Some thoughts about train trestles

This entry was written a couple weeks ago while I had a lingering cold and thus had time to sit and ponder things a bit more than usual. I'm just finishing it up now...

Not feeling well but still needing to get out this morning, I took a walk in the 90 degree heat (a la Vietnam) up the road to Cedar Springs, a beautiful retreat center set at the edge of the Cascade foothills. It does the soul good just to stroll through there--stop by the pond, check out the flowers, and cool off in the shade of the giant cedars which give the place its name.

Today's walk also took me to an old railroad bed and out onto a trestle which spans a deep, forested gorge. Normally I'm in such a hurry to get somewhere that I walk across it without really thinking about it. Today, I stopped. And looked down. And felt a bit dizzy.

It really is a strange thing, being suspended a hundred-plus feet up in the air on a timber structure that was built over a century ago by people long dead and buried. To be clear: I'm not one of those weird railroad-obsessed guys who spend all their free time putting together model trains and watching documentaries about the specs of different sorts of steam engines. But when you stop and consider for a moment, you really do have to be impressed by the sheer engineering and logistical feat that is a train trestle. The fact that people using little more than some pulleys, maybe a steam donkey (whatever that is) and a lot of elbow grease could build something so massive and structurally sound is astounding.

One of the most impressive things about a trestle is the number of relatively small support beams that hold the whole thing together. I'm no engineer, but I would venture to say that, by itself, a single beam can't do a whole lot. I suppose you could toss it across a ditch and ride your bicycle over it if you were so inclined, but I wouldn't try driving a train (or a tricycle, for that matter) on it. Yet as the individual beams are bolted to the structure they become part of a system that, a hundred years down the road, still serves as a pretty dang good bridge.

I didn't linger too long on the trestle (lest someone see me and think I was a weird 'railroad guy') but as I walked home I was struck by how this was an object lesson for the work Joelle and I have been doing in Vietnam.

As I've supported cross-cultural workers in the past, I've sometimes wondered if my individual prayers to the Father or the small amount I'm able to give them each month really make much of a difference. Perhaps some of you have wondered the same thing as you support our work in Vietnam. From my vantage point now, I can answer that question with a resounding YES.

Just as a train would never have been able to cross that gorge at Cedar Springs without the support of those hundreds of individual beams, so Joelle and I would never be able to work and serve in Vietnam in our current capacity without the prayers and financial support of so many of you. Your petitions to the Father on our behalf and your sacrificial giving are not only appreciated--they're absolutely essential to the work that's being done.

As we prepare to return to Vietnam in just a few days now (August 19th!) we are very conscious of that, and thankful for the support we've received from all of you. Thanks!