(EDITOR'S NOTE: Publisher Ole Anthony's last few columns have been mostly navel gazing, but bear with him. After 25 years of getting used to former publisher Mike Yaconelli's musings, our readers need some background to figure out what these new guys are all about... and so do I.)

     I often tell people my life reads like a bad "B" movie. Now you'll see why.
     In the summer of 1980, I decided to take a "vacation" from my job as president of Trinity Foundation and the Bible study I had been teaching in Dallas for five years to accompany John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs) on an investigation of a Mafia art-smuggling ring in Italy for Texas Monthly magazine.
     Before the summer was through, I would be taken on a chase across southern Europe, survive an encounter with Mafia killers, be held hostage at gunpoint by an American ex-patriot, have a nervous breakdown and find my faith confirmed in the midst of a "near-death" experience.
     That's when I quit taking vacations.
     Our contact in the world of crime was a man named Barry, a money courier for the mob who wanted out and wanted his story told.
     The plan was to actually buy stolen art, and trace how the pieces made their way from Europe to America. But almost immediately after the purchase our cover was blown. We fled Italy, chased by the Mafia, who thought we were government agents.
     Barry became more and more agitated with me as we made our way to the Middle East. We were probably the only ones in the world at that time that thought of Beirut, Lebanon, as a safe haven. John finally had to leave me with a very paranoid Barry in Beirut while he went to Paris for some reason I can't remember.
     That's when the real trouble began.
     When John was overdue in contacting us, Barry decided he had skipped out, or that we were both planning to betray him, and he pulled a gun on me in my hotel room.
     For the next seven hours, I had tried to convince Barry everything was going to be OK. I had repeatedly tried to telex John at the hotel he was supposed to be at in Paris, without success. Barry got drunk and told me that if he was going to die, then he was taking me with him.
     "You don't understand," Barry screamed at me. "I can't stay here! Everybody wants to kill me! And I can't leave Lebanon because of this damned visa problem!"
     Even if I overpowered Barry, his two Lebanese bodyguards were positioned outside the hotel.
     "I don't care about dying, really," he told me, "but the story isn't finished yet. I know I'm going to die, but not before the story is out, and John's going to write it. I hope you're praying to your God to find John."
     I definitely was.
     A call to John's editor, Bill Broyles, in the States didn't help. Barry told him that he believed John was either dead or in jail, and that he was going to have to kill me and then shoot his way out of the hotel.
     He jammed the gun into my mouth, as he spoke into the phone.
     "It's two minutes to midnight now," Barry told the editor. "At two minutes to one, I'm going to blow Ole away."
     A sick feeling hit my stomach. Is God going to let him kill me, for no reason?
     Five minutes to the deadline, Barry went to the refrigerator and got out a bottle of champagne.
     "In the movies, the man who is going to die always gets a drink and a cigarette. I guess I can do the same."
     He poured two glasses, and then lit two cigarettes. Finally, there is nothing more to be done.
     Barry started counting, looking at his watch. "Ten, nine, eight... "
     At that point Barry ceased to exist for me, and I felt a strange, dizzy excitement, mesmerized by an unknown black object that grew bigger and bigger. It was my death. It was a certainty, clearly defined, outlined razor sharp by a dazzling light. I embraced it. Time stood still.
     "Three... "
     The phone rang. Incredibly it was John.
     As Barry and John talked, every neuron in my brain exploded. Barry suddenly left the room. I found the phone, called the U.S. Embassy, and begged them to help me.
     To shorten the story, the U.S. Embassy rescued me from the hotel. I ended up in Paris, completely debilitated by what would now be called post-traumatic syndrome. Barry had disappeared. John couldn't understand what had happened to me. He was mad that we couldn't complete the trip as planned.
     He saw my breakdown as a betrayal of faith in the God I was always telling him about.
     I felt he had betrayed me, leaving me there for seven hours facing a madman with a gun. It was a breach of friendship that we wouldn't overcome for four years.
     Back in the States, we had to continue hiding from the Mafia until they were convinced we were only donig a magazine article. Later as I wrestled with what had happened to me, I was forced to confront my failure in a new way.
     I always seemed to alienate other believers with my passion to push and test their beliefs. Many times I would push others over the edge. It was for their own good, I told myself, because only in the shattered ruins of our own ideas can we hear God. But I occasionally had too much zest for the "kill." And why not? I pushed myself just as hard. But faced with death, I had failed. All the adrenaline had been used up. All that was left was shame. The worst part was having to face my friends – I couldn't really call them students" – who for five years had encouraged me as I taught a nightly Bible study.
     Would my failure cause them to lose faith?
     I had always been the one with the answers, the strong one. I could not picture them helping me in my weakness. But perhaps that was what this was all about. Hadn't Christ said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
     I missed them. I needed them. Tears filled my eyes and my gut was in a knot. By still wanting to be the Lone Ranger man of faith, I had been missing God's greatest blessings, and was blinded to a simple truth: people are more important than projects.
     Now, whenever mail and memos start piling up and I'm tempted to forget this, all I have to do is remember the gun in my mouth, a three-second countdown... and how I spent my summer vacation.