Pepe -- the complete rough draft

Well, there it is. There's still work to be done in editing and making it a reading experience that will be enjoyed by all, and acceptable to prospective publishers. I would like it to be readable by the same age group that reads Harry Potter. That, all by itself, probably means a lot of re-editing.

There are two aspects of this book that I feel are blogging material. The first is the subject, the life of a homeless street child.

Ever since viewing a film reel in my Bible School Missions class by the Salician Fathers, entitled Gaminos, the subject has interested me. I'm grateful to the professor of that course for making sure that I got a private viewing of that film, as I had actually missed class that day. Gaminos was set in a Latin American capital, I forget which one. 'Gaminos' is the local Spanish term for street kids. The film was about the work of a Salician Father who used to go out to befriend the children of the streets. He told about how he had to be careful not to come on too strong, or he'd lose them. Because street children are fiercely independent, they are sensitive to any attempt to institutionalise them. His whole work had to be one of 'no strings attached.' If nothing else, he'd simply get them things they needed, or befriend them when they were in trouble, even if they went right on living on the streets. Once they were confident of him, some of them consented to move to his shelter, with the full understanding that they could leave whenever they wanted.

A few years later, in Thailand, I lead a few co-workers in opening up an evangelistic centre in the South. When we moved in, we realised that a couple of homeless people were living on the premises, a man and a boy. Since they weren't related, we invited the boy to stay on with us. He did for about a week. In that time, he stole my heart.

He went away again after that one week, but that experience forever changed me.

My first (unpublished) novel, The Emissary, about the Apostle Shaul, involved a fictional first century street boy as one of the main characters. He first appears in the prologue, so you don't have to read very far. It's on line.

Much later, I got the opportunity to work for a year at a Catholic centre located in the biggest slum in Bangkok. That place is the inspiration for Mercy House, one of the main settings in Pepe. Fr. Antonio, Mother Clara, 'Madam Zudu', Phil Grub and Tony Ryan are characters inspired by real people I met there. Actually, Tony Ryan is me. The Bangkok slum is also the inspiration for Dockyards Community where Pepe lived.

Because the story line involves many other aspects, such as politics and royalty, I couldn't set the story in Thailand. I do want to be welcome back there. The social problems of the city of La Fonta, particularly the homeless children, slums and gangs, are a synthesis of Bangkok, Moscow and various Latin American cities. The level of corruption in my fictional country is much greater than I believe exists in Thailand. The monarchy is based on European traditions. The fictional nation of Cardovia would be somewhere on the Mediterranean, but it isn't stated exactly where.

The other aspect that bares blogging is that it is a parable of the Kingdom of God. The book is targeted to the secular reading audience, hopefully including young fans of Harry Potter (though it won't remind you of Harry Potter in any way). However, in the course of the story, Pepe realises who he really is, and with help, regains the throne, and the nation becomes an almost utopian paradise (The actual events in the narrative are not to be taken as a statement of my view of eschatology, however).

When he realises who he is, and becomes the rightful king -- though not yet crowned as such -- he is given a stone, called the Stone of Cardo. It has powers that are as effective as the purity of his heart. At its most intense state, it can potentially destroy evil, along with anyone who refuses to release his or her evil ambitions. Good things begin to happen, but only at the rate determined by the purity of Pepe's heart. That represents what I believe to be the life force of the church, and answers the question as to why the church is so ineffective in transforming society today, and what we must do to regain our cutting edge.

I've mentioned Harry Potter twice already. I do hope to reach a young audience, knowing that older people will read it as well (the intellectual reading level of an average adults is actually quite low). However it definately not in the style of J.K.Rowling. It's probably more like William Gibson. Making something something so Gibsonian readable by 10 year olds, will probably be the main challenge.

I believe it has enough action evenly paced throughout to keep people reading. I did learn that lesson from reading Harry Potter. Thank you, Ms. Rowling

Pepe

Here it is...the first chapter of Pepe. If there's any demand, I may post more of it in a separate link.

(21 Oct -- I just re-edited this entry so that only the first few paragraphs show, but you can click to where the whole book is posted)

Chapter 1

Pepe

© baruch


The light changed. Pepe looked down the lineup now waiting for the next green. He groaned. The bucket was heavy and drivers were always in a bad mood this time of day.

He counted his takings again. 13 Dinarios. Not enough.

With a grunt, he lifted his bucket and walked down the island to the first sedan he saw -- a Mercedes. The windscreen wipers immediately went on.

'Okay, okay! Freakin tightwad!'

He had to side-stepped to avoid a motorbike. He could see Jose doing the next row, already at work on a Porsche.

The next was a Honda Accord. Pepe's squeegee handle was long enough for a boy of his size to reach to the middle of the windscreen -- if he stood on tip-toe, and the car's body wasn't too wide.

Done. He went to the driver's window. The driver just sat there, looking straight ahead.

The scumbag!

He'd heard of one kid keeping a baseball bat nearby for such occasions -- got him in trouble though.

The next was a lorry. Too big. The next car was too old for the driver to be interested.

Ditto for the next three vehicles. Then there was a taxi.

A few intersections East was San Miguel Square, adjoining Camino Real street, La Fonta's financial district. There, the expensive makes outnumbered the cheap ones. The takings were good, but it was worked by a gang. They'd beat Pepe if they caught him anywhere near there. He sure wasn't going to join no gang -- as good as being a slave! ... more

Blogging and writing novels

It looks like I have the same disease as William Gibson:

I currently seem to be proving my theory that I can't simultaneously write a novel and blog...

Pepe

If my blogs have been scarse lately, it's because I'm in the middle of a writing project. It's a novel about a homeless street boy, who, unknown to him, is the rightful king. It's set just a bit into the future, but it's got a fairy-tail element to it. I hope I'm skillful enough to make such an unlikely mixture of sci-fi and fairy-tail work.

I may post the first chapter here soon.

Scott McKnight's Suggestions for Writers

Being that one of my web pages is a resource page for writers (which I haven't updated for a while), I always have my eye open for writing suggestions.

While I do a lot in the way of scholarly/teaching style of article, my favourite writing to do is fiction. Scott McKnight is more of a scholar type. However, many of his suggestions would apply to writers of fiction as well -- especially since some of his examples are authors like Hemmingway, and C.S.Lewis (who was also a bit of both, like me).

Anywayn click on the title of today's blog, and read Scott's 9 sugestions for writers.

Craig Morton reviews Alan Jamieson's A Churchless Faith

I found it via Len's NextReformation.com blog, and his entry has already attracted an intersting comment.

The book, A Churchless Faith: Faith Journey’s Beyond the Churches, is about people who leave churches, not as in "oh, it's just the cold dead churches that are losing members", but the front line, cutting edge "EPC" (Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic) churches. And they're not just those on the fringes. 90% of those interviewed were in leadership of some sort in their respective congregations, most of them had been members for 15 years or more, and many had been through some theological training. The number also includes full time ministers.

The bottom line is, according to the author, many of the leavers are growing spiritually in areas where their churches have stopped. Rather than blame the leavers, it would behoove us to examine ourselves and see where we might need to expand some of our concepts a bit.

Anyway, read Craig Morton's review to find out more.

lost tribes...?

I realise that when one drops the phrase, "lost tribes", it conjours up any one of a number of images, such as British Israelism, or it's more recent variation that seems to have hit some Messianic groups, the "Two Houses" idea. That is the belief that every European believer in Yeshua is potentially descended from Israelites who became thoroughly assimilated into European society.

I won't comment further on that theory, except to say that unless someone shows me some geneological records I was hitherto unaware of (which would delight me no end) I will remain what God made me: Irish. Also, the theories assume that the Northern tribes were not only lost (which some question), but also thoroughly assimilated into their adoptive cultures.

There is, however, evidence that they were neither lost nor assimilated... or maybe lost as far as Western popular history, but as the little boy found wandering about the shopping mall said, "I'm not lost, my parents are." (In the same way, we could say Columbus didn't discover America. The Native Americans knew about it all along.)

What follows is not a Christian/Messianic fad. It's something that many Orthodox rabbis in Israel are taking seriously (although opinion is a bit devided). All of my sources come from rabbinical sources, such as Moshiach Online, and the book: Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel .
You can also do a Google advance search, entering the string "Lost Tribes" and either "Bnai Menashe" or "Pathan" to find much much more.

The Moshiach Online website has information on about a dozon groups, including the Pathan, who make up a major part of the population of Afghanistan, Kashmeris, and a group called Bnai Menashe, a group of people from the Mizo/Chin tribe of India and Burma.

If you look up these links and take it all in, there's actually very little that I could add to them, except to say that this probably represents a wide open opportunity for Messianics who are considering following the will of Adonai, to consider if it may mean relocating to a different part of the world, such as, say, Afghanistan, India or S.E. Asia.

This has been a very exciting discovery for me, as I happen to know a number of people of the Chin/Mizo tribe in Burma. They were evangelised some 100 years ago, and the tribe is about 95% Christian, at least nominally, but a great percent are Evangelical, with many Pentecostals and Charismatics. A relatively small group of them, numbering several thousand living on the Indian side of the border (where they are caled "Mizos") have concluded that they are, in fact, of the tribe of Menashe. What is surprising is there are rabbis who, after examining their culture and what they remember of their history, believe them.

As for the rest of the tribe, on both sides of the border, they are still 95% Christian. Unfortunately, those who originally took the Gospel to them, besides having no idea that these could be the tribe of Menashe (and would have probably resisted acknowledging the idea anyway), put very little emphesis on Old Testament foundational knowledge. It's easy to see how many of them, having only a minimal New Testament foundation to begin with, having become nominal after a few generations, could be influenced by something with more depth such as Rabbinical Judaism. They have, in effect, exchanged a religion that lost its foundation, for the foundation itself, but without the building that it was intended for.

I believe this represents a ministry opportunity for the Messianic movement -- if not to the Bnai Menashe who have already adopted Judaism, at least to the rest, who need their understanding of their faith deepened, both so as to know how to respond to the Bnai Menashe movement, but more importantly, to know how to respond to their calling as Israelites, if that is indeed what they are. If not, at least they could use a better foundation for their faith.

The Pathan and Kashmeris are followers of Islam, but still hold Israeli traditions that are even more obvious than those of the Bnai Menashe. There are both customs and place names that are readily recognisable from the Bible, but not inherited from Islam. Even British colonists and others in history have noted the fact. In light of that, it amazes me no end, how the idea still clung on, that the 10 Northern tribes are lost and, of all things, British! The Moshiach Online website also gives other examples of cultures far and wide that could have Israelite connections.

The challange of course is obvious, but I do believe that Messianic Judaism, mixed with a bit of cross cultural adaptation and wisdom, is in the best possition to take it up. Our mandate may be bigger than we had thought. It's still about sharing Ha Mochiach with the Jewish community, and helping the Christian community find their Jewish roots, but now it's not just on a local level. Each one should pray about what it means for him/herself.

If you begin to have the feeling that there's not much more that can be said and done in your own community that the locals (both Jewish and Christian) haven't seen and heard already, maybe it's time to move on. If we truly believe we have a mandate, and that we are approaching the end times when Israel will be gathered to her home, it's something we need to take seriously.

It's not an easy decision in every case, just as it wasn't for Avraham when G-d told him to leave his country. It also doesn't pay to be rash, but for sure, take it seriously and seek G-d about it, and talk about it with the believers in your fellowship.

Then, prepare.