The time I was a Christian martyr

Another tale from my totally normal childhood

Mrs. Stanley was an old, evil crone. Meaning, she was probably 50, menopausal, and had blown through all her Fs to give, certainly when it came to six-year-olds.

She was my teacher for first grade, my last full school year in America, before my parents became missionaries to Kenya. And she scared the steaming sh*t out of me. The only thing I can remember that would explain why was her correcting us as we read aloud in class. For all I know, she did this exactingly but politely, but in my memory, it was abject humiliation, with yelling and screaming and the urine of terrified children puddled on the floor.

Apparently this is the premise of a video game.

Whatever she was and whatever she did, I remember going to church on Sunday night (Southern Baptists used to go to church literally morning, noon, and night, if you count potlucks) digesting the dread of a new week, and clinging to the words of the hymn, “Because He Lives (I can face tomorrow).” While I was not confident Jesus would in fact spare me from hell (but that was on me), somehow I figured He could save me from Mrs. Stanley. Why not throw a hell-bound girl an earthly bone, no holiness off his back.

So of course we became penpals after we left for Kenya. Me and Mrs. Stanley, that is, not me and Jesus, although sort of Him, too, as I wrote him all kinds of pleading mail asking Him not to send me to hell. I have no idea why I wrote letters to Mrs. Stanley. I do remember that she adored me, despite apparently hating everyone else, because I could read good.

But writing dutiful letters to and otherwise mollifying people/deities of whom you are frightened was kind of the running theme of my childhood, so never mind, it makes perfect sense.

Fast forward a year or so, and my family had settled into our permanent home in Kenya. We had not lived there long, maybe a month or so, when I became aware that people planned to kill us in the night and the Kenyan police didn’t own cars. And also didn’t give a sh*t about crime fighting, probably because they were doing many of the crimes.

The man who tended to our sprawling, wooded yard, found a hole cut in the chain link fence. He alerted my parents, and we all went down to the far corner of the yard to inspect it. And yep, there was no denying that this was a surgically performed fence operation, the chain links cleanly incised and folded back to easily allow a human being to crawl through.

“They will be back,” my dad said ominously, with steel in his eyes. “Maybe tonight. But we will be ready.”

I had no idea what “being ready” entailed—I brainstormed ways to kill someone with a Barbie—but I gathered it did not involve the police, who were apparently about a useful as 75% of activity that occurs in any bureaucracy of any size. The word on the street was that neighbors had tried calling the police as thieves cut a hole in their roof, only to be told, While we would love to attend your robbery/soiree—thank you ever so much for the kind invitation—we sadly lack transportation to this auspicious occasion. If you could send a car round, we would be much obliged.

The neighbors had been robbed and beaten up, but thankfully not killed. That wasn’t always the case, as I overheard in snippets of adult conversation to which I had no business listening.

My dad, being former military, seemed rather energized by the challenge of single-handedly beating off a pack of criminals. Guns were illegal, a fact my parents constantly bemoaned, but a machete might do the trick. Dad had heard of someone chopping off the arm of a thief as he reached through a barred window. Personally, this didn’t seem like an ideal solution, because then you’d have a random arm in your house, but what did I know about home protection.

Dad was also a chemistry teacher. So he made some pernicious concoction of substances and filled water guns with it. “Spraying someone in the eye with this will blind them,” he said proudly.

Night fell, and the air was thick with suspense and whatever chemicals my father had been mixing. He planned to stay up all night waiting for the would be thieves to make their move. I had no official role in this operation, other than to stay out of the way, but I couldn’t sleep for some reason. Something about possibly being hacked up by thieves and then going straight to hell because your most recent Sinner’s Prayer only came from the mid-levels of your heart, not its very depths, and also you still had not fully repented for making your dolls kiss in an impure fashion.

So, I wrote a letter to Mrs. Stanley. I don’t remember what exactly I said, but I may have mentioned something about my impending and certain death. It’s possible, I was a wee tiny bit dramatic as a child, a trait that I’ve fortunately shed, as no one has accused me of being such in at least several weeks. So I may have conveyed a slightly, tiny bit, smidge higher level of threat than what reality reflected. Maybe, possibly.

I am 100% certain it included a Gospel presentation of some sort, because I highly doubted Mrs. Stanley was saved; there were very few edible fruits on her spiritual tree. And because the surest demonstration of one’s genuine salvation from hell was evangelism, as no one would be that annoying if they didn’t really and truly believe. I assured Mrs. Stanley that she should not weep over my murder, because my family had sacrificed ourselves to tell people about Jesus and I would soon be in heaven with Him because I had invited Him into my heart to live and reign as my Personal Savior/Attache and we don’t ever have to fear death by thieves or even being burned up in a chateau like in Bon Voyage Charlie Brown¹ because He died on a cross and rose again, and also someone invented smoke alarms. Mrs. Stanley, don’t you want to know where you are going when you die, like I am about to do? Also, have you changed the batteries in your smoke alarm recently?

The sun came up the next morning, and we were all still alive. The thieves had apparently received a more attractive invitation. But it was possible they might visit us another night, any night really, and dammit, that letter was exquisite, and Mrs. Stanley really and obviously did need Jesus. So I addressed and stamped it and sent it to the post office with my mother.

Months later—because those were the days when snail mail was literally transported by snails—I received a letter back from Mrs. Stanley. Oh, and also, I was still alive, I figured you could deduce but it does bear mentioning.

My very alive and un-murdered self opened the letter and read it with intrigue, to see what one might write to the presumably martyred child of missionaries. As you might imagine, the tone was rather frantic. Mrs. Stanley was horrified, terrified, worried, wondering if she should contact the Embassy (I didn’t know what that was). Alas, my martyrdom=guaranteed presence in heaven and her opportunity to one day join me in glory at the right hand of the Father did not seem to be a comfort. In fact, she seemed a bit put out with my parents for taking me to a place with thieves but no reliable police (and also, it has to be said, very, very few people who had not already heard the Gospel, but Mrs. Stanley couldn’t know that because Africa=heathen to most Americans).

She gave no assurance, and never gave any evidence, of having prayed the Sinner’s Prayer.

If Mrs. Stanley is still alive today—and she may be, especially if she was actually only like 30 and not the 112 I imagined her to be—she will be very surprised to hear that I am also still alive.

Because I put her letter in the trash and continued on with my life as a pretend Christian martyr for one. Perhaps the true meaning of my sacrifice would one day thaw the cold heart of Mrs. Stanley, she would pray the Sinner’s Prayer, and we would both avoid hell.

OK, probably not. See you there, Mrs. Stanley.

1. I have written somewhere else that I can’t be bothered to find right now about how that movie made me terrified of fire, so the point where I had to lay eyes on a smoke alarm in every building I entered and refused to stay in hotels.