When you’ve been away for awhile, it’s nice to find something that reminds you of home. Today, it was a pomegranate. In case you just asked, “What’s that?,” let me describe one for you. A pomegranate is a chambered, many-seeded, globose fruit, having a tough, usually red rind and surmounted by a crown of calyx lobes, the edible portion consisting of pleasantly acid flesh developed from the outer seed coat. Got it?

Okay, those were not my words. Thank the Lord for Dictionary.com! Anyway, pomegranates remind me of my eleven year old son, Jayson. He loves eating pomegranates. We’ll sit around the table over a holiday break and enjoy breaking apart this many-chambered fruit. It’s really quite a culinary adventure.

Boy, is that an understatement! Sitting here in the hotel lounge I spied a whole bowl of pomegranates for the taking. I grabbed one, with warm, fuzzy memories of Jayson filling my mind, and thought I’d eat it while I worked on my computer. I began the process by biting into that “tough, red rind.” As I broke through, red juice exploded on my white shirt. That’s bright, blood-red, stain-your-white-shirt, juice I’m talking about! From there it went down hill.

I positioned the next bite strategically away from my previously white shirt. Bite number two launched a shotgun spray of juice all over my computer screen. So now I’m licking the white hotel napkin, which resembles a bandage from the emergency room, and delicately wiping the sticky juice from the screen.

The came Armageddon. I was working diligently to mine one of the chambers of “pleasantly acid flesh” when a bomb went off. A dozen or so fleshy seeds were shot into orbit only to land all over the beautiful hardwood hotel floors. Now I am trying inconspicuously to gather these little “blood bombs” so no one else gets hurt. My shirt is a mess, my screen is a mess, my napkin is trashed and the floor is now a minefield. Oh, I forgot to tell you about my beautiful rosey lips.

The Indian waiter must have noticed something was going seriously awry. He saunters over to the disaster site and precedes to hand me a table spoon! How is this supposed to help! How do you eat a pomegranate with a spoon??? I guess I’ll have to save that revelation for another mission trip. For now, I’ll lick my wounds and comfort my damaged ego with wonderful thoughts of my son, Jayson, and the rest of the Johnson Tribe back home.

I write this blog at 39,000 feet traveling at a speed of nearly 700 miles per hour. No, I’m not Superman. I’m almost to India. The television screen on the seat in front of me reveals our exact location. We are currently flying over a desert several hundred miles west of Kuwait. We should be in India is several hours!

Following Jesus is always exciting, but it especially the case when you add both Pastor Lonny and my incompetence to the mix! We arrived at O’Hare several hours early with our passports in hand. Good start. Then things got really exciting. As our attendant checked my passport she asked,”Where is your VISA?” Panic struck. (I have a Mastercard…just kidding). Lonny had his VISA stamped right there on his passport, bigger than life. My passport was empty! Then I discovered I had a new passport which meant my VISA was somewhere in my old passport. Great! Now where is my old passport? Did I keep my old passport?

After a quick call to my awesome wife and some prompt action fronm our missions team at Living Stones, the passport was located. My daughter, Lauren, and her cajun buddy, Aaron, were in route within minutes to deliver the goods. In just the right time, we made it through security and boarded our plane! Whew!

So here I am, grateful that I serve a BIG GOD who’s able to overcome my incompetence and actually use me for His glory. So please keep us in your prayers. May Jesus be glorified in the great nation of India.