Behind the Veils of Yemen (2 page)

As a child blossoms within a community, so this book has blossomed through the encouragement and support of many. I remain humbly grateful for contributions of time, encouragement, prayer and guidance. Each contribution has helped to grow
Behind the Veils of Yemen
and blessed me in the process. Hoping that each contributor will see beyond the limit of mere words, I thank each with endless gratitude.

I thank my family, for praying me through every step. I thank them for patiently understanding my need to write, for providing me time to write and for believing in what I was writing. I thank them for their editorial eyes and comments, their excitement and their limitless encouragement. I thank them most for their steadfast faith in our Lord.

I thank friends who affirmed me in doubtful moments. When I presented the first chapters, they asked for more and then urged and prayed me onward. When opportunities seemed daunting, they prayed with me for open doors. I also thank friends who provided technical expertise as they helped develop my electronic world and introduced me to websites and social networks.

I thank those who took time from busy schedules to read and recommend my book. Their recommendations were blessings showered on a thirsty author, and I am grateful and honored by each one. These special people have been instrumental in my life—equipping me, inspiring me, walking with me, wanting others to hear my story. I pray that they will be blessed by the blessing they have bestowed.

I give special recognition to Dr. Avery Willis, who took time during the final two weeks of his life to read, encourage and endorse the work of this first-time author. I will never forget his kindness.

I also thank the staff at Chosen Books and Baker Publishing who have blessed and carried me through each step of the publishing process. They opened the door and patiently guided me through it; they cared about my preferences in every phase; they guarded and guided me with their editorial skills; and they have been a joy to work with always.

Above all, I thank my Lord and praise Him for guiding this book to fruition. Without Him, there would simply be no story to tell.

Our three children stared at the white-robed figures walking down the narrow aisle to join our flight from Amsterdam to Yemen. My husband, Kevin, and I tried to study them more discreetly. We pretended not to watch as they settled into their assigned seats.

“Say thank-you,” I directed as Madison took an activity pack from the flight attendant.

Madison thanked her and examined a coloring book while Jack played with a folding toothbrush. I thanked another flight attendant for a magazine I did not read. My eyes were on the white-robed group who were buckling their seatbelts for takeoff.

Most in the group were men, talking and laughing together. Some were chanting quietly over strands of prayer beads they clicked between their fingers. A few were women who had been escorted by their husbands to vacant window seats. Their husbands sat next to them in protective aisle seats, blocking out the seats between them. The men were draped in white. Some wore velvety robes fastened at their shoulders by hidden clasps, while others wore what appeared to be bedsheets that threatened to slip from knots at their waists. These were frequently adjusted, exposing bare chests underneath.

The few women were veiled in black from head to toe. Black gloves covered their hands, and black opaque socks hid their ankles. The briefest wedge of brown eyes and olive skin peeked from their veils.

I made eye contact with a woman one row back and smiled. “Good afternoon,” I murmured.

I could not tell if she smiled back or frowned under her veil. She did not answer, but her eyes held mine steadily until my daughter tugged at my sleeve, calling me back to the story I had promised to read.

The men were Muslim pilgrims bound for the most sacred of Islamic shrines to perform the most sacred of its rites: circling the Kaaba and kissing the stone they believed to be at the center of the world. I watched the men intent in their Arabic conversation.

“How long do you think the spiritual high from the
hajj
will satisfy you? Will it be enough?” I wanted to ask. I wondered if they were seeking God or simply pursuing self-fulfillment.

I braced my back against the seat as the plane raised its nose into the sky. We were in our final flight to the Middle East, only a few hours from descent into its heart.

“Is our next stop Yemen, Mommy?” Madison looked up from her dot-to-dot page.

“No, baby. We stop in Jeddah first, in Saudi Arabia. Then we go on to Yemen.”

I thought back to the predawn flight we had boarded in Texas the day before. I had not realized how hard it would be to tell our families good-bye. Our pain in leaving had doubled when we saw their pain in letting us go.

My brother’s voice had broken when our flight had been called. “I will pray for you every day of the next four years.” He had choked me in a gripping hug. “Please come back to us safely.” I had not been able to answer with the cheerful words I had used among church friends. I knew that my mother’s death on the mission field 34 years earlier was in my brother’s tears.

“God will be with us, Alan,” I had whispered. “He will be enough for what lies ahead.” Kevin and I had nudged the children away from their grandparents’ tearful grips and had moved them down the Jetway.

In Dallas we had transitioned to our first international flight. I had wanted to seize that minute, freeze the second that we were jetted away from all that was left of our comfortable lives. Twilight had darkened the American landscape receding in the distance. It had closed the day behind us as if closing a book.

The Dutch flight attendant held out her tray, bringing me back to the present. “Would you like orange juice or water?” she whispered in the darkened cabin.

I thanked her for the juice, straightening my cramped legs in my economy-class seat. After thirty hours of travel, my body ached with fatigue.

“How much longer is it to Jeddah?” I whispered to her.

“Less than two hours now. But you are going to Yemen, yes?” She looked passed me at Madison and Jack, who were both asleep.

I nodded and began to explain. “We are moving there.”

The excitement in my eyes faded when I saw the frown in hers. I sipped my juice as she moved away down the aisle.

I cuddled two-year-old Jack, who had fallen asleep half on me and half on his seat beside me. His cottony hair wisped across his toddler head. Seven-year-old Madison slept against my other side, her sandy hair waving softly around her china doll face. I tucked the navy blanket around her small shoulders.

I looked over at Kevin in the adjoining row. His head was nodding against his headrest. Our five-year-old son, Jaden, clutched his yellow teddy bear, Shoobie, and slept soundly against Kevin’s arm, blond hair curling like a cap around his chubby face. Kevin’s Middle East travel guides had slipped to the floor, and the book he had been reading to Jaden was about to join them.

I leaned back against my own headrest and closed my eyes. Words from a well-meaning friend echoed into my ear. “How can you take those babies to live in a place like that?”

I tucked the blankets closer around Madison and Jack and swatted at the invading thoughts, but they returned like buzzing flies. I bent to kiss Madison’s cheek.

“What will the next four years hold for you?” I whispered.

I stroked her hair, still soft and fine like a baby’s. How would she feel in an Arab world ruled by men who placed little value on females? I looked discreetly back at the veiled woman I had greeted. Her hair covering had loosened around her head. She was staring out of her small window into the endless black night. Her husband snored beside her.

I swallowed the last of my orange juice wondering how my hair would look after hours under a binding scarf. I brushed at a tea stain on my dress. A summer night two years earlier flashed through my mind.

“I think God might be calling me to serve overseas.” Kevin’s words had resonated with the cicadas we had been listening to on the back patio.

“Are you sure?” I had sputtered, spilling my entire cup of hot tea on my pants.

Kevin had been sure, but I had not. I had wrestled with insecurity, wondering why the Lord would want to use
me
. Hardly missionary material, I was impulsive and opinionated and had left a wake of mistakes in my turbulent teens and twenties. It had been difficult to grasp that God wanted to use someone like me. Why He did was beyond me. But I had learned that was the point. It was beyond me. He had chosen me not because of who I was, but because of who He is.

I adjusted my loose denim dress to keep from flashing my calves to the white-robed men in the row next to me. I was determined to present myself as modest as their women, dressing as they defined modesty. I glanced back at the veiled woman’s coverings and sighed. It would not be easy. I liked clothes that flattered what I worked hard to keep in shape.

I gritted my teeth.
I’ll do it, Lord. I won’t profane Your name by flaunting my freedoms, even if it’s just showing my brown hair and my freckled arms.

Madison stirred and I gently shifted her, worried about her legs in their cramped, curled position. Again my thoughts accused me.
How could I take my children from their home and jet them to a third-world country half a globe away?

I bit my lip, remembering my apprehension when we knew God was calling us to Yemen. I had envisioned an easier place, such as a village near a beach in the Caribbean. But God was leading us to a place plagued with poverty and sickness and strict adherence to Islamic law, a place where evangelism was forbidden. I had dug in my heels.

“Kevin, I’m not sure we should raise our children in a place like Yemen. Look how many children die before they are six! It could be dangerous for them as well as us.”

“Lord,” I had argued. “You could not want to take our children away from all the U.S. can provide!”

I had refused to accept that not only did God love my children more than I did, He also had created them for His purposes, not for mine. I had wrestled until I could make no other choice but to obey or disobey God’s call to Yemen. And then I had submitted, reluctantly. I had unclenched my fists and my teeth and acknowledged that God was not only calling my husband to serve, He was also calling me.

“Okay, Lord,” I had muttered. “I will go wherever You lead. Even to Yemen, the uttermost part of the earth.”

After I had crossed that line of obedience, God answered my apprehensions. They became like bread crumbs I had tried to hold on to, until one day at a hospital in Virginia God let me glimpse the banquet table He wanted to give me instead.

I felt around my lap for my missing tissue as tears threatened to well again in my tired eyes. I wiped what was left of my two-day-old mascara and tucked the tissue into my bulging seat pocket.

“Thank You, Father, for those days in Virginia,” I prayed. “I could not have done this without them.”

I clutched Madison and Jack closer to me. I closed my eyes and in my mind went back to that hospital, where Kevin’s dying body lay tossing in his ICU bed, his IV lines inadequate to save him.

“I need to remember,” I whispered. “When I get anxious, Lord, help me remember.”

We had flown into Richmond at the onset of a crisp fall night full of mist from a recent rainfall. The International Mission Board had invited us to the Candidate’s Conference, and we had left the children with special friends from church. I had been hesitant to leave Jack, who was still nursing, but he was fifteen months old and the conference would last only four days. We were excited as we anticipated completing the application process and being selected for appointment.

“We will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord to display His splendor,” I had told Kevin when we received the letter inviting us to our conference.

Kevin had raised his eyebrows.

“My verse for today,” I explained. “Isaiah 61:3.”

My excitement grew as we navigated the Richmond roads that were wet and black in the headlights of the van shuttling us from the airport. Spiky arms of stripped-down trees pointed the entrance to the hotel. We drove in and unloaded, crunching dead leaves underfoot as we rolled our luggage toward the lobby. The autumn night felt chilly, but I do not remember whether I shivered more from the cold or from my anticipation of the events that lay ahead.

We met other missionary candidates at the check-in counter. We all seemed to be talking more than we would in different circumstances and laughing at things that at another place and time would not have been funny. Those standing next to us began to share information about the places they would serve and the positions they would fill. We did the same, swapping photos of our children as we waited for room keys.

Inside our room, Kevin and I tore into the information packet we had received at check-in.

“What is on the schedule for tomorrow?” I scoured the packet over Kevin’s shoulder.

The conference schedule was full, with little time between appointments and seminars. The day we faced the next morning would be no exception. We were scheduled for psychiatric interviews at eight, followed by complete physical exams and meetings that extended into the evening.

Kevin studied the Richmond map. “Looks like Old Marle Road is the quickest way to the psychiatrist’s office.”

I nodded as I pressed my khaki trousers with a steam iron. I left navigation responsibilities to Kevin. I could get lost in my own neighborhood. I finished ironing, and we readied ourselves for bed, turning off the light by eleven. We were determined to be rested, with our mental capacities at their best.