Dateline: Tansho, Japan; October 7, 2013--This post is a bit late given that I have been on the road since the end of July. I suppose I can attempt to excuse my dilatoriness owing to the fact that my August and September schedules are about the same year after year and I am therefore not as excited about sharing what is happening. But along the way, there are some special moments and I want to share some of those. But first, some background.
On May 21 of this year, I was speeding on my Gravity mountain bike back to my office from visiting a guest at our lifestyle center. The route takes me down a gravel road with a blind turn at the bottom. I always begin the decent with a fair amount of caution, but let gravity propel my Gravity the last part of the hill. Then I take the right turn wide left, fly over the small space of flat land before really pumping it up the challenging hill to my office, gravity working against my Gravity all the way. This day I had a surprise at the bottom of the hill.
I have ridden this route hundreds of the times, but that day, for the first time, I met an oncoming vehicle at the bottom. The only option was to squeeze the rear brake, which I did. I remember the bike felt as if it were falling apart. The next thing I know I am lying on my left side in the middle of the road completely enveloped in pain. I don’t know why it is, but at times like that, most of us can’t even open our eyes. Everything hurt. I heard my friend in the vehicle say, “I’m going for help,” and he drove off. I must have been a sight. I had many abrasions on my head (no, I was not wearing my helmet), which is very vascular so I was pretty bloody.
Well, I will skip all the details except to say I had the presence of mind to ask that they not call 911. Ambulance rides are very expensive and I had two excellent doctors attending me in the road. So they scooped me onto a board, loaded me in the back of a van and off we went to a hospital in Columbus, Ga. Every turn, every bump, every anything caused pain to wash over me like a restless tide. And every time they moved me from one board/gurney/table/bed to another, the pain in my groin area was worse than I had ever experienced. In the trauma unit I was told I had six broken bones; my right clavicle and five ribs. This was Tuesday evening. It took until Sabbath afternoon for them to finally discover I had multiple fine fractures of the pelvis, thus the labor pains every time they moved me.
I was discharged one week later. During that time I had two head wounds become infected, also one on my shoulder and one on my elbow the same way. The needle entry point for my IV was also infected and I had begun to develop a bed sore. All that for $25,000.
Now, why tell you all of this? On the night of August 26,27, I at last climbed Fuji-san, or Mt. Fuji. To me this is a miracle of God. I could barely walk in June, used a cane in July, and was still walking a bit gingerly in August while at Andrews University. But I was able to at last climb that iconic mountain.
You read it right, “on the night of….” They say it is best to climb at night so you can catch the sunrise at 12,200 feet. Catching the last bus to Station 5 with two friends from Australia (7800 feet), we began the climb at 22:45 in pouring rain. Our goal was station 10 by sunrise. At each station there is a guest house with beds at $50 each, and it is just a platform and nothing else. As we climbed higher and higher the rain came down heavier and heavier and the wind blew harder and harder and the temperature fell lower and lower. It was absolutely miserable. Very few people were climbing that night, unless you count the ones coming down, and there were many of them. The trail up what appears from a distance to be a graceful, smooth incline, is a treacherous, ankle challenging, rock strewn moonscape which doubles as a stream bed when such a monsoon hits. My friends disappeared into a guest house at level seven but three things drove me on. One, I have failed at many things in my life, but I was not going to fail this night. Success has to begin somewhere. Two, I had no excuse but discomfort to stop, and discomfort I can handle. And three, $50! For a pallet in nothing more than a barracks? Not this guy. So on I pushed.
My Aunt Winnie had given me a gossamer raincoat a couple years ago, the disposable kind you buy for some wet attraction. I bought one in China to explore the Great Wall. I was so thankful to have this raincoat although the wind was trying to tear it from my body, which it almost did near the top. But what could be, was soaked, and still I climbed higher. Then I realized it was no longer raining, although the gale had not slacked a bit. I looked up and there were the stars. It was wonderful.
Around 3 AM I looked back down the mountain and from far below came a writhing body of lights, slowly snaking its way up Fuji-san’s tortured back. The cabins were disgorging their rested and warm denizens, each trying to summit before the sun lit the eastern blackness. I arrived at the summit at 4 AM not being able to remember being that cold for a long, long time. My body’s attempt to generate heat had me shaking to the point of convulsing. The Japanese know how to dress for such occasions and all seemed fairly oblivious to the freezing temperature.
As soon as the sun rose, I turned my steps downward, which was almost as hard as the climbing up had been. Believe me, this is not a nice comfortable trail. But it was Fuji-san… at last. And one of the great things about climbing Fuji-san is you don’t have to do it again.
Now, as great as the climb was, that has not been the highlight of this trip. This has been a great year. Our classes for the most part have been large and some of the changes people have made is amazing. One woman went home and took her TV to a second hand store and threw out all of the sugary foods. A woman was advanced breast cancer had a cessation of pain and discharge and a tumor begin to shrink. And many people are studying the Bible which is a rare thing here in Japan. In our Phase One class we had 15 members, a large class, and every one bought an anatomy and physiology book which means they will be a part of Phase Two next summer. The course is a three phase program.
But now I am packed. In the morning I make my way to Narita, the airport near Tokyo, to begin my return flight to the USA. But I will merely be skipping through America on my way to Eastern Europe. There are some new schools opening and my services are requested. So Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, Croatia and perhaps Montenegro will soon feel my tread. They say it is snowing already in Romania. Thankfully I do have good cold weather clothing at my sister’s home in Kentucky. It will be there I will repack, replenish, recover and resume my journey. More about that later. Blessings.
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