Finished another “novella” today. It was only a few-hour’s read and completely worth it. It was a suggested follow-up to reading “The Slumber of Christianity” that I finished just days ago. I happened to have this Dekker book in my library waiting for me. It’s a great fictional-work depicting a small village church in Bosnia during World War II.

The story follows the village priest, Father Michael and the rest of the village as they are approached by 5 soldiers with a commander marching to the orders of our spiritual enemy.

The book includes a CD-single by Todd Agnew based on the book. I have yet to download the track, but plan to soon.

The book awakened my imagination, again, on the subject of heaven and what it will look and sound like.

As a part of our Christmas-as-a-family celebration we decided to venture out and see a movie. Not a big deal, usually, but this was our two year old’s FIRST at-the-theater movie-going experience.

She loved it and did extremely well!

The Tale of Despereaux is a movie based on the children’s book of the same title. It’s a great story about a brave mouse, a rat with a change of heart, a royal family, and a peasant girl and her estranged father.

The animation was top-notch and the voices were well-fitting each character. It was easy to enjoy this animated feature as a family, too. The G-rating held true for this film. Ella didn’t seem to mind the “rat city” darkness and literal disgust. There were also some tame sword fights that fit the elements of the movie quite well.

My favorite parts included the scenes of “ratworld” and “mouseworld” – scenes of human trash being made into homes for the small creatures have always fascinated me for some reason.

Ella now calls herself “Despereaux” from time to time except for the times she says, “What’s the little mouse’s name?”

French can be so difficult for an almost 3-year-old, I guess.

4/5 stars from me.

Ted Dekker is famous for being an author of “Christian Fiction” – fictional novels with faith-based ideas. This book is far from fiction.
I picked up “The Slumber of Christianity” simply because it had Dekker’s name on it. I’m a fan of his and was curious whether his non-fictional work could be as well put together as his fictional works.
I loved it.
The book awakened my need to pursue the “prize” as the Apostle Paul puts it. Dekker points out that a majority of Christians lives day-to-day without thinking much, if at all, of the heavenly reward we are supposedly pursuing with our Christ-like walk.
This read is already being worked into an upcoming message that I will be preaching.