A NON-LINGUAL COMEDY OF ERRORS.

The following vignette sounds like a sitcom or scene from a movie. Four "gringos" on the way to a short-term missions assignment in Mexico try to order a meal at a restaurant without knowing either the language or the cuisine. In my upcoming How I Was Razed memoir, I recount this humorous scenario and its outcome.

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Our unfamiliarity with the language caused some humorously awkward moments when we stopped at a modern-looking local restaurant for supper. None of us knew Spanish and we struggled to make sense of the menus. After much pointing and smiling from each of us, the waiter took our orders and retreated hastily to the kitchen. As we waited for our food, we overheard the waiter and cook agitatedly whispering.

"I wonder what they're saying, one of the Bible study friends said.

"I hope they aren't thinking we're gangsters with that big car outside," Jay said. Then he added, "I parked it in clear view of the window. Make sure you keep watching it, Bruce, in case somebody tries to steal it."

I tried my best to keep an eye on it as we waited, the food arrived, and while we ate. Timidly tasting my food, I discovered it contained none of those super hot peppers of which people had warned me. "That was better than I thought," I remarked to Jay as we stood up and walked to the cashier's counter.

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How I Was Razed is the testimony of the way I was mislead by a cult church, how I turned my back on God after I felt he perennially failed to heal my eyes, and how he graciously brought me to my senses.

My previous books, When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies) and Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), are now available online by clicking here or by clicking here to e-mail me directly.