Working All The Bugs Out

Having a church service in the jungle leads to interesting things happening. Our church is only about 40 yards from the ocean and we have no walls. Now, by this I do not mean we have no doctrinal “walls”, we most certainly do as does any true church of our Lord. I mean we literally have no walls! While preaching a few years ago, several dolphins came up to the shore and stayed there listening. I think they thought I was a great preacher! I have had a crab crawl up on me, and I have swallowed many bugs while preaching. I am just trying to be more like John the Baptist. :) I have even had to remove rhinoceros beetles from my girl’s hair during services! Those things are mean and big!

This last Sunday we had another incident. I was leading singing, and things were pretty normal, including my pathetic singing voice. Mariann was sitting in the front pew with the girls. All of the sudden, Mariann threw her song book backwards, hitting a lady four pews behind her! No kidding! (Thank goodness it was not a visitor!) She then stood up quickly and started heading to the back of the church. I thought my wife just went charismatic or perhaps she could no longer stand my great singing voice. She then returned to her seat telling me she was fine.

After finishing the song, I asked what happened. A grasshopper had jumped onto her song book scaring her, and caused her to throw the book! It was all she could do not to scream. Now this type of grasshopper is not like the ones in the States. I used to catch grasshoppers in my hand all the time as a boy. This type of grasshopper you don’t go near! It bites, and it hurts! When I first saw one, I did not even know what it was. It was large and looked mean. I was told it was a grasshopper and told to stay away from it because of its bite. I do not think it is poisonous; I believe it just hurts. So when a critter like this jumps in your song book during church it is not easy to remain all pious and church-like. Sometimes you just have to throw your song book without regard to who it will hit! Once we worked all the bugs out we continued with our service!

For the next song we sang, "When I see the bug, I will throw the book over you." :)