Run-on Sentences

Today we played the run-on sentence game, where I was given a topic, and then had to write a long sentence in relation to that topic. Here are my sentences. Perhaps one day, I’ll come up with a more serious blog post that will leave the reader with something more than bewilderment…. but not today.

Topic 1: A rock star that’s scared of loud noises

As he gazed down in disgust at the mosh pit of gyrating college students too drunk to have any clue whether or not he was actually singing or whether his ’58 limited edition Gibson really had all five strings in tack, he realized with terror that his least favorite part of the concert was coming up and that he would have to endure the screeching sound of the pyrotechnic explosions which hid his escape into the trap door under his feet so that he could run down the ten foot tunnel, up the fifty-step staircase, and re-appear in the scaffolding above the crowd in order to bungee jump inches above their heads just as the last few lines of the song brought everything to an all too sensory-overloaded climax.

Topic 2: What’s a clown doing here?

The crowd was a mixture of half-asleep men and teary-eyed woman who eagerly watched as John and Mary stumbled happily through their vows with the patient help of Father George until everything was brought to an abrupt stop at the entry of an all too enthusiastic clown dressed in purple polka dots and honking the horn of his 5-foot unicycle as he rode down the aisle to the tune of Yankee Doodle and threw candy out into the audience, an act that succeeded to get the attention of all the men who had previously been dreaming of perfecting their  golf swing and scaring the two babies in the back row who immediately started screaming until their frantic mothers hastily gathered them up to take them outside so that they would not disturb John and Mary who hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of the unexpected wedding guest and were trying to decide whether to laugh, cry, or just skip to the kiss that they’d been perfecting for quite some time.

Anecdotes

Three anecdotes about cooking in Kenya that I wrote for the Wycliffe Cookbook.

Dish Washing

Free-range chickens are a nuisance—especially in the midst of a campground out in the Kenyan bush. I’m not sure why my team set up our tents and cooking supplies next to a chicken coup, but that was the way it was. As the last person to select my bed in the tent, I ended up sleeping with my head just feet away from the coup where the chickens slept. Early in the morning they would begin their squawking, and I would snuggle deeper into my sleeping bag in an unsuccessful attempt to block out the noise. Once the chickens were let out in the morning, it was impossible to keep them away from our dish-washing basins and portable gas stovetop. And so, we were always shooing them away as we tried to cook, secretly wishing that one of them would decide to take a bath in our pot of boiling water. We decided they were cannibals when they feasted on our scrambled egg crumbs, and one of the guys even set up a trap with the wash tubs to catch an unsuspecting chicken. Try as we may, it was impossible to “train” the chickens to stay away, as they seem to have zero short-term memory, so we learned to laugh and took lots of pictures of them “cleaning” our dirty dishes for us.

Long rice

The Maasai people aren’t scared of much. They live extremely hard lives out in the bush of Kenya. One summer, I was living in camping-like conditions among the Maasai. We had no refrigeration and could only cook using a portable gas stove top. One of our staples was spaghetti—noodles with tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and Italian spices. One day, one of our team members overheard a Maasai lady talking about how Americans didn’t like to drink their curdled sour milk. It was true—we were terrified of being served sour milk instead of the more customary chai drink. And we soon learned that she felt the same way about our spaghetti—the thought of eating it made her want to run from the room. To the Maasai, this strange “long rice” looks a lot like worms.

Bush Cookies

While living out in the Kenyan bush one summer, my team and I had to survive with no refrigeration and a portable gas stove top. As Americans, our sweet tooth was deprived, and we craved baked goods or chocolate of any sort. One day, we discovered that we could make cookie dough using our staple supplies, and then fry little cookie patties in the pan over the gas burner. It was heaven on earth. I perfected the skill on a later trip back to Kenya when I was leading a team of college interns, expanding the idea to include frying up oatmeal cookie dough along with apple slices to make apple crisp. Our Kenyan translator, Jackson, especially loved it and made up a song entitled “I love bush cookies” to the tune of “Where is Thumpkin?”  I found that bush cookies were the perfect solution to getting the team to engage in a book discussion or just finishing up a long, hard day.

Bubba “Armadillo” Gaspareaux

We did a writer’s exercise today at work, where we made up a name, passed in on to the next person, and then had to write a sketch about the name we were given. Here’s what I did with the name Mary picked out for me:

Bubba “Armadillo” Gaspareaux

He never really understood how he came to be called Bubba. His real name was James. James Dillon Gaspareaux, but ever since his baby brother Samuel could start talking—and boy could he talk—James’s real name was forever forgotten by everyone but his patient, loving mother. Sammy was never able to say James very well, so when he started saying “Bubba” one day, that’s what all the aunts, uncles, and cousins immediately adopted as well, and they always said it in that obnoxious baby voice that James couldn’t stand. There wasn’t a whole lot James could do about it, and he wasn’t about to complain and make it worse. Everyone had always loved Samuel from the day he was born and “just popped right out with the cutest baby face you ever had seen.” James was pretty sure that some would claim his baby brother was born with wings and a halo the way they doted over him all the time. He himself had long been forgotten as the favored child of the family. His curly red hair, freckles, and glasses embodied the face that only a mother could love. And thankfully she did. His mother was the nicest person he figured he would ever know. She would let him curl up in her lap after a long day, even though he was a bit old for that sort of thing by now. But she didn’t care. She would sing to him and read him stories about the old west where cowboys and Indians ruled the day. He always wanted to be a cowboy with a real horse, leather chaps, and a bandana to keep the dust out of his face while he rode off into the sunset. His favorite book was about a cowboy who had earned the nickname “Armadillo” and so, that’s what his mother had nicknamed him since it sounded much like his middle name “Dillon.” It was her special little name for him, and he loved it. No one else knew about it, and he liked it that way.

Movie Critique

Recently I’ve watched two different movies with the same theme: The Backup Plan and The Switch.

The Backup Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez, starts off with her getting artificially inseminated, only to walk out of the doctor’s office to meet a tall, dark handsome stranger on the street. They start dating, and she eventually has to reveal that she is pregnant. Throughout the movie he tries to decide if he really wants to stay with her since he has no interest in kids, and she struggles with actually letting someone in to her life when she has been used to doing everything on her own. In the end, they both get over their struggles, and he proposes.

The Switch stars Jennifer Aniston, whose best friend is Jason Bateman. She decides to get inseminated, and in a drunken stupor, he ends up switching the “sample” to his own unbeknownst to anyone (including himself who doesn’t remember a thing). She moves away to raise her child near her parents, and later returns when the boy is seven. As they re-develop their friendship, Bateman slowly discovers that the boy is his son, and then goes through a long process to decide that he does want to be his father and admit the truth and his love for Jennifer. The movie ends in marriage and suggests “happily ever after.”

These movies speak volumes for today’s society—women are unable to find a husband, so they decide to do it on their own and take matters into their own hands. The man is a little slow and immature, but finally kicks into gear and does the man thing.

I have been trying to decide if the underlying message about these movies is actually hopeful, and I’m on the fence about it. While I am tired of the “powerful women/ weak man” themes of our media, I am grateful that both of these movies end with the theme that men and women are good for each other, and that both are needed for a good home. The Switch especially illustrates this in showing Jennifer’s son as longing for a dad. Could it be that our feminist culture is realizing that women can’t do it on their own, and can we actually applaud a man for doing what he was made to do, rather than condemn him for it? On the other hand, perhaps these movies celebrate too much of the women doing it on their own, and that she ultimately rescues the man? Not sure… thoughts?

It reminds me of one final movie whose ending I really enjoyed—Tangled. In the end, the girl tries to give up her freedom for the guy, but he doesn’t let her, and he sacrifices his life for her freedom. Beautiful. Both acts are self-less.

In the end, the curse has damaged us all, and we have a long journey through our various struggles as we grow into the men and women that God meant for us to be. But oh, how beautiful it is to see those victories.

“Every child of God defeats this evil world by trusting Christ to bring the victory.” – 1 John 5:4

Prayer Answered

Twenty-one years ago, a Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project (BPPP) partner began praying for a Muslim group in West Africa. For three years she prayed, with no obvious results.

Finally, in 1993, a man named Dalmar* accepted Christ through the testimony of a local believer.

After that, it was another fourteen years of silence. Although Dalmar continued to follow Christ, no one else in his community seemed interested.

Although he was alone in his faith, Dalmar didn’t give up. Instead, he helped a missionary couple with linguistic research, and then went to seminary for training. There, he met his wife, and in 2005, they started working on a Bible translation so others in his community could more clearly understand the message about Jesus. Through their testimony, Dalmar’s cousin accepted Christ.

Dalmar and his wife first translated the books of Ruth and Genesis. Normally, translators begin with one of the Gospels, but since Dalmar’s people were Muslim, it was more powerful to start from a chronological perspective.

“The story of (Genesis) sweeps away some misconceptions the Muslim people have about Christian faith,” Dalmar explains. “For instance, common Muslim people are taught since their childhood that Christians do not believe in God. But when the Muslim people read the book of Genesis… they realize that Christians do believe in God and that their God is the Creator of the World.”

This past August, Dalmar was thrilled to distribute a complete translation of Genesis around his community. Many of his neighbors eagerly started reading the stories to each other. One man was so happy that he put the copy on his head, under his turban, in order to keep it close to his mind.

“Our people loved the booklets you gave them,” said one man. “They talk about wonderful stories. What is most impressing is that these stories are written in our own language and they talk about God…. Very often, people sit together and read these stories.”

Recently, nearly one hundred families, including Dalmar’s, were suffering from hunger after a drought killed their animals. But God supplied the funds for Dalmar to purchase food and animals for these families. Afterwards, a man who used to persecute Dalmar for his faith in Christ, said, “Now I have come to realize that you (Christians) are the children of God’s kingdom. You have the eternal life.”

This act also touched Dalmar’s brother deeply. He was so moved that Christians were helping his people that he decided to accept Christ.

Twenty-one years after that first BPPP partner began praying, Dalmar’s neighbors are finally reading the Scriptures—words that are introducing them to their Savior. Currently more than twelve thousand people are part of BPPP, and similar prayers are being answered all over the world. By praying for Bibleless communities like Dalmar’s, you can play a key role in the work of Bible translation. http://www.wycliffe.org/Pray/BiblelessPeoplesPrayerProject.aspx

*For security reasons, Dalmar is a pseudonym.