lives. They have been delivered from the power of the enemy and you can be free. Our prayers are for you this day. Don’t despair. Look to God. He will do his work in your life.

David: Let this be a change time where you’re saying, Lord, I want that freedom I once knew in you to come back again. And he’s very good at giving that to people and done it down through the years, done it for us. You know, done it many times. And so Lord, look carefully after this person, extend your love to this individual, these individuals this day that would make us feel that our times together with our friends have been appropriate and helpful in Jesus’ name.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters, hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Weaken Illinois 60187.