Poor Polly Parrot
The following is a read aloud story for December 2005. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about children in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who have children and would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God. Sorry, this story is coming to you a month late. My “story-maker brain” went on vacation. The bones for this story come from a veteran missionary with the Manchineri Indians, Peter Rich, who told us this sad but amusing tale one evening in a fellowship meeting. I hope you will enjoy it and pass it on to others. The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE) (Missionary/cultural observer with the Amazon tribes for many years) Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida
Young Getulio sat in the corner of his palm-thatched shelter and studied the movements of his mother. She was busily keeping their wood fire going and boiling their potatoes for the main meal. He stretched and played with a small bow and arrow that he always kept close to him. You never knew when a blue and green lizzard would suddenly race up into the village yard! If one did appear…ZIP…Getulio was good at scaring the wits out of those lizzards!
“My son,” his mother suddenly said from the fire, “this morning old Zepi came with the most wonderful gift. Did you see the young parrot he gave me? Look at it over there! It will grow up to be a beautiful bird! I’m so proud of it and I want you to be very careful around that parrot. Don’t harm it! It is so beautiful to look at!”
Getulio had already studied his mother’s newest pet. She was always caring for baby monkeys, or young hawks, parakeets, and he chuckled to himself as he remembered the little black buzzard she had nursed to adulthood. Mother’s pets. He put the arrow in his bow and when she wasn’t looking he aimed it at the young red and yellow parrot. He could easily put an arrow through that bird…lizzards were harder to hit! He relaxed the tension of the arrow. It was certainly going to be a hot, boring day.
“My son”, she said again, “I am going out to the field to get some big bananas for roasting. Do not let any of the children play with the parrot. Did your ears hear what I said?” And she took her basket and left.
Getulio eyed the parrot. It was stretching it’s young wings. I wonder, he thought, how fast the parrot can fly? When they fly overhead in the late afternoon going to their nesting trees they really seem to fly fast. He looked at the long string that was laying on the floor and then picked it up and carefully tied it around the parrot’s middle. Standing up he began to swing the parrot around and around…quite slowly. The parrot tried to keep its equilibrium by fluttering its wings. Then Getulio swung the parrot a bit faster and the parrot countered by flapping those young wings faster and faster. Wow, this bird really could go fast. Now Getulio increased the spinning of the poor bird and enjoyed the squawks and screams of the parrot. Faster! Faster! The bird was now twirling around at record breaking speeds. In fact, it was also string breaking speeds! Suddenly the string broke and the poor parrot went screeching head long into the wall of the house. Getulio suddenly felt panick hitting him! He raced to the red and yellow feathery pile and knew instinctively it was dead. Dead! He had killed mother’s parrot. Oh dear. And soon she’d be coming back with the bananas.
His mind raced. What could he do? Mother would whip him when she returned and then, worse yet, she would chid and harangue and scold him for weeks without end. He had to think of something! First he untied the string from the limp, broken body. He threw the string in the fire and watched with satisfaction as it went up in smoke. He next put the bird back where Mother had placed it. But how could he tell her it had died? What excuse could he give for it’s demise? Looking up above the dead bird he saw the rolled up hammocks and mosquito nets. That was it! He would pull them down and tell mother the bird had suffocated when they fell down on it. He hadn’t noticed in time to rescue the parrot.
Mother soon returned. She worked on her bananas. She eyed Getulio in his corner and wondered why he was being so quiet and acting so strange and nervous. Then she saw the heap of hammock and mosquito net right on top of her young parrot! Racing over she uncovered it and screamed, “My parrot is dead! Getulio, my parrot is dead!” But Getulio was gone. He was racing down the trail and into the forest to hide. He’d face mother later.
Be sure your sins will find you out. Have you ever gotten yourself into a predicament like Getulio did? Maybe you didn’t kill a parrot, but you probably messed with something you were told not to mess with! If someone tells a child that a certain thing is hot and not to touch it…doesn’t he always want to touch it just to see if it really is? How many of my fingers did I burn as a young boy? The Bible says that God sees everything we do. He knows. Nothing is done in secret. Have you ever tried to hide something you did from your mother or father? Did you ever blame the dog for breaking the lamp that you accidentally broke yourself? Be honest. Admit your mistakes. Take your punishment when you really are guilty and deserve it. You can’t run from God and hide. So don’t try. Confess your sins, and He’ll forgive you!! Always.
Candy’s Cane
Alright, Mr. Smarty Pants, just tell me…where did Cain get his wife? Aha, caught you on that one? Have you ever had someone say that to you? Well, oddly enough, we know more about Cain’s wife than you would imagine. The Bible says in Genesis 4:16 that Cain packed up his mules and left home and “he went out of the presence of the Lord”. He settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. He left God for Nod. Ironically, millions of others have done the same thing and have decided they’ve had enough of God and they pack up and move to Nod…and that sounds like a place where you just have “brain sleep” and get into a self-made dreamworld “nodding off”, it is not real and a sleeping sickness. No God in Nod! But he did have a wife. She and Cain went into real estate in Nod. The Bible says she conceived and had a son named Enoch (not the great preacher evangelist that was a son of Seth) and Cain built a city, occupied by his many offspring, and called it “Enoch”. She undoubtedly conceived and had many sons and daughters…they all did back then.
Cain’s wife was Adam and Eve’s little girl. Cain’s sister. She looked just like Cain only a female version. I imagine she was “some good looking” by any of our standards. She might well have been the first female baby born to Adam and Eve. Maybe even the next child after Cain. I’m pretty sure she grew up with Cain, swimming in the clear waters of the river and eating the fruit of the trees. Let’s call her “Candy”. Candy and Cain. That seems to go good together. Little Candy was cute as a bug’s ear. Have you ever seen a bug’s ear? She romped and played and giggled and tumbled and climbed trees and chased Cain all over God’s Creation. And as she got older she began to get cynical like Cain was doing! Candy was losing her sweetness. Somehow, inevitably, she began to follow Cain’s logic and arguments and soon was just as rebellious as he was. How many sweet little innocent precious girls have grown up and fallen under the spell of some “Cain” and as Jude later wrote in his short letter “they have gone the way of Cain, and they have rushed headlong into error”. Maybe it was Candy that influenced Cain to NEVER give in and sacrifice a lamb on that altar! They were the Anti-altar rebels of that day! Self sufficient, self made, self righteous and headed for self-destruction! They moved to Nod together. They never taught their children or grandchildren about God and that Adam and Eve were made and not born. The Bible doesn’t tell us how long Cain lived, or Candy, but since everyone back in those days lived into their 900s, we are safe to presume Cain and Candy also died over 900 years old. Bitter, sour old souls. Disillusioned. They both eventually did die. And on a very quiet night sometimes you can almost feel like you hear a great lament coming up from the pits of Hell, “SEND ME A LAMB TO SACRIFICE ON THE ALTAR!” It echoes through all Hell. But for Cain and Candy it is forever too late. How about you? Are you trusting the Lamb of God Who was sacrificed on the Cross to be your Savior?
East of Eden
Stories are stories. My mind has been dwelling east of Eden for the past months. I would have loved to have been there with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel and little Seth. What did Adam’s house look like? Did he ride a horse? How did Eve wash the diapers? Or, for that matter, what did Eve use for diapers? Itchy sheep wool? Help! At any rate it was a wonderful world in spite of the newly added thorns and thistles that had not been in the Garden. So, this is just a story from the depths of a very fertile imagination. We simply do not know how it really was. I’m guessing and probably it was quite different from any thing I could imagine, but perhaps not. This is NOT Bible based theology. This is not meant to be taken seriously like doctrine. This is a story. Simply a fictional story with a moral teaching. Sit back and enjoy it!
Duane Howe, tribal missionary in Brasil and an old story teller
The roar of the waterfall was so appealing to the two little boys. They often came to the falls and played in the shallow pool at the foot of the falls. It was a wonderful world of green with big salmon-like fish darting this way and that. Cain was about ten-years-old and Abel was two years younger. There, of course, wasn’t another boy, or girl, in the whole country! Just little Seth who was going on six. They did not go to school because schools had not been invented yet. I suppose you could truthfully say they were the first “home schoolers” to walk on the face of the earth. And their dad and mom were students in that home school just like they were and God, who came in the cool of the late afternoon, was their teacher. Very quick learning little boys, but boys are boys and always have been!
“Abel,” Cain said hurriedly to his brother, “let’s go see the angel that guards the entrance to the Garden!” “Well, I don’t know”, said Abel seriously, ” we had better ask Dad and Mom first!”
“No way,” retorted Cain quickly and with a bit of anger in his voice, “we can make our own decisions and we don’t have to ask permission for anything! I don’t believe Mom’s snake story either! Boy, where did she make that up from? And Dad believes it! Talking snakes? Abel, have you ever seen a talking snake? All the snakes around here are pretty quiet. Does she think we are stupid or something to believe she talked to a snake?”
Abel often saw rebellion in his older brother and wondered why Cain just could not accept what he was told to do without arguing. But Abel was the younger and Cain always assumed the leadersip and made the plans, “OK,” Abel said timidly, “Let’s go see the angel…if he is still there!”
When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden after their disobedience to Almighty God their Creator, they had moved to a nice place east of Eden. They had not wanted to get too far from the Garden of Paradise in case God would someday change His mind and allow them to return. There was only one entrance into the Garden where Adam had been made from the dust of the earth and a short time later Eve had been made from one of his ribs. But the entrance was impossible to pass because cherubim were there. They were not cherub babies either, they were special guard angels and God had stationed them at the entrance giving them a sword that was a divine flame thrower and it sprayed fire here and there. Nothing entered the Garden.
The two little boys had to go through the woods quite a distance, but they soon got to the entrance to Eden and sure enough there was the fire! Cain had come other times and just sat and looked in amazement at the flaming sword which turns all directions shooting out long tongues of white-blue fire. But today he had Abel with him and he wanted to be tougher and show his brother he was afraid of nothing. Abel was just bug-eyed and shaking and nearly crying. “No, Cain, no! Let’s go back home! Dad and Mom said we should never come here!”
Cain stepped out into the clearing that made a little path towards the entrance to Eden and with a crooked smile he took a step forward. Then another. He could hear Abel crying and pleading for him to come back. Still another step closer. He felt the heat. He still could not see the cherubim through the fire and smoke. One more step closer. And just then SWOOSH the flame came leaping right towards him and as he turned to run it sent out a firey tongue that burned a spot on his behind! Just a tiny bit, but Cain felt the pain. And he cried too. Two little boys raced back to the safety of home. What would be the future of these two adventurous little boys?
How about you? Are you an adventurous person? Do you like to be daring and do things that are scary? Some of us are born timid…and others of us are born stubborn and with strong wills of our own. The important thing is that we submit our lives to God and walk and talk with him when He “comes in the cool of the day” to be with us. Have you felt God close to you? Have you talked to God in prayer? Do you read His Word in the cool of the day? Don’t disobey your parents or other people in authority! You don’t want to get burned do you?
Cain’s Complaint
The first chapters of the book of Genesis are full of snapshots of the first family to ever live on earth. Cain Adamson was the first baby ever to come into the world! His mother, Eve, was tormented by her “mistake”. I’m sure when she and her young husband were expelled from the Garden because of Eve’s disobedience to a direct command from The Presence…and because she had listened to that Snake…both she and Adam were quite sure that they would soon be allowed back to Paradise, to the Garden. Adam had willingly joined Eve in the “disobedience” and therefore he was the more guilty and would forever carry the blame for mankind’s expulsion from the air-conditioned, bug-controlled, sinless, absolutely perfect, garden called Eden. They wanted back. A strange other-world creature called a “cherubim” stood at the one entrance to Paradise and he had a great flame-thrower that effectively kept anyone, or any animal, from entering the Garden again and eating from that tall majestic tree known as “The Tree of Life”. When Cain was born, Eve’s first words were, “He has been born! The “Messiah”, the Savior, has come! Oh, Adam, look at him…isn’t he beautiful? If you had been born a baby you would have looked just like him! He will crush the head of the snake! Soon, Adam, we will be allowed back in to Paradise! I have gotten a man from the Lord!” The uttering of “Lord” is the first instance in Scripture of the use of YAHWEH on the lips of a human being. But the years passed and now Cain Adamson was a young boy of 10 and had a smaller brother named Abel and “Adam and Eve had sons and daughters”. And thus our story begins.
Cain raced Abel down the hill and around the corner into the cleared field. The boys were bringing a few roasted fish to their sweating father. And some of Mom’s delicious bread. Adam hoed and weeded and babied the plants. When he lived in the Garden with his newly created wonder woman, he had never thought much about food…food was abundant everywhere and there was a neverending supply. Now it was thorns and thistles and the sun was hot and he felt thirsty and he often stopped to reflect on their previous bliss and now…THIS! He greeted the boys and a little sister who came late, but was always tagging along. We don’t know what Adam and Eve called their first daughter, but maybe it was “Candy”. She looked just like Eve and she was sweet. Candy loved Cain. The two were almost inseparable. Cain grabbed a hoe and began weeding his own plot of tomatoes and lettuce and carrots and “the fruit of the ground”. Cain loved to work in his garden plot, but he didn’t like tending to those sheep!!
“Children, gather around for a little bit!”, Adam shouted, “We need to discuss the sacrifice! Tomorrow we are going to sacrifice a choice lamb from the flock! Do you understand why we must kill the lamb? Why YAHWEH has told us to do it regularly?” And he explained to them once again about the altar of rocks and why there were blood stains down the side of the altar. The lamb was a substitute for a sin-bearer. Someday YAHWEH would send the One who would forever rid them of their terrible sin and He would be “the Lamb of YAHWEH” to be sacrificed once and for all for our sins. But, until then, they were required to kill a choice lamb as His substitute. “Do you all understand?” he questioned. Abel always seemed to comprehend, but Cain just seemed so disgusted with the whole idea.
“Father”, he said angrily, “it is not fair! It just is not fair that a small innocent lamb should lose his life for something that silly! I feel sorry for the mother ewe seeing her little lamb being killed! I think it would be better to sacrifice a tomato! Let tomato juice run down the altar side! The mother tomato couldn’t care less!” At this his brother and sister giggled, but his father was displeased. “No, son,” Adam explained, “it is the blood that redeems us! Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin!” Cain just scrooged up his face in disgust. Why was YAHWEH so bloody? He would NEVER sacrifice a lamb! The family could if they wanted to, but he determined that he would NEVER comply with this ridiculous demand from the Creator. Besides that it was his mother’s fault…why had she been so dumb to listen to a talking snake?? She needed to be forgiven, not him!
And the next day Adam and Even stood around the stone altar and the children were all there watching curiously. This wasn’t the first “sacrifice” they had attended, indeed there had been many, but it seemed as they grew older that the sacrificing of a lamb was becoming more and more significant, more meaningful. Abel put his hand on the head of the lamb and said, “Please die for my sins! Thank you for being my substitute!” and Cain and little Candy stood off to the side and just watched. Cain found it so repulsive. Adam drew back the sharp knife and it glistened in the sun light for an instant and then with a thrust he slit the throat of the lamb and the bright red blood burst out and ran down the side of the altar! And YAHWEH was there as The Presence and they could feel Him and they knew that He was pleased. But Cain turned and walked away mumbling, “I will NEVER ever sacrifice a lamb! Just forget that idea! NEVER!”
How about you? Do you know that Jesus was the Lamb of God who shed His precious blood on the Cross to save you from your sins? Have you, like Abel, accepted that great sacrifice as your substitute dying for your sin? Or are you stubborn and rebellious and, like Cain, not wanting to submit to “rules” and “religious laws” and the whole idea of blood being shed for the remission of sins? Cain has many followers even until today. Many people complain, as Cain did, that they can save themselves without killing a Lamb. But they can’t. The Bible says that only by faith in the shed blood of the Lamb can we be washed from our sins. What can wash away our sins? NOTHING but the blood of Jesus!
Arylton Angel
The Bible is so full of such amazing stories. Matthew wrote his Gospel with a good deal of detail, and when he got to chaptrer 28 he recounted what was told to him by two Marys. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James the least, were followers of Jesus and they probably were deeply emotionally involved with Jesus as they recognized that He was more than just a man. He was God. He was EVERYTHING. I know the feeling. And when He was killed on the Cross the two women were there, having not fled like the men…plus another Mary, the mother of Jesus. But they were totally disappointed and frustrated and disillusioned…they had thought He was unable to die because, after all, He was God. But die He did, and they put His body deep in a tomb and sealed it with a giant, heavy stone. And put guards around the tomb. There were NO TRESPASSING signs tacked up! But the two Marys couldn’t sleep that Saturday night, they tossed and turned, and early in the morning on Sunday, just at dawning, we see them making their way to the tomb of Jesus. Silently weeping. Blubbering to each other and saying “why”. WHY? And that is where Arylton Angel’s story begins. Brasil once had a speedster named Arylton Senna who drove Formula One cars at breakneck speed! He crashed and was killed. He was no angel!
All Heaven was a buzz. Jesus was returning! He had been gone now 33 years on some kind of mission to save the earthlings. Angels longed to understand what this “redemption” thing was all about, but it was beyond their comprehension. But the one thing they all did comprehend was that their precious Prince was coming HOME. He had a new name given by the earthlings. Jesus! Savior! They were all waiting for Him to appear. And then Eternal Father made the great announcement, “Someone needs to go down to Earth and wait at the empty tomb for two women who are on their way there. Tell them that Jesus has risen and is gone! Tell them to get the word out to everyone that He is alive! Now who will go for me?” All the angels wanted to go, but they also had a great desire to be there in Heaven when the Prince came home. So they were all quite silent. Then suddenly Eternal Father was looking right at Arylton Angel! “Arylton, you have been flitting around Heaven like lightning! Why don’t you use some of that energy to go down and make this announcement? Just slow down a bit so you don’t crash!”
And he was off! The Bible says quite clearly that he went like white lightning! Arylton never knew how to do anything slow. He sped down through the constellations and past the Milky Way and hardly looked at the moon. His GPS was right on target and he was ripping. The sooner he got there, the sooner he could return and be there when the Prince sat down on the right side of Eternal Father. He kept telling himself, “I’ve got Good News…Jesus is risen! I’ve got Good News! I’m a missssssionary!!” Meanwhile, down at the tomb site, the burly Roman guards were all yawning. They had quite literally gotten “graveyard shift” and it had been a long night. They cussed the Jews for being so religious and making such a fuss over some peasant who thought he was God. Oh well, He was dead now. No one was going to rob that grave! No one! And then one of them looked up in the pre-dawn darkness and saw a streak speeding towards earth! Arylton tried to use his air brakes, but it was just too late. He came crashing right down in the midst of the guards and caused a tremendous earthquake! He wasn’t hurt, he was an indestructible angel, but he did feel a bit silly. Sorry guys! The guards were petrified and shaking with fear! Over they crashed one by one into a deep sleep like they themselves were dead. Scared to death. Arylton just stood there bright and shining and musing at how weak these earthlings were. Guards indeed. humph.
The earthquake had broken loose the stone blocking and sealing the tomb. Arylton examined it, and with little effort, because angels don’t sweat, he rolled the big rock off to the side. OK. Where’s the women? He had heard rumors that earth women were always late for appointments. Probably combing their hair or selecting their nose rings. C’mon, gals, I want to get back Home for the celebration! And he flitted up on the rock and sat there. If angels drank Starbucks coffee or ate angel food, he was a good prospect. He sat and waited…very impatiently. Finally, he heard them coming…making weeping sounds and enough noise to awake the dead! With that he looked around at the unconscious guards laying helter-skelter on the ground.
The Marys broke into the opening and suddenly were wide-eyed and speechless! Arylton realized they were going to be crashing over like the guards did, so he shouts “Stop! Don’t be scared! I’m an angel! Nothing scary about that! I know you have come expecting to find a body in a tomb, but HE IS GONE! They killed him, but they couldn’t kill Him. Oops, well, that’s about the best I can explain it!” The Marys are shaking and feeling weak and needing to sit down…but where? On one of these sleeping guards? Did this strange bright creature kill them? Will he kill us? You can imagine their emotions and heart poundings! Arylton, ever the diplomat, then said from his seat on the rock, “For goodness sake, ladies, He told you He was going to rise again. Didn’t He? Yes, He did! Go over and look in that hole and see for yourselves. He is NOT there. And then go quickly and tell His disciples that He is not dead. He is walking around Galilee and you must hurry there to see Him! Did you get it? ALRIGHT, I HAVE TOLD YOU! I’m out of here! See you in Heaven. Bye!”
Mary Magdalene, out of whom had been cast seven evil angels, or demons, has now met a good angel. A good fast one! Mary the mother of James the least, is now the “most” blessed. The Bible says the women finally got their breath and shrieked with joy and ran off to tell Peter and John. And Arylton zipped faster than the speed of light to get back to Heaven because the Prince was coming Home! It’s all right there in YOUR Bible!
How about you? Are you excited about the resurrection of the Creator Son and your Prince? The tomb was empty. Wherever Jesus is not, there is emptiness. Empty lives. Empty hearts. Empty heads. Empty futures. Empty homes. Because if Jesus isn’t there, there is nothing. Have you asked Jesus to sit on the throne of your heart? Is He your Lord and Savior? And are you an “Arylton Angel”? Just zipping around telling people that Jesus was crucifed for their sins, but He is not dead…He is alive and walking around amongst us! Go and tell!!
This story was used with permission, from Duane Howe. Missionary to the Culina people of Brasil.