Sheila Sims Iding
When I pack to go somewhere I start early. I put my suitcase out a week or so before hand and start to fill it with the things to get ready for my trip. One of the main reasons I start early is that as laundry is folded, I can put the clothes I am taking right in the suitcase. Like most travelers my suitcase is mostly full of clothes. There are toiletries, some books and shoes but, other than that, it mostly full of clothes I will need for the journey.
He doesn’t leave until Saturday but as Tim gets ready to return to his mission work in China, he too has started packing. But unlike most travelers, his suitcase is not full of clothes. My packing list would look like most people’s: some shirts or tops, jeans, pants and a skirt, underwear, socks, nightgown, outfit for workouts and one dress outfit for going out. Throw in a couple of pairs of shoes and a jacket. And the list is complete. Check, check, check.
Tim’s list is quite different. Not that he doesn’t need clothes. He just has learned to leave them here except for what he is wearing and an extra outfit for the long trip. By not taking clothes back and forth, it leaves room for more important cargo. Like the traveler needing clothes, the theologian has things he needs for his journey. As Tim prepares to go back to China his packing list consists of the following items:
1) Two new books. Books he bought with birthday money to study religion. Books he bought so he could keep working even at home. Books he bought so he can better prepare the lectures for Fr. Brian. The Historical Atlas of Judaism. The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary. It doesn’t sound exciting to me but truth is, there have been days when he couldn’t put them down. They help him better understand the politics, culture and beliefs of Biblical times. And as he prepares to teach about St. Paul they help him understand the people of Thessalonia and the society of Corinth. The books are decorated with highlighter and notes in the margins. The books and his new wisdom will go back to China.
2) Religious Gifts. He bought these for the people he is trying to convert. They may not be full conversions. They may not be Baptismal gifts but they are gifts nonetheless. In the past he has taken prayer cards and medals and rosaries. This trip he takes back St. Benedict coins. He gives them to the Chinese as a visual sign of his prayer for protection for them. They may not believe in St. Benedict yet but they treasure these coins he gives. And he is doing what missionaries have done before him. He is planting seeds of faith.
3) A Thank You Gift. They have a week-long break in the fall and one of Tim’s Korean friends has invited him to her hometown. He will stay with her family for a few days so he bought a special picture of the Holy Family to give them as a thank you gift. One of the blessings of this opportunity with Maryknoll is Tim can fulfill his desire to learn about other countries and their amazing people. The travel and the friendships he has formed in so many countries is its own special “employee benefit.”
4) Medicine. This is precious cargo because it is the very medicine that will keep him healthy so he can stay and do God’s work. Cystic Fibrosis is not an Asian disease so there are no CF doctors or CF medicine in China. So when he comes home he stocks up on enzymes and breathing treatment meds. Tim would argue that the books and religious coins are his most precious cargo. As a mom, I would argue it these meds. Either way…the meds are safely packed and heading to the polluted air of China. Like the St. Benedict medals provide a sense of protection for Tim and others, the CF meds provide a sense of protection for his lungs. The meds are St. Benedict to me.
5) More medicine. When the food makes you sick and infections make you sick then you have to problem solve so that you don’t end up in a foreign hospital again. You get a prescription for a strong, broad spectrum antibiotic and you get a prescription to stop the vomiting that led to IV treatments before. When you get an email from Fr. Brian that says “Tim is at the hospital getting IV’s. He should be just fine.” You don’t really read the “just fine” part. You just wish he wasn’t at the mercy of a foreign hospital. You just wish he was home. These two medicines bring “home” with him to China.
6) Comfort food. When you are so sick from the food and you come home from the hospital and have nothing to eat except the food that landed you in the hospital…you have a problem. And when you are too weak from being sick to go to the American store so far away to get the food and liquids you need to get better, you have an even bigger problem. This food solves that problem. Now in the corner of one of his kitchen cupboards will be a stash of Gatorade powder, saltine crackers and applesauce cups. It doesn’t sound like much but if food can make a difference…this food will. And it will bring comfort when he needs it most and comfort to a mom so she can more easily believe the part of the email that says “He will be just fine.”
7) Culture Shock Food. Fr. Brian warned Tim about culture shock. He warns all the Maryknoll teachers first coming to China. He even warned Pat and I about it on Tim’s first visit years ago. We kind of blew it off a bit. We don’t anymore. Tim loves China. And he loves the people there. And he loves his work there. But it does wear on you… mind, body and soul. And a bout of culture shock can bring you down as much as that chicken that wasn’t cooked right. So…we cannot give him cable TV or ESPN. We can’t transport a movie theater there or the Breslin Center. We can’t take away the negative views toward Americans. But we can send Kellogg cereal. And mash potato packets. And noodle bowls for the microwave and the best culture shock food of all…those little cups of macaroni and cheese. Not that any food makes up for no Sportscenter or anti-American remarks but if you can have mac and cheese at the end of the day instead of rice…it helps make a day…and a foreign country…a little better.
8) Love notes. In every suitcase Pat or the boys have packed, I have tucked in 4 love notes to be found randomly later. It’s probably a twit mom thing but the notes are stuck in fun places like pant pockets, books and a shoe. Who knows when they find them. But one day when they least expect it one of those notes will pop into their day. For Tim, since we can’t send mail, I also send a card for him to open the first day of each month. So also in that suitcase there will be 5 cards for him to open the first day of each month. It is a bit of mail from home …special delivery…in a suitcase.
9) Christmas presents. For the first time ever Tim will not be home for Christmas. It’s not a pity story. He has been home every Christmas for 30 years. We have been lucky. Since they still have school and the term isn’t over until mid-January, Tim’s Christmas will be delayed. We will be around the tree Christmas morning and he will be in a classroom. He struggled with this when Brian first told him a few weeks ago and it’s not so much that he can’t come home…it’s that they don’t have any Christmas there. He says if he was in Mexico or Brazil or some place where Christmas was celebrated it would be different. But it is just another day in China and in your heart of Christian hearts that just doesn’t feel right. So…to help with the delay of Christmas I tucked some Christmas gifts in his suitcase. His brothers, “sister” and aunt will tuck some in too. And…on Christmas morning there (Christmas Eve here)…we will have Christmas via skype…right before he heads off to class and that “ordinary” day.
So his suitcase is filling up and there is little room for clothes and the normal cargo of the traveler. But a tourist traveler has a different packing list than a theologian traveler. Like non-wrinkle clothes, comfortable shoes and little shampoo containers fill the purpose of the traveling tourist, Biblical books, religious items and Christmas gifts fill the purpose of the missionary who is living God’s purpose in his life…halfway around the world.
Vaya con Dios, Timothy Patrick Dominic Iding.
God bless and God speed…always
PS: His Aunt wrapped her Christmas gifts but I didn’t wrap mine in Christmas paper for fear security people would open them. I didn’t even put a ribbon on them. So they are crudely “wrapped” in plastic grocery bags. I couldn’t put gift tags on them because it would give away the “disguise”. But if I could put a tag on them, the tag would say “Do not open until Christmas” And “Merry, Blessed Christmas to you.” “Wish you were here.”