Survivors, Dave Mckay [reading comprehension books .txt] 📗

her with a hard decision. All her life she had known God through other people. But now she needed to make one of the most important decisions of her life, and she was being forced to do it without back-up from anyone. She tried to pray, but she lacked the certainty that Vernon Billings' confidence had always given to her in the past.

Irene waited patiently in the driver's seat while the auctioneer above her tipped his drum at an angle, and played with the hose to drain the last of it into her tank. By the time he had finished, she had made her mind up. She signalled for Pastor Billings to come over.

"Vernon," she began, calling the man by his first name for the first time. "I want you to bring that old couple over here to the car. I want to talk to them." There was a conviction in her voice that shocked Irene as much as it shocked Vernon Billings.

 

"It's best not to say anything…" her pastor began.

"I didn't ask your opinion. I said to bring them here!" she said, through clenched teeth. "Wake Raymie and bring him too." Vernon turned in shock and obeyed her. She was strangely thrilled by her own ability to make such a big decision, and to do it in the face of the man who had made so many of her decisions for her in the past. It was scary, but it was exhilarating too.

When Vernon returned, his wife was with him.

"Get in the car, Raymie," Irene said. Raymie climbed in the back, while the others gathered around the window on the driver's side. She spoke up enough so that they could all hear, but not loud enough for any other pilgrims to hear.

"There has been a change of plans. We're heading north," she said. "We're not going to Montana. If you want a lift to Canada, you can join us."

"No, don't say that, Sister Strait," argued Pastor Billings as he moved closer to the car. "We're almost there. We can take the children if you like…"

Just then he saw the barrel of his own pistol poking at him through the window.

"Sister Strait! What are you doing? Put that down!"

BANG! A shot rang out. It whizzed over Vernon's head. Other campers turned and looked, but assumed that the car had backfired.

"I'm serious, Vernon!" Irene said. "I've got a family back in Illinois, and I mean to find them. America has been destroyed, for whatever reason, I don't know. But I can't change things just through wishful thinking.

"Now, I'll ask just one more time: Who wants to come to Canada with me?" Tom and Betty looked timidly at each other. Their expressions suggested that their faith in the Montana myth had been teetering already. They looked back in Irene's direction and timidly raised their hands.

"Get the kids," Irene said. "It'll be crowded, but we'll do our best. What about you, Vernon? You can come with us if you like."

Vernon Billings was in deep pain--both physically and spiritually. Sweat formed on his brow as another wave of nausea swept over him. He had travelled too far down the road. His religious pride would not allow him to change directions now. Right or wrong, he was going to die for his cause. He shook his head, and then turned away to dry retch.

Irene eyed Elaine. "And you?"

"My place is with Vern," she said, as she moved closer to her fevered husband and reached out to comfort him.

"I understand," Irene said, allowing herself to soften just for a moment. "I love you… both."

The pastor's wife returned Irene's expression of love, and then Tom White got clearance from Irene before walking over to Vernon and Elaine. He gave them the keys to his car and his roll of money while Betty loaded the kids into the car.

"My car's up there just past the overpass," Tom said, pointing to a light green Ford. "It's totally empty, but maybe you can get out of here with this." He indicated the wad of money.

Then Tom returned to Irene and joined Raymie and the older child in the back seat. Betty held the baby in the front with Irene. There were two boxes in the back too, making it quite crowded.

Irene put the car into drive, waved silently to her former pastor and his wife, and then pulled out onto the highway.

"Mom, it's too crowded back here," Raymie complained.

Irene responded slowly and deliberately as she drove, giving each word time to sink in: "I'm only going to say it once, Raymie. If you or anyone else in this car doesn't like the conditions, you just ask and I'll let you out. I'm sorry, Raymie, that I haven't taught you to be more disciplined before now. But these are dangerous times, and we all need to grow up and face reality real fast. It's time to stop complaining and to start thanking God that we are still alive, and that we have the means to get away from here. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mom," said Raymie. Tom and Betty also whispered acceptance of the conditions.

They drove on in silence. And as they drove, more than one of the car's occupants was praying in a way that he or she had never prayed before.

 

 

Zion Ben-Jonah Writes

The one thing that Christians need to learn most if they are to be ready for the tests that lie ahead, is how to hear and obey the voice of God. It starts with following your conscience. Because so much of the world has seared their conscience, they are rarely able to hear God's voice at all.

Obedience to God has been replaced with obedience to human authorities… parents, teachers, pastors, and police. Irene's problem was not that she obeyed Vernon Billings, or even that what Vernon Billings did was necessarily immoral. (After all, Irene herself used the gun in the end!) Her problem was just that she had failed, previously, to ask God what to do, or at least that she had assumed that God's will would always be revealed through her pastor. She had to actually leave her pastor before she could truly grow spiritually.

The religious institution tends to teach that submission to the institution will guarantee salvation, when it often happens that just the opposite is true. Salvation comes when we find a faith that is bigger than the institution.

Read Luke 17:31-37. The disciples wanted to know in advance where people should go in the last days, and Jesus gave a cryptic reply, which indicated that we each need to be like the birds, open to the subtle prompting of the Holy Spirit to tell us, minute by minute, where we should go, and when.

 

(Table of Contents)

 

 

 

6. Counting the Cost

 

Rayford looked around the interior of the high-top Leyland Daf van. It was crowded, with four men seated in the living area, but not as crowded as he had expected. Furniture consisted of assorted cabinets and pieces of timber, all of which had come from curbside throwouts. The lack of clutter was striking. There were places for each occupant to sleep, as well as for them to be seated. Everything else was neatly tucked away inside drawers and cupboards. Moving from one place to another inside the van was the biggest inconvenience, especially if anyone was trying to cook or trying to do dishes in the tiny kitchen area.

Seated next to Rayford, on a bench at right angles to the rear of the van, was the group's youngest member, 24-year-old Martin. Martin's family came from the Czech Republic. Opposite Martin and Rayford were Reinhard and Francisco. Reinhard was 32, while Francisco was 28. Fran's mother was from Argentina. Although they had not been formally trained, all three men were natural linguists. Together, they had translated "The Fall of America" into French, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, and even Polish.

"How many of these do you get out in a week?" Rayford asked, fingering a copy of the booklet which had drawn his attention to the three men.

"Couple thousand in a good week," Martin answered. Martin was in charge of statistics. He kept the group's budget, as well as keeping records on literature stocks, distribution rates, and accounts of where they had worked and when.

"That's 100,000 in a year," noted Rayford.

"A very good year," Martin reminded him.

"Whatever. The point is that even in a bad year, you should be getting new members. Why are there only three of you?"

"Two reasons," answered Francisco, who was more expressive than the other two missionaries. His hands moved constantly, and his head would jerk in time to the movements, as though pulling strings that moved his hands. Head jerks marked jumps from one thought to another.

"What we're preaching… well, people don't wanna hear… You know, they want preachers to say soooothing things." He dragged out the word soothing, while moving his downturned hands away from one another, like a roulette croupier closing all bets. "We're talking life and death here… forsaking all… I mean giving up everything for God! Who wants to hear that?"

"What's the second reason people don't join you?" Rayford asked.

Reinhard answered. "Ve sink God may be hiding us from udder true beliefers. Zay, too, he must be hiding from us. One day soon ve vill come together. For now, only, he is testing, to see if ve vill cheat, and make change to our message."

"One plants, another waters." Francisco was back. "The harvest will come. No worries. For now, they're reading. They're thinking. Hey, and they talk about it too. People tell us… every day!"

Rayford admired the idealism of this strange trio; but he could not believe that others were not joining them now that their predictions had come true about America. And he said so.

"Quickly people forget," Reinhard explained. "Zay are skeptical too. Already zay are saying zat our book vas written after zee attack."

"But in their hearts they know!" boasted Francisco. "They know all right! The truth is out there in those booklets, ticking away like a time bomb. One day it'll all come out. And then… ka-POW!" He clapped his hands together to emphasise the explosion and then shot one hand up in the air like a rocket. All three faces lit up in appreciation of what Francisco was saying.

"We're not growing in numbers; but the truth is getting out," said Martin quietly. "Nothing can stop the truth. And being right in God's eyes is more satisfying than being successful."

"You should understand," continued Reinhard, "Ve really belief ven ve talk of heaven and God, and about Sheesus returning. Such faith shanges deeply our interest in udder sings. Ve are living for a new vorld… an eternal one. Our faith is not like vat ve call the shurchy faith."

That was an understatement! Rayford could hardly believe that a tiny band of religious fanatics living in abject poverty could have had such a deep impact on himself. Yet they were doing just that. The truth was that he never would have given them a second thought if it had not been for the destruction of America. What a horrible price God had to pay to get his attention! Yet most of the world, even now, was more concerned about the effect on the world economy than they were about the spiritual implications of the fall of America.

Rayford stayed talking for several hours. He treated the group to a hot meal inside the Heston services, to prolong the visit. In that time, he learned that the trio parked their van most nights in service roads behind well-equipped motorway services, because they were less likely to arouse suspicion there, near 24-hour parking lots, than if they parked on city streets. Parking at the services also meant easy access to public rest rooms and showers overnight. During the day they would distribute their tracts at nearby shopping centres, just as they had done on the streets of Hounslow earlier that day.

"We don't stay at the same place two nights in