Wonderful Preaching Opportunity…. That I Most Likely Will NOT be Getting Again

Last week while we were in Berastagi I got the opportunity to preach at a high school. This is a different high school than the one we do the morning ministry at sometimes; none of us had spoken at this high school before. It is a high school for people of all religions, but I was just speaking to the Christian students, who meet every Friday afternoon at a church near their school. There were about 160 of them. Here is a picture of the students:

As you can see, it is a very nice church. At the front of the church, they have a really nice table set up with their fancy velvet-like sacks for collecting offerings. Also on the table there were two big trophies, really nice looking, with Psalms engraved on plaques, and little cherub things on them. In the centre of this table there stood a really nice floral display.

So I am up there doing my preaching thing, and I am telling them a fictional story about sacrifice, and right at the climax of the story I am miming this young boy who gets tied up to a post with his hands in front of him (he’s going to get whipped). And I look around, and my eyes set on one of those beautiful trophies, and I think “That’s a good height!” and since I am barely touching the stupid thing, I decide I will use it as my prop.

So we’re in the climax, and all of the sudden….. *SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP* fills the room. And here is this dumb white preacher lady (me) standing in front of 160 high school students with a large piece of trophy broken off in her hands!!!! Needless to say, the sound echoed tremendously and every single person noticed what happened.

I’ve heard of things like “Everyone gasped”, said in stories before, but this is the first time I ever actually heard a large roomful of people do it in unison. And then, 160 high school students burst into wild laughter.

I stood there, face reddening, mouth gaping like a zombie fish, and looked at the director of the high school (a very well-to-do looking woman). Her facial expression was saying “Are. You. Serious.?” And then I looked at my translator. Her facial expression was a mixture of shock and disgust, and it looked like it was accusingly asking “Why on earth would you DO that?!” *note to translator: it wasn’t on purpose*. Then I looked at the only other people I knew in the room (two, twenty-something year old guys) and found that they too, were laughing hysterically. Men can be so immature.

So… after this hour long ten seconds, I gingerly set down the piece of this statue (which I then realized was probably both sacred and priceless) on their special table and make my translator say “I will fix that later”. Then I say this:

“Oh! I was telling the story wrong! They didn’t actually tie the boy up here. The wood was too weak, they couldn’t trust it. What they DID do was tie him up over HERE” <*at the microphone stand I didn’t see earlier*>.

I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think the magnitude of the story reached them.

Since I could tell they were still thinking about it later, I brought it back up for a laugh later on. “If you steal something, it must be paid for! It you break something <*point to self and then sacred artifact*> you had better fix it later! Which I will…”

While I was finishing my preach (which wasn’t even half over when I broke that stupid thing), one of the guys I knew managed to stop laughing long enough to go buy super glue. So while I was stammering my apology to the director at the end of my ordeal (she was very nice and told me not to worry about it), he fixed it so that you couldn’t even tell I was there. Then it was just a matter of listening to “Wow Emily! You are a very exciting preacher! Look out everyone! She gets excited! *chuckles*.”

On the bright side, I had their undivided attention for the remainder of the preach.
Also, I was happy to have a funny story to tell people. So after I said sorry, I took pictures of it being fixed so I could post them here. Enjoy.


That whole top piece (from the 'V' up) is what I snapped off.