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A story from "Appointment in the forest"

In India you will go…
On the eve of the publication of my first comic book, at a time when I still used to draw without the light of the flashes of journalists and when the idea of inviting me to speak to an audience would only have occurred to a desperate organiser, a man telephoned me. That voice (as well as the person to whom it belonged) was completely unknown to me back then. He told me amongst other things that he had had a vision of me speaking to thousands of young people and that (just like that, in passing…) God would send me one day to India…
(?...okaaay… thanks for the call).

The discovery of a plane ticket to India in my letter box ten years later leaves me speechless. Simultaneously, my recollections also place in the letter box of my memory the circumstances of the events described previously. Yet I believed that I had lost it in the annals of my brain, which is as messy as my desk (and that says it all!).

The strange sender of the ticket is a mission by the name of ‘Empart’… Aha? ...A few months
ago, I was invited to do drawings in conjunction with an Indian speaker. We had all had a good laugh because I had drawn a caricature of him on the big screen and he had shouted out this joke at me from the stage:
‘Hey, you, buddy, you’ll get what’s coming your way!’
The invitation is from him ; I phone the head of the mission based in my country to find out more :
‘Er… why do you want me to go to India ?
What are you expecting of me?’
‘We would just like you to come so that you are influenced by what you see there…’
‘ ... and that’s all ?!’

They are not asking me to be a speaker, to repaint walls with Mickey Mouse, to dig a well
or save any hostages (and that’s just as well, cos I really don’t know how that’s done!) …but just to come!?!


Where are we now !?
From the moment I walk out of the airport, I am greeted by that distinctive smell (spice and piss) and that permanent fog (dust and pollution) which, like the roadside vendors, will never give up following me around. The scene which imposes itself on my gaze is completely destabilising. Aarrrgh!!! It must be that stupid pilot who must have gone through a space-time corridor!! What I discover gives me the strange impression of having gone back in time. But it is different from the space-time continuum which has been ours, as in this one several aliens live in collusion with humans! Guys with enormous turbans on their heads, others, cut in two, moving about on skate-boards with the help of their arms, magnificent women decked out in rainbows…

Keep moving, there’s so much to see!
In the street, it’s no better : the roadway is teeming with an abundance of giant yoghurt pots with a number of random wheels, serving as vehicles. The English car, straight out of another century, which serves as my taxi, glides along, like an enormous boat in the cascades of a river made up of motley assorted vehicles, at the speed of the current of traffic. Here, drivers are completely freed from the constraint of the most rudimentary traffic regulations. When the taxi plunges in the wrong direction on to the motorway to gain a few unnecessary minutes, I stay cool (my brain has gone into ‘So what’ mode anyway, all that just can’t be real!)

 
To be continued next week (Part 2 - out of 4)

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  string(3336) "A tower that is falling down!

My English editor told me that he was no longer going to reprint my comic books… Of 8,000 comic books, he still has about 2,600 left, I am going to see if I can buy them back… ouch!

I refuse to resolve to let everything crumble; I continue to believe that millions (for a start) of people are going to find Jesus through these comic books.

Lord, if this door closes, may it be so that another even bigger one opens somewhere else… 

David’s pals:

‘Are you crazy! Fight against Goliath?! But he is so enormous!!!

David:

‘Cool, in that case I won’t be able to miss!’

Young padawans

A young Christian managed to get me into his comic book school. I was able to witness to his whole class, in spite of the teacher being visibly ill at ease about God being talked about so freely in his class.

By contrast, the students all looked really moved.

Lately I have been coming across talented young Christians saying to me that they want to follow in my tracks (hey, I’m going to have to wipe my feet then!).

It didn’t matter how hard I tried to explain to them that it was a life of hardship, taunting, uncertainty, impossible struggles, spilt inkpots, that the choice of loving Jesus and the lost was a choice of suffering, that a soldier who is dead to himself is the only one who frightens the enemy… 

It was no use! I didn’t manage to discourage them (so much for that)! So I prayed for them…


Alain Auderset
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I have a banana tree in my studio.

(normal for a comic book workshop)!
Each time I transplant it into a bigger pot, it grows until its roots finish taking over the new area of soil.
(Aaaarg… STOP! Stop growing!)

NO ROOTS, NO FRUIT

What is vital in a tree is what is not seen… In our case, humans (as far as giraffes are concerned, I am not too sure…), it’s intimacy with God!

The more you extend your daily quality time with him (not just: ‘I pray when my wife is driving’ or ‘while I am brushing my teeth’... The more you will grow… And the more bananas you will have in your life (and bananas … they’re so good!)!

Today I am walking in the forest once again…
My path always goes through there (Oh that it had done a sudden runner to the Bahamas during the night…)!
The morning, in perfect complicity with the dew, coats the sides of the path with a glistening sparkle!

I ask God for nothing… other than to be closer to Him… ‘All fullness dwells in Jesus’, Colossians 1:19 (a passage in the Bible). Piece of advice for a ‘smart perspective’: if you have Jesus, you have everything!!
Suddenly on my path I see something amazing: thick, visible roots…
…that perks me up and I get a ‘banana’ smile!

P.S. I have planted lots of baobabs (that’s one of the biggest trees in the world!) all over my studio, but I no longer know where…Well, they are really tiny seeds…Oh dear! I have a hunch that they also have something to say to me
…With all these plants with the gift of the gab surrounding me while I make comic books, there is a cacophony!
 Alain Auderset
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The house


The messenger
“One day this house will be yours!”
These are the words of Luc, my pastor friend, as he points out the strange building in front of me.
“Come on, Luc… think about it! I am far too poor to buy it! With my family, we are living below subsistence level, quite honestly, how can you dream up something like that?”
He doesn’t say anything but has this annoying little smile which people have who know something that you don’t know…

The discreet return
The years have gone by and today, acting as if nothing was up, Luc announces to me:
“There you are! ‘The’ house is for sale!”
That same smile that twists his mouth prevents him from continuing his remarks. But, as they can’t stop themselves, they escape through his eyes and say to me: “Well then? Are you going to buy it?”
“Grrroooaaan, Luc! You know as well as I do, my financial situation hasn’t changed, and I…

“Eh? What are you talking about?… I didn’t say anything…”
He has this look of indifference that the guilty have when they want to pass themselves off as innocent by whistling a banal tune.

(Why is it that I don’t manage to have any normal friends!?)

The absent-minded detour
The following morning, as is my habit, I plan to go into the forest, but this twisty path has a mind of its own and because of it I find myself face to face with the building in question.
Now it is my thoughts which, unbeknown to me, are embroidering a whole web of fantasies:
“Hmmm…it is true that it would be ideal, my workshop downstairs, my family right above… cool…”

SLAM! Reality, which – as everyone knows – nurtures only aversion for embroidery, slaps me with its implacable logic and brings me out of my daydreams:
‘You’re broke! OK?!”
The following day, same again, the path, taking advantage of my inattention (I often have my head in the clouds), deposits me right at the same spot (oh, very clever!)
“OK, Lord, let’s get things straight; in this world, things don’t work like that, you need money to get a building… do you understand?”
I sense then that He has the same smile of connivance as Luc… (those two are hiding something from me…)

I am not deluding myself; Luc, the path, Jesus are going to use their complicity so that every day I (and my vigilante/distributor of slaps, ‘reality’) come back to the same starting point. So let’s look at the problem head-on…

The banker
How do you go about buying a house?
(Er…? Instinctively I slide in the direction of the bank…) The local media often talk about me, so much so that the banker recognises me straightaway. From the tone of his voice I have the impression that he is convinced that I must have come by limousine and that my chauffeur is waiting for me outside; I blurt out to him:
“Morning! I would like to buy a house; would you lend me the money?”
He enthusiastically hands me a form:
“Of course, Mr. Auderset! Kindly note down your monthly salary on this document (a simple formality).”
“My monthly salary? Er… it depends on the months (the life of an artist, you know…) my oh my. I don’t understand anything about accounts…
Fortunately I have a wizard friend who helps me fill in the form (well… wizard, accountant; they are one and the same thing!).

The true banker
The figures which the banker discovers have wiped off his welcoming smile, which up till then had resembled in every respect the one that appears in the company’s advertising.
“Er… Terribly sorry, Sir, I’m afraid it won’t be possible! For us to lend you money, you have to already have some yourself.”
Blimey! I do not understand at all the logic of this bunch of cronies! Their ties must be tied so tightly that they prevent the blood from getting to the brain… (?!)

Sheepish, facing the house, I explain to God two or three things that he must not have understood properly about the workings of administration in our lowly world, before moving away from it into the forest with him.
A few days later, I receive a strange visit from an elderly couple who explain to me that they had been planning to invest in the stock market (a grown-up thing), but that, after thinking it over, they had felt it would be wiser to invest in the Kingdom of God. It just so happens that a chance conversation with one of my friends led them to me… In short, they have lent me 100,000 Swiss Francs

(approx. 125,000 Euros), telling me:
“You have 40 years to pay it back.”
I go back to the bank but this time I don’t go to the counter first, I go straight to knock on the manager’s door (after all, when I pray that’s what I do too, I speak to God directly and not via an intermediary!).
And he agrees to lend me the remainder.

Nowadays I live in this house with my little family. Creativity and lots of fun overflow from every part of it. Digging in the cellar, I discovered a notice ‘evangelical church’. The people who laid the first stones of this building (in the 1800s) planned to make it into a church, a place of worship and human warmth. All the owners that there have been, since its foundation, have each time been servants of God…
I have kept the interior as it was, transforming the pulpit (the thing for preaching) into a drawing table and the large windows into a sprinkler of light. The exotic plants, just like the drawings, have taken over all the walls.

Praise be to the King of kings, the Banker of bankers, his paths are amazing for his most simple servants who allow themselves to be led by Him. He has compassion on them and blesses them in his time.
In the same time (no connection, but anyway…):

Willy Grunch (my comic book character) wins first prize for Christian comic books at Angoulême !!!
A prophet (who is passing through) tells me:  “Go, I will send you far away to the nations…”  And Boom! In the days that follow,
I am invited for the first time to speak in Spain and in the USA!

Alain Auderset"
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‘Auderset in his combat gear, ready to battle the accursed aphids’
 
 
The war of the accursed aphids
Armies of aphids have appeared on the little apple trees I’ve planted just in front of my studio! 
They suck the life blood from the trees – so it’s goodbye to any fruit! In the end, it’s a death sentence for the tree!
 Armed with a few half-baked solutions, I sprayed them with a black olive soap spray! I could have sworn I heard them laughing!
 – Thanks for the wash and set, Mr. S. Tupid!
(it’s a little nickname they’ve given me... ahh, they’re real jokers these aphids!) Not only have they multiplied (are aphids some sort of aphrodisiac!?),
but they’ve even got onto my house plants!! Arrggh! Is this some sort of curse!?
    I escaped into the forest to talk about it with God:
 – Hey God, what do you think about all this!?... you wouldn’t by any chance be trying to tell me something, would you?
A crystal-clear thought came suddenly to me:
 – These aphids represent criticisms.
 –  ?!?...
The silence in my head was followed by a tidal wave of doubts and interrogations....
 – Forgive me God, I’m sorry. It’s true that I often ‘notice’ faults in others....
* To notice: hypocrite’s term for ‘to criticize’
 
Real-life application
I’m in a meeting with a couple of friends (we’re busy drawing up plans to conquer the world).
 – What about you, Alain, what do you think of Billy-Bob?
(that’s not his real name... I’m not crazy – the guy’s a pumped-up WWE wrestler who’s escaped from an asylum for the thin-skinned!)
Billy-Bob... there are so many criticisms you could level at him, so much to get your teeth into that you could make a four course meal out of it !
However, I think back to my conversation in the forest... and I stick to pointing out all his positive character traits.
(Actually, there are lots of them!!!)
At just that instant, I felt a positive, strengthening force pass through me
(Wow! It could only be my friend the Holy Spirit, giving me a hand)
My small audience, which had been looking forward to tucking into a delicious dish of gossip with double cheese (Billy-Bob) suddenly found it had lost its appetite, they were left speechless, and then touched.
 
An atmosphere of peace
Sara and Valérie (my former secretaries, members of my inner circle) blurt out at the same time:
 – ‘the really nice thing about you is that you always see the best in people’ (it’s not true, but it’s nice to hear).
And at the same time, they feel good too, because if a target as tempting as Billy-Bob is spared criticism, subconsciously they know that nobody will be talking about them behind their backs either...
A question:
Why shouldn’t someone who criticizes another person in front of you do exactly the same to you as soon as you’re out of earshot?
You’ll be their next victim.
 
Total war
(best read with ‘the Eye of the Tiger’ on in the background D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJK7tlBQOQ&feature=fvwrel )
Tam ! Tatatam! Tata Taaaaa!
 There’s a stony stare and a frown upon my face, my teeth are clenched, my determination steely as can be.
Upon my back there’s a rocket-man style jetpack connected to a death laser
(well, it’s more like a kind of hand-pumped mister fed by a bit of half-perished rubber pipe, but hey...).
The war against the aphids went on for some time
(the war against criticism and fault-finding is still ongoing).
With the help of some tips from my mother in law (that’s bound to do for them...)
I sprayed a rhubarb leaf concoction (I’m fresh out of napalm*) and that really burns them up ! (with compliments from Mr. S. Tupid!)
 * (I’d used the last of the incendiaries that had been lying around in the basement)
Every three days (don’t worry, I’ve still got time to write comics), I repeat the procedure.
This time round I use fermented nettle extract. It’s very effective, but my word, it really stinks!!
My spray goes absolutely everywhere, much to the delight of my kids who run away from me, fleeing to the end of the street, imagining that a chemical apocalypse is being unleashed upon the neighborhood.
I also acquired an ace squadron of ferocious ladybugs that I released on to my beloved trees...
Despite all my efforts, some aphids cling on... the situation seems hopeless! I suddenly understood why – they have a powerful ally!
 
Ants
Did you know that ants raise aphids in order to ‘milk’ them to harvest honeydew, just like we milk cattle.
They are formidable fighters and defend their flock to the death
(they squirt formic acid, they bite, stab, scratch – they’ll even pull your hair).
To beat aphids, you first have to beat the ants’ system.
To fight against the temptation to find fault, you first have to beat your own way of thinking.
I’ve found a whole ant-hill I didn’t know was there, much too close for comfort, that I’m helping to clear out.
 
Victory
It’s true that I’ve no apples this year, but at least my apple trees are still alive, and most of all, all the aphids are gone!
... Unless it’s just because we’re in winter right now (gulp!).
P.S: Billy-Bob, after having been unemployed for years, has just found himself a casual job.
I have the strangest feeling that having ‘blessed’ (spoken well of) him has something to do with it...
Who knows... (?)
 
 
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