Big Production, Big Smells, Big Week, Big Task--All Good

Last night Chuck and I went to a COW student musical theater production. At a small college, it is sometimes chancy that there'd be enough singing/dancing talent in addition to acting, but this "Once Upon an Island" was most excellent. The lead, DM, is part of WCF when she has the time (not this semester!). It's a retelling of the Little Mermaid story with a Haitian setting and themes of race and class complicating it all. Big Production--great! This afternoon I got to the other major domestic task of the fall, that of making applesauce. Wonderful odors permeated the house. I dread doing it but once the production line gets set it, it's not that bad, and since I won't buy the applesauce in the store, this is the only way we enjoy it. Too bad I don't have a big freezer, but we're not investing in one at this stage of the game. Tonight also I started cooking for the BIG WEEK, the missions conference. We will be at church every night we can ('cause I'm in charge a couple of nights, a panel discussion with folks from the congregation and one of our missionaries on how to form redemptive relationships, and then the big "round the world kids'" night). The week culminates in an international dinner to which many international students at the college are invited. Julie, our IV staff member, will give a pre-evangelism talk about her time in China. We are having a hard time coaxing people to cook what they can't pronounce, so I took a couple of the Middle Eastern specialities and began that cooking tonight. The Big Task is to cut and modify my Salman Rushdie Satanic Verses review published in Pro Rege this summer into a 20 minute talk that hopefully will be accepted for Calvin's Festival of Faith & Writing next April. One of their talk categories is "Inter-Faith Dialogue"--probably because Salman Rushdie himself is going to be the featured speaker, so I called to see if I could submit a version of my review as Rushdie's failed dialogue between secular-Muslim-humanism and fundamentalist Islam as well as an opportunity for Christians to dialogue with Muslim friends through a careful reading of this important text. All by December 1 with the Missions Conference and Thanksgiving between now and then. Like I said--Big but Good.