Lessons Learned in Strange Places

By Jane Cooper

Lessons Learned in Strange Places is an intriguing, yet true, account of author Jane Coopers travels to various places around the world. Chronicling her numerous adventures, Jane provides a fascinating picture of many different countries, some of which are now closed to tourism, and especially to American tourists. The most important aspects of her stories are the lessons that were learned along with the answers to many prayers, which she and her mother experienced as they entered and exited these countries.

For example, their trip to Iraq in 1974 not only required patience but also a great deal of prayer. It was at this time that Jane learned the importance of yielding to Gods will. Arriving in Iraq with her mother for a Christmas holiday with no lodging secured, by chance they met an American woman and her German husband at the airport. The couple offered them a place to stay that turned out to be a blessing.

In addition to the wonder of various lessons learned along the way, the amazing answers to prayer were just as impressive. Lessons Learned in Strange Places offers the anticipation of what the next problem might be, how the author handled each one, and the astonishing end resultsand the part that prayer and faith played in each adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Jun 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781462409815

Jane Cooper

Jane Cooper worked as an elementary teacher for the Department of Defense in Europe for twenty-five years. Since returning to the States she has taught a ladies’ Bible class and has held services in various nursing homes. She holds both BS and MS degrees. She and her husband, Jim, reside in Prescott, Arizona.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

WE DIDN’T NEED ALADDIN’S LAMP

T he man rose and leaned over his desk, saying angrily to me, I can’t give you a visa for my cou ntry.

I retorted just as angrily, Is yours the only country in the world that doesn’t allow visitors?

Sitting in the office of the Iraqi consul general, which was located in Bonn, Germany, my mother and I had no idea that it would be so difficult to get into this ancient land. As my mom said later in one of her letters to my dad, It is easier for a rich man to enter heaven than for a Christian to enter Iraq. After all, we had no trouble earlier getting a visa for Iran, as this was 1974, when the shah was still in power.

Being a teacher for the Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Germany, I had traveled to many different countries, so when I read in our school’s daily bulletin about a trip to Iraq and Iran, I was interested.

When the tour was later canceled (tours and tourists were not allowed to go to Iraq, although I didn’t know that at the time), my mom and I decided to go on our own. Consequently, my mom flew over from Kansas to Germany to join me for my Christmas vacation. Just before school let out for the holidays, we had many important details to attend to with regard to our getting into Iraq, such as getting a statement from a chaplain saying we were Christians and obtaining a letter from the provost marshal stating we had no criminal records.

Getting a letter for each of us from the base chaplain was easy enough, but the provost marshal said that he could not give my mom a letter stating she had no criminal record since she neither lived nor worked on the base. Because my mom had no way of proving she was an upstanding, reputable person, we decided to try to get the visa without this piece of information.

Another important job was that of getting airline tickets. After having our schedules changed several times, we finally settled on a flight that went to Baghdad via Beirut, Lebanon, on a Middle East Airlines airplane.

Thus armed with our important letters and our airplane tickets, we headed up the Autobahn to Bonn to obtain our visas. And this is where we encountered the not-so-civil man in the Iraqi Embassy. After being told that we should have consulted him before we even got our airline tickets, this surly man finally had us wait in another room while he conferred with some other person. While waiting, my mom remarked, If it’s God’s will that we take this trip, everything will work out. But if it isn’t God’s will, then we don’t want it.

We were greatly relieved when the Iraqi man returned saying we could get our visas. There was a caveat, though—we were told we had to make reservations for a hotel in Baghdad before we left. We nodded our assent and went on our way rejoicing.

On the way back home, I noticed a peculiar odor coming from my car. Nevertheless, we went racing down the Autobahn, anxious to get home and start packing for our trip.

Since we were nearly out of food in my apartment, I decided to go to the shopette on base to buy some necessary provisions before heading home. As I pulled up to the curb, however, I found I had no brakes. Evidently this was the reason for the peculiar odor I had earlier noticed. Knowing that the auto repair shops would be closed for the next several days due to Christmas, I now had to find another way to get to the airport at Frankfurt. Fortunately, my American neighbor was willing to take us to the train station, and by train we could then reach the airport.

That night while listening to the news on the radio, we heard that the Palestine guerillas in Lebanon had been bombing Israel. Fearing that Israel might retaliate, we had extreme reservations about flying on an Arab plane. However, in the morning as we were having our devotions, I just happened to open my Bible to Psalm 118:17, which says, I shall not die, but live. We felt then that God was telling us we would be okay. Even though we experienced so many problems already, we knew that God was in this trip and working everything out for us.

So finally, on Christmas Day, we boarded the MEA plane and were on our way, but our problems were far from over. When we landed in Beirut, I made a big mistake. Instead of going to the waiting area where we could board our plane for Baghdad, I inadvertently got a transit visa for Lebanon. Consequently, we were now headed for Beirut rather than Baghdad. Fortunately, I was able to find someone in the airport who spoke English and who could help us get to the right area. Getting there, however, necessitated our going clear outside onto the tarmac. As we walked outside, we noticed soldiers with machine guns standing in strategic places, which gave us a rather disconcerted feeling.

It was with much relief when we finally got to the right area. And what a kaleidoscope of costumes we saw in this waiting room—women in their burkas and sheikhs with their long robes and unusual headdresses. It was almost like Halloween. My mom and I sat there wide-eyed as we watched and heard various airline personnel calling out the flights to places like Kuwait, Amman, Riyadh, and so on. Evidently, many of the people could not read the boards telling of the various flights.

Finally it was our time to board the plane. At around midnight we landed at the Baghdad airport. I’ve never before or since seen an airport quite as primitive as this one. After getting off the plane, we entered a room with long board tables onto which they put our luggage. As soon as we retrieved our luggage, we then held up our passports to a single man at the door, and it seemed if we smiled prettily enough, he would let us go on through.

Once we got into the outer waiting area of the tiny airport, we soon realized that because of the late hour, few people were working. And most of the people from our plane had already hopped into taxis and were on their way home. When I did spot one of the few available taxis, I found the driver could speak no English. What a predicament we were in now! We had no way to get to Baghdad, and once we got there we had no hotel! Even though we had promised the official at the Iraqi Embassy we would get a hotel before leaving Germany, and we had indeed tried, we never did get a reservation.

I said to my mom as she stood outside where the taxis were parked, Pray that we find a way into Baghdad or that someone comes along to help us. I then went back inside. About that time a woman came up to me (an American, I thought, as she spoke American English) and asked me, Are you with the oil companies? to which I replied, No, we are tourists.

Tourists! she almost shouted. How did you ever get a visa for Iraq? Then calming down a bit, she asked if I needed any help.

I replied with great relief, Yes, we need to get a taxi for Baghdad.

Leaving me for a short time, she soon returned, this time telling me that she and her husband would take us into Baghdad in their van. They had come to the airport to pick up friends who were visiting them from Germany for the Christmas holidays (evidently a person could get a visa if he or she was visiting friends in Iraq), and they had enough room for two more people in their van.

On the way into town, a drive of about ten miles, we found out a little about this couple. Jim, the husband, was a German who taught the children of people connected to the German Embassy. (At this time there was no American Embassy in Iraq.) His wife, Sue, was an American who was a member of the Church of the Brethren, the church college from which my mom and I had both graduated. It turned out to be a small world indeed!

As we drove along, Sue suggested that my mom and I would we better off if we stayed with them in their home while in Baghdad. When planning out this trip neither one of us had realized how difficult it would be not only to get into this country, but also how dangerous it was once there, as Iraq at this time was a police state with secret police everywhere.

In fact, just a few days before arriving in Baghdad, the city officials had hung six Jewish people in a downtown square known as the Hanging Square. And when we were at the airport leaving to fly on to Iran, we met a woman from South America who was making an around-the-world trip. She told us that because she had no visa for Iraq, she was not allowed to leave the airport; and when she even went into the restroom, someone followed her. So for Mom and me to stay with people who knew their way around and who were trustworthy seemed like the perfect plan.

In addition to us two Americans and the two German friends they had picked up at the airport, this couple also had staying in their home a young Swedish woman who was smuggling parts of the Bible up to northern Iraq to the Kurdish people, and her Swedish boyfriend, plus an Iraqi couple. This was quite a united nations!

We appreciated the hospitality of Sue and her husband, not only for giving us a bed in which to sleep, but also for providing meals. There was one problem, though. The Arab man, when being passed a bowl of rice for dinner one evening, ate directly from the bowl instead of putting the rice on his plate. From that time on, my mom, who was somewhat of a health nut, would not eat any more rice!

In defense of Mom, though, Mae, the Swedish woman, told of a time she was invited into a Kurdish home for lunch, where they served, in addition to rice, a salad of green lettuce. She said she thought the lettuce was covered with dirt, but then noticed that all the dirt was moving!

On our first day in Bagdad, Jim, our host, took us around the city and even out to the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, where we saw nothing much but fragments of blue tiles scattered around. In Bagdad we visited the bazaar, where I checked out the jewelry in the various small booths. The jewelry was mostly made of gold and was very beautiful, but because it was sold by weight at the current price of gold, it was also very expensive.

The bazaar was quite unique, being divided into sections according to what was being sold. For instance, one street would be sheep products (wool and skins); another was the aluminum area, where the vendors sat and pounded designs in the pots and pans they were selling; another was so unpleasant (I suppose the areas where animals were being slaughtered) that it made us sick to our stomachs.

As we drove around the city of Bagdad, we noticed men on the sidewalks with a little outdoors-type oven in which they were baking a small round loaf of bread that had big bubbles in it. A type of brush called camel or fire brush grew out on the flat plains, and the people gathered these to burn in their ovens. Once we saw a whole pile of brush walking along, and a second later we noticed a woman under it! We also saw people along the streets warming themselves over these little stoves or ovens, or sometimes they were just using pans of coal. They evidently had no heat in their homes.

Since my mom was interested in seeing where the old city of Nineveh had been located (the city there now is called Mosul), we headed out the following day on our own along with the two German guests. Not being able to get reservations on either a train or a plane, we took a bus as far as the city of Kirkuk, from where we would then take a taxi on up to Mosul. (Taxis were reasonable since gas was only twenty-five cents a gallon.)

However, we never would have gotten a taxi had it not been for a kindly Iraqi man, for many taxi drivers, when finding