Guest Post: A World Traveler Reflects on Major News Events Over the Past Seven Decades
I asked my father, who’s lived 77 years, traveled to dozens of countries, and lived overseas over half of his life this question:
What are major news stories you can remember living through?
This year has been unexpected. Hard. A story with sudden plot twists. It feels like it’s never happened before. My fathers reflections settled my heart. Somehow, it’s good to know that people have lived through unexpected, hard news events before. His words of reassurance, with ending thoughts from decades seeped in the Word of God, help me breathe. Breathe deep, and say, it’s going to be alright.
— Jeannie Marie
Read this Guest Post by C. Lum
My recollection of major news stories is somewhat subject to memory. Sometimes it is hard to separate truth from fiction.
One major story that comes to mind at an early age—I think I was ten years old or so—was the news that someone invented a vaccine for polio. My mom was so excited—along with many people. It was something we all feared—contacting polio. We all knew kids and adults whose lives were affected by it. I just know, my mother soon lined all of us kids up along with all the neighbors, to get the vaccination. I remember everyone feeling a great relief.
I remember when the Russians launched the first satellite into orbit. That was big news. And then a few years later when a man landed on the moon. After a while, events like this started to feel common place. As knowledge grows and more and more and unbelievable inventions come about more often, we sort of become immune to the excitement.
Until the day the words broadcast from space, "Houston, we have a problem." Embarking on impossible adventures—and going where no one has gone before always come with risk.
Another major news story that affected the whole world it seemed was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. At seventeen years old, I signed up to serve in the US Navy. That day, our ship was docked in Sasebo, Japan—or at least it was somewhere in Japan. I must have been on the 12am to 4am watch because when the bosun announcer blew his pipe for reville at 6 am, I was deep in sleep in my bunk.
Normally, after blowing his pipe, we heard the bosun say,“Rise and shine, the smoking lamp is lit in all berthing spaces, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft. Now turn to. Commence ships work”.
But this day was different. “This is the captain speaking. The President of the United States has been assassinated. All leave is cancelled. Extra guard duty will be assigned."
The duty officer assigned me to the bow of the ship armed with an M16 rifle. We planned to dock in port for three days for replenishing and R&R, what the military calls rest and recreation. But the next day, we put out to sea for an extended time. I did not think a whole lot about it then except that, it was a shock. Since then, I’ve noticed shocking news ripples through the world fast—and often changes people’s course of action.
On a Sunday in Manila, Philippines where we lived for thirty years or so with our three daughters, we walked out of church to masses of people gathered as far as our eye could see in any direction at the crossing at Shaw Blvd. We could look down from the bridge crossing and see the crowd of people–later estimated at one million people–all the way down Edsa toward Greenhills. Looking back up toward Makati we could see the troops coming and helicopters over head.
We had to walk quite a ways before we found a public jeepney that go take us the rest of the way home . No jeepney or any other vehicle was going to cross over Edsa for a while. They later called the political movement People Power. We made it to our house and turned on the television, not realizing we had stumbled into the middle of a major news event.
With brewing trouble over the past months, killings, and rumors of President Marcos being forced out of office, we suspected the start of a Civil War. Glued to the television, we watched then President Marcos holding up a newspaper with the current date.
“Don’t worry!” he assured everyone. “All is under control.”
About that time, the screen went black. A few minutes later, our neighbor Rosa came running up the road shouting, “He’s gone! He’s gone!”
The United States had emergency airlifted President Marcos out of the Philippines to Hawaii. President Marcos later told the country that rather than fight and kill his countrymen, he would voluntarily leave. It was a time of great confusion and uncertainty.
I don’t know that anything really changed in the country afterwards. In some ways , he was a good president—but sickness overcame him and others began to control him. Also, it seems it was a case of power corrupts. Over the next few years we lived through various coups and rebellions in the Philippines. Uncertainty with world leaders, coups, and shifting power seems to be a repeating story in many countries over the years.
We also lived through a few natural disasters that made the front page worldwide news. The eruption of Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines—where lava drowned houses near where we used to live in Bataan up to the rooftops, and you could only see the tops of the coconut trees. The eruption of Mt St Helens in America. The tsunami that devastated Thailand and washed the eastern shores of India—only hours from one of my best friends childrens home and Bible School that we often visited. What devastation and disaster these events caused and touched many people we knew.
I remember the sudden fall of the Berlin wall. I still wonder that something so solid and permanent could fall so quickly, in a way that seemed so impossible. This encouraged me to believe things could also change for good rather quickly.
We lived through the big news event of Y2K, the turning of the century to the year 2000—and the news everywhere made us believe the world might collapse. There would be no food, no money, and all the computers would stop working.
We lived on the island of Palawan out in the South China Sea in the Philippines at the time. We stockpiled canned goods (mostly cans of tuna because that’s what we could buy there) .
We had a television set then also. On New Years Eve we glued ourselves to the television news to see what would happen, especially in Australia and New Zealand because with the time difference, they reached midnight first. What a joy and relief when nothing happened. All was as usual. Praise God.
Certainly 9-11 and the fall of the twin towers in New York headlined in worldwide news and led to a time of great uncertainty, confusion, and wondering, “What will happen next?”
I remember rushing to the gas station to fill up with gas. (With this current pandemic, people worry about lack of toilet paper. What a strange people we are.) We had just moved to Missouri, and agreed to work there Monday through Thursday and then drive back to Kansas every weekend to care for my aging mother so she could stay living in her home.
We thought, “What do we do now, if we run out of gas?” Rumors ran rampant that gas prices would raise so high that people would not be able to travel. Well, for almost twelve years every week—we drove the 500 miles round trip from Kansas to the middle of Missouri—and back. What a faithful God we serve.
Another big news event that had a great effect on the world was when Donald Trump won the presidency. Who would have guessed and who would have imagined the hatred against him—and yet, in my opinion, his great success during his presidency. For example, as of this writing, four majority Moslem countries and one majority Buddhist country have made peace with Israel.
Certainly this COVID-19 pandemic is a big news event. What will happen?
Through all of this you would think we would have no fear and a great peace in the Lord.
Yes and no.
We just read yesterday about the angels words to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t fear. Trust me.”
I counted fifty-two times in the Bible (maybe more), we are told not to be afraid or fearful. That’s because we often feel afraid.
Psalms 112:7 says "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting the Lord.”
Sometimes the news is good, sometimes it’s bad. But in it all, we trust in the Almighty God who is in no way limited or prevented from carrying out His plans and purposes.
Yes, a great battle going on between Satan and God and it involves man. Genesis 3:15 tells us that Satan and his minions are at war with the woman (Eve) and her seed, which is the human race.
We see from history, however, the promises God has made and how He has kept them, every one of them. Especially at this time of celebrating the birth of Jesus, there are so many prophecies surrounding the headline news in heaven of a King born on earth to save us.
God promised he would send someone to crush the head of Satan and give us the greatest news of all—that through Jesus Christ He made a way back to God and will eventually make a world gone wrong, right again.
As we will continue to live through more big news events, we can take courage that all the other promises God has made will come to pass just as surely.