Fish

Had an exciting meal a few days back-a baked carp. Um, unforgettably forgetable.
The issue, apart from the fact that it was a Carp, was that it hadn't baked long enough and was a little raw-ish towards the back bone. Anyway, I'll eat more carp if it's served to me but I can't see Carp-shore-lunch ever making my Top Ten list.

But it does lead me to digress a little, bear with me...
'Fish' is such an easy word in English.
For instance: Fish- the noun; Fish- the adjective; Fish!- the imperative; to Fish- the verb; Fishy- the adverb

Without boring you with a Slavic grammar lesson I can tell you that fishing is not such an easy thing to, uh, tackle in the other languages. However, the actual task of fishing is exactly the same no matter the language.
But that makes perfect sense, right? Languages, by definition, are different ways of describing experience but the experiences themselves are often identical.

And if the fishing experience is the same so are the fishermen! There is a Far Side cartoon that shows two fishermen in a boat. In the background, presumbly over their own homes, mushroom clouds from nuclear explosions are rising into the air. Their response? Something about how what this really means is that there are no longer any fishing limits. Perfect. Gary Larson must be a fisherman. I know Russians and Ukrainians who would also get a good laugh out of that cartoon.

There is something about fishing that gets in your blood and makes you ask: "How can I catch more?" and "How can I catch better?" And the biggie: "Are there any loopholes in the law, in the absence of the thermo-nuclear destruction of the very foundations of society, which say I can catch all the fish I want?"

So here's the good thing about my job: I can fish by any method I want and there are no limits either to size, or type, or number.
Sauna evangelism? Perfect.
Sports night evangelism? Perfecter.
Inviting people over to watch World Cup Alpine Ski Races? Pure Heaven.
Trying new types of food with unbeliever-friends? Absolutely, even half-cooked Carp.

This kind of fishing is open to all- to us here 'on the mission field' (we're really all 'on the field') and to you 'at home' (Home for true believers is where ever God is.)

And remember this: When Jesus said, "Follow me and you will be fishers of men" he wasn't offering a distraction from the fun of fishing for fish. Instead he was offering a life that made regular fishing pale by comparison.

This is what we find in our work here, it's exciting; probably on par with the guy who goes fishing for Great White Sharks and uses himself for bait...Whatever else you might think about someone like that you'd never think they were bored.