This is one man's journey, told through the stories that have shaped his life. Author Harry Strachan's story began in Costa Rica, where he was born into a large missionary family. As an adult, he moved to the United States to pursue higher education. After studying at the schools of law and business at Harvard, he returned to his alma mater to teach. He then moved into private industry and eventually returned to his Central American home with the mission of investing both for profit and impact. But the heart of these experiences is how he deals with challenges. He reflects on coming to terms with family expectations, finding a vocation that fits his talents, dealing with emotional setbacks and serious illness, raising a family, and learning to love well in marriage. Through it all, there is a spiritual journey that moves through the loss of the conservative, traditional faith of his childhood to the establishment of a set of values that guides his life. Harry's reflections are told with humor and authenticity. His story offers provocative reflections for the next generation who are seeking to both "do good and do well" "Harry Strachan is one of the most remarkable people I've ever known. He has been a lifelong friend whose path through sorrow and success has been a brilliant example to me of the 'examined life' Written principally for his children, these stories will resonate with anyone who is willing to live outside the box" -Maestro John Nelson, Conductor

Finding a Path

Stories from My LifeBy Harry W. Strachan

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Harry W. Strachan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4199-2

Contents

INTRODUCTION..............................................1FAMILY TALES..............................................15LEAVING THE FAMILY COCOON.................................50INTO THE SECULAR WORLD....................................78WORK......................................................106FAMILY LIFE...............................................160POTHOLES, EPIPHANIES, AND TRANSITIONS.....................176LEARNING TO LOVE WELL.....................................205CONCLUSION................................................222Acknowledgments...........................................232

Chapter One

FAMILY TALES

GRANDPARENTS

Grandfather Harry Strachan

"Your grandfather, Harry Strachan, was a very tall, strong man. Before the Lord saved him, he was a boxer and long-distance swimmer in Scotland. He had deep convictions, enormous personal discipline, and great stamina.

"Once, on a campaign off the coast of Honduras, he went for a swim. He was miles from shore when he was stung in the leg by a giant ray. Friends helped him swim back to the beach. His leg was swelling from the poison, and there was no clinic or hospital nearby. Night was coming on. They built a fire, took a steel rod, and without anesthesia put it in the wound to cauterize the hole. The next day, they were able to get him to a hospital on horseback.

"Once high in the Andes, he was set upon by three robbers. He beat up all three and sent them fleeing down the mountain. On another occasion he was sitting in the corner office of the seminary, the one your father now occupies. He looked out the window down toward Paseo de Los Estudiantes (the boulevard). He saw some young men standing outside a bar blocking two student nurses who were on their way to the Clínica Biblica. In a flash he was out the door running down the block; he picked two of the men up by the scruff of their necks, cracked their heads together, threw them in the gutter; then he picked up another and threw him back into the bar."

Here the story diverges. In the first version, he warns them that if he ever again catches them bothering the nurses, they'll get much worse. In a second version, he begins to preach the gospel.

I am a little boy on the bed listening to my mother. I am looking at a picture of a smiling man with two little boys in his arms, myself and my cousin Paul. The man has white hair and a big white mustache. He looks very tall to me; I imagine him way over six feet tall, but find out years later he was my height, only five feet, ten inches. In those days, though, that made him a giant in Latin America. I have no clear memory of him, as he died at age seventy-two when I was four.

Over the years I learned the following about him: He always spoke both English and Spanish with a Scottish brogue, though he acquired a correct and extensive Spanish vocabulary. For some period of his life, he followed the daily practice of memorizing a page from the Spanish dictionary. He also had a notebook in which he collected colloquial sayings that he used to spice up his sermons.

In public his wife addressed him formally as Mr. or Dr. Strachan. Missionaries and members of the church in Costa Rica experienced him as a formidable, somewhat distant man. Grandmother Strachan described him as a "dour Scotsman," someone who didn't have the gift of small talk, but who prayed to become a warmer person. Then, confusing me, I was told that up at the Bible home with the orphan children, he would get down on the floor to play with them, and they would climb all over him, laughing. He was their favorite visitor, and their school was named after him.

He was famous for his evangelistic innovations. There were only a handful of Protestant churches in Latin America, and where they existed, Roman Catholics would not enter them. So he would rent the largest hall or theater available. Then he would put provocative advertisements in the newspaper designed to attract people to the meetings. The announced topics might have to do with science (something he apparently loved to read about) or marriage or raising children. Whatever the topic, it always ended up with the gospel and a call to conversion. One of his most successful was the "Night for Drunkards," and there is a family story about one of these events. The crowd gathered, loud and unruly, apparently having prepared for the topic with much drink. His colleague couldn't quiet them down for the introduction. My grandfather solved the problem by slowly and dramatically walking across the stage so all could see him. There was no drop in the volume of noise, so he came down the steps toward the front row. There was a slight pause in the din as the curious tried to figure out what he was going to do. Then he began speaking quietly to the people on the first row. Like a wave traveling back up the hall, quiet descended, as people strained to hear what he was saying. It was then that he looked up and began his prepared speech.

In the late 1980s, I flew to California on a business trip and visited my good friends Gary and Linda Bergthold. Linda wrote that when she mentioned my name to her minister father, he asked, "Is he by any chance related to the missionary in Latin America named Harry Strachan? If so, I must meet him and tell him a story."

This is the story he told me, imitating my grandfather's brogue in the appropriate spots:

I was a young minister in my first small rural church. Your grandfather came as a missionary speaker. He first taught us a chorus in Spanish and had us sing it till we had it memorized. I still can sing it to this day. He had us laughing and standing and happy. Then he told the story of his conversion—how he had been raised in a religious family but left the faith, how in a Billy Sunday meeting he accepted the Lord and came home, and how for three days and nights he literally danced around his room in great joy, filled with the Holy Spirit, freed from so much bondage in his life. He described his call to the mission field, how God steered him from Africa to Argentina, and then of his vision for evangelism throughout the continent of Latin America.

It was wonderful; he was so charismatic! Later in the parking lot outside the church, we talked for hours—one of the most important evenings of my life. Before he left he said, "Arvid, whatever you do, never stop preaching the filling of the Holy Spirit!" And I never have.

My mother's stories and descriptions seemed to me to juxtapose my grandfather with my father, perhaps unintentionally. Grandfather Strachan was tall and strong and liked individual sports like swimming and boxing. My dad was short and athletic and excelled in team sports like basketball and baseball. Grandfather was extroverted and charismatic, and his presence filled any room he entered. Father was more reserved, didn't compete for center stage, yet he had a quiet presence that suggested much depth. Grandfather was certain of the truth, fearless in his opinions, judgmental, and probably dogmatic. Dad was more tolerant and ecumenical, prone to give others the benefit of the doubt. My grandfather was successful from the start of his career, his leadership abilities never in doubt. My father was something of an underperformer in high school and college. His capacity as a missionary was doubted by the mission board at the start of his career. Yet by the time I was old enough to hear the stories, my dad's special talents for attracting good people, his strategic vision, his balanced judgment, his personal humility, and his skills as a speaker had made him one of the most influential missionary leaders of his generation. My mother's admiration and loyalty made it clear that if I were forced to choose between my grandfather's or my father's traits, I should choose Dad's.

The truth was that I felt I didn't measure up to either of them. If I could have chosen a name, it would have been my father's, but the struggle to name me was long over by the time I was born. Mother wanted to name me Robert Kenneth after my dad. Her family tradition was that the firstborn always carried the father's name. My father was in the Scottish tradition, where firstborn names alternate down the line, and he wanted me to be given my grandfather's name. But his real reason, and the one that made him inflexible in the disagreement with my mother, was that he'd vowed at his younger brother's death bed that his first son would be given his brother's name. Harry Wallace had died from malaria, or typhoid fever, or the medicine for them, in a Florida hospital, and my father felt he'd failed him in some important way, which he never shared with us.

I often wondered what Grandfather Strachan had really been like. How would we have gotten along if he had lived? I knew he had died from heart problems, so in the aftermath of my own heart attack and triple bypass, I sensed that we might have more in common than I thought. As part of my visualization therapy following the heart attack, I decided to "talk" with him to discover what in my life needed changing.

One day during my medical sabbatical when I was fifty, I visualized myself traveling back in time from Newton, Massachusetts, to Costa Rica. I entered the apartment at La Finquita (The Little Farm) where my grandparents spent their last years. I found him alone in the living room, sitting in an easy chair, reading. He looked as he did in his pictures with white hair and full mustache. I approached him, expecting someone serious, perhaps dour, but was surprised when he greeted me with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye. As we talked, I found he had a much greater sense of humor and fun than I had been told. We talked about his life and his faith. He was as certain and strong and vibrant as ever, but listening to his story I realized that his faith had freed him and enriched his life greatly. Though he led a strict Scottish Presbyterian lifestyle, his "letting go and letting God" opened up a life of great abundance and joy. He was much less judgmental than I expected. I was also impressed by his curiosity; he seemed deeply interested in everything—science, politics, even business. I could see that he read a huge amount, and the books around him showed his varied interests. As with many self-educated men who wished they could have completed more formal schooling, it seemed he imagined he'd missed out on more than, in fact, he had.

As our imaginary meeting was coming to an end, I asked him, "Grandfather, if you had your life to live over again, what would you do differently?" This was one of the critical questions I was asking myself. With the very kindest of looks, a look that brought tears to my eyes, he gave me a totally unexpected answer. "Harry, I don't have a lot of regrets, but if I could, I would have been less disciplined."

I puzzled over his answer for many days because I have always felt I was deficient in discipline, though I can be quite "driven." I decided Grandfather was warning me that my inherited promoter tendencies—the way I can become obsessed, even to the detriment of my relationships—was something I needed to learn to manage.

Grandfather William Walker

In contrast to Grandfather Strachan, still a grand presence in the Costa Rica of my childhood, my grandfather William Walker was a shadowy figure as I grew up. I knew he had been a "beloved" Southern Baptist minister, but he had died when my mother was a little girl. Her direct memories of him were hazy. In the one picture I remember of him, he was bald, close to fifty, a good-looking man with even features. I was told he was beloved because he had such a sunny, happy, infectiously enthusiastic personality.

In family lore, my sister Clare and I were by body and temperament categorized as "Walker," while the others were more "Strachan." Though I desperately wanted to be "Strachan" (because in my ignorance I didn't fully appreciate that other inheritance), I knew I was probably more "Walker."

When my son Ken, a happy towhead full of infectious enthusiasm, was about two years of age and running around our house in Managua, Nicaragua, I thought with surprise, Maybe those Walker genes are what I'm looking at in this little boy. I should have learned more about that side of my family. Perhaps I owe Rev. Walker more than I think. If, as some friends have suggested, "optimistic enthusiasm" is one of my traits, especially in certain crisis situations, maybe it comes from that side of the family.

Grandmother Susan Beamish Strachan

Though I begin with my grandfathers, the under-appreciated truth is that our family has always been a matriarchy, full of strong and accomplished women. This is true of my grandmothers, my mother and aunts, and it comes down to present-day sisters and cousins, where the women of the family have tended to achieve more than the men.

The following story is told about my grandmothers. My sister Cathy, tiny and active, was bossing around the older girls in her pre-kinder play group. One of the mothers laughingly pointed this out to Mother and another missionary. This other woman, who had studied at Columbia Bible College under Grandmother Walker and who now worked under Grandmother Strachan, quickly replied, "Well, what do you expect? She has two five-star generals for grandmothers!"

Susan Beamish Strachan was small—under five feet tall. In supposed contrast to her husband, she could be warm and charming, had a quick wit, was a good writer, and was very energetic. While Grandfather traveled around the continent holding campaigns, she organized the seminary, to which he sent converts for training. She also started a women's clinic in her home, which eventually became a nursing school and the Hospital Clínica Biblica. She edited the mission magazine, kept in touch with donors at home, and held the position of "Co-Director" of the mission.

Everyone told me Grandmother Strachan would have been a fabulous businesswoman. She loved to buy property and apparently had a Midas touch for choosing sites that would appreciate in value. She enjoyed building things and was good at it. She was frugal, negotiated hard, but bought and built for the long run. While the seminary was under construction, she pushed the contractor hard to reduce costs. He brought her a money-saving suggestion to substitute a single door for the double door at the entrance. She stepped back from the building, no doubt visualizing the impact of the change on the functionality and dignity of the building, estimating these intangibles versus the savings and other factors; however, she mentioned none of this in her answer to the contractor. She simply said, "No, God wants us to have a double door."

One day high in the mountains a hard horseback ride above Barva, she came around a bend to see below a picturesque coffee and dairy farm. God told her, "This is the place for my Bible home for the children that I have placed in your heart."

There was one slight problem with this plan, however: the strictly Catholic owner of the farm had sworn he would never sell to protestantes. No problem, Grandmother was sure she'd heard God's message. Then either God changed the owner's heart or my grandmother charmed him into selling it to the mission at a very good price.

She was also a firm and effective hands-on administrator. There is a great photo of her in this role taken at the farm. She's wearing a wide-brimmed hat, dressed in a long riding skirt, sitting straight on a big black horse called Cholo, her regular mount for supervising the coffee and dairy activities.

She was very loyal to Cholo, a handsome spirited stallion. Dr. Cameron, the medical director of the hospital and her companion on trips to dispense medical services, rode a white gelding named Boy. Dr. Cameron thought Cholo was mean and dangerous, and she kept trying to get Grandmother to find a new horse. One day the expected happened, Cholo threw my grandmother, breaking a number of bones, but even that didn't convince her to replace him.

One story about Grandmother Strachan puzzled me as a teenager, but also filled me with pride. In those early years of the mission, Grandmother turned her living room into a once-a-month literary salon. She began a "Night of the Arts," where musicians, poets, and writers would gather to play the piano or read their pieces. She loved archaeology and was a supporting member of the British Archaeological Society.

(Continues...)

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