Known Only To God

A road trip through “flyover country” reminds me of what’s important

I went on a road trip this week from my home in Charlotte, N.C., through Nashville to Branson, Mo., where I spoke at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Press Association. From there I drove home through Terre Haute and Indianapolis, Ind., and Beckley, W.Va. In 72 hours, I put in more than 1800 miles.

It wasn’t all windshield time. I stopped for meetings along the way, and I learned that real, life-changing and culture-changing work is happening in places that are not New York, or Washington, or Los Angeles.

In Asheville, N.C., I met with Kevin Martin of World News Group, the publisher of WORLD Magazine — my journalistic home for nearly a decade. WORLD’s headquarters was devastated by the flooding associated with Hurricane Helene last year, and evidence of destruction is still plain to see. But so are the ongoing rebuilding projects of many Christian ministries active in the area. One Christian ministry – Evangelism Explosion – offered WORLD office space, and WORLD is up and running and is having perhaps its greatest impact ever with its children-oriented “World Watch” news program.

From there, I drove to Nashville, where I spent a couple of hours with Keith Getty, who is about to release a new hymnal that I think is going to change the church in all kinds of positive ways. I’ll admit that Nashville is not exactly Hooterville, at least not anymore. In fact, it has become a power center of its own in both country and gospel music, as well as in Christian publishing. But “making it” in Nashville has gotten tough. Getty (and others, including Andrew Peterson) prove that putting down roots and working hard over a long period of time to serve others is still a viable path to fruitfulness.

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Finally, in the unlikely place of Beckley, W. Va., I had dinner with S.D. “Sam” Smith and his son Josiah. From his home in one of the poorest and most rural states in the nation, he has written a series of children’s books that have now sold more than 1.5 million copies. He is now working on a video game based on one of the characters in his “Green Ember” series. We had a friendly argument about who first said this: “I criticize by creating something beautiful.” I said it was Michaelangelo. He said it was Cicero. We didn’t resolve the question, agreeing that the right answer may be lost to history. But regardless of who said it, I became convinced that Sam is actually doing it. He is not lamenting the current state of children’s literature. He is actively creating a good, true, and beautiful alternative.

But back to Branson, and to the Evangelical Press Association meeting. That conference was, too, an opportunity to see how culture changing work is happening in often out-of-the-way places, out of the limelight of celebrity. Journalists from WORLD, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, and other media outlets attend, but most EPA members work on the publications of Christian ministries who do great work to tell stories about what God is doing in their organizations.

One of those organizations is The Salvation Army. It’s always nice to reconnect with Warren Maye, a long-time EPA board member who runs the communications operation for “The Army.” And every time I see him, I remember how – long ago – the Salvation Army changed the trajectory of my family.

In 1951, my father – Carlos Smith — was a 21-year-old infantry rifleman a long way from home. He was, in fact, on a mountaintop about 40 miles north of Seoul. This mountaintop was one of the hills that formed the infamous Punchbowl region near what would become the border between North and South Korea.

As my father put it: “To the north were a half-million enemy soldiers. To the south was the way home. I was scared, cold, hungry, and very lonely.”

You could see for miles in most any direction. Fierce fighting and mortar barrages on these mountains had stripped them of vegetation. It was a cold, barren, and very exposed wasteland.

That’s why my father couldn’t help but notice a vehicle moving up the ridge toward him, just behind the MLR – the Main Line of Resistance, which is what they called the “front line.” Eventually he could make out that the vehicle was a jeep driven by a solitary man. My father assumed he was a soldier. From my father’s vantage point, he followed the jeep’s slow progress over the next couple of hours. Several times the jeep came to forks in the road – no more than a dirt trail, really – that would have allowed it to turn back to safer and less exposed territory. But the man in the jeep did not turn back. He kept coming.

The trail ended at my father’s position. He and several other soldiers – the men in his platoon – had dug in on that hill. The level hilltop was no larger than three or four parking spaces. The man in the jeep arrived at their position, but he remained sitting in the jeep until he had nodded a friendly greeting to several of the soldiers. My father and the other men on this hillside were members of the famed 2^nd Infantry Division, sometimes called the 2ID, or the “Indianhead Division,” after the division’s shoulder insignia, which featured the profile of a Native American in battle headdress.

This man in the jeep was not, however, a soldier himself.  He was dressed in Army fatigues, but they had no rank or any insignia to reveal who or what he was.

“He stepped from the jeep,” my father said, “and he faced small circle of us who had formed around him.” He introduced himself, but more than 50 years later, when my father first told me this story, he said he could no longer remember the man’s name. What my father did remember was this: He was a member of the Salvation Army.

The name of this chaplain may be lost to history, but what he did is not. Some of these men had been on the front lines for weeks without a break. The chaplain asked how he could serve them. He had writing paper and envelopes. Did anyone need them? He asked if anyone needed a letter written for him. He would be glad to do that, too. He also said he had a supply of razor blades, toothpaste and toothbrushes. “All was free for the asking,” my father said.

His visit was brief, but it made a huge difference to those soldiers keeping watch on what would become the bloodiest battlefield of the Korean War. The Battle of Heartbreak Ridge, in which my father and others gathered around that jeep would fight months later, took the lives of 3,700 American and allied soldiers. The North Koreans and Chinese lost 25,000 men.

As the Salvation Army minister prepared to leave, he asked if anyone would mind if he said a prayer. No one did, so they bowed their heads as he prayed. He then shook hands with each of the soldiers. Years later, my father could not remember what he had prayed, but he did remember that as he shook hands with the men gathered on that ridge, he said the same words to each: “God Bless You.”

Years later, when I was about 10 years old and my father was in his 30s, he made a public profession of faith in Christ. He told me many times that this unknown but quietly faithful Salvation Army chaplain was a big part of the reason why. “He served us without a desire for recognition, glory, or prestige,” my father said. “There was something different about him.” That difference helped my father to understand the gospel, and because of that, the history of my family changed.

So, yes, I was glad to take a long drive through flyover country this week. Kevin Martin, Keith Getty, Warren Maye, Ed Pease, and Sam Smith reminded me that significant work for the Kingdom can be done anywhere, and sometimes the results are known only to God.

Our mission is to remain faithful – no matter where in the world we are.