One of the funniest things ever observed in missionary travels is watching missionaries attempt to set up and take a portable screen like this one.

To start with the entire contraption is on little collapsible legs that are prone to fold up or tip over if you even look at them funny or speak too loudly in their presence. To make matters worse, the screen itself is held open by an arm and hook contraption that as best as I can figure was invented by the devil to make missionaries invent new curse words.

There was a particular missions conference I attended where a church had helpfully provided their own screen but due to some vagary of the mechanics the screen would not open more than halfway no matter how much they prayed or tried to cast the spirit of Bad Engineering out of it.

The missionary, himself a diminutive man, was not at all impressed by their tiny screen size and right before his presentation before a room full of packed pews attempted to show his field experience and can-do spirit by making adjustments on the fly.

No sooner had he commenced the laying on of hands than the screen immediately completely backslid and began to waggle about forcing the missionary into a strange tribal dance as he wrapped his arms around various bits of it and shuffled around in a circle trying to keep the display from complete apostasy. The entire thing flopped one way and rotated another and threatened in every way to deny the audience a view of a Foreign Land and its Great Need (TM).

Meanwhile, all the other missionaries tried their very hardest not to laugh out loud. Mostly because we were just that hard up for a laugh.

You can call it spiritual warfare if you must. All I know is that I don’t remember anything else that happened that evening but I’ll never forget how that man’s overconfidence ended him up dancing for his dinner in the middle of a missions conference. I’m still convinced those screens are the devil’s own handiwork.