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A Rat Trap in the Farmhouse

by David Wesley 
The Rat Trap
(Author Unknown)
A rat looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was aghast to discover that it was a rat trap. Retreating to the barnyard the rat proclaimed the warning; “There’s a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Rat, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The rat turned to the pig and told him, “There’s a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!” “I am so very sorry Mr. Rat,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured that you are in my prayers.”
The rat turned to the cow. She said, “Like wow, Mr. Rat. a rat trap. I am in grave danger. Duh?” So the rat returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s rat trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a rat trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever.
Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the barnyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer’s wife did not get well.  She died, and so many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.  All because of a rat trap.

     A common statement that people make when returning from a mission trip is “they were so poor and we are so blessed”.   When we realize, however, that we are connected to one another, we recognize that if we are blessed, then all of us are blessed and if they are poor, we all are poor.  
    The term Ubuntu articulates an African understanding of our need to connect to one another in order to be complete. Likewise the title A Common Mission offers a description of churches that connect with one another through the growing phenomenon of mission partnerships. The word “common” indicates something shared amongst equals. The word common also suggests something present in all parts of an organism, production, or narrative, such as a common thread. These two aspects of commonality provide an important orientation for contemporary mission. Mission efforts in the midst of a changing global context are challenging. 
     Whether you live in Darfur, Liberia, Sao Paulo or Dallas we all are connected.  There are enormous global challenges.  Likewise there are enormous resources. Partnerships help us to remember that when there is a rat trap in our global house, the whole global barnyard is at risk and together we have the potential to faithfully live into the mission of God.

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