Greetings in the name of the Lord to our devoted readers and not-so-devoted curiosity shoppers! I and my staff at The Sacred Sandwich have most recently returned to Gazingstock from our group holiday in the South Pacific and we find ourselves most anxious to resume our duties as purveyors of the latest in small town Christian news and views.

Before we reapply ourselves to that challenging task, however, it would be extremely discourteous if I did not dispatch a brief travelogue of our misadventures for your edification and, more likely, amusement. For those who cannot attend the official slideshow during the League of Tyndale meeting this coming Saturday, I have compiled this online presentation for the convenience of our out-of-town members and internet looky-loos.

As some of you may already know, our typesetter Harvey Cline received correspondence back in May from the Acme Global Timeshare Corporation that announced his selection as the winner of an 8-inch widescreen HD television and deluxe accommodations for three days and three nights at their exclusive condo resort in Fiji—all free of charge. The only catch was that Harvey would have to 1) provide for his own transportation to get there and 2) attend a 6-hour “informational” tour of the condo resort. Seeing this as a grand opportunity to visit an exotic location on the cheap, Harvey made plans to attend the vacation spot of his dreams.

It wasn’t long, of course, before Harvey’s wanderlust became contagious and everyone in the Sandwich office began dreaming of azure surf, white sandy beaches, and gently-waving palm trees. By the end of June, the whole staff went from joking about hiding in Harvey’s Samsonite to actively pursuing the possibility of closing up the shop for a week and making Fiji the destination for a company retreat. When our proofreader Lily Smuckler drew up a preliminary budget for the company trip and was able to prove the monetary savings of sharing in the travel expenses as a group, I was agreeable to the idea as long as we did not stray from those cost-cutting measures. This would have to be an ingenuous, “bare-bones” enterprise if we were going to pull it off. We ain’t the United States Congress after all.

With the idea of bringing our own food in several Coleman coolers and sharing sleeping bags in Harvey’s complimentary condo, the biggest expense would be our transportation costs. Enter our advertising manager Otis Clutterbuck with the perfect solution to that budgetary problem. Otis’s dear Uncle Cletis ran a “Ride the Ducky” boat tour down in Branson, Missouri, and was happy to loan us one of his amphibian vehicles for the week. With plenty of room on board for the whole staff and their families, we could drive it down Route 66 to the southwest coastline, plunge it straight into the waiting Pacific Ocean, and motorboat our way down to Fiji with a minimal assault upon our wallets and pocketbooks. This, my friends, was low-cost travel at its finest.

Two days out to sea we knew we had made a big mistake. For starters, several snooty passengers aboard a passing Princess cruise ship mocked us with various Donald Duck impressions from the promenade deck. Secondly, twin theologians and novice sea navigators Maurice and Emmett Peabody discovered much too late that there is a big difference between a sextant (which is a celestial navigation tool for sea travel) and a sexton (which is a church officer in charge of maintenance). Turns out the confused sexton whom the twins brought with them was no help at all in pointing out the location of Fiji.

By the third day out, we were lost at sea, getting irritable, and periodically green around the gills with seasickness. Even our daily Bible study group became tense when reporter Horace Pook referenced Jonah being thrown overboard after managing editor Durwood Cumbey complained too many times about having to eat canned sardines three days in a row from our stockpile of food.

Later that night the Lord, having seen our miserable plight, showed great mercy upon us when He guided our boat to the little known island of Gilligan in order to spare our lives. (How else could one explain the fact that the cannibalistic natives on the island had recently swore off meat after getting food poisoning from a missionary who was way past his “best by” date?) We drove ashore in the middle of the night and pulled into the nearest visitor parking spot for amphibian vehicles. Unfortunately we didn’t have money in our travel budget for the parking meter and we had to keep driving down the shoreline until we found free parking at the local Walmart. Man, these stores are everywhere!

After much discussion concerning our situation, we praised the Lord for his providential Hand and quickly decided to forgo our trip to Fiji and enjoy the delights that awaited us on Gilligan while we still had vacation time left. Obviously the Lord wanted us here. Needless to say, we had an interesting time.

Tomorrow, God willing, I will present a photographic journal of our tropical holiday with appropriate comment by me, the author. Here is a sneak preview…

Enjoy till then!