I Am A Missionary to Mars: Chapter 2
Chapter 2: A Bumpy Beginning
“And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders…” John 15:5 WEB
Dear Journal,
So much has happened and we haven’t even arrived on Mars yet! Let’s see, where should I start? Well, one thing is that I’ve been thinking of Psalm 8 where it says,
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;
4 what is man, that you think of him?”
I keep staring out the windows of our hypersonic shuttle, but let me back up.
First, we went on a speedplane to get to our launch site. The snacks on the speedplane were super scrumptious-pupizzas (pupusas that are like pizzas)! Dad talked with me in his really serious way. He basically has two modes: serious and silly. Anyway, he reminded me that God blessed Abraham so he could be a blessing and the one who has been given much-well, from him much is expected . He encouraged me to shine light like on a hill so that it can result in praise to our Heavenly Father-all that sort of thing. Mom was reading Psalms.
When we launched there was some kind of delay so we started singing old songs like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “Blessed Assurance.” We also made up songs like “God Made Mars And Me Too” and “If There Were Martians God Would Be Their Creator.” Those songs sounded better with percussion.
On our 5th day on the shuttle I was eating with my parents in the food court area when I saw a little girl on the upper deck. No one ever exactly said that the upper deck is only for adults, but it’s the kind of rule that you can figure out by paying attention. There are a lot of control panels and other important things up there.
So I saw this little girl and here’s the thing-she was wearing the same kind of dress that Maggie used to wear when we were little. She even had the same kind of hair. I won’t describe it because then I might start thinking about Maggie’s hair and that would be a weird thing to dwell on.
So I looked around to see where the girl’s parents were and it seemed like they were managing some of those controls up there. They were focused on discussing a problem of some sort. She seemed curious, almost as if she was planning to turn some of the dials up there. “I will be back soon.” I said to my parents. They were savoring their steak and must have thought that I was going to the restroom.
I climbed up the narrow steel spiral staircase to the girl to keep her from touching the shuttle instruments and then I noticed that she had tears on her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
“I miss Sammy.” She said in a whisper kind of voice.
I asked the obvious, “Who is Sammy?”
“Sammy is my cat and we had to leave him with my cousins so we can fly.”
“I’m sorry to hear about Sammy. Did you know that there’s a ‘Samuel’ in the Bible?”
She shook her head.
“The Bible also talks about how God is always with us, even when we fly. It says that Jesus paid for our sins, our wrongs, by dying on the Cross and rising again. We can have forgiveness. We can follow God. We can have peace with God.”
Some people like to talk about spiritual warfare. Our family isn’t one of those. But maybe what happened next was spiritual warfare. There was a big bump, a jolt. And then, to my shock, a flame leapt out of a panel next to the girl’s head. Alarms went off and an oxygen warning siren screeched.
I didn’t think. I barely even prayed, “God, help!”
Super fast, I swung her over my shoulders and scurried down that metal spiral staircase. It must have been God who acted because I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing; I was just moving.
Someone screamed. It might have been her mom.
In a few minutes the adults had everything under control again and her parents were in the food court thanking me and talking to my parents about the specifics of the malfunction on the upper deck.
My heart was beating fast and I felt like I might vomit or pass out or something, but I also felt surprisingly calm- on the outside at least.
Wow, remembering that makes me feel kind of tired. I will tell you more later.