My Sister's Wit.

I couldn’t understand the anything the preacher said at church last week, the Liberian English was just too thick as it often is when the preacher’s here get excited. So my mind started to wonder and rested on one of my sisters, Michelle. Which means I smiled and chuckled to myself throughout the rest of the service. Michelle may not have been born a comedian but she certainly, perfected the dead pan comedic timing over the years.  She studied hard under my Dad and our older brother, I can remember the painful attempts at humor when she was five years old, we did not “humor” her efforts and so she quickly learned what was funny and what was annoying and became the mastermind she is today. But still I can hear her telling her favorite joke “Why did the Skelton cross the road? Because it was being chased by a dog!” Five year old Michelle cracked herself up with that one. Here are some of the stories that made me smile and make odd noises trying to squelch my giggles.

 

Michelle’s Birth

The earliest memory I have pertaining to Michelle was the night of her birth. So it’s not really about her but she caused the incident. I was 4 ½ years old when Michelle was born and somehow in the process I was dropped off at my Grandparents house during her birth, that is all blur now but I distinctly remember falling asleep alone in the center of a giant bed at my grandparents and waking up horrified to find a giant person in the bed with me. It turned out to be my great-grandmother, who complained all the next day of little Vickie hogging the bed. She didn’t live there at the time so don’t really know how she got there in the middle of the night either other than that it was the power of Michelle’s personality causing humors awkward incidents as she came into the world.

Ears

Baby Michelle had a thing for ears. Didn’t matter who you were, if you held baby Michelle she would reach up and stroke your ear lobe while she sucked her thumb and took a nap. This caused many awkward situations when introducing baby Michelle to new friends.

Play place

We were home school hippies. We ate homemade bread with home ground grains, I don’t remember eating out that much unless we were with our Grands until we were much older. Therefore I remember Michelle’s first romp in a CFA playhouse. She may have been 2 or 3 and she excitedly went scampering to the top of the slow incline foam ladder ramp, and then promptly fell all the way down it. I just remember her turning into a flailing ball and seeing head, butt, head, butt all the way to the bottom. Granny and I both busted out laughing as we watched through the window. Granny and I both have that fault of laughing when people fall… ungracious, I know. She was fine, didn’t even appear to notice the playhouse rejection.

 

Will You Open This? No.

There were not seatbelt law yet… or maybe we just didn’t abide them. But often we scrambled around in the back of the minivan on our trips around Georgia. On the way back from the grocery store Michelle had a package she couldn’t open herself. She went to each person in the car (Mom, Dad, Clay and Myself) shouting “Can you open this!” We all answered “No!” in turn so she continued around the circle until Mom stomped the breaks and all we saw were her feet straight up in the air. Did I mention I have a fault about laughing when people fall down?

 

Best Friends

Michelle not only never met a stranger when she was a kids, she never met anyone who wasn’t her best friend either. She’d come running over pulling a kid by the hand and exclaim “this is my best friend!” turning to smiling new comrade, “hey what is your name?” New comrade, “Mary.” “This is my best friend Mary!”

 

Bicycle Trick

When we moved to “the city,” which was actually a close knit subdivision, we no longer had property, creeks, and wildlife to entertain us so we resorted to amusing ourselves in other ways. One was a bike trick Michelle came up with, in which I road on the peddles, Rebecca stood on the pegs, and Michelle drooped her legs and arms over the handle bars with her butt hanging just over the tire. The older she got the more difficult this trick became as her butt began dragging on the tire below. “Alright I can still do it! (ZZZIPPP!) Ouch! It’s okay I got this!”

 

The Linen Closet

At our new house in Jackson the hall was very narrow and at one point had the laundry room to one side and the linen closet at the other. This was probably a fire hazard but you couldn’t open both the doors at once and you couldn’t pass through the hall if either of the doors were open. The four of us kids were always in and out of the linen closet getting dish rags, towel, sheets etc. And we were perpetually leaving the door ajar to our mother’s great displeasure. Who would come through the hall lamenting the door being open again and slamming it shut. Michelle wasn’t tall enough to reach most of the shelves in it so would climb up on them. Multiple times Mom would come from behind the door angrily exclaiming “Who left this door open again!” and slam the door shut, pancaking Michelle between the door and the shelves. It would be quiet for a minute and then you’d hear a little “ouch” come from inside the closet, as she was thinking out her escape route. Mom always felt really bad after the incidents but sometimes because Michelle wasn’t loud about it she didn’t even know she’d squashed her in there, until she’d pass back by and Michelle would ask politely to be let out. 

 

Cleaning the Room

While both our parents were working (Mom had a part time Job) I often stayed at home with Michelle and Becca and made sure they did their chores and some school work. Michelle and Becca shared a room. Rebecca has always been the neatest person in the house. Her bed usually made with her animals arranged in order etc. Michelle’s bed was usually made too but that was because she didn’t want to unmake it so she slept on top of the made up bed with a small blanket or towel. While cleaning their room Michelle became convinced that the mess was primarily created by Rebecca (the neat one) but that she was always having to clean it up. Michelle taped a line down the center of the room and declared that half was her side and the other half Rebecca would have to keep clean herself. In a short time Rebecca’s side was spotless and Michelle had become distracted by some toys and hadn’t put anything away. Michelle realizing her error did not relent in her conviction that indeed the messes were due to Rebecca, gathered up all her toys and dumped them across the line in defiance.

 

The Shoes

We all got up and got ready for church like we always do on Sunday morning. Michelle took her shoes off the front porch and slipped them on and we headed to church. Right about the time we entered the front lobby of the church I began to smell a putrid smell but it wasn’t that strong so I went to Sunday school and forgot about it. Michelle was still in children’s Sunday school so she went down the opposite hall to her classroom. She sat next to the pastors’ son in class and was overcome by an awful smell. She didn’t want to embarrass him but she was sure the horrid smell was coming from him. So all through class she just held her breath and didn’t say a word. Finally Sunday school was over and Michelle and I met in the lobby like we normally did. I sat down next to Michelle on the sofa in the foyer and found myself overwhelmed by that putrid smell again only now it had worsened. “What is that smell?” I exclaimed. “I don’t know” Michelle said in wonder, “but it’s all over the church it was like this in my class”. Mom came into entrance hall and smelled it too. People coming in and out the front door were scrunching their nose in disgust and saying to each other “where’s that smell coming from?” Finally, and I’m not sure how but, my mother discovered it was Michelle’s shoes. My sister had left them on the porch where our male cat sprayed them, it was winter when this happened so she did not smell it when she put them on because they were cold, but as she walked about the church they heated up and the awful smell followed her where ever she went. Needless to say Michelle didn’t wear shoes the rest of the time at church that day. I can still remember the cute guy I had a crush on singing out loudly “it only smells on that side of the lobby” pointing in our general direction; Michelle and I still oblivious to the rancid shoes.

 

Biscuit Head!

As Michelle got older her comedy became less physical humor and more, funny sayings and quick humor. While walking the Dogs together she exclaimed that I was a “biscuit head!” for allowing our leads to cross. When I asked what on earth a biscuit head was she explained calmly it was “half human, half delectable goodness.”

 

Lim-rod

While cleaning the kitchen together (a job that was usually hers) I tried to put the ice cream scoop in the dishwasher she yelled, “That doesn’t go in there you.. (she paused as if searching to find the appropriate word to vent her fury)… you Lim-rod!”

 

I Have A Dream

Michelle came to me one day while I was on the computer in my room. She said she wanted to make two boxes of cupcakes and asked if she could just double the recipe on the back of the box and mix the two mixes together. I answered in the affirmative and after a few minutes (because we were home alone) I went to check on her baking progress. When I came into the kitchen she had just begun to stir the two mixes together which turned out to be one chocolate mix and one vanilla mix. I said, “Oh Michelle! I didn’t know you meant two different mixes!”

She glared at me for a second and then continued stirring them again while she proclaimed, “I have a dream! That my twelve little cupcakes…..”

 

Strength

Michelle was always small and cute but she was also strong and athletic. She played softball and had a pretty good arm. I was never the athletic one, I would always bring a book to her games or while she was practicing in the front yard. It’s not that I hated to play sports, it’s just that, I always ended up injuring myself or others and I also hate competition… yeah I guess I did always hate sports. She tried to get me to practice with her a few times but after I beamed her in the butt every time I struck the ball, (I had nearly a perfect batting average in high school PE but never made it to base because I always hit it straight at the pitcher) she gave up on that and bounced the ball off the house.

At a church youth event we both attended, I was standing with some boys watching their valiant attempts at throwing stones across this manmade lake. They were trying their hardest to land a stone on the ground at the other side of the lake and failing. Michelle came flouncing up behind us oblivious, “Hey what are y’all doing? Trying to hit that skinny tree there?” she said squinting across that water. The boy already knowing Michelle’s strength, mumbled some things under their breath, and kicked at a few pebbles as they looked at the ground. Michelle not noticing picked up the first stone at her feet, “Fun! I want to try!” And then succeeded in hitting the skinny tree on the other side of the lake on her first throw. She jumped back and said “Yay I got it!” expecting to be high-fived by someone. The boys just mopped off, while I smiled at her. “What?! What did I do?!”

If you wanted to flirt with Michelle playfully punching her on the arm was not something you should try, as the boys quickly learned. “Ouch why’d you do that? (Serious Punch back).

As we were standing in the church hall the youth pastor passed Michelle and hit her on the arm playfully as he passed. “What was that for!” Michelle exclaimed. “It was just a friendly hit,” replied the pastor in passing. Michelle then turned to me and said “this is just a friendly punch!” And then punched me straight in the face! My head went back and hit the wall! We couldn’t stop laughing after that one. She really didn’t mean to follow through with the motion, she just miss-judged.

I Was Just Doing This!

 

Standing during a homeschool Co-op meet, I was holding a glass of juice in a plastic cup. Michelle walks up punches the cup from the bottom sending it splattering everywhere. Me: “Michelle! What on earth are you doing!” Michelle “What?! I was just doing this.. (displays latest dance moves which include punching the air).

 

Bob

Growing up I had two imaginary friends and a fairy which was born from a bean pod I found in the woods. Those who have had imaginary friends know that they find you, you don’t find them. Michelle was jealous of my imaginary friends growing up so she fabricated two, Nicholas and his girlfriend Necklace. They were conspicuously only around when My imaginary friends came over to play. But Michelle shouldn’t have made all the fuss because eventually an imaginary friend did find her albeit a little late in the game. His name was Bob. He showed up around the start of Michelle’s middle school career. Bob was special, I couldn’t see him (obviously he was Michelle’s imaginary friend) but she said that Bob was a dwarf who had no arms and legs, was mute and spoke through sign language.  Bob often came with us to play tennis. (since they wanted me to continue playing tennis with them we never learned the rules to the game so we couldn’t be competitive and we ended the game whenever Michelle sent the last ball sailing over the high fence with her soft ball arm.) Bob always missed his set. Rebecca and I were always to one side, and Michelle and Bob on the other. Whenever the ball would go to his side, Michelle would yell to warn him “That’s yours Bob!” but he always missed. If we ever bemoaned Bob’s poor tennis skills Michelle would get really defensive of him and call us insensitive to his physical challenges. She would also send him down the court to retrieve tennis balls and we would sometimes wait 10 minutes for him before we’d get impatient and get them ourselves while Michelle stood back saying “No Guys! He was almost there! Now you made him feel bad…” One day inexplicably Bob went missing, for weeks Michelle kept asking if we had seen Bob, to which we always replied “He’s Invisible!” Michelle walked outside with me as I was preparing to drive to work, I opened up my car trunk and Michelle exclaimed suddenly “BOB! Vickie How could you!?”

Telepathy

Homeschooler become really tight with their siblings, often we would finish each other’s sentences. Sometimes we can just look at each other and know what the other was about to say. We had conversation like:

“Hey did you get that thingy?”

“Yeah I gave it to…”

“Oh yeah, what’s his face, right?”

“Right.”

Once we were watching our youth ministers 7 year old while he was preaching on an out of town trip. I said something vague to Michelle and she answered the question and the kid was baffled. “How did you know what she wanted?” Michelle answered nonchalantly “Because we can read each other’s mind.” The kid was like, “That’s not true!” To prove it Michelle and I then stared at each other and did random tasks as though the other had just commanded us to do it through our thoughts. We would exclaim, “Oh don’t say that!” after a long stare, and things of that nature. Blew that kid’s mind.

 

Secret Hand Shake

Michelle and I, also perfected our secret handshake. Not with each other, with other persons. It goes like this. Meet friend in public setting. “Hey do you want to learn my secret handshake?” Unsuspecting victim, “Sure.”

Begin to shake hands, then hold tight to the person’s hand as you phantom pulling away and begin shouting, “I don’t know you! Let go of me!”

Good times good times… (also a frequent Michelle quote)

 

Slap in the face

Whenever something almost fell over, or two people almost collided or some other disaster was narrowly avoided if Michelle was standing close to you she would always exclaim “That was a close one, Fhew!” while wiping her brow with the back of her hand and then smacking you in the face with the continued hand swipe. It made me laugh every time.

Aliens

Michelle was even humorous in her sleep. She often talked in her sleep but she never said anything about the weather or asked for pancakes, she always sat bolt upright in bed suddenly, stared at you with bleary eyes and began exclaiming “They are coming! They are coming!” If you ventured to ask who were coming? She would get annoyed and yell louder, “THEY ARE COMING.”

 

Social Life

Whenever people worried about those home school kids who have problems socializing… they were talking about me. But luckily Michelle came along to help me navigate the confusing public schoolers social rules. Before she entered the youth group I contented myself with climbing trees to spy on their weird ways unnoticed or read the Bible more during youth events. When she graduated up, we discussed the public schoolers huddles and tried to discover how your broke into them. It was truly perplexing, people walked up and sometimes the group opened to include them and sometimes they remained closed. We tried creeping around the outside of these huddles and that didn’t work. Eventually Michelle decided to take a bolder approach and got a running start. She ran right through the middle of them and to our surprise they opened up like a failed red rover and let her pass straight through before closing up again. She trotted up beside me… “Well that didn’t work.”

But that didn’t last too long for Michelle, by the end of that school year, I was standing by my popular young sister who had amassed an entire group of homeschool friends who were attending our church now due mainly because of Michelle’s influence. There was a large group all in a circle and Michelle was chattering and entertaining them suddenly she stopped noticing that a public schooler had intruded their group standing beside her. She said (sarcastically) “Hey you’re not a home schooler?!” And bumped him out of the circle. Sometimes things come full circle.

 

Movie Short

Michelle, Rebecca and I only attempted two movie shorts. The first was “Odd Anomalies of the Church.” We completed that one and still watch it from time to time. The other we never completed and we lost the tape but I still play it in my mind often. I wrote the outline of the skit and Michelle filled in everything else. We painted Rebecca completely green and put her in my big green sweat shirt. Michelle painted green around her eye and a green splotch the shape of Texas on her stomach. She then proceeded, in a melancholy tone, to the camera, to explain that her and her sister were half alien and half human and had recently been banned from their spaceship home because of something she did. She said, “My sister, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Narf Click Click, Is angry at me for getting us kicked out.” The rest of the skit whenever she talked to Becca’s character without cracking a smile Michelle would call out “ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Narf Click click, please don’t be angry!”

 

The Stage

After Michelle and Becca moved with the parents up too Cincinnati I would come up on breaks to visit and Dad was continually improving the house or yard in some way. One break I came up and he had just installed a platform in the living room in which he was planning to install a wood burning stove on after the next pay check. As we all sat at dinner Michelle commented to Dad, “When are you going to finish building that stove?”

Dad answered sarcastically, “Who said anything about a stove?”

Michelle answered gesturing towards the platform, “Well what is that?! A home Stage?”

Dad answered simply, “Yes.”

Michelle turned Rebecca immediately, “Your puppets can go on tonight, I’ll do interpretive dance tomorrow night.”

 

As Big as My Face

It seemed for a while there people were saying that about everything “Wow That is as big as my face!” Especially when referring to food. Mom plopped a giant baked potato on Michelle’s plate, it was so huge it literally knocked all the other food on the plate off on to the table. Michelle gasped and exclaimed “It’s as big as! AS BIG AS!” She then stuck her face right down on top of it and said coolly, “Yup.”

 

It Bit my Toe!

Rebecca woke up with start, as she heard a sharp yell followed by the disruption of a table in the bathroom connected to the bedroom she and Michelle were sharing at our grandmother’s house for the holidays. She jumped out of bed anxiously and went to the bathroom door to knock, “Michelle, Michelle? Are you okay?” (More shuffling around). Rebecca a little more alarmed, “Michelle! Are you okay?” Michelle flung the door open dramatically, standing in her towel at the door she exclaimed, “It’s in there and it bit my toe!” I woke up when I heard the door creak as they opened up their bed room door beside the air mattress I was sleeping on in the living room. I rolled over and opened one eye to discover both sisters staring at me in an alarmed manner, Michelle in her towel, Rebecca with disheveled bed hair in her pajamas. Me: “What do you want?” Becca: “There’s a lizard in the shower.” Me: “What do you want me to do about it, there are two of you.”  They answered at once: Becca: “I can’t touch a lizard!” Michelle: “It bit my toe!” Michelle apparently saw the lizard in the shower and tried to shoo it into a cup with her foot. The lizard backlashed and latched on to her toe which startled Michelle into falling over backwards out of the shower and on to the furniture against the wall.

 

This was Michelle’s second incident involving a lizard bite. On a youth mission trip, Michelle had attempted to save a lizard who was becoming over heated under a plastic tarp at a worksite. When she got him untangled he thanked her by biting her thumb and then running away with a hunk of Michelle’s skin hanging in his mouth. Michelle was dubbed “Lizzy” the rest of the week.

 

The Story of Esther Through African Eyes

A month or more ago, I was asked to speak at a women’s conference up country in Liberia. At first I refused, I’m not a speaker and they were using the term “Preacher” which I doubly am not. But they stopped using the term preacher and they said I could just teach a story instead. I can do that. Anyone can teach a story. So I started to think on what story to teach. I was thinking either Ruth or Esther because they are women and it was a women’s conference. I couldn’t decide though so I turned to my most trusted advisor, my mother, and we decided together Esther was the best choice. Liberia is the first African country to have a woman for a president. Madame Ellen Sirleaf is in her second term now and her presence as leader in Liberia has done a lot for giving women recognition and respect. Today, more than any other time, women in Liberia are able to take on important leadership roles in their society. So Esther seemed like an appropriate choice, I mean she is beautiful, she stood up to the man, she was firm in her beliefs and she shines out as an independent godly woman, right?

The awesome thing about storying or teaching bible stories orally is that I don’t actually do anything but tell the story and let God do the teaching through his own word. There are some rules to storying which I cling too, one is you never answer a question out of your own knowledge, you always refer back to the story and retell whatever portion is applicable to the question. Example: Q. “Did sin come into the world because Adam ate an Apple?” A. “What does the story say?  The story says God told Adam he could eat from any of the trees in the garden except from one, the tree that gives the understanding of good and evil….. etc.”  This allows me to be off the hook for my limited knowledge on ancient biblical script and hard to define theology and keeps erroneous personal thought from becoming new African Theology. Also it has the added benefit of not allowing me to crowd the discussion with my western ideas but instead really learn a story and the alternate way of viewing it.

So the Story of Esther, to my western mind, was about how Esther with God’s help, stood up for herself. It was about her independence, I mean she came alone to the harem she made a name for herself, she was praised above the rest, and then she stood up for her people. Y’all all saw “One Night with the King” right? I wasn’t a huge fan of that movie (I may have laughed so hard when her necklace exploded into sparkles that my friends made me leave the room) but it summed up a lot of how I viewed the story of Esther. It filled in all the “gaps” just as I had always been trained to fill them.

There were about 70 or 80 women at the conference from young adult to shameless dancing grandma’s also present were about 20 to 30 men who were there for curiosity sake or maybe they were spying on us? I broke the story down into 3 parts (it’s a long story) and told them in sections over the course of two days. After telling the part of the story twice I would ask them “what was your favorite part” and “For you, what was the hardest thing to hear or if it has happened to you what would have been the hardest thing?” I asked before I started the story who had heard the story of Esther before and only 3 or 4 people raised their hands. I was a little skeptical that so few had heard it before but when I ended the second part of the story before Esther makes her request to the King and they all started to ask “Did the King spare Esther? Did Esther go to the King?” then I knew they really hadn’t heard the story before.

Okay so without further ado, here are some of my observations on how the Liberians view the Esther story.

The Liberians were far more interested in whether or not Queen Vashti was right or wrong for refusing to come when the King called her than any American would be. We spent more time discussing this point than any other. There were a few women who voiced that they thought Vashti was ashamed to come and that’s why she didn’t come but no one thought she was right not to come. I tried to make them see my American version in my head by reiterating that the King was likely drunk. In the Americanized “One Night with the King” version, the King is drunk and orders for Vashti to come before him half naked and she refuses for modesties sake, but the story doesn’t really say that. It just says she was ordered to come wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at, the king might have been drunk but the texts is silent on whether that hindered his decision making. I wouldn’t exactly be upset if my own husband wanted to show me off in front of his friends, maybe a little embarrassed. There could have been cultural “no, no’s” that were being crossed but how can we know from the text? So the African view was predominantly that Vashti should have come whether the king was drunk or not he was still her husband and she should have obeyed him. They all seemed to agree (both the Liberian men present and the women) with the advisor’s decision to punish Vashti. They clapped when the decree was sent out proclaiming that “every man should be ruler of his own household.” Now they did not say “the King was right to put her away and take another wife,” but they did say Vashti should be punished. They didn’t clap when Vashti got put away; they all looked grave, like they were trying to decide if it was too harsh a punishment.

I never paid that much attention to Vashti, I always felt a bit sorry for her and thought the king was a jerk for putting her away but to me she was just the backstory. Whether or not the king was right or wrong was of no consequence to me as far as the story goes. But to the Liberians it was one of the most important points; Queen Vashti was disobedient and therefore was punished.

The second most important point is contrasted against the first; Esther was an obedient woman since childhood and therefore is rewarded. I never noticed it before in the text, twice before Esther is made queen the text says that “Esther kept her family background a secret because Mordecai told her to do so and she was always obedient to Mordecai since her childhood.” In fact, while crafting the story I considered leaving that line out but left it because of the hiding her family background part. I always noticed the keeping the background a secret that was a major piece to the plot, without that piece the king never would have made those decrees knowing his favored new queen was a Jew. The Liberians acknowledge that Esther was wise to keep it a secret because more than likely the Jew were not favored (that what they think, they didn’t give a reason but I suspect the reasoning is either “well why else would you keep your nationality a secret?” or maybe they caught on that Mordecai was in exile) but what they emphasis the most is that Esther is obedient to Mordecai’s command.

The women loved that Esther did not take anything with her to the king except what the man in charge of the women suggested. In fact, on their retelling of the story they kept on trying to embellish this part of the story (much like is seen in “One Night with the King”). To them, her following his suggestion is another sign of Esther’s obedient behavior and that she did not care about the outward appearance like the other women.

Something else they talked about a lot, which I had never given a second thought, is the fact the Esther was adopted by Mordecai and that she treated him with authority even though she was adopted. And they also brought up that God can use any body even orphans. I did not expect them to pay too much attention to the fact she was an orphan but it became a major sub topic. “She did not go running around and being disrespectful because he wasn’t her father; she listened to him and obeyed him like he was her father!”

Okay are you catching the differences here? To me this first part of the story is mainly back plot, “here’s how Esther became Queen.” To them, this part of the story is crucial, “here’s why Esther became queen; obedience” (and also “here’s why Vashti is demoted; disobedience”).

The second part of the story, from Mordecai revealing the murder plot at the King’s gate to Esther saying if “I perish I perish,” they focused on Mordecai a lot more than Esther. (What?! Hello! People this story is about independent Esther!) They were so proud of him for being brave enough to tell the King about the murder plot. They did not say too much about his refusal to bow, the pastor of the church made a point of it. I think they did not make any definitive statements about it because Mordecai was breaking the law by refusing to bow. The text again is quiet on whether Mordecai is right or wrong in doing this, just that he refused to bow. It doesn’t even tell us why he didn’t bow. In my Americanized version, Mordecai always makes a little speech about how he will only bow to God and not to man, but in the real story he doesn’t say anything. He just lets you interpret his actions. They were way impressed with him for tearing his clothes and putting on a display, when he hears about the forth coming doom of his people, especially since he was a marked man. They made comments like “If I were him I would have laid low, I would have been scared to make a scene.” This probably hit home to them a lot more being as during the Liberian civil war certain people groups became larger targets than others, you wouldn’t have wanted to put your neck out there like Mordecai did.

 They made approving sounds whenever Mordecai says to Esther “Do not think that because you are in the King’s household you alone among our people will escape. If you remain silent, help will come for our people from another place but you and your family will perish.” They were much more impressed with these two lines than the tagline the Esther story goes by in America “For who know that but you were given your royal position for such a time as this.” They made statements about how Esther did well because, unlike some people who would just forget their people when they came to power, Esther stood by her family. That line “Do not think that you alone among your people…” I think was the kicker for them, which is distinctly African. To me the story of Esther was always about a woman standing alone by God’s help but to them it was a woman remembering to obediently stand with her people with God’s help. As I told the story of Esther to the Liberians, which comes from the book titled for her, I began to see her as less of a major character. Esther is applauded because she is obedient, but Mordecai becomes the major hero for having raised and directed Esther, for standing against Haman, for saving the King’s life, for reminding Esther that she cannot stand alone without her people and for continuing to remember his people after he is made the second in command after King Xerxes. Why wasn’t it named the book of Mordecai?

In my telling of the story, for time’s sake, I left out the portion of the story involving Mordecai being honored, the part when Haman has to walk him around on the horse proclaiming “This is what the king does to him who delights to honor!” but one of the ladies present knew the whole story and went ahead and told the portion I had skipped during discussion time. I was glad she did. When I crafted the story I thought the major character was Esther but it turns out Mordecai is really more important. The Liberian’s loved that portion. The fact that Haman was forced to serve the man he wanted to kill. They were pretty excited about that. They said at the beginning of the story because Esther sowed a seed of obedience she reaped all the blessings of being queen. And they expressed the same sentiment for Mordecai’s story. Because he was a good man and reported the murderers and stood up to Haman he was rewarded.

Other high points: They clapped when the King extended the scepter to Esther. They clapped when the King gave Esther and Mordecai his signet ring to write the new law. They were very grave looking when Haman was killed on the pole. They all laughed when the king walks in on Haman falling on the couch to beg for his life and the King yells “will you even mistreat my wife while I am in the house with her?” It’s kind of fun to tell people a story new to them, it reminds you how you reacted the first time you heard it.

In closing Esther is an important part of the story, she’s just not as important as I thought. One thing they brought out about her that I found inspiring was that she did not go alone. That really is what made Esther and gave her that “for such a time as this” opportunity. One woman remarked, “I am really impressed with Esther because she prayed. That is the only reason that she was able to go to the king, she asked her people to pray for three days and she prayed too. That is the only reason she was able to do what she did and save her people.” Esther, the obedient orphan with the hero uncle stood by her people and prayed. She didn’t go alone.

How to make Instant Oreo Cream Pie box mix in West Africa

How to make Instant Oreo Cream Pie box mix in West Africa

Step 1: Scour all westernized groceries stores for anything premade.

Step 2: Discover Instant Oreo Cream Pie box kit and become exuberantly happy.

Step 3: Bring kit home, realize it requires milk and refrigeration and you do not have either milk or a refrigerator

Step 4: Put Instant Oreo Cream Pie box kit inside of Ziploc bag, place zip locked kit inside of plastic container with other mixes, put container inside of cupboard and let sit 4 months.

Step 5: Clean cupboard, find box kit and get excited because you’ve recently acquired a refrigerator and have milk inside it.

Step 6: Melt butter over gas stove because the refrigerator part of your frig doesn’t really work, only the freezer part so butter is hard (also there is no such thing as a microwave in West Africa).

Step 7: Combine provided Oreo Crumb crust with butter and mash into bottom of container

Step 8: Pour last of milk into bowl.

Step 9: Pour instant pie mix on top of milk along with two table spoons of dried ants you didn’t realize breached your food security system.

Step 10: Muffle your anger outburst so the guard doesn’t hear you and ask what it wrong.

Step 11: Strain milk, ants and instant pie mix through colander and paper towel (because the mesh is too large on the colander to catch the ants).

Step 12: Realize you have acquired some pretty sturdy paper towels and the milk isn’t leaking through.

Step 13: Milk paper towel like a cow utter until the milk streams through.

Step 14: Ignore any extra flecks of black floating around in your milk

Step 15: Add cold water and scoop of powder milk to make up for milk lost to the draining of the dead ant swimming pool.

Step 16: Congratulate yourself for purchasing two Oreo Cream Pie Instant box kits and steal the instant pie mix from the second box.

Step 17: Examine pie powder before you pour it into the milk (mama didn’t raise no dummy).

Step 18: Whip pie mix into fluffy yumminess and add provided Oreo bits to cover any remaining remnants.

Step 19: Press pie fluff over pie Crust and add more Oreo bits to the top (why not? You now have double the Oreo bits because you have already broken into the second pie box).  

Step 20: Chill in freezer and enjoy.
Step 21: Regret ever making fun of your teammate when you cringed at her for using your fork and she exclaimed “I’ve eaten a dead cockroach!”