Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Eek! (02/25/10)
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TITLE: Vignettes Of A Young Missionary Wife. | Previous Challenge Entry
By RuthAnn Cornelson
03/01/10 -
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1. She waits on the floor, her labor pains hard and fast. She wants her mother but her mother is on the other side of the world. Across the room she sees two shiny dots. Eyes! Staring at her from the corner. When she gasps the big, black rat jumps. She calls for help but her calls go unheeded. The rat runs towards her, beady eyes coming closer and closer. Pain and fear collide. Desperation. She has no way out, nowhere to go. Tiny, sharp nails prick, as he scampers over her feet! Eek! I am born.
2. From a neatly folded stack, she pulls a diaper and wraps the wiggling baby in it, pinning it securely. He sleeps through the night. She smiles at him as she removes the diaper in the morning. It unfolds when she pulls it off. Her gasp sucks the air out of the room. A large, black scorpion lies between the folds. Sedated by urine, it wiggles slightly, protected from the child by a layer of cloth and an unseen angel. Eek!
3. Getting ready for bed, they talk about their day. WHOOSH! He ducks, she screams. The large, black bat flies around the room frantically, searching for a way out. Her husband looks for some way to catch or kill it. She jumps on the bed, desperately pulling the mosquito net down around her. She sighs, relieved. She is safe inside the net. The net will keep it out. Suddenly! Wind whooshing around her. Wild flapping! Wings battering the net, claws ripping it! She is not alone inside the net. Eek!
4. She looks for her young son. Where is that boy? Outside it is hot, everything dry. She sees him sitting on the hard ground, happy, smiling at her as she walks to him. Two chubby hands grasp something tightly. He brings it to his mouth. “What are you eating?” She smiles, bending down to him, pulling his hands away. He holds a dry, flattened frog by the back legs, one leg in each hand. The head pops out of her son’s mouth. He whimpers at the loss of his treat. Eek!
5. She walks with the servant girl who carries a wicker basket full of laundry. They walk out of the sun into the dark, cool laundry room. The girl shrieks! The basket falls. They both stare at the floor. A large snake slithers from under the girl’s bare feet. Eek! The woman calls her husband. He kills the snake. A large frog is stuck in it’s mouth. It could not strike. Daniel has nothing on this girl. God has shut the snake’s mouth for her.
6. She stares straight ahead and wipes her cheek. Tears prick her eyes. Be brave, she tells herself, but she looks in the rearview mirror. He stands there alone, watching them drive away. He is staying there at school. They are leaving him! Her husband clears his throat and sniffs. Her heart is tearing, ripping in two. I can’t let him go! He is my son. She looks to heaven, “We are doing this for You.” He says back, “I did the same for you.”
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29 NASB
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Although I appreciate that the story is as valid for India as for Africa, I think it would help the reader to be able to set the vignettes within a specific era and location.
My husband's early years were in Laos, where his parents were missionaries. (he was the youngest of 6 boys). I've heard a few stories too.
(A little distracted by the numerals... Thought each tableau could just "fade" away with "ellipses," perhaps, allowing the reader to merge the images... or reflect deeper.)