Why My Sister Wasn't Raptured

What would you do if you'd been raised in a strict missionary family--and suddenly caught your sister dancing? In this excerpt from the novel "Zermatt," a 14-year-old boy, vacationing in a Swiss hotel with his parents and two sisters, ponders what earth-shaking event might have led his sister Janet astray. Reprinted with permission of Carroll and Graf.

Janet was worse than Mom and Dad combined when it came to telling on me, suggesting punishments, and making snide comments about The World and its evil ways. Yet here she was, Janet Becker, who wanted to make sure I had my eyes closed when I prayed and told if I didn't; Janet, who gave me Indian wrist-burns to help "prepare" me for the martyrdom that she said awaited each of us when the Russians invaded in order to torture all American missionaries in Europe for Christ's sake; here was Janet, the future missionary nurse, sneaking down to dance to the very worst kind of worldly music!

Janet the Bible teacher had been in the arms of the Italian cook! That Janet the terrible and holy one should dance, which was even worse than smoking because smoking could not lead to the "fleeting pleasures of the flesh" but only to ill health; that Janet should have danced to hard-core rock and roll of the "very worst, most debased sort" with some young oily Roman Catholic, one who wore a cross around his neck and worshiped Mary and the Saints--a Real Christian did not need these "external symbols" because we had Christ in our hearts and no need for "the traditions of men"-that Janet could dance with such an unsaved man, who was not only exactly the kind of person Jesus had died for but that we, the Becker family, were called to Switzerland to bear witness unto; that Janet should dance, when the most that she should have done was to share Christ with that cook and share Christ at a safe distance no less; that Janet let herself be rubbed and touched, be pressed in her Temple with her "womanly gifts" shaking and bobbing to demonic rhythms while rubbing her body on someone not of God's choosing for her; that Janet did this all before marriage and did not wait until after marriage to be with that one other person only; THAT JANET SHOULD HAVE DONE ALL THIS, kept me sitting on my bed pondering for a long, long time.

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