Evidence Not Seen

Recently, for the third time in the last six months I listened to the story of Darlene Deibler Rose. This is one of the true stories, that you wish you could reach through pages and time and give them a hug. Darlene, feels like one of those Kindred Spirits, a big sister in Christ, whose feet I could sit at and learn from all day long.There is a special kinship as I dive into these pages that strikes a deep cord within.
Part of it I believe is we come from similar regions, she mentions a city twenty minutes from where I live in her book, and I can see the Midwest mindset in the way she thinks and even talks sometimes. The same rapt wonder that she expresses as she arrives in a tropical climate, is the same I felt arriving in a subtropical Taiwan. Some of the sights and smells she relates...and I am a moment later in her shoes, smelling the same strange market places and sweet wonder of night blooming jasmine. I relate to the intense heat of the day with no air conditioning, and loving a people whose language I am learning...While I have not stood on the soil of New Guinea, I have stood on soil occupied by the Japanese forces during WWII and seen the aftermath, many, many years later. I have walked through the bomb shelters, and the structures they left behind when they lost the war. In some places they have become beautified as a tourist attraction, the sharp agony of occupation softening the scar with balm of time and forgotten by those did not feel it’s crushing heel. But still in others—it has left an angry wound, flared and festered with the feeling of being forgotten...Living in the aftermath of this story—and so many others, having sipped from the cups of history through reading, but this is a story that can earthquake the soul. 
This is one of those books I wish I had read earlier in life...especially before going to the mission field, but I passed up on reading the book for many years because my mom owned the VHS tapes of Darlene, as an enchanting, lovable, antiquated lady, giving her testimony seated in a chair against a dark blue background, the light casting a halo on her golden white hair; that was cut just like my Grandma. Many times I sat in rapt wonder watching the story of Darlene with my Mama....but somehow as she related her story, I missed something. Perhaps it was because I was young when we had the VHS