THE TROUBLE WITH THE TROPICS!    DFO1215  8/6/81

         1. THAT'S ONE THING ABOUT THE TROPICS, IT'S GOT MORE KINDS OF BUGS & PARASITES! This is the side of the tropical paradise island I didn't tell you about before! There are other things they have down there besides those delicious Eden's fruits & tropical fruits & things. You look at that beautiful beach scene with waving coconut palms, & you like to emphasise the nice parts. I don't usually like to talk about the bad part, but sooner or later you've got to mention the Devil & all of his critters.
         2. WHEN WE KIDS FIRST WENT TO MIAMI, it was so nice & warm we wanted to go barefoot like we had up in the North on the farms & stuff. It was a nice warm tropical climate so we ran around in the dirt barefooted in a perfectly nice section of town, beautiful home, but we were playing around in the dirt, & first thing you know our legs were covered with these huge sores from our ankles clear up to our knees & all over our feet & everywhere!
         3. MY MOTHER WONDERED WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO US! All of a sudden we broke out in these big sores! So she took us to the doctor & he said, "They've been running around in the dirt barefooted, haven't they?" He said, "Well, you know why you came down here, you like it nice & warm, & the germs like it too!"--Ha! He said, "I could give you all kinds of medicine, but really the best cure in the World is to take'm over to the beach & let'm stay in the salt water as long as possible for a couple of hours every afternoon."
         4. I'LL TELL YOU A FEW STORIES TO MAKE YOU THANKFUL YOU DIDN'T GO TO THE TROPICS YET! THE MOSQUITOES WOULD COME DOWN IN CLOUDS & SETTLE ON YOU BY THE HUNDREDS, almost pick you up & carry you away alive!--Or suck your blood until you shrivelled up like a squeezed orange!
         5. THE LORD WASN'T GOING TO LET ANYBODY GET LAZY ANYWHERE! So He keeps all those bugs & mosquitoes & everything busy bitin'm to keep'm movin'! That's why I said the Lord let's dogs have fleas, otherwise dogs would get too lazy! But the Lord lets the fleas come along & bite the dog & keep the dogs movin' & scratchin' & bitin'!
         6. LIVING IN THE TROPICS IN FLORIDA, & TEXAS TOO, we learned not only to shake out our shoes--by hitting'm on the heel real hard so if there was anything in the toe it'd drop down--- but we also shook out our socks & our shirts & underpants, anything that we left hanging up for the night on a chair or hook or anywhere.
         7. ONE OF THE WORST THINGS ABOUT THE TROPICS, IT'S EXTREMELY HUMID & VERY DAMP. If you had a nice lovely pair of brown shoes & you stuck'm in the back of the closet & you decided you wanted to change shoes & put on your nice new brown shoes, you pulled'm out of the closet & they were no longer brown, they were green!--Completely covered with green mold! And it would just ruin the surface!
         8. AND WHAT THE MOTHS DIDN'T GET, THE COCKROACHES DID! You could put your best suit or dress into the closet overnight & if you had a food spot on it anywhere you could lift it out the next morning & there was a nice big hole like that! Those big cockroaches had just eaten the whole thing right out along with the cloth, right out of your best suit or dress.
         9. SO THE TROPICS, THEY DO HAVE A FEW DEVIL'S PESTS, so you can be thankful maybe you don't live in the Tropics right now! Let's pray, shall we? Amen, Lord, bless & keep our Family who are in those places; protect them from all those things, Lord, & help them to learn how to handle it & avoid it & fight'm & keep'm from hurtin'm too much so they can preach the Gospel. TYL for how you have kept the Families in those places.