Storms of Life

A loud pounding at the front door startled me awake in bed. A glance at the clock – it was only four o’clock in the morning in Kabul, Afghanistan. Outside it was pitch dark, below the window stood three mullahs and five policemen, guns at the ready.

I had arrived in Kabul two weeks ago and had been given a room in the parsonage of the International Christian Church, with Pastor Christy Wilson and his wife. Now one of the police officers shouted in broken English, “You have 20 minutes to pack your personal belongings, you are expelled from the country, your plane is already waiting at the airport.” This was not directed at me, but at the pastors couple, and so we left in convoy for the airport. A few hours later, the bulldozers rolled in and demolished the parsonage and later the church.

This quickly prompted me and a companion to travel on by bus. We crossed Iran by “bus hopping”. Then we went to the port city of Trabzon on the Black Sea. Our plan was to take a ship from there to Istanbul and recover a bit from the long bus trip. Since there was good weather, we booked a deck passage where we would live outdoors for a few days.

In warm, sunny weather, we sailed out of the port playing guitar and singing. The ship was not an ocean liner, more of a medium sized ship. After half a day we noticed a black wall of clouds on the horizon, the wind increased and the waves “showed teeth”. Still we felt comfortable on deck and let the wind blow through our at that time rather long hair. When the first waves splashed the deck, we asked to be let inside the ship. They let us sit in the cafeteria.

We had barely ordered our Coke when it really started. Glasses slid across the table and shattered on the floor, people screamed in panic, and the ship reared high in the storm-lashed sea. One time I looked down at my friend and the very next moment I was under him while the ship was groaning and crashing down into the next trough of waves. Many threw up and it stank in the room. It went on like this all day, all night. When the morning dawned, the storm still howled undiminished over us. Then came this terrible feeling of powerlessness: You can’t get out, you can’t do anything about it. That created panic in many. The crew let us know that there was a mass-sleeping room at the very bottom of the ship’s belly that they would open for us. Things would not be so bad there below the waterline. And yes, it was much more comfortable, even though the ship pitched and lurched even there.

After several nights in the dark, the hatch was opened, the sun was shining, the sea was less upset and Istanbul could be seen in the distance. With thanks to the crew and to God, we left the ship and boarded the Orient Express, which took us directly to Vienna.