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...