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"Bats in the Belfry"The Son of Adventure Part 4 by T.R. Willey
While many of the stories of my family’s time overseas are of a more serious nature, some of the experiences were just plain funny. One such event happened on our trip to Cuba in 2002. We were visiting the island to attend the 60th anniversary of the founding of the seminary my grandparents started in 1942. Our group included my parents, my 3 sisters, a niece, my wife (who unbeknownst to us was pregnant at the time) and myself. The anniversary celebration was scheduled midway through our 10 day stay, and we had spent the first days of the trip visiting various churches around the island. Since the fall of the Soviet Union materials have been scarce in Cuba, making automobile maintenance rather difficult. As a result transportation snags during our 10 day stay were common. In the case of our trip to the seminary we had been told that we would be leaving from Havana in the early afternoon. Four hours later our transportation had not shown up, so we rented a taxi to take us the 120 miles to the province of Pinar del Rio where the school was located. We arrived just as the evening services had begun. The Willey Memorial Chapel on the campus of the Cedars of Lebanon Seminary was a large concrete auditorium with high ceilings and a balcony in the rear. As the building lacked air conditioning, there were vertical vents in the walls to allow air circulation, and the windows were open as well. A group of Americans visiting as representatives from churches in the United States were sitting in the balcony with translators, but as "guests of honor" we would be sitting down near the front. As we stood in the foyer preparing to enter we could hear the music coming from inside. The Cuban praise band included drums, percussion, electric piano, and electric guitar and bass. The music was fairly loud, and I was pleasantly surprised how the young Cuban musicians had done so much with so little. I was especially amazed at the electric guitar and bass; the instruments were handmade, strung with what looked like telephone wire and painted with blue automotive paint. As we prepared to enter the auditorium I noticed movement above the heads of the singers on stage. My wife commented, "Look! Birds are flying around in there!" I looked at the "birds" and realized that something didn’t look quite right. I suddenly had a flashback to the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and turned to my dad. "Uh, Dad, are those birds flying around in there or are those… bats?" My father, in his typical unflappable manner glanced up and muttered "Nah, those are bats…" Great. |
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What made things even more comical was that the loud music apparently affected the bat’s radar and caused them to go, well, batty. Between songs things would calm down somewhat, but soon as the music started it was like watching a full blown WWII dogfight. The bats, sometimes as many as 20 at a time, would dive bomb the heads of the singers, who apparently were so used to the presence of the airborne critters that they didn’t even notice. Since many of us did not understand Spanish enough to follow what was being said or sung, we pretty much passed the time watching the mammalian air show. At one point we heard commotion coming from the balcony above. Afterwards we found out that one of the bats, in his music induced delirium, had slammed into a cable hanging from the ceiling, knocked itself out and practically landed in the lap of one of the American women. The little guy eventually came to and fluttered off and rejoined the aerial fracas. Probably the most memorable moment came the second night. We were seated in a pew just behind the director of Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions Board. My younger sister Elsbeth, who was a student at the University of Florida at the time, had been watching the furry little "Blue Angels" show when one of them made a bee line directly for her head. She ducked, with the bat missing her by a couple of inches, and she let out a loud, "SH**!!!" The rest of us nearly lost it – we were holding our mouths and shaking to keep from laughing out loud. The Mission Board director made no indication he had heard, but my mother, who was herself trying to keep from laughing, attempted to scold my sister. "Honestly, Elsbeth! I don’t know what kind people you’re hanging out with at school to be picking up language like that!" My sister hissed back – "MOM – there are certain moments in life where there is just no other word to use- BEING DIVE BOMBED BY A BAT IS ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS!!" I’ve got to give her that one.
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