“I should probably tell you,” my friend Keely said as she leaned across the aisle, “that the landing is sort of tricky.”

At the time we were about forty-five minutes away from our destination of Quito, Ecuador, and Keely and I—along with the rest of our Compassion International travel group—were on a flight where the people and the bags and the stuff and the things were so jammed and wedged and piled into the seats and overhead bins there wasn’t a centimeter of room for anything else, not even so much as a Barbie doll’s purse. I personally was teetering right on the edge of THIS PLANE IS SO CROWDED THAT I MAY NEED TO CRY, which meant that Keely’s words felt like an additional shock to my already overloaded nervous system.

In the moment I had no idea how to respond, so I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes, and tried to block out the swirl of conversations around me. I don’t mind flying—in fact, I actually love to travel—but considering that I was about to hit my limit of in-flight togetherness, I wasn’t quite ready to deal with the not-so-small matter of coping with, you know, imminent scary landing danger.

Clearly I was in a very rational state of mind.

For the duration of our flight, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I don’t really remember the specifics of what I prayed, but I would not be at all surprised to know that I pulled out some of the more obscure names of God because TERRIFIED.

I mean, I can’t really think of another instance when I’ve felt led to call on “Jehovah Metshodhathi,” but if there were ever a time, it was right then and there.

Now I don’t know what happened—if the pilot took an alternate route into Quito, if my expectations were so out of kilter that reality paled in comparison, if a couple of penguins took a cue from Madagascar 2 and turned the plane into a parachute before they set it down gently on the runway—but the landing wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. So by the time we deplaned, made our way through security, pulled our luggage from baggage claim, and walked out to the bus that was waiting for us (and I don’t mean to brag, but I WAS ALIVE FOR ALL OF IT), I may have been feeling a little smug.

Oh, Ecuador, I thought, you are going to be a piece of cake!

Oh, Ecuador, I thought, we are going to have many wonderful, meaningful moments together!

Oh, Ecuador, I thought, we got off to a rough start because of that jam-packed flight, but this is a reset button! Never mind the diesel fumes, Ecuador—we are going to be just fine!

However, if Ecuador could have laughed at me in that moment, I feel certain she would have. Because Ecuador was holding a couple of secrets up her sleeve.

And the first one was the altitude.

Now I recognize, of course, that some of you more seasoned (or organized) travelers would have anticipated the altitude from the very day you decided to go to Ecuador, but I, for whatever reason, failed to consider the full effects of traveling from Birmingham, which is roughly 600 feet above sea level, to Quito, which is over 9,000 feet above sea level.

Oh, I figured I might be a little short of breath, but by 8:00 the morning after our arrival, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the altitude differential, it did not play. I was flushed, I was nauseated, my head was pounding, and whenever I tried to do anything that required me to, oh, STAND UP, I’d inevitably look over at my friend and roommate Melanie and say, “I’m gonna need to lie down for a couple more seconds” before I face-planted on the bed. It was like somebody had filled my arms and legs with lead while I was sleeping, and just getting dressed felt like an act of courage. Eventually, though, Melanie and I walked down to breakfast in the hotel lobby, and I think it was Keely who said, “You need caffeine ASAP, and then you need so much water. SO VERY MUCH WATER. You need ALL THE WATER.”

I took Keely’s advice to heart, and within fifteen minutes I knew my newly formed relationship with Ecuadoran coffee would remain precious to me for the rest of my earthly days. Sure, we had just met, but from the get-go it treated me so right. Between the coffee and the water, I was a semi-normal person when we boarded our bus about forty-five minutes later, and I was excited about spending the day with some Compassion families in a city about an hour and a half away.

Unfortunately, that bus ride is when Ecuador revealed her second secret: curvy mountain roads.

The word “curvy” has never been more of an understatement, by the way. I can’t even think of an adjective that would do those roads justice.

Spiral?

Corkscrew?

Mind-numbingly precarious?

I’ll keep thinking.

In the meantime, suffice it to say that the curving was significant.

I was fine as we drove through Quito’s downtown area, but as soon as we started our ascent up the mountain, the combination of an un-air-conditioned bus, strong diesel fumes, and hairpin turns started to do a number on me. For several miles I tried to fight the queasiness with mind over matter, but about the time my mind would cooperate, that bus would shift gears and we’d make another turn.

After twenty or so minutes, I glanced in my friend Kelly’s direction and said, “Um, I’m not feeling so hot. Are you feeling like I’m feeling?”

Kelly’s face was sort of a yellow-ish green. So I took that as a yes.

About that time Keely, our resident travel expert and our trip photographer, jumped into action. “Girls! You need some crackers or chips! We have a whole bag full—hold on just a minute. And just so you know—if you turn around in your seat to talk, it makes the nausea worse. Look outside the front window as much as you can, and you’ll be surprised how much it helps.”

Within seconds there was a plastic bag on my seat with all manner of Ecuadoran snack foods inside. I pulled out some corn chips and Kelly opted for the local version of Doritos called “Mega Queso.”

I felt like she made a good choice. There’s not a whole lot in life that Big Cheese can’t fix.

The corn chips weren’t my favorite—they tasted much more like actual corn than our corn chips in America, and apparently “natural flavor” isn’t what I’m looking for in my snack products—so I set them aside and closed my eyes again. I could hear my friends Ann and Patricia sitting behind me, carrying on a very thoughtful conversation about, oh, I don’t know, general revelation vs. special revelation; meanwhile I was doing my level best to lift my head long enough to look at Kelly and say, “Can I haz uno Dorito so maybe no vomit?”

So I guess you could say that Ecuador and I, we were off to a slow start.

But if the way our bus was bookin’ it around those curves was any indication, we’d be picking up speed in no time.

For the last month or so the soundtrack from a well-known Broadway musical has been on steady rotation in my iTunes. Usually I’m not a huge fan of a musical, but this particular show has created an exception to the rule. It’s a history lesson in a way I’ve never heard it taught, and the level of creativity in the writing and the performing is crazy inspiring.

Since the musical has been playing in the background a good bit as I’ve been writing about Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, I’ve decided that if there were such a thing as Ruth: The Musical (or Ruth! The Musical), the first act—after all the men’s deaths, Ruth’s sacrificial willingness to follow her mother-in-law to a strange land, and Naomi’s insistence that her friends call her “Mara” because the Lord had dealt bitterly with her—would more than likely conclude with a monotone song in a minor key. And the chorus, I imagine, would primarily involve a lot of really loud weeping and wailing.

But as we know, the story takes a more hopeful turn after Ruth 1, and by Ruth 4, things are moving full speed ahead. Boaz went to the city gate after Ruth left the threshing floor, and while he was there, the other relative / potential redeemer “happened” to walk by. Boaz, who seemed to subscribe to the GET ’ER DONE school of handling personal affairs, asked the relative to sit down. He also gathered ten elders to serve as witnesses, and once everybody was seated and settled, Boaz started to break down the Ruth/Naomi situation.

(I’ll summarize.)

(I so wish I knew how to rap right now.)

(I guess the Mississippi translation of this part of Ruth 4 will have to do.)

So everybody was sitting down, and since he was super smart, Boaz explained the circumstances in the most laid-back fashion. He looked over at the other possible redeemer and said, “Hey. Naomi is back from Moab, and she wants to sell the land that belonged to Elimelech. I thought you might want to know, because if you want to buy it, you can agree to that in front of these witnesses I’ve pulled together. It’s yours for the taking. But if you don’t want to buy it, you need to let me know, because I’m next in line, and I’d like to buy it if you don’t.”

The relative said, “Okay, then. I’ll buy it.”

What the relative didn’t know, however, was that Boaz had a trump card, and that trump card was named Ruth.

So Boaz—in the most oh-did-I-forget-to-mention-this-part way—said, “Perfect. Great. But there are a couple more pieces to this puzzle.”

You know he had the relative’s complete attention in that moment.

“If you buy the land, you’re also responsible for marrying Ruth, the Moabite widow of one of Elimelech’s sons. So you’ll have to be her husband, and then of course part of your redeemer responsibility will be to have some young’uns with Ruth in order to carry on the family name.”

Those last two things seemed to give the relative pause. Somehow, I think, Boaz knew that they would.

So even though he’d been all in when it was just land at stake, the relative wasn’t interested in any relational commitments. He said, “Nope. No can do. I’m out. I can’t have more kids since that will jeopardize the inheritance of the kids I already have.”

And then, at what would no doubt be the moment in Ruth! The Musical when the orchestra music would start to swell, the relative looked at Boaz and said, “It’s all yours. The land. Ruth. The future young’uns. REDEEM AWAY, my friend. And to seal this arrangement, I will now take off my shoe and offer it to you.”

Because that was a real thing, you know. The shoe was sort of like a signature—only it was made of leather and considerably smellier than any signature has ever thought about being. Nonetheless, between the shoe and the presence of the witnesses, Boaz’s right of redemption was officially official.

So Boaz, being a stand-up guy, addressed the elders, along with the other folks who had gathered at the city gate, and officially announced his intentions to buy Elimelech’s land and marry Ruth. It was what he had wanted all along. I can’t help but think that if Ruth and Naomi were listening off to the side somewhere, they probably high-fived. Maybe even fist-bumped with a little explosion motion.

And you know what I may love more than anything else in this first half of Ruth 4? The elders affirmed Boaz and Ruth right there at the city gate. By now y’all probably know that I think it’s important for the body of believers to BLESS SOME PEOPLE as they walk out what the Lord is calling them to do, and that’s exactly how the folks who witnessed Boaz’s proclamation responded.

We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman. (vv. 11–12)

David Guzik frames the confirmation and blessing of Boaz’s redemption this way: “Back in chapter one, Ruth seemed to be giving up on her best chance of marriage by leaving her native land of Moab and giving her heart and life to the God of Israel. But as Ruth put God first, He brought her together in a relationship greater than she could have imagined.”30

The Lord is always in the business of working out a new and better thing, isn’t He?

Always.

No matter where we traveled in Ecuador, those curvy roads were a constant. The third day, in fact, I met Wilter, one of the kids my family and I sponsor through Compassion. He and his mom, Marta, actually hopped on the bus with us (you’d better believe I’d taken two Dramamine at breakfast; LESSON LEARNED, Ecuador). I was super tired that morning, and honestly, I was a little concerned about spending the day with a family I’d never met. I didn’t want anyone to feel awkward or unwelcome, but I wondered how in the world I was going to talk and interact for a full day when all I really wanted was sleep. However, the other girls on the trip cheered me on and assured me that they would jump in and help if I ran out of conversation topics or had a momentary run-in with nausea.

It never occurred to any of us, though, that Wilter, who lives in a coastal area of Ecuador, probably wasn’t used to Quito’s altitude, much less riding on a bus in the mountains. He would nervously grab the seat in front of him whenever the bus made a sharp turn, so I tried talk to him and his mom in my very broken Spanish and hopefully put them both at ease. About ten minutes before we arrived at the church we were visiting, though, I noticed that he was extra quiet. As soon as we reached our destination and walked off the bus, I learned the real story behind that silence.

Let me put it this way: maybe a package of Mega Queso Doritos could have cured what ailed Wilter. But in the absence of those Doritos, Wilter reached the bottom of the bus steps and lost his battle with motion sickness in the most (literally) gut-wrenching way. I felt so sorry for him. However, since he was an eight-year-old boy, he got sick, took a minute to regroup, and then started running through the grass, pointing at the sky and yelling at the sight of an airplane.

And throughout the morning, the other women on the trip—who for sure shared my displaced and loopy and mildly nauseated feelings—continually checked on Wilter and his mama. They kicked around the soccer ball, they struck up conversations, and they basically helped me feel like a whole, functioning person.

Some days, I guess, it takes seven other people to do that.

Well.

A few hours after Wilter’s run-in with travel-related nausea, I did my best to carry on a conversation in Spanish with Marta. I managed to use the correct Spanish to ask if she liked to cook, and when she said yes, I asked what kinds of foods were Wilter’s favorites. She rattled off a list of foods that sounded mostly unfamiliar to me, but there was a point when I heard two magical words: pollo frito.

Fried chicken.

It really is a universal love language.

I got so excited by our common culinary ground that I quickly looked at Wilter and said, “I LOVE FRIED CHICKEN!” in Spanish. In my haste, however, I apparently mixed up a couple of reflexive verbs, because about the time I started trying to figure out why Wilter looked so confused by my adoration for fried chicken, my friend Amanda leaned over and said, “Um, Sophie? I’m pretty sure that you just told Wilter that your name is fried chicken.”

To this day I’m grateful that Amanda was keeping close enough tabs on us that she was able to correct my mistake. And really, that is just one example of my effectiveness in an international ministry context. Feel free to e-mail me if you’d like more tips and suggestions about lasting missional impact, my friends.

Skills. I’ve got ’em.

Not too long after I unintentionally renamed myself, we got back on the bus, and after one final stop, headed back to the hotel. I don’t know that Wilter enjoyed the winding roads any more than he had when we made the first leg of the trip, but his whole demeanor was different. Instead of clutching the back of the seat, he looked relaxed, leaned against my shoulder, and fell sound asleep. I guess sometimes those curvy roads get a little easier the second time around, especially if we’ve come to trust our fellow travelers. And after we eventually made it back to our hotel, I was sad to say good-bye to Wilter and Marta before they began their return trip home.

The next morning, our team returned to the bus (are you noticing a pattern?) for our longest journey yet: a five-hour trip to the Amazon jungle. The plan was to travel to the very top of Mega Queso Mountain (to be clear, I don’t think this is the official name of that particular landmark)—12,000 feet above sea level—and then make our descent to the jungle on the other side. Of all the things we did on the trip, I was the most nervous about the Amazon part; even getting on the bus that morning felt like someone was holding a giant megaphone in front of my face and screaming, “NOW IT IS TIME TO ABANDON YOUR COMFORT ZONE.”

I settled into my seat, took another Dramamine for good measure, and closed my eyes. Before I knew it, I dozed off, and y’all, it was about an hour and a half later when I woke up. After I got my bearings (bus, mountain, Ecuador—got it), I looked out my window. We weren’t quite to the top of the mountain, but we were close, and we were on a road that seemed about as wide as the skinny gold belt I used to wear with my green Gloria Vanderbilt corduroys back in my elementary school days. For several miles I was hyper-aware that a wrong turn or a severe swerve would be Very Bad News Indeed, and the part of my mind and heart that likes to control and plan and dictate was feeling pretty anxious. Our driver whipped around turns so fast I felt like I was at Talladega—to the point that I kind of wanted to put on some cutoff shorts and a tank top and climb on someone’s shoulders—only my mood wasn’t quite festive enough for a NASCAR race.

Somewhere in the middle of all my worry and my doubt, however, I realized we were surrounded by almost unimaginable beauty. Clouds dusted the tops of lush green mountains that seemed to stretch out in every direction. Way off in the distance, in the very highest areas, snow-capped peaks sat proudly like arrows pointing at the sky.

I didn’t belong there. But somehow I did.

Keely mentioned that there was a waterfall off to our right, and as everybody spotted it—not to mention the spectacular scenery that surrounded it—our group started to sound like a chorus of older Southern women.

“Have you ever?”

“I just cannot believe . . .”

“Is that not the most beautiful thing you’ve . . .”

“Well, my goodness!”

And somewhere in the middle of Mountain Appreciation 101, the sound of my friends’ voices reminded me that whether I liked traveling over that mountain or not—whether I was comfortable traveling it or not—those curvy, sometimes downright scary roads were affording us some once-in-a-lifetime views. They were giving us a unique perspective of God’s goodness here on earth and showing us how He reveals Himself through His creation.

Those curvy roads? So worth it.

Plus, they ultimately led to the Amazon—which, as I was about to learn, is jaw-droppingly beautiful even if it’s sort of an overachiever when it comes to heat and also bugs.

They were worth it.

Because even when we’re uncertain, God holds.

He sustains.

He delivers.

And He gives us people who can point out what we may not always see.

Ruth and Naomi’s situation looked pretty bleak in Ruth 1.

They had no idea what would be waiting on them when they arrived in Bethlehem, what with both of them being widowed, one spending over ten years in exile, and one being a Moabite.

But in the most wondrously unforeseen ways, the Lord foreshadowed future gospel glory through the stories of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz. Boaz covered and redeemed Ruth; he removed the shame of Ruth’s past and secured her inheritance. He took her as his bride.

Just that alone would have been a perfect ending, right? I mean, you could take that whole narrative and write a script and make a movie that would reduce Nicholas Sparks to tears. It’s a beautiful love story.

The Lord, though, had an even bigger story to tell. Ruth and Boaz had a son named Obed, and Obed eventually fathered Jesse. Jesse had several sons, and one of them—a shepherd boy named David—was crowned as king. We’ve already seen how that played out in Luke 1 when Gabriel visited Mary: “[Your son] will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (vv. 32–33).

Ruth didn’t just make a way for Naomi to get home. She made a way for Jesus.

It was a shocking turn of events. A Moabite woman named Ruth—a woman who had been widowed, childless, and poor, who was only in Bethlehem because of sacrificial loyalty to her mother-in-law—became the great-grandmother of King David. That family line eventually extended all the way to Mary, the mother of Jesus. It’s astounding. According to Dr. David Platt, “God used a Moabite woman as a result of an Israelite who turned his back on the promised land to bring hope to an otherwise hopeless Israelite situation so that we would have the greatest King we know.”31

And don’t miss this, either: in the midst of the joys of Ruth and Boaz’s redemptive story, Naomi was certainly not left out of the celebration. As a matter of fact, I think she probably experienced the biggest transformation of all. She was in a bad place when she traveled home from Moab; in Ruth 1, she said, “I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (vv. 21–22).

But by the end of chapter 4, Naomi sang a different song. After the birth of her grandson, her friends gathered around her and said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him” (vv. 14–15).

Obed secured Naomi’s redemption just as Boaz had done for Ruth.

After everything Naomi had endured, she was full again. She laid that grandbaby on her lap, and while Scripture doesn’t tell us exactly how long she held him, my guess is that Ruth probably had to beg a time or three to get that little man back in her arms.

Naomi’s road wasn’t easy. But I imagine she’d walk it a hundred times over knowing that Ruth, Boaz, and Obed were at the end of it.

As we close out this section, I want to point out five quick things that have occurred to me as we’ve talked about these four chapters. I hope these will be helpful as we think about our friendships across generations, but if they’re not, just nod politely and maybe write down your own and this will all be over soon enough.

1. Ruth let Naomi feel all her feelings. There may have been a point when Ruth wanted to look at Naomi and say, “Hey, NayNay—LIGHTEN UP.” But she didn’t. She respected that the older woman’s frame of mind was what it was, and she didn’t try to change it / talk Naomi out of it / fix everything. She met her mother-in-law in the middle of her circumstances and loved her right there.

2. Ruth’s mentor / mother figure wasn’t a stranger. I know that we’re big on finding mentors outside of our families, and that’s great. I also know that we’re big on mentoring younger people outside of our families, and that’s great, too. Sometimes we live far from our people of origin and need folks in our communities to fill the gaps. But the person who might most need your loving care and attention—or who might best provide it for you—could very well be hanging out on a limb of your family tree. Stranger things have happened.

3. Ruth and Naomi shared an enormous level of trust. This one can be so hard, and it’s why deep relational investment is so critical. We don’t listen to people we don’t trust. We don’t get a voice with people who don’t trust us. And trust is precisely why, when Naomi told Ruth to go lay at Boaz’s feet after he fell asleep, Ruth’s reaction was something along the lines of Sure thing. Got it. Check. She didn’t question Naomi’s methods because she trusted her motives. It’s a good reminder that relational integrity matters. We must “guard [our] mouth with a muzzle” (Ps. 39:1)—not just in terms of keeping confidences, but also in terms of how we react to one another and speak to one another. If someone consistently belittles or berates you, that person isn’t a mentor. She certainly isn’t a friend. She’s a bully.

4. The right way is the right way. Ruth followed harvesting/gleaning protocol when she worked in the fields. She wasn’t looking for special treatment and was content to do her work whether anyone noticed her or not. Then, when Naomi instructed Ruth about going to the threshing floor, she explained the right way to approach Boaz, the way that fell in line with the day’s cultural practices. She didn’t ask Ruth to do anything that would damage her reputation or cause Boaz to question her character. And finally, when Boaz met with the other potential redeemer, he handled the matter of redemption promptly, fairly, and openly. He did the right thing, and he did it the right way. So did Naomi. So did Ruth. They could all move forward without being tempted to look back.

5. Ruth and Naomi’s story was bigger than they could have ever expected. When Ruth and Naomi walked from Moab to Bethlehem, I doubt that one of them piped up and said, “You know what? I bet people will read about us one day. I bet people will hold us up as the poster children for healthy in-law relationships. And you know what else? I bet somehow one of us will wind up in the family line of THE SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE WORLD.” What a reminder that we don’t get to design or control how the Lord intends to use our stories, and oh have mercy He will sure enough use them in ways that would never occur to us.

Love each other well. Tend to each other well. Walk this thing out with each other really, really well.

Ruth and Naomi didn’t ride buses back in their time, because, well, there were no buses (please let me know if you’d like for me to point out any other incredibly obvious historical facts). But they knew a little something about navigating changes in elevation, about traveling over and through and around tricky terrain, about dealing with the exhaustion that settles in after a long and arduous journey. They’d made the descent out of Moab, walked down to a spot where the Jordan fed into the Dead Sea, crossed the river, and then had to finish the final leg of their trip by walking uphill to reach Bethlehem’s elevation of roughly 2,500 feet above sea level.

And here’s one more reminder from Captain Obvious: that path wasn’t a straight line, and not one bit of it was paved.

But there were two constants during every step of their trek from exile to deliverance: (1) the ever-loving, ever-faithful hand of God, and (2) the encouragement and support they provided for each other.

They had no idea when they were in the middle of the journey, but ultimately they were instrumental in helping each other get where God wanted them to go. They were examples of “seemingly unimportant people at apparently insignificant times which later prove to be monumentally crucial to accomplishing God’s will.”32

As renowned biblical scholars might say, that’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Get out there and walk out this thing with some people, y’all.

You were made for it.