DEVOTION: It’s Not Just About Cricket

by Sherma Webbe Clarke | @sdwc8181 

And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him. Luke 5:11(KJV)

The momentum starts to build in July. A friendly rivalry heats up. Flags wave on cars, lawns, and from storefronts like political candidates. Red and dark blue flags for Somerset versus light blue and dark blue flags for St. George’s declare fan support.

“Hey, bye, you’re wearing the wrong colors.”

“My team’s taking the cup this year!”

Like any staunch St. George’s fan, I don’t wear red in the weeks before Cup Match (the name of the event and the colloquial name for the holiday) to avoid being accused of supporting the Somerset team. The entire community, from bus drivers to shopkeepers to CEOs, engages in good-natured teasing about the other person’s team. After all, a trophy and bragging rights are at stake.

Cup Match enthusiasm is infectious. It’s an excellent time for visitors to mingle with locals and receive first-hand information about Bermuda’s culture. Everyone should go to Cup Match at least once just for the experience. The perimeter of the field fills with spectators, and the pitch is dotted with players in cricket whites. With its bats, balls, and catchers, the game loosely resembles baseball, if I may make that comparison for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the sport. Colorful terms such as wicket, silly mid-on, and “Howzat?” (How’s that?) are exchanged for home runs, shortstop, and foul balls. Cricket might appear sedate to the unfamiliar onlooker, but the crowd is another story. Engaged, loud, and sun-kissed spectators share their knowledge of the game with those who wear curious or befuddled expressions.

Emancipation Day Plus Somers Day Equals Cup Match 

Cup Match officially began in 1902, and it falls on the Thursday and Friday before the first Monday in August. The history of Cup Match goes beyond the frenzy of a two-day cricket match. It is comprised of two significant historical events.

The first day of Cup Match is an observance of Emancipation Day, August 1, 1834, when slaves in Bermuda were freed according to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Thus began the practice by former slaves to take August 1 as a no-work day. Eventually, the day evolved into a community celebration and swelled into a national treasure.

The second day, Somers Day, commemorates the event when the Sea Venture, captained by Admiral George Somers, ran aground in Bermuda in 1609. Although the survivors of the wrecked ship remained on the Island for 10 months, Bermuda wasn’t settled as a colony by the British until 1612.

Therefore, over Cup Match we remember freedom and discovery.

Discovery and a New Name 

A Christian’s story has similar themes. Can you remember when you discovered or found Christ? Some people can recall the exact time and place. I remember being baptized, publically declaring my decision to follow Him. I rose from the water free in Jesus as he promised in John 8:36: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”. He gave me a new name, not Somers Isles or Bermuda, but Daughter of God. He wrote my new name in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Each day men and women make emancipation proclamations in their hearts. Jesus came to this world in the flesh to set captives free from the bondage of sin. He sends us into the field to tell others about the good news of salvation. When He returns, the loud cry of joy will be raised by His people, not Howzat? but Hallelujah!

Then we will celebrate in our heavenly home for eternity.

Praise God!

Let's chat: What unique holiday do you observe where you live?

About Sherma...

Sherma is a contemporary fiction writer, amateur photographer, reading enthusiast, and wife who often takes her husband by the hand to explore nearby and far-flung areas of the globe. This wanderlust has its perks. She credits many of her story ideas to these adventures, which provide great opportunities for research for short stories and the novel series she is currently working on. Quiet, early-morning walks along the railroad trails on her home island of Bermuda provide inspiration when she is homebound. She has been awarded prizes for short stories written for local publications, and her inspirational writing has been included in Christian devotional books: Grace Notes and Blessed. Sherma is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.

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MOSAIC, MELTING POT . . . or QUILT

by Christine Lindsay

Being an immigrant gives one an automatic feeling of belonging to something bigger—a feeling that laps at the shores of global citizenship perhaps.

This was especially true for me being born in Northern Ireland and immigrating to Canada. But Northern Ireland officially belongs to England. So as a citizen of that country I feel genuine love and a sense of loyalty to Great Britain.

Thing is, ask any resident of Northern Ireland if they’re Irish and they’ll say, “Of course I’m Irish.”

I too love Ireland, and feel linked that charming culture of harps, beating bodhráns and penny whistles. I am Irish. Period. I can live on tea and potatoes quite happily.

So coming from Northern Ireland, I feel Irish, British, and of course Scottish. To the horror of my youngest son I also love the sound of bag pipes. I say thank you to my Scottish ancestors.

Then we immigrated to Canada. As a kid I grew up in the Niagara Peninsula just across the border from New York State. My friends were first or second generation Canadian. Like me their roots were British, or Italian, or Polish, or from any one of several shifting sections of Europe at the time. I grew up listening to all kinds of dialects and smelling the aromas from the neighborhood of tomato and basil, of cabbage rolls and highly spiced sausage, of home-made wine, and stronger coffee than I was ever used to.

Add to that the music I listened to as I grew up. Across the border in the United States, Detroit’s rhythmic and blue sounds of African American Mo-Town Music got me through my teens. Groups like The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and my all-time-favorite, Marvin Gaye and his song 'What's Going On'.

When I married my husband and we moved to the west coast of Canada we began to rub shoulders with folks from China, Japan, Vietnam, Pakistan and India. Our neighbors are also those whose parents and grandparents fled from Russia and Europe, as well as the Native North American Indian people who were here in this land first.

In Canadian schools they taught us that our population, made up of so many immigrants, is called the Cultural Mosaic. In the United States they refer to that wonderful blending of immigrant cultures as The Melting Pot.

A mosaic is a beautiful art form to view—all sparking colors and depth of contrast. The melting pot gives the sense of warmth, a full stomach, and comfort. Either way, it’s a good thing.

As I think back on my youth, I’m grateful that I feel a kinship with people not just like myself. But when I think of my Christian brothers and sisters I feel as though this blend of cultures is more like a quilt. Under Jesus banner, we’re kept warm as He embraces people of such a global . . . and Heavenly citizenship.

As a Christian author I pray that I can instill in readers a love for people who look and sound different from them, and who live in another part of this globe.

If you'd like to know more about me and my newest adventure--going to India--join me at my blog www.Christinelindsay.com I'd love to tell you about the amazing work that God has called me to do as a missionary writer. I'd love your prayer support.

Writing What You Know

As an author of international intrigue, I am often asked why I write what I do. Why such controversial subjects as the international counternarcotics war, Marxist guerrillas, Islamic fundamentalist threats in Latin America or the war on terror in Afghanistan?

It's actually simple. As writers, we are told to write what we know, and this is the world in which I have spent my life.

A brief introduction for this blog. I grew up daughter of American missionaries (Bob and Dawn Archer, TEAM) in rural areas of Colombia that are now guerrilla hot spots. My own childhood memories include canoeing up and down Amazon rivers, crossing high mountain passes to boarding school just across the border in Venezuela (now closed because of guerrilla activity), hiking up the Andes and slogging muddy jungle trails. I was six when I wielded my first machete, a necessary instrument for climbing the path to the outhouse.

I met my husband Marty, a missionary kid from Bolivia, while attending Prairie Bible College in Three Hills, Alberta. We spent 16 years as missionaries in Bolivia with Gospel Missionary Union (now AVANT), an interdenominational Christian mission organization. Three of our four children were born there. While my husband served as field director, I worked with women and children at risk. My husband and I moved to Miami in June, 2000, where my husband served as vice-president of Latin America Mission.

In January, 2006, we moved again to Lancaster, PA, when my husband became president of BCM International, once the Bible Club Movement, which includes 700+ missionaries and thousands of volunteers from more than 40 nationalities working on five continents. I head up the BCM communications department, edit a magazine and continue to teach writers conferences and mentor Christian writers in a number of countries around the world along with writing the occasional international intrigue title. To date, I have lived in six countries and traveled in thirty from Latin America and Europe to Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kenya.

I have always written, whether thesis papers, journals, or communication to family and constituency, publishing my first short story in college. But my first book was written literally out of boredom. We were living at the time in Tarija, a southern Bolivia town. While my husband was touring rural Andes churches for two weeks at a time, I was stuck at home with three preschoolers, no car, TV, radio. Once my children were in bed, I had only the handful of English-language books I’d read dozens of times. I finally decided if I had nothing to read, I’d write a book instead. That became Kathy and the Redhead, a children’s novel based on my growing-up years at our missionary children's boarding school in Venezuela.

From there I began writing Spanish-language material for women and children at risk as well as articles for a variety of international and Christian ministry publications. That was followed by the Parker Twins Series, juvenile suspense set in a multi-cultural background, and a teen novel, Jana’s Journal. My first adult fiction release, CrossFire was set in the counter-narcotics war we were witnessing first hand in Bolivia. This was followed by The DMZ, (Colombian guerrilla zones), FireStorm, (Islamic terror ties in Latin America), all published by Kregel Publications, then my first Tyndale House Publishers title Betrayed, (Guatemala), released in 2008.

My ultimate goal in every book I write, however much a "thriller," is to share with the reader my own heartfelt conviction that, for all the turmoil and conflict and pain in our world, this universe does make sense and has both a purpose and a loving Creator. If I did not have the absolute assurance that the course of human history and current events as well as my own life lie in the hands of a loving heavenly Father, I would not have the nerve to research, much less write, the stories that I do.

My most recent title, Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan, was released by Tyndale House Publishers this past summer (I have recently finished the sequel and am waiting for publication date). Again, I have been asked: 'Why Afghanistan?"

That answer is not so simple. Like so many reading this blog, I rejoiced in the post-9/11 overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban, believing it presaged new hope for freedom and peace in that region. Neither freedom nor peace ever materialized. Instead today's headlines reflect the rising violence, corruption, lawlessness and despair. The signing of Afghanistan's new constitution, establishing an Islamic republic under sharia law--and paid for with Western coalition dollars and the blood of our soldiers--tolled a death knell for any hope of real democracy.

And yet the many players I've met in this drama have involved themselves for the most part with the best of intentions. The more I came to know the region and love its people, I was left asking, "Can outsiders ever truly purchase freedom for another culture or people?"

That question birthed Veiled Freedom. A suicide bombing brings together a disillusioned Special Forces veteran, an idealistic relief worker, and an Afghan refugee on Kabul's dusty streets. The ensuing explosion will not only test the hypocrisy of Western leadership and Afghanistan’s new democracy, but start all three on their own personal quest. What is the true source of freedom--and its cost?"

The answer with which I came away from Afghanistan is again simple, if neither easy nor cheap. True freedom will come to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in our world, only through the love of Isa Masih [Jesus Christ] transforming individual hearts. When enough hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same. Change a heart, change a nation.

For more, visit my website: http://www.jeanettewindle.com/ and primary blog, From the Eye of the Storm: http://www.jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/.