The Visitation (33 page)

She would give me that one special look the day of our wedding. I would receive it across the breakfast table almost every morning and from the front pew every time I preached, year after year. I would look for it and find it each night as she rested on her pillow and reached to turn off the lamp. I would always catch a glimpse of it when I took one hand from the steering wheel to grasp hers for just a moment. It spoke volumes without a word. It was life to me. To the end, it never faltered, and before she slipped away, she summoned it once again, for one, fleeting instant, grasping my hand.

But this was the first time I saw it, and I can see it even now.

MARIAN AND I WAITED
two years to get married. It gave us time to test the relationship and decide if we could really stick together for the long haul. It gave us time to finish our schooling—mine at West Bethel and hers at a business college. It encouraged discipline and diligence in our lives.

It almost drove us crazy.

It was a good policy, however, especially for me. Having been bowled over and burned by love before, I was able to think just a shade more clearly even while I climbed the walls.

Sister Dudley kept her eye on us, so we found times and places where God could watch but she couldn’t. Brother Smith didn’t seem to worry, and we gave him nothing to worry about.

She graduated in 1976 and worked until I graduated in June of 1977. A week later, we were married in the Baptist church Marian’s family attended, the daughter of a Baptist marrying a flaming Pentecostal. She was giddy with excitement and I wasn’t even nervous. Marian’s sister, Lisa, was her maid of honor. My brother, Steve, was my best man. By now, Dad was back in the ministry, and he performed the ceremony. With obvious pride, he pointed out to everyone that I was graduating, marrying, and taking my first pastoring position all in the same year, just as he did over thirty years before.

As we stood in the reception line greeting our guests, it was like having my whole life pass before me. Two old friends from the Mountain Victrola showed up. The mandolin player was pumping concrete for a living and had a baby daughter. The dobro player was now a partner with his brother in the fruit and produce business.

My old friend Vern had married Susan—the gal with the shrill voice—and they were still attending Christian Chapel. She was expecting and his hair was getting thin.

Mrs. Kenyon was still beyond plump but had finally quit smoking and was attending a Charismatic Episcopal church in Seattle. Her son, David, who first introduced me to the Kenyon–Bannister praise meetings, was pastoring a small church in Chehalis, Washington, married, and raising two kids.

Karla Dickens, still wearing glasses, was married to an accountant and had a daughter.

Andy Smith, the diabetic, was divorced and teaching at an avant-garde music school in Seattle.

Clay Olson was about to leave for the mission field in Kenya.

Benny Taylor was still a long, tall, nerdy-looking fellow, still brilliant, and hoping to get a job with a little garage-sized company called Microsoft.

Harold Martin, our born-again purveyor of pot, wasn’t there, and I couldn’t find anyone who knew where he was.

Brother Smith kissed the bride, shook my hand, and said, “I’m at least as happy as you are.”

Sister Dudley gave Marian a gushing, loving hug. I expected she would just shake my hand and move on, but she grabbed my shoulders, pulled me into a hug, and gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she told me, “You’re gonna
love
it,” and winked.

She was right. We loved it. We took our honeymoon in two shifts, first in Ben’s parents’ cabin on Camano Island in Puget Sound, and then in Victoria, B.C. After that, we moved into a little apartment on a busy artery in Seattle. On the first Sunday in July, we dressed up nice, walked into a struggling Pentecostal Mission church in Seattle, and began our ministry.

The year that followed was a greater education than the previous four. We learned things they never taught us in Bible school, probably because no one ever lived to come back and tell us about it.

Did I say it was a struggling church? That’s incorrect. The
pastor
was struggling. The
church
was content.

The pastor was Olin Marvin, an old Bible school chum of Dad’s who contacted me only a month before graduation. “Hey, come aboard,” he told me. “We need fresh blood, someone with vision, someone with the old Jordan fire.” Marian and I figured this was the hand of God. The only other offer I’d had was from a church in Pocatello, Idaho, and that seemed so far away from our friends and family that we hesitated. When Pastor Marvin offered us a position with a good salary and an apartment right in our own neck of the woods, that sounded right. I would take charge of the youth program, he said. I would preach on Sunday nights, and he and I would be like partners in ministry. Marian wouldn’t have to work, so she could be as involved in the church as she desired.

In the intense days before graduation and the wedding, Marian and I talked about our upcoming ministry as if it were a done deal, a plan set in stone, the will of God. We would be married, we’d settle down in Seattle, and then be part of a marvelous move of God. Almost every night I lay in bed imagining what it would be like to preach to a whole roomful of young people. I envisioned hundreds coming forward to receive Christ while Marian played the piano and everyone sang an invitational song, something like “Just As I Am.” I could hear myself holding forth on Sunday nights, see myself helping Pastor Marvin lead his church into revival, awakening, and explosive growth. I had ideas, ideas, ideas, and couldn’t wait to implement them. We were going to take the city for Christ.

On the first Sunday in July, there was no revival or explosion, but there
was
an awakening.

Northwest Pentecostal Mission was a generally unheard of little chapel nestled in the center of a closely packed Seattle neighborhood. Without detailed directions through that complicated grid of streets you’d never find it, and I suppose there were many folks who never did. Pastor Marvin met us at the door, informed us there would be a board meeting immediately after the morning service, and then hurried away. It was Sunday morning, and he was understandably busy.

The sanctuary was pretty standard: dark, gluelam beams forming a sharp A-line roof, red carpet running up the center aisle and down the sides, a soaring chancel with a big cross hanging over the baptistry. The pews could hold about two hundred. The Sunday school rooms were in the basement, the undersized parking lot was on one side.

When the Sunday school hour began, everyone—adults, teens, and little kids—gathered in the sanctuary for opening exercises, singing songs like:

Deep and Wide
Deep and Wide
There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.
Deep and Wide
Deep and Wide
There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.

(hmmm) and (hmmm)
(hmmm) and (hmmm)
There’s a fountain flowing (hmmm) and (hmmm).
(hmmm) and (hmmm)
(hmmm) and (hmmm)
There’s a fountain flowing (hmmm) and (hmmm).

Marian had attended Baptist Sunday school, and I had gone to Pentecostal Mission Sunday school, but we both knew that song and had friends from other denominations who also knew it. Our parents probably sang it in Sunday school opening exercises just like we did. Now we were beholding the next generation of Deep and Widers singing the song and doing the “Deep and Wide” hand motions. It boggled my mind to think that kids all over North America—maybe even the entire Western Hemisphere— were
hmmm
and
hmmming
this very moment, or according to their respective time zones.

It also occurred to me that adults and teenagers all over North America were sitting in opening exercises with the little kids, doing that song for the zillionth time and feeling silly.

We were sitting in the back. I scanned the pews for the young people. The best place to look was either in the very back or as far as anyone could sit to the side. I counted about twelve, including two silly girls, two stoics, and three Outsiders—cool guys making a statement by slouching together as far away from the proceedings as possible.

We sang a few more standards—“Stop and Let Me Tell You What the Lord Has Done for Me,” and “Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain.” Then the lady in charge brought out the big plywood figure of Barney Barrel. Barney, a wooden barrel, had long, skinny arms that formed a tipping scale with a coffee can hanging from each hand, and it was his job to collect the missionary offering. Today it would be the girls against the boys. Sister Marvin, the pastor’s wife, played the piano, we all marched around the room, the girls put their offering in the pink can and the boys put their offering in the blue. Today the girls won—I saw which one put in the roll of pennies. Clever kid.

Finally we dismissed to our classes. Pastor Marvin would be teaching the adult class in the sanctuary, but Marian and I wanted to check out the teenagers in their classroom in the basement. We followed the Outsiders downstairs and into a small, windowless, echoing room with folding chairs, a low table, and a chalkboard. The rest of the kids straggled in, talking and giggling among themselves, but obviously a little quieter since two strangers were in the room. Not one of them said hello or asked us who we were. I wasn’t about to let them get away with that.

“Hi,” I said, jutting out my hand. “Praise God, I’m Travis, and this is Marian!”

The first kid shook my hand and said hi back, looking immediately at the floor.

“What’s your name?”

I heard him mumble something like “Bernn.”

I leaned closer. I knew I was invading his comfort zone, but that was the idea. “Say again?”

He spoke up a little. “Brian.”

We went after the Outsiders. “Hallelujah! Who are you?”

Donny and Steve barely got their names out, but Trevor spoke right up with his. Trevor seemed to be the leader. As soon as he opened up, the other two did. I found out what grade they were in, and what some of their interests were. In the meantime, Marian had struck up conversations with the girls. It was going well when the teacher finally arrived.

She was a young, curly headed gal. She took one look at us and said, “Hi. Who are you?”

‘Praise the Lord,” I said, reaching over some chairs and kids’ shoulders to shake her hand. “Travis and Marian Jordan.”

“I’m Lucy Moore. It’s nice to have you visiting with us today.” Then she said with a chuckle, “Are you sure you’re in the right class?”

“You bet,” I said. “I’m the new youth pastor.”

She looked at me blankly for a second, then smiled and shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

Then she dove into the lesson like a windup toy with the spring too tight and never made eye contact with us again. Marian and I sat there quietly, hesitant to say another word. I shot a glance at Trevor. He just gave me a shrug.

And there was the strangest smell in that room, like someone left a dirty diaper under a chair. I saw a few noses wrinkle, but nobody said anything, and I wasn’t about to.

IT WAS ACTUALLY A RELIEF
when Pastor Marvin had us stand during the morning service so he could introduce us. “I’d like you all to meet Travis and Mary Jordan, our new assistant pastor. He’ll be helping us out with the youth program and whatever else his hand finds to do, so make him welcome.” He got Marian’s name wrong, but at least we knew we were in the right church.

“WHAT’S HE DOING HERE?”
a board member asked before Pastor Marvin even got his office door closed.

Pastor Marvin sat down at his desk and answered like a cornered witness, “Well, we did discuss this, Bill.”

Bill, a wiry, curly haired man in his fifties, had veins that stuck out on his forehead, and I think his eyes may have been sticking out a bit too. “You didn’t discuss it with me!”

“I didn’t know he was coming
today
,” said a shorter, thinner, younger man.

Bill glared at the younger man. “So he told you about it?”

“He said we might try someone out. That’s all I heard.”

“Well, I should have told you he was coming today,” said Pastor Marvin. “It’s my fault.”

“You shouldn’t even have invited him without consulting with the board!”

“Bill,” said an older man with a lower lip that stuck out, “we
have
talked about it.”

“We’ve talked about it; we have not
approved
it!”

Pastor Marvin broke in, “Gentlemen, before we start the meeting I should introduce Travis and Mary to you.”

“Marian,” I corrected.

“Oh. I am sorry. This is Travis and
Marian
Jordan. Travis recently graduated from West Bethel.” Then Pastor Marvin formally introduced us to Bill Braun, the angry one; Ted Neubaur, the younger, thin one; and Wally Barker, the older one with the lip. “Uh, where’s Rod?”

Ted answered, “He and Marcy had to go right home. Trevor messed in his pants again.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “Oh great!”

Wally explained to us, “Trevor’s a weird kid. He messes in his pants.”

“He doesn’t need to know that!”

“Well, he does if he’s taking the youth.”

“Well, what about Lucy? Has she been told about this?”

No
, I thought.

Ted answered, “She was pretty upset when I talked to her. She said he came into her class and tried to take over.”

“What?” I said.

“We did no such thing!” Marian objected.

Ted continued, “
She’s
the one in charge of the youth right now. Nobody told her these two were coming.”

“Nobody told anybody anything!” Bill snapped. “See? Now you’ve hurt Lucy!”

“Well,” said Pastor Marvin, “why don’t we open in a word of prayer? Dear Lord—”

Let us live
, I prayed silently, clutching Marian’s hand.

The moment Pastor Marvin said Amen, Bill spoke the first words of the formal meeting. “And you announced his appointment from the pulpit! Before we’ve even met him or got to know him!”

“I knew your dad,” Wally told me with a smile. “How’s he doing, anyway?”

“Does he have another job?” Bill asked.