We will all be ambushed at some point in our lives. The ultimate query is how we will react to this event. This novel focuses on how Paul, a self-driven man, dealt with his life changing confrontations. Paul was a criminal, terrorist, and murderer. After he was ambushed, he went from persecutor to being persecuted and from taking life to giving life. His ambushed transformed his life from successful to significant. When historians throughout history list the most influential men and women, Paul is frequently mentioned as the second most influential person to have lived. Paul's life was filled with endless highs and lows. This novel looks at how he dealt with success, hardships and unforeseen events. His response to these external events enabled him to become an outstanding student, stimulating teacher, and devoted encourager. His life has caused all of us to make a decision regarding our future and the way we treat others.

AMBUSHED

By Wil Tustin

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Wil Tustin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6301-3

Contents

A Time to Grow Up............................................1A Time to be a Grown-up......................................6A Time to Begin..............................................14A Time to Plant..............................................20A Time for Education.........................................28A Time to be Concern.........................................33A Time to Question...........................................41A Time for Conflict..........................................46A Time for Action............................................52A Time to Kill...............................................58A Time for Injustice.........................................64A Time to Hate...............................................69A Time to Persecute..........................................75A Time to be Perplex.........................................82A Time to be Prejudice.......................................87A Time for Anger.............................................94A Time of Awakening..........................................102A Time for Guidance..........................................108A Time to be Reborn..........................................114A Time to Loath..............................................121A Time of Solitude...........................................126A Time to be Brave...........................................130A Time of Spiritual Growth...................................138A Time to Return.............................................143A Time to be the Enemy.......................................148A Time to Proclaim...........................................155A Time to Mend...............................................161A Time for Insight...........................................168A Time to be Acknowledge.....................................175A Time of Passion............................................181A Time of Trouble............................................189A Time to Egress.............................................195A Time to Speak..............................................200A Time to Heal...............................................205A Time to visit Heaven.......................................212A Time to Endure.............................................220A Time of Friendship.........................................227A Time to Embrace............................................233A Time to Commence...........................................238A Time for an Appellation....................................242A Time of Giving.............................................247A Time for a Change..........................................254

Chapter One

A Time to Grow Up

"There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven." Solomon

My first recollection of the battle between good and evil happened a week after my tenth birthday. I was playing hide and seek with five cousins in the Tarsus Marketplace. Partially hidden behind a perfume vendor's stand, a Macedonian businesswoman and family acquaintance saw me and shouted, "Saul, your father is looking for you. You better get to his shop, now!"

"Yes, ma'am," I politely replied over the growing sounds of commerce spoken in numerous languages.

"Our uncle found out you fell into the Cydnus River," my oldest cousin teased. "You're in big trouble, Saul."

"No, I'm not!" I shouted, promptly leaving the marketplace.

Our house resided in the Jewish quarter of Tarsus, an oasis of morality amidst a desert of depravity. The other neighborhoods were filled with harlots, hustlers, and heathen temples. I took a shortcut home and passed through one of them, dodging intoxicated bodies and ignoring vulgar behavior.

When I entered our house my mother said in Aramaic, "Your tunic and mantle are soaking wet. Change them, and then go see your abba. He's waiting for you in his shop."

After changing clothes, I ran out the side door. Father's tent shop was attached to our house, common venue in the Jewish quarter. "Where have you been?" he asked in Hebrew, as I slid open the pocket door. Abba always spoke to me in Hebrew when we were alone. He was proud of his Jewish heritage.

I nervously answered, "Playing in the marketplace with my cousins."

"Foolishness," Abba said, waving his hand in the air, dismissing my childish games.

"What did you want me for, Abba?" I inquired after breathing a sigh of relief.

"The nomads have yet to come down from the mountains. The snow melted in the mountain passes weeks ago. We need their wool for a large, Roman army order of tents and saddles."

"They usually descend the mountain trails weeks before my birthday," I agreed.

"Would you like to hike into the mountains with me to buy some goat hair?"

Our tents were made of cilicium, tightly woven wool. My father's black, goat-hair tents were works of art. They were the preferred tents among the Roman army, traveling merchants, and nomads. He had a unique stitch that enhanced the tent's durability and kept out rainwater.

"Yes, Ab!" I roared with excitement, causing my mother, or ima, to look out the side door window. This was my first trip into the Tarsus Mountains, a strategical and natural fortress for Tarsus.

"Normally, by this time of year I've already finished several tents." Father groaned, hiding his money bag under one of the donkey's packs.

"When do we leave?" I asked while patting my favorite donkey, Fetus. He was blind, born without pupils, and small in stature.

"We're leaving now," Abba informed me tying our donkeys to separate lead lines. "We're taking twelve donkeys into the mountains. I'll ride one and guide eight. You can ride Fetus and guide two."

"Will all twelve donkeys be loaded with wool on the way home? And will we have to walk all the way home?"

"Yes, can you handle it?" Abba asked, leading the donkeys outside.

"No problem!"

"Then, go give your ima a kiss goodbye."

I met her at the side door and she hugged me so tight my tongue popped out. She cried and said, "I'll miss you, Saul. Be careful in those mountains." The pleasant odor of her geranium perfume stayed in my nostrils for awhile.

Ima hugged Abba goodbye and instructed, "Bring my son back home without any scratches. Also, load up those donkeys with a lot of black wool." Father waved goodbye to my younger brothers with his huge hands, the hands of Tarsus' finest craftsman.

* * *

Abba and I rode our donkeys across the fertile plains of Cilicia Pedias to the Tarsus foothills. "Saul, you and the donkeys still seem to have some energy. How about if we go into the hill country and make camp there?"

"That's fine with me. I can stay awake if you can," I boasted, pulling two tethered donkeys. Thirty minutes later I barely caught myself by the reins before falling off Fetus. Abba noticed it and made camp. We had a restful night beneath a bank of dark clouds.

The next morning we rose at sunrise, feed the donkeys, and ate breakfast. Then we trekked toward the Tarsus Mountains. When we reached the mountain trails, our enthusiasm and sense of duty kept us moving upward.

After we climbed a steep mountain trail for what seemed like forever, my father pointed and said, "There's the Cilician Gate! It's only a short distance away. We'll take a long rest once we get through the gate."

"Good," I groaned.

Exhausted, we passed through the Cilician Gate. Startled, we were ambushed by eight bandits. Within seconds we were surrounded by evil and its cloud of dust. Apparently, the bandits had been pursuing us for awhile from behind stone boulders like lionesses stalking their prey in tall grass.

They wildly waved their arms and shouted, "You're dead, you stinking Jews!" Their scurrilous insults and frightful screams echoed off the massive boulders they'd jumped from behind.

My father grabbed the first bandit to attack us by the scuff of his mantle. He drove the bandit's nose into his right knee and bellowed, "How does that smell, you stinking thief?"

He turned to confront the next assailant, but three bandits simultaneously jumped him. The bandits threw their fists in a frenzy, while my father took calculated punches. He landed twice as many blows as they did.

Abba shouted, "Not as easy as you thought!"

Meanwhile, another bandit grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me off Fetus. When the bandit leaned over to beat me Fetus kicked him. It was as if Fetus could see. He kicked the bandit in his groin.

I got up and kicked the bandit, who was rolling all over the ground. I screamed, "Leave us alone! Leave us alone!" Meanwhile, the last three bandits, much larger in size, finally decided to partake in the skirmish. Two of them swung clubs longer than me and the third waved a small dagger.

Abba held his own, until one of the club-carrying bandits sneaked up behind him. The bandit swung with all his might and connected with the back of abba's skull. He instantly collapsed on the mountain trail. The other bandits kicked, clubbed, mocked, and spat on him. The bandit with the dagger stabbed him twice between their laugher.

"You murderers. You murderers!" I shrieked, trying to kick free from my thief's ankle tight grip. The pain of my bandit's throbbing testicles abated as he stood up. Once erect, he threw an upper cut with all his might that landed on my lower jaw. The blow lifted me a cubit off the ground, and I fell unconscious on the mountain trail.

When I awoke, my father was holding his chest and moaned, "Saul, help me. Help me." I slowly got up, stumbled over to him, and wept as I gazed upon his beaten, bloody body. Our empty money bag laid on abba's chest being filled with his blood.

"You've got to get me back to Tarsus. Get me on a donkey," Abba faintly uttered before he passed out from the pain. I looked around for our donkeys, but discovered everything had been taken except for the bandits' two wooden clubs, my wool saddle blanket, and Fetus.

I made a travois, using my blanket as netting and the bandits' wood clubs as trailing poles. I whispered into Abba's ear, "I'm going to roll you onto a homemade travois. Then Fetus and I are going to take you home." With every ounce of energy left, I shouldered Ab's body onto the travois.

When I stood up, I noticed Abba's sewing kit. The tool of his trade, he always carried it with him. It lay in a pool of blood on the ground. I grabbed the kit and more out of instinct than know how I sewed up Abba's chest wounds. He gained consciousness on the last stitch and screamed, "Jehovah, help us!"

"Good thing you're headstrong." I joked, hoping to bring some levity to our crisis.

I rested my fatigued body for a moment, then tied the travois' poles to Fetus and began the arduous task of pulling Abba back to Tarsus. My father slipped in and out of consciousness every ten minutes and wrenched in pain every time he regained awareness.

Several hundred paces from the Cilician Gate I passed out from exhaustion and fell off Fetus. I banged my forehead on a large rock and lost consciousness for several minutes. With a pounding headache and blood dripping down my face, I eventually managed to get back up.

"Now, who has the hard head?" Abba groaned in jocularity amidst his excruciating pain.

Fetus and I labored for hours, dragging my father down the mountain trail. On the last steep incline Festus lost his footing. Abba and I fell and bounced about twenty paces down the rocky mountain path. My father screamed in anguish. We both lay helpless on the rugged mountain trail for awhile. Then Abba prayed, "Jehovah, please give this boy perseverance amidst overwhelming odds."

Within minutes, I regained some strength. My weary childhood frame stood up and felt slightly renewed. I managed to get father back on the travois. Fetus pulled and carried us down the rest of that lengthy mountain trail. I stopped several times to rest our pain-racked bodies and rewrapped bleeding wounds.

Chapter Two

A Time to be a Grown-up

"All mankind is divided into three classes: Those who are immovable, those who are movable and those who move." Arabian Proverb

I lost track of time. We finally reached the stony, green foothills beneath the glow of an ascending moon. After untying Fetus from the travois, I collapsed and fell asleep on a grassy knoll. Suddenly, my ears were filled with the sound of howling beasts. Groggy, I jumped to my feet and realized we were being ambushed by wild dogs. Six of them already had Fetus on the ground and were tearing at his flesh.

One wild dog was licking my unconscious father's chest wounds, which had reopened. I slowly pulled one of the poles out of Abba's travois and knocked that wild dog off its feet. It and the rest of the wild beasts ran back into the mountains. I tried to retrieve Fetus's carcass, but the dogs had already dragged it away.

My father regained consciousness as I cleaned his chest wounds. In a state of hysteria, I told him, "Ab, wild dogs just killed and ate Fetus!"

"Don't worry, we are in good hands. Just do what you can do," his lips barely uttered.

"Okay," I said, regaining my composure. "I can't pull you over all these foothills. I'm going to build a large fire with the travois' poles and whatever firewood I can gather. Then, I'm going for help!"

Father tried to murmur, but he couldn't. Instead, he shook his head and bumped the avocado size lump on his head against a rock. He screamed in pain and passed out.

My chilled fingers started a bonfire. I split off a piece of the burning travois pole and cauterized Abba's wounds. His body flinched numerous times, but he never regained consciousness as the red hot twig closed his bleeding vessels. Then I kissed his forehead and whispered, "Abba, I promise I'll be back before the wild dogs or bandits. Jehovah will watch over you while I'm gone."

I jogged over the Tarsus foothills, but found myself crawling across the plains of Cilicia Pedias. It was then, I faintly heard a voice say, "Earthly outcomes are in My hands, but you have to make the effort."

Half way home, a fruit vendor headed to the Tarsus Marketplace, saw me passed out on the stone road amidst the weeds and wild, red poppies. He pushed aside some boxes of figs and placed me in his cart. The vendor gently awoke me at the city gate. I thanked him and sprinted home as light began to overcome darkness.

I collapsed on our kitchen floor, crying and screaming for Ima. She jumped out of bed and began weeping when she saw me. Within seconds, she regained her poise and ordered my brothers, "Go get the doctor and your uncles. Now!"

Five minutes later, a Jewish doctor and Ima's five brothers arrived. The doctor cleaned and stitched up my wounds. My closest and dearest uncle said, "Saul, we need you to show us where your abba is."

"He's not going back out there!" Ima avowed. "He's exhausted and near death."

"It's our only hope to find your husband before he dies. We'll put Saul on a donkey, and he can sleep on it," Ima's tallest brother stated with firmness.

Ima reluctantly agreed. She hugged me goodbye and wailed, "I won't stop praying till you come back home." The doctor, my uncles, and I were out of the house within seconds.

We traveled as fast as the donkeys could go across the plains of Cilicia Pedias and into the hill country. Once again, while slipping in and out of sleep, I heard a faint voice say, "Occasionally, I shape and mold my flock through hardships, which draws them near to Me. And I will never leave or forsake any who follow me."

When we reached the bonfire, it was out and so was abba. The doctor worked on my father for more than an hour, then said, "Good sewing job, Saul. Your tent maker's stitch saved your abba's life. Plus, cauterizing his wounds diminished his possibilities for infections. Maybe you should be a doctor instead of a lawyer."

"Thank you, sir, but I'm going to be a Pharisee like Abba and these hands are going to make tents for a living like Abba," I proudly claimed.

Three uncles put my father on a donkey, and we headed across the hill country. We stopped numerous times to tend to his near-fatal wounds. When we arrived at our house, they put him in bed, and he stayed there for three weeks. He slowly recovered during the next two months, but he never fully recuperated from the knife wounds and beating. Abba had to walk with a cane, because the bandits broke his right leg in three places and left leg in two places.

* * *

Three months after Abba's beating, he half-heartily returned to the tent shop. He displayed a lot more patience with me at the loom. Furthermore, his main interests no longer seemed to reside in the shop, but in his sons' academic achievements.

All Jewish boys from three to thirteen years old were educated six days a week at their local synagogue's House of Books. It prevented us from being defiled by our gentile peers' schools. Our main textbooks were the Torah, Pentateuch, Writings (Psalms and Proverbs), and Books of the Prophets.

Two mornings every week, Abba showed up at our synagogues' House of Books to assist our teachers. Also, he met me four days a week in the marketplace after school; he accompanied me two days a week to Latin language school and two days to Greek language school.

My scholastic achievements were unprecedented within the Tarsus synagogue and Cilician province. Under Abba's tutelage and the synagogue teachers' auspices I memorized the Mosaic Law, Hebrew rituals, and the rabbinic oral laws by age eleven.

By twelve, I could recite a sixth of the Psalms and half the Talmud from memory. Also, I excelled in other academic endeavors; languages, mathematics, literature, writing, and poetry.

I occasionally sneaked out of my parents' house after dark to expand my knowledge of Hellenistic rhetoric. The Cynic and Stoic philosophers debated nightly in the Tarsus Marketplace. The Cynic philosophized one should abandon all life's comforts, while the Stoic professed the doctrine of natural law. Both used and taught me the diatribe technique, debating through questions.

Two days before my thirteenth birthday and the Jewish Passover, Abba's brother from Jerusalem showed up in Tarsus. Uncle Elisha was a dealer in precious stones and claimed to be in town on business. After he hugged me, I teased, "You really came to Tarsus to attend my bar mitzvah."

"You revealed my true motive," he bantered. That night we were entertained by Abba and Uncle Elisha reminiscing childhood stories.

The next day Uncle Elisha and I went shopping for my birthday present in the marketplace. He inquired beneath the hot afternoon sun, "Saul, I hear you're an outstanding student with scholastic promise. Are you going to continue your education in Jerusalem at one of our Houses of Study?"

"No, I plan to stay in Tarsus! It's the third largest academic center in the Roman Empire after Athens and Alexandria. The Roman senate just gave us the status of a libera civitas because of our academic institutions. This means we can govern ourselves within Rome's civil and criminal laws. You can't say that of Jerusalem!" I boasted of my hometown.

"Tarsus is no Jerusalem," Uncle Elisha declared. "Tarsus' academic institutions are rooted in Greco-Roman culture. Jerusalem's Houses of Study are based on Hebrew ethos."

"I never thought about continuing my education in Jerusalem," I responded, looking at different vendors' clothing items. "My parents want me to stay in Tarsus."

"Saul, you're a smart boy. I mean, man. You need to talk your father into letting you continue your education in Jerusalem at Gamaliel's House of Study," Abba's oldest brother suggested. "You're blessed with extraordinary scholastic abilities. You speak the languages of Jerusalem, Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as I do."

"Uncle Elisha, it would be a dream come true to be under the tutelage of Gamaliel, but you really want me to study in Jerusalem so you can spend more time with your favorite nephew," I joshed, while admiring a red Egyptian cotton mantel and green Oriental silk tunic.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from AMBUSHEDby Wil Tustin Copyright © 2012 by Wil Tustin. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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