Okay, No it really didn't BUT IT TRIED!!!!! You know one of the great things about being a foreign missionary is you genuinely DO get to have many many adventures and hair raising experiences! (At least I WISH they were hair raising because by now I am closing in on being as bald as a cue ball!)
Having been a missionary in the Middle East since the Late 1980's I have lived through the Intifada, Numerous Suicide Bombers, The Gulf War I and The Gulf War II The Lebanese Civil War and just so many FUN TIMES!!! One of the scariest yet even as it was unfolding HILARIOUS times was during the end of the Gulf War I President Clinton had threatened to bomb Iraq again.
President Saddam Hussein responded by saying that if President Clinton Bombed Iraq that HE would then bomb Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with NERVE GAS!!!!!!
Well Jordan is situated directly BETWEEN Iraq and Israel and its army is similar to the old Keystone Kops! If we were ever invaded they surely would have thrown their weapons down and bravely ran away!
BUT we weren't being threatened with invasion but the church in Al Fuheis (where I lived) was only about twenty miles from Jerusalem and if even ONE of those nerve gas missiles went awry we were all DONE FER!
So there was a panic that grew by the hour in Jordan as the situation worsened, people didn't know WHAT to do! There was no where to go and the country bordered on HYSTERIA!
About four in the afternoon at the height of the panic the Jordanian Propaganda Machine kicked in to calm the people down!
"There is absolutely NOTHING to worry about!" The radio blared in both English and Arabic. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!.....Everyone can easily protect themselves from the effects of a nerve gas attack!" As we listened wanting to believe that we hung on every word wondering out loud .... HOW?????!!!!
The radio commentator (on the English Station a female with a soft and gently calming voice) gleefully advised us to go to our local market and buy ROLLS OF SARAN WRAP! "You see" she said "You simply have to find a room in your house that you all will go into during the Nerve Gas Attack, and TAPE SARAN WRAP OVER THE WINDOWS AND THE DOORS and YOU WILL BE SAVED!!!!!!"
Needless to say it was like the Calgary Stampede as every market in the Capital of Amman was swamped with tens of thousands of Arabs demanding SARAN WRAP! I MUST HAVE SARAN WRAP!!!!!
The price of a roll of Saran Wrap shot up from just about a dollar to Twenty and Thirty Dollars a roll!!!!! And SIMPLY COULD NOT BE FOUND ON THE SHELVES within minutes of that brilliant announcement!
As I joined the crowds (Who says I am not easily led????) there at the Amman Safeway looking for the all powerful Saran Wrap IT HIT ME!!!! (to Quote one of the worlds greatest philosophers and deepest thinkers BUGS BUNNY) "WHAT A MAROON!!!!!" Because in that rush to buy Saran Wrap to save me from Biological Warfare I had forgotten that I have a refuge in Jesus of Nazareth that no amount of Saran Wrap can begin to duplicate! As the wave of panic grew and grew throughout the country I could only ask God to forgive my momentary going along with it, forgetting that deep inside me there really was a PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING! Some men trust in Saran Wrap I think I will continue to trust in THE LORD!
I love it... thanks for sharing!
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