If you ever thought you went to church a lot— try being a missionary kid. We used to have these “sword drills,” where you would hold your Bible by its spine and wait until the starter yelled out the verse like a track meet. Then, the first to sprint through the Bible, find the passage and hold it aloft won the day. One of my favorite books was Matthew, my namesake. Before joining the Jesus movement (known as “the Way”), he was known as Levi, operating in the world of business as a tax collector. It goes to show you how inclusive early Christians were. Only afterward did he receive his spiritual name, which means “Gift of God.”
Matthew is the only gospel to document the Sermon on the Mount (Luke recounts a Sermon on the Plain), where Jesus recited a list of “blesseds”—blessed are the poor, the meek, peacemakers, and those who mourn for the state of the world. I relate to Matthew’s task of collecting the stories and sayings of Jesus 40-60 years after his death. Many eyewitnesses to Jesus's murder were long gone, theories abounded, and without the benefit of video, digitized publications, and the internet, it would be the modern equivalent of piecing together the Kennedy assassination. The ancient church father Papias, who was said to have known the Apostle John, wrote, "Matthew collected the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could."1
One of the strangest teachings in Matthew is Jesus telling the audience to become like a child if they want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. When I was a kid, I assumed he meant—you know—up there. But, in Matthew and Luke, Jesus talks about how the Kingdom of Heaven is here and now, as much as a future reality. So, how could becoming like a child help you see that? In this chapter, I want to give it a try, to introduce you to Suriname, through the eyes of a child, without judgment or preconception. But like the author of Matthew, it’s forty years later, so this Matthew will also do, "the best he could."
My dad loves two things more than anything else: road trips and escaping to nature. This love was a legacy, a seed sown by his mother in the fertile grounds of Northern Michigan. There, under skies vast and forgiving, she founded the Pioneer Girls. It was a rebellion of sorts, a deliberate shift from the delicate femininity prescribed by the organizations predecessor, the Girl’s Guild. She envisioned a new kind of sisterhood, one rooted in the earth and the resilience of the pioneering spirit. Her curriculum was a tapestry of science and craft, each merit badge—German silversmithing and ornithology—a thread woven into the broader knowledge of survival and harmony with nature. The camp counselors were christened with bird names, not as mere labels, but as symbols of their connection to the wild, with my grandmother, the Kingfisher, guiding them through the currents of life.
Before the revolution, Suriname had been a magnet for bird lovers and naturalists worldwide. Seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would have made his mother proud, my dad launched a school field trip to Matapica Beach to witness Suriname's unique natural wonders firsthand. As we traveled, smells of cumin and charcoal wafted through the windows of our minibus as roadside vendors grilled chicken satays on push carts.
Downtown Paramaribo buzzed with life, sporting exotic sights at every turn. A wooden Gothic Cathedral, yellow and blue, stood tall, boasting an intricate rose window flanked by two towering spires. I saw my first mosque, its minarets like guards protecting a tapered dome. A gleaming white synagogue, faced with white columns atop a contrasting dark bases looked straight out of Roman times, complete with Hebrew inscriptions, like my dad studied on flashcards in seminary.
Each spring, the streets exploded into a rainbow of celebration. As a fifth-grader witnessing the festival of Phagwa for the first time in Suriname, I felt like I had stepped into a storybook where every page burst with vibrant colors. I watched, wide-eyed, as the streets came alive with laughter, music, and the joyous throwing of colored powders and water balloon fights. It seemed like the whole country had joined in on the biggest, most colorful party you had ever seen. But what was this all about? I was curious and eager to learn.
I found out that Phagwa was known as Holi in India. It was a celebration brought over by workers from India after slavery was abolished in Suriname. These laborers came to work on the plantations and brought with them pieces of home, including this beautiful festival. Phagwa celebrated the victory of good over evil and the arrival of spring, symbolizing new beginnings and the joy of life. But there was even more fascinating stories behind the significance to the colors.
One of the stories was about a boy named Prahlad, who was a true devotee of the good god Vishnu. His father, Hiranyakashipu, and aunt, Holika, didn't like this because Hiranyakashipu wanted everyone to worship him instead. I made sense to me, our God didn’t like you worshipping other gods either. They tried to hurt Prahlad by having Holika sit with him in a fire, believing her special magic gift would keep her safe. But because of Prahlad's goodness and faith, he was saved, and Holika was not. It reminded me of our Bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den.
Then, there's was this other story of Krishna and Radha, Hinduism’s most important couple. Krishna was worried that Radha wouldn't like him because of his dark complexion. His mother suggested he fix this by applying color to Radha's golden face, showing that true love and friendship sees beyond appearances. Ever since then, the story became a part of Phagwa, where everyone throws colors at each other to celebrate love, friendship, and equality. Our Sunday School teacher told us the same thing, “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.'"
The sights and sounds of Paramaribo faded behind us as we reached a ferry heading east. After crossing the Suriname River, we greeted some pink river dolphins. Then, we boarded a faded blue, wooden water taxi to cross the Commewijne River. Our journey continued through a dense mangrove swamp to the beach, where we would sleep.
The sounds of the Atlantic Ocean lapping the beaches of Matapica and the beam of a flashlight woke me at midnight. It was one of the few stretches of white sand along a coast covered in a tangle of mangrove trees. Under the full moon's light, we continued to follow a guide with wide eyes and ears. The Amazon deposited vast amounts of sediment from high in the Andes out the mouth of the Suriname River, creating a shrimp paradise.
Somewhere between 12 to 50 miles off the coast, the water shifts from blue to brown, depending on the season, offering a prime feeding ground for crustaceans. For a shrimp, the sediment-rich waters off Suriname or Guyana are a Shangri-La, an all-you-can-eat buffet of rich, nourishing food.
Back in my childhood, 'eating out' meant church potlucks with green bean casserole, and bucket of chicken (if you were lucky), but not a shrimp in sight. Yet there I was, sitting on what could very well be the source of Red Lobster's famed 'Endless Shrimp' nights. It's funny how life serves up a plate of irony just when you least expect it.
Our guide began pointing excitedly towards the waves, his flashlight illuminating a large boulder-like figure moving up the beach. As we approached, it halted, revealing itself to be a six-foot-long green sea turtle, meticulously burying her clutch of glistening, ping-pong ball-sized eggs.
“Come, come, quickly!” exclaimed the guide. “She’s about to start.”
Spellbound, we watched as the guide, taking advantage of lax environmental regulations common to the 1980s under a dictatorship, gently extracted an egg, offering it to my sister. He explained the harsh odds these turtles face, with less than one percent reaching adulthood due to predators.
I leaned in for a closer look at her egg, jealous I didn’t get one, and whispered, “One percent? I bet I could hatch one—just like Horton the elephant when he sat on that egg!”
“No, you couldn’t.” my sister responded in disbelief.
“Wanna bet?”
Note: Want to make a Smith man do something? Tell him he can’t.
We continued our walk down the beach, skirting driftwood and seaweed, until we stumbled upon a giant leatherback sea turtle, wider than my sister and me combined. The mother leatherback began filling her clutch, and the guide, noticing me eyeing my sister's egg, reached in and handed me one of my own.
"Do you think I could hatch it if I took it home?" I asked of our guide.
He shook his head, a gleaming white smile flashing in the moonlight. "Leatherbacks need the perfect conditions and temperature to grow. Some people do like to eat the eggs, though!" Upon hearing this, my sister's latent mothering instinct kicked in, racking her with pangs of guilt. She ran up and deposited her green turtle egg into the leatherback's clutch. I pictured the mama Leatherback desperately trying to explain to her husband in the waiting room how she'd birthed a green baby sea turtle ("You're the father, I swear!").
Unlike my sister, I possessed no maternal instincts or doubts about my ability to hatch a sea turtle. The Bible says you can move a mountain with faith the size of a mustard seed. While I'd never seen a mustard seed, it couldn't be all that big, right? And, if the Bible was telling the truth, how little faith would it take to hatch a turtle? All I needed was a proper incubator.
I hurried to grab an empty Styrofoam cup lying nearby and started filling the bottom with sand. About halfway up the cup, I inserted my warm ping pong ball, mimicking the process I learned from the mama leatherback. Then, I carefully topped off the Styrofoam with more sand and gently carried it back to our sleeping quarters.
"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant," I said, recalling Horton’s promise, "An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent!"
All the way home, through rivers, across the ferry, and along bumpy roads, I served as a human shock absorber—one hand on the top, the other on the bottom—trying my best to limit the jostling.
For the next few weeks, I kept my little friend on the kitchen counter, near the sink (the closest thing I had to an ocean). There, he could soak up some sunlight and stay warm. After a while, he started to smell a bit, and one day while I was at school, my mom tried to throw him away.
"No! You can't throw him away. I'm going to hatch him!"
"Ok, but at least let me put him in a Ziploc bag to contain the smell."
"Fine, but he's not an 'it.' He's a 'him.'"
Not long after, Dad received word from his older brother. His wife wasn't doing so well and didn't have much longer to live. Cancer was eating away at this once vibrant woman. My aunt and uncle belonged to a faith-healing church that believed every jot and tittle of the Bible was true. So if a mustard seed of faith could move mountains, then cancer should be no problem.
However, this unwavering faith had a dark side. If faith can make you whole, a lack of faith can be to blame for your wife dying. While my aunt slowly passed, my uncle suffered the humiliation and rejection of family and church friends who pointed their fingers at his failure to believe.
A woman named Mrs. Van Dunslager worked with Dad at the American Cooperative School. Her husband was a pilot for SLM Airways (which Bouterse now owned). They let me stay with them while Mom and Dad returned to the States for the funeral. It was the first time someone I knew had died. I was lost in a sea of unfamiliar emotions. She may not have been the aunt I was closest to, but her passing left me questioning the unpredictable nature of faith. I didn't understand why faith works sometimes and not others. All I knew was that belief was the most powerful thing in the world. It could save your soul from hell, make your dad to move to South America, and even convince a P.E. teacher to overthrow a country.
One day, I returned home from the Van Dunslagers for a fresh change of clothes. When I walked into my bedroom and began rifling through the drawers. Out of the corner of my eye, a subtle movement caught my attention. I stepped back and lifted a piece of paper on the top of my bureau.
My Ziploc bag was moving.
My heart raced as I pried open the plastic zipper. What remained of the ping pong shell resembled the Death Star after the reactor core went kaboom! From beneath the borrowed sands of Matapica, a tiny geometrical dome broke through, revealing the smallest leatherback sea turtle, its delicate flippers flailing as if to greet the new world.
I ran to the kitchen and searched for a container to make him a home. There I found an empty plastic rice bowl we used to feed my dog. Snowball, the white half-gremlin-looking street dog I rescued from a near-fate in a drainage ditch, had since upgraded from 'mostly dead' to 'thriving on maggot-infested doggy rice (all rice not suitable for human consumption was turned into dog food).
The extent of my knowledge of turtle habitats began-and-ended with two facts: backyard turtles ate fruit tree clippings and sea turtles were born on beaches at midnight under a full moon. I dumped the remaining sand, a handful of grass, a few rocks, and a splash of water into the doggy rice bucket.
I had done it! Beat the 99% odds stacked against me.
But, now what? What do you do once your dream comes true?
As I watched over my new friend, I couldn’t help but ponder the cycle of life and death. There was something strange about a new life beginning as another ended. How do souls and turtles instinctively know their paths? While I grappled with these mysteries, I found comfort in the certainty that my aunt was embarking on her journey home. My turtle on the other hand was not. He was trapped in a doggy rice bowl prison of my creation and it was up to me to help him to return to the sea. He’d find his way from there.
Strapping my new buddy to the handlebars like he was E.T, I set off towards the sea, a makeshift guardian on a mission. Our journey was an odd parade of one, his tiny world jostling with each pedal. If I could at least get him down to the water, I could help him avoid the gulls that snatched most of his baby brothers and sisters as they tried to escape the clutch. It felt like a small act of defiance against the odds, a hopeful gesture towards reunion and survival. Maybe he could even meet his green-headed stepbrother that my sister smuggled into their family!
Reaching the muddy banks of the Suriname River, I hopped off my bike and kicked off my shoes. With my baby leatherback in one hand and a plastic, point-and-click camera in the other, I walked to the river's edge, toes squishing in the mud while tiny hermit crabs scurried into their holes. There, I placed my baby leatherback in the water and took a few steps back.
I snapped a few pictures as he swam northwest toward the sea. Somehow he was swimming home. I wondered if sea turtles had a home, and if so, how they knew to find their way. As for me, I still didn't know what faith was–why it couldn't save Aunt Sharon or even the rules on how it worked–but if it was strong enough to hatch a baby sea turtle in a bedroom, then I knew it worked sometimes. And maybe I could do it again.
As I stared out at the Atlantic Ocean, watching my newly liberated turtle disappear into the vast, murky expanse, little did I know that thousands of miles away, a different kind of liberation was being meticulously planned. In the shadows of international politics, where morality often blurs with ambition, a private U.S. security firm named David Randolph Enterprises was laying out their plans to "liberate" Suriname—at a steep price of over six million dollars.2
The meeting, shrouded in secrecy and held within the sterile confines of a hotel room, was no ordinary gathering. Representatives from David Randolph Enterprises sat across from figures tied to the Ansus Foundation, their faces a mask of professionalism. As they unfolded maps and spread out contracts, the air was thick with the tension of what was to come. These were not mere discussions but the first steps in a dance of power and betrayal that could change the fate of a nation.
"As you can see," one representative said, his voice a whisper of certainty. "David Randolph Enterprises can offer a complete program that fully meets your requirements."
And as they delved deeper into the logistics of their proposed coup, detailing the mercenaries for hire, the weapons to be procured, and the strategies to be employed, the room seemed to shrink under the weight of their ambitions. The plan was audacious, daring, and fraught with peril, but if successful, it would not only topple a government but also line their pockets with gold.
As the meeting drew to a close, a sense of unresolved tension hung in the air, a prelude to the chaos that would follow. The unspoken words hanging in the air were not of doubt, but of anticipation. "Once we start, there's no turning back."
Eusebius of Caesarea. "Church History, Book III." In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890. Accessed March 3, 2024. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm.
“Brokers of Death - Arms Dealers Unpack | Antifascist Information Sheet.” Accessed November 13, 2023. https://antifainfoblatt.de/aib4/makler-des-todes-waffenhaendler-packen-aus.
good story