I have had so many brushes with death, I'm astounded that I am here! And most of them have been my own doing. Many years ago as a youngster, I was riding a small scooter around our mission center, enjoying the evening air, cooled as it is many nights, simply by the effect of the rainforest around us. Spying a light off in a field, I rode into the long grass and pulled up.

Turning the engine off, I strolled over to see what the glow was exposing, only to find seven or eight Peruvian nationals, a few men and some boys surrounding a large eight to ten foot alligator! All of them were barefoot and all adorned in nothing more than Tshirts and cutoffs or dirty Bermuda shorts. For that matter, so was I.

The light emanating from several flashlights clearly delineated the reptile before us with its toothy mouth wide open. Since our mission farm was less than fifty meters distant, I was pretty sure the carniverous animal had been on the prowl for a calf or yearling. Nothing else edible was within a quarter mile. Still, it was unusual to see the gaping maw so far from our lake!

Someone handed me a rope with a loop at the end, and in my ego driven braggadocio, I decided to try to flip that loop over the fang lined jaws of the deadly monster before us. Creeping up to its head, I attempted to drop the twisted strands beneath the lower mandible. Suddenly the creature leaped at me! Within mere inches of its foul breath, I jumped back and kept backpedaling! I tried to capture it yet again...And the leathery dinosaur aggressively pursued! I had had enough! Surprisingly, the alligator stopped!

Backing off a few feet to ponder the situation, I realized I was not dressed for the hunt, nor was my diminutive size and lack of skill enough to overcome the danger in front of me. I was simply putting me in harm's way! Not having any kind of camera, I couldn't even document what I'd witnessed, but the following morning, inside our cluster of homes and offices, I queried some friends, one of whom related that he'd often seen critters headed across that section of pasture toward the fenced in grazing looking for easy prey.

Now relieved of the anxiety, I knew that fooling with such a rough and ready denizen of the forest was out of bounds for me, especially since none of the local Peruvians were brave or skilled enough to tackle the huge beast, either! Once again, God had protected me from my own insouciance!