He's Alive!

If the ship is on schedule, we should be docking in Moorea this morning, near Tahiti. It’s Easter Sunday, so we’ll be looking for a church to celebrate with. If that doesn’t pan out, we’re hoping at least that Tony can drum up some support for a sunrise service before we tie up to the dock. Thanks for your prayers, which in God’s sight are never belated!

The thought that comes to mind as I write this takes me back to language school in Japan. Our (Baptist) mission decided to send us to a local Catholic school to see if they were doing any better at teaching what a 17th century Jesuit missionary once called “The Devil’s Language”.

The challenge was obvious from the very start. Most of the students were priests and nuns who had just arrived from countries all over the world. For the life of us, we couldn’t come up with a common language to get us past “Good Morning”, so it was looking like we would have to get to know each other in Japanese or else.

There was a cute group of Polish nuns, VERY traditional with starched habits right out of “The Sound of Music”. Not surprisingly, they had no English, and we had no Polish, so we spent a lot of time pointing and smiling.

…Until Easter morning. Stepping into the classroom, we were met by a solid wall of black and white, each nun holding bottles of perfume, which was dutifully sprayed over our heads. Before we could even express our shock, the leader of the flock yelled out in heavily-accented English, “E’s ALIVE!!!”

I think this was a custom back in the Old Country, or else they were just having one on the Protestants that day.

That said, if I could figure out right now how to get this bottle of perfume in my hand through the keyboard, out to the ether and directly to you, you’d be smelling sweet and soaking wet, but full of joy because … well because …. HE IS ALIVE!!!

Take the message with you today and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Marsha


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