First of all the most important news out of General conference, as far as the mission is concerned is the election of Dr. Bruce Moyer to the position of Executive Director of Evangelical Church Missions. He will move into that position on October 1, replacing Duane Erickson who is stepping down after many years leading the mission. Duane will be missed by all of us here in Bolivia. We have appreciated all his years of servant leadership of the mission. We will also miss Jessie who is an equal part of Duane's leadership. May God bless both of them as they enter into a new phase of life.
Duane examines a new gold colored potato gun given him by the office staff.
At the Thursday night International Banquet at General Conference Duane and Jessie were honored by the denomination and I was asked to say a few words of appreciation for Duane and Jessie. In the background on the wall during the program a slide show was being shown of different things from Duane and Jessie's life. Low and behold, as I was approaching the platform to share some heart felt comments about them the following picture flashed up on the screen with the title superimposed over it - "How Did This Get In Here?":
How indeed? is the question. I would like to take a moment to clear up any misconceptions that this unfortunate photograph might bring to mind. First the story behind the photo. I was visiting my co-worker Kevin Hoffman in Cochabamba. He wanted to go swimming and asked me to go with him. But I had not brought along my swimming suit. No problem. My other co-worker, Jenny Wolheter, was also there. James has extras, she said, and I could borrow one of them. So what did she send up to my room by the hand of Kevin but a Speedo style suit. Not one to be unkind to my fellow missionaries, I felt the only prudent thing to do was to put on the Speedo. But as you can see from the photo, I hardly have a Speedo body. So, in the name of modesty, I first put on a pair of boxers and then proceeded to apply the Speedo for the ever popular layered look. That is the story, pure and simple. How or why my fellow co-workers conspired with the office staff to disgrace the Erickson presentation is beyond me. But I am willing to let bygones be bygones and allow past offences to be overlooked.
But that is not the only unfortunate thing to have arisen at General Conference regarding the innocent author of this blog. On Tuesday evening there was a dinner for the missionary staff, office staff and members of the mission board. On each table was a small card entitled Missionary Trivia or some such thing. It was meant to be an innocent game (I will give them that much credit) to allow the attenders to learn little known facts about Evangelical Church missionaries. Imagine my alarm and surprise (was it really a surprise?) to read the first question. While I do not have the document in hand it read something like this: What missionary was arrested for driving without a shirt on? Now this is an old rumor. A quick check with Snopes on the internet would show the falseness of this rumor and attack upon my character. While not as vicious as the original rumor which stated that I was arrested for driving NAKED, I would like to purge the air of this once and for all. I was not arrested nor was I driving naked. The story behind the rumor is simple and clear. We had just recently moved to Santa Cruz. My wife, Niki, was sick with some kind of lung thing which required her to receive treatments at a local clinic. I had taken her in the evening for her treatment. We were getting in the car to return home and, as it was a hot Santa Cruz evening, and as we were not yet accustomed to the heat, I simply pulled off my tee shirt for the drive home. (We had no car with air-conditioning in those days. Now we do.) As we approached the Chiriguano circle on the second ring to turn onto the two way avenue to go home, the police were stopping all cars and checking licenses. The officer simply said to me, as I handed him my license, Young man, wear your shirt while you are driving. There was no mention of arrest, handcuffs, nor an embarrassing mug shot. I did learn, however, that in Santa Cruz it is indeed a law that you must wear a shirt while driving, a regulation that I have carefully followed since then. So I would like to once and for all put to rest the arrested driving naked rumor.
There is more to come about my adventure in the States but it will wait for another entry. Thanks for coming back after my absence and keep reading for the rest of the story.
Ah, the ever popular layered look...
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