Pitfalls along a Vietnamese Road
I attended a youth fireside at
someone’s home back around 1984ishwhere the youth leaders were
talking about dating standards. As
the fireside went on, each leader got up and basically took a
“hell fire anddamnation” approach,
telling the youth how wrong it was not to follow the standards of
the church and the consequence it
could lead to.
As I looked around the room, it appeared
to me that the youth weren’t paying too much attention
and seemed a little put off by the
tone of the meeting. Then, to my surprise, one of the leaders
suddenly said, “And now Brother Cappelli
is going to talk to you about this.”
The invitationto speak was totaly
unexpected. As I stood up, my mind was in a swirl trying to figure
out what to say, especially after
my disillusionment with the way the meeting was going. Since I
consider myself to be a storyteller,
off the top of my head this is what I said (in brief).I asked them if
they ever heard of the Viet Nam war.
Most of them did, but knew very little about it. Then I
proceeded to describe how the VietCong
waged their war against the Americans by making
tunnels undergroundwhere they would
hide from our soldiers.
From above ground they couldn’tbe
seen, so our soldiers would unsuspecting walk right past
these hideouts without knowing the
VC were there. After our soldiers had gone by, the VC would
pop out of their tunnels, fire a
burst of automatic rifle fire into the backs of our men and then duck
back down into the tunnel. When the
remaining American soldiers turned around to fire back,they
couldn’t see anyone.
Another one of the tricks the Viet
Cong used was to dig a deep pit in the middle of a well used
path through the jungle that out
soldier traveled. Or they would lay a similar trap in the jungle in the
hopes ofenticing our soldiers to
chase after them and stumble into it. Here’s how the pit worked.
They would cut bamboo shoots into
very sharp pointed spears and stick them in the ground at the
bottom of the pit with the sharp
end pointing up. Next they would cover the hole so that it was
almost impossible to notice it, but
the weight of a person would cause him to break through the
covering and fall down into the pit
and on top of the spikes.
Often times the tips of the spears
were coated with some form of poison.(I have a tendency to act
out my stories, so by this time I
had the rapt attention of every youth in that room as I slinked
around and through them pretending
to be the VC. I have to admit, I was pretty dramatic.) Then I
said,
“Satan works just like the Viet Cong.
He hides in the dark where you can’t see him. And when you
least expect it, he pops into your
life and tries to attack you from the rear. He lays trapsfor you to
fall into that are designed to destroy
your life.The reason the leaders of the church set guide lines
for dating is not because theydon’t
want you to have fun.
They have developed these standards
because they love you. For decades, they have seen first
hand the horror storiesof young men
and women just like you who have had their lives ruined
because of Satan’s deceptive tricks
and they’ve asked themselves, "How can we protect our
youth from this kind of misery?"
The Standards of Youth is your survival
guide. It was written by the Generals of the Church to you,
the young warriors who live and fight
in the jungle of life. Satan’s whole goal is to destroy you.
Please, don’t think you are smarter
than him. Follow the standards. They are there for your
protection and future happiness.”
Ron Capellicrest: Found at:Teaching Moments Booster