I need to write about this before I forget.
A week or two before my birthday, Mike and my kids gave me a bag full of cruise itinerary. That was just fine and I was happy, because we were planning to take our whole family on a cruise in February (which is this and next week) and we were also planning on going with Mike's mom. So to see the cruise info was great.
They were all smiling and telling me to look closer. I saw my name, and Mike's mom. Then I saw my niece, Mike's sisters, Mike's sister's mother in law...it didn't make sense.
So I was invited on the "Crocker family sister cruise" that goes on almost every year-for my birthday. It was fun, relaxation, sometimes wild, sometimes intense.
This was all in an answer to prayer. I gotta back up. Our church was doing a missionary trip to the Dominican Republic. I have already been there with Mike. I really felt I should go. I asked the church team if I could be included, and they said they had already picked the group. I really did not understand. So (immaturely) I felt rejected. I couldn't understand why I couldn't go. I had prayed about it before and after not being included.
Then I got my birthday present. Guess where one of the cruise stops was? The Dominican Republic. I ordered 50 gospels of John and tracks and bookmarks on salvation. I studied my Spanish. I got my own copy of a Spanish Bible.
On the cruise I read, "Marley and Me" and throughout the Bible- a lot about Saul and King David. I didn't realize that was witnessing, but it was. I just don't care what other people think about me reading; and I didn't read in my room because I was working on my tan, watching people, and working on my tan.
Anyway, one of my favorite hang-outs was the piano bar. There was a notorious drunk named Susan, that the piano singer stuck in every song. The whole bar sang "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie" over and over. And everyone was very drunk. The night before I was to do my personal "missionary" visit to Dominica de Republica we closed the piano bar and everyone headed to the Lido deck (where you eat past gluttony). This was where I discovered that I was dancing with 2 Indian Sheiks, a Jehovah Witness, an almost born-again Catholic, and some unidentified others. "Bobby" who I thought must have been a "Pedro" or maybe a "Hussein" (Mexican or Arab) and I had a heated discussion. Evolution, Big Band, Global Warming, relativity, the indescribable-unknowable god of the universe, good works. The Way the Truth and the Life. At one point he wanted to KILL me. It was at this moment when our 2 and 3 person conversation (his fellow Sheik cousin came in and out of the conversation, who was some kind of physiological therapy guy. He had blue contacts on, and he resembled an Arab Kramer with eyes like Marilyn Manson---it was difficult at times to have a conversation with him with true eye contact) became about 7. The other Christians came and all gathered around and for about an hour more I was telling them who Jesus was. There were even more because there were workers on the ship sweeping and mopping, but definitely present.
It was the morning that I was planning on handing out the Bibles. I went back to my room to take a nap. But I couldn't sleep, because of what had happened. It was very intense. It was spiritual warfare.
Anyways. I didn't sleep. I took a shower, ate an omelet (on the Lido), drank coffee, and packed my Bibles. I thought that the Bibles might be confiscated when I was debarking the boat. When I got off the first thing I saw was a few kid's teams playing baseball, and I had wanted to bring a bunch of baseballs and give them to all the kids I met, and then pass on the Bibles. Carrying a bunch of baseballs on the airplane didn't seem feasible, so I thought Sammy Sosa's country must have baseballs I could buy. I wanted to go to the market(s) to get the balls and to pass out the Bibles and bookmarks. So I got on the bus. Guess where it took me? To the hoity toity rich resort, the I'm better than you mall where you buy 100% mark ups, because that's what the gluttons do. I thought, "what am I gonna do?" I wanted to give baseballs to the poor kids. I wanted to share the "Hope" that is revealed in John. So I got of the bus, and made sure that I knew how to get back to the ship. I decided to make the best of my predicament. I went on a search for baseballs, because at least I could give baseball presents to the kids I saw playing baseball on the fields. I went to the pharmacy, because it was the only place in the mall that had toys, and I went to a couple of children's clothes shops ($200 outfits). Nobody had baseballs. I went back to the pharmacy. Almost nobody could understand my English, and I understood their Spanish quite a bit less. I was dense, but not that dense...the store workers weren't rich. And there was an open Bible on the pharmacy worker's chair. I asked her if she wanted a book of John, and some Scriptures on Salvation, and the bookmarks.
It probably took an hour to give out the Bibles. People came up to me and asked for more for their friends. I have never encountered so many Christians in such a small area. Real Christians. Not the politically correct, valley of the dolls you find in America.
There was/is a lot more to say about it. I hope my eyes weren't bloodshot.
Another fun time was the day at sea with the book, "Marley and Me" and the Bible. During a break with much peer pressure, I was urged on with my party-mateys to imbibe in the fruity-tuity drinks. Let me tell you, there was no church wine, no Riunite Lambrusko, and after the afternoon of the mission trip, and a full day of sun and Bible. I was stone sober. It wasn't funny. The drunks were laughing at everything. at me, too, of course. So to be sociable, at least outwardly I sat down by all the girls and there was this older guy that was having way too much fun viewing the show from my mateys. My shipmates have very large boobs. It was too much for the guy. I ended up talking to him for over an hour. It ended up being a Baptist minister. Whose kid was a minister. We talked about what it was like to be drunk. He had never tasted anything, but grape juice-so he wasn't a Nazarene, but he didn't imbibe.
All in all it was an awesome trip, with plenty of wonderful surprises.
I wonder if my family will let me go next year?
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