Gaijin Jump

By Craig Chapin. First published in July 1989.

One of the things for which I became famous among my fellow short-term missionaries was my bad cooking. I returned to Japan three years later to find that legends about me still lived on. When I met new short-termers, they would often say, “You’re Craig Chapin? I’ve heard of you. You’re famous!” When pressed, they would sometimes explain, “You’re a terrible cook!”

One evening during my first year in Japan, I invited a student and her husband over for dinner. He was curious about the Bible because of certain horror movies he had seen. I worked hard to present a decent dinner and was pleased with the result…until a short while after they left, when I developed food poisoning.

I prayed desperately that my guests would not get sick, and they did not. I, on the other hand, had it bad.

The legend continues.