Building Zion – Part 1

There was a time when I was young, when I lived in Zion.

We didn’t call it Zion.  We didn’t even know we lived in Zion.  But looking back now I can see that there are principles I experienced in my youth, that, when put into practice bring people into Zion.  I will explain what I mean by that, but, first, its story time.  

The following story is true.  I changed names, and simplified it a little by merging more than one person into the characters in the narration.  And, of course, most of this is from my own memories from almost thirty years ago, so I’m not a reliable witness.  But what follows is the story of the year my mother died the way that I honestly remember it, and I’m not making up or embellishing the meaningful bits just to prove a point.  I’m simply remembering my life and sharing what I observe as I consider it all.

When I was a young teen, my mother was diagnosed with skin cancer, and told that the prospects didn’t look great for her.  She did some treatments that weren’t doing her any favors. And, at one point in her medical “journey,” my parents discovered an herbal treatment that was available at a clinic in Mexico that had demonstrated some success in treating the type of cancer she had.  And so they decided they needed to go to Mexico for a few weeks.

My family’s needs were great. We needed a place for five children to stay for a few weeks, a place where we could still go to school, and have all of our basic needs met. We were a military family, so it wasn’t like we lived near extended family who could just take us in. And, we were not exactly rich, and getting to Mexico and paying for treatment was already going to cost more than we had, so we couldn’t really pay anyone enough to cover the basic costs of watching us.

My Mother reached out to my friend’s mother (let’s call her “Julie”), and asked if there was any way that I could live with them for a few weeks, starting now-ish.  I practically lived at their house anyway, and I’m a very agreeable person (no, really), so she was thrilled to have me.  Even if it meant feeding an extra teenage boy.  No problem, anything to help.

Julie then asked what we planned on doing with my younger brother, and my mother admitted we were still trying to figure that out.  And Julie decided that since they had a son who was mostly the same age she would take him too.  It was crazy, but she felt it was certainly possible. She saw the need and she filled it.  She was probably wondering to herself how she would feed us all, but that’s a problem for another day.  A few day’s later, my Parents were in Mexico, and we kids were all farmed out to live with various friends.  

My family had an unbearable burden, but with some help from friends, we were able to get through this otherwise crushing situation.

And that ends the first chapter in this story.  So, stay tuned for Part 2.