Summer Fun
Last year, my parent’s church hatched an idea to keep the congregation on their toes during the summer months. It involved a 2.5-cm tall rubber Jesus and instructions: cart this lil gaffer on your exploits and get photographic proof of his whereabouts.
“Why do you have that teeny Jesus?” I asked Mom, when she pulled him from her purse at the airport in Vancouver. They were taking our family on a belated-thanks-to-Covid 50th Wedding Anniversary cruise to Alaska.
“It’s from church,” she explained. “We need to take him absolutely everywhere and then they’ll make a slideshow of his summer adventures. Take a picture of me and him, please.”
“Are you the only one with a Jesus?” inquired my sister as she watched my mom and daughter pose on the edge of the luggage turnstile.
“Heck no,” grunted my dad, pulling a second one from his pocket. “Everyone got one. They bought a bag of 500 or something online.”
“But mine already lost his hand somewhere,” confessed my mom, blushing with near-shame.
Me, my children, siblings, and in-laws may have rolled our eyes. And chuckled. Personally, I automatically thought of Flat Stanley.
You don’t know Flat Stanley?
That’s okay, I’ll give you a quick lowdown on this book series written by American, Jeff Brown.
- Stanley Lambchop was a kid character created in 1964
- he had an unfortunate run-in with a bulletin board. Don’t worry, he was fast asleep and wasn’t hurt – just turned into a pancake.
- Flat Stanley, as he became known, realized there were many advantages to being 2D. He was so thin he could fit in an envelope and travel the world for mere pennies.
- A trendy trend started when elementary educator, Dale Hubert, from London, Ontario, figured it would be a blast for laminated Flat Stanleys to accompany grade 3 families on their vacations – or be mailed to relatives around the globe who would cart him on every errand, write journal entries, and film his exploits.
- She christened it The Flat Stanley Project and in the mid-1990s, this craze was almost as hot as Beanie Babies.
The Family Obsession
So, Jesus in Alaska 2025 was for our family a bit like Flat Stanley was to elementary students in 1998. What started with rolling eyes quickly became an obsession. My uber competitive siblings were going to ensure that our family won some kind of award for the most creatively posed Jesus.
Some of mini-Christ’s experiences (which have of course been caught on camera):
- Walking on water
Sound like a familiar Biblical phenomenon? After a paved 1-mile hike back to see the Mendenhall Glacier, Jesus dipped his wee, sandaled feet into the glacier-fed lake.
And, speaking of glaciers, while sailing through Glacier Bay National Park, he had his mug shot taken in front of a few, including the famous 21-mile-wide Margerie that continues to calve. Only two large cruise ships are allowed per day, and one of the stipulations is that official park rangers must board at the mouth of the bay to narrate and give special presentations.
- Wildlife Rodeo
Who knew The Robed One was such a nut for riding feral beasts? We caught him atop a duck and a moose.
- Twinsies
At the Mission Street Market café in Ketchikan, we hooted and hollered our way through a massive game of Uno. It wasn’t the length that was huge but the cards themselves. Jesus slapped down a few pick-up 4s – and also met his twin watching over the crispy-topped blueberry muffins.
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Also: bikes, ships, Vancouver’s SkyTrain, buses, and the White Pass Railway from Skagway to Fraser, B.C. and back.
When asked for a photo with Jesus, the conductor pulled another out of his pocket and exclaimed, “Hey! Someone left one of these on a seat the other day!”
A little excessive? Oh well.
Because we went a little overboard – pun intended – these are just a few of mini Jesus’ escapades. We didn’t even email them all back to the church for fear their inbox would explode.
Jesus had a grand ole time. As did we. Who knew a church’s summer decree and a bitsy, bearded figurine would foster such inventive fun and spunky joy?
