Killer Butterflies

The following story is my Apostle Paul story. The reason is, I believe that after you read this story you will liken my courage the courage of Paul, who endured many hardships while on the mission field.

Upon an early Wednesday morning in Mexico, I was preparing to leave my room and go out onto the patio where my coffee was waiting for me to have a quiet time. My room had a door the led directly to the outdoors so it was sort of like a one-room apartment.

            This particular morning, as I was reaching for the door, I noticed a large dark patch on the door that was not usually present on the solid red curtain that shielded the sunlight coming through the glass.

            A split-seconded sight adjustment revealed this dark patch to be none other than the most gigantic moth I had ever seen.

            Perhaps hormones, mixed with the sudden shock of finding a colossal moth in my room was what caused the emotions that followed. Either way, I was so frightened that I started to cry and was overcome with the feeling of being trapped in my room by this horrible creature.

            This creature, in a different context, might not have been quite so horrible. In fact, if I had seen this moth in nature—where it was supposed to be—my thoughts might have been something like, “What a marvelous God we serve to create something so amazing.”

            However, as this thing was in my room—where it was not supposed to be—barring me from leaving and also barring me from my Bible and cup of coffee, it was a creature from the very depths of Hell.

            At last I was able to summon courage enough to get the door open, where I had the brilliant idea of removing the curtain, with the moth attached, and shaking it once it was safely outside of my room. Once this feat was attempted, however, the creature began to crawl; it’s four-inch long antennae groping for a new place to land. This threw me into a panic, as I feared it might fly away and land on something other than the door, or get lost in my things, so I left it and ran upstairs to the room of the daughter of my host family.

            “Pricilla, I need your help,” I said to the 19-year-old who was still in bed. She groggily followed me downstairs as I explained that I needed company because this was just too big for me to handle alone. Secretly, I was hoping she was brave enough to at least come up with an idea to get rid of the moth.

            My hope was in vain. Pricilla sat on my bed, hugging a pillow and screeching whenever the thing moved. Her screeches echoed my screeches and instead of one helpless person we were now two helpless people. And neither of us had a better idea as to how to get rid of the Demon Moth.

            Then suddenly a thought surfaced. I remembered Jarett (one of the other missionaries) had to pass near our house on his way to work and there was a small chance he hadn’t left yet. I called him immediately and reached his wife, Mary Carole, who, after I told her what I needed, said Jarett would stop by on his way. Later she told me that when she first heard my voice she thought something was seriously wrong with me since I was so hysterical. She obviously had no idea how big the moth was.

            Pricilla and I passed our time trying to take pictures of the moth. Unfortunately none of these showed the magnitude of its size and we were too scared to place anything near it as a measurement.

            When I heard the knock on the front door, I was flooded with relief. I left my room, commanding Pricilla to stand guard over Hades Spawn. I was so glad Jarett was there and I led him towards my room, animatedly describing the ferociousness of this gigantic, killer moth that had so villainously interrupted our morning.

Jarett came into my room, took a look at the moth, then pinched its wing between his thumb and forefinger and flung it outside.

            End of story.

            Not going to lie, I was expecting the rescue from the Moth from Hell to be slightly more dramatic—complete with a chase around the room, possibly throw in a butterfly catcher or something. I told Jarett that he could have at least pretended to make it difficult, just so I wouldn’t feel so stupid. 

            In my imagination, I am a fearless warrior. In reality, I have many fears—critters being one of them. Even though this probably isn’t a good thing to inform the world (cruel people might take advantage of this weakness), it’s too late now.

            I have so many other critter stories: roaches, snakes, scorpions, spiders. And the best thing to do when you have a weakness is exploit it for your own uses, i.e. blog entries.

            I think this might be the beginning of another blog series...