‘Trevor is one tough cookie,’ Kenny thought to himself. He thinks like Mr. Spock, very logical, analytical and not very easy to persuade. So, how would Kenny convince Trevor that he was in possession of a ship that can travel through time? Well, at least he had his good friend Z, short for Ezekiel, to back him up. That was reassuring to him. Here’s how the phone conversation went. Kenny called Trevor on the phone while Z was there with him.
“Hello.” Trevor answered.
“Dude, you are not going to believe this.” Kenny said excited.
“Try me.” Trevor challenged confidently.
“Ok, what if I told you that I saw myself?” Kenny countered.
“Dude, I see you every day, what’s the big deal? I mean, if you look in the mirror you could see yourself too.” Trevor commented even more confused.
“No, no, no, you don’t get it,” Kenny lamented, “I mean that I saw myself from the future, I was much older, in my twenties, I was much taller too.”
“You’ve been watching too much ‘Back to the Future,’” Trevor joked.
“No, Z saw it too,” Kenny protested, he didn’t like Trevor’s tone. He handed the phone to Z putting it on speaker.
“Yeah, Trevor it’s true,” Z replied, “I saw Kenny from the future, no joke. There is no punch line.”
“Ok, do you have any proof? Is he coming back so we all can see him?” Trevor asked a little more serious.
Taking the phone back Kenny continued, “Listen, I got to meet with you and Candace, so that I can tell you the whole story. We are going to need your help. This is serious. Can you swing by Candace’s house and grab her? We will meet you up at the park under the big tree where there is a bench.”
That’s how everything got started. Kenny met with a select group of his friends, namely Trevor, Candace, Ezekiel, Talisa and Aisha. They met under the big tree at the park, and Keeny told them the story of how he met himself, who we will call future Kenny, and how future Kenny showed him and Z a ship in an abandoned warehouse that was from the future and could time travel. Needless to say, the proof is in the pudding, so everyone wanted to see the ship, especially Trevor.
“You can’t see the ship, because the ship is a secret.” Kenny explained.
“Oh, boy,” Trevor said, “are you kidding?”
“No,” Kenny clarified, “what I’m saying is that you can’t see the ship unless you promise to keep it a secret, you can’t tell anyone about it. Agreed?”
So, the gang agreed to keep it secret, and they all piled into Trevor’s truck and headed to the warehouse. They entered the abandoned warehouse one by one so as not to bring any attention to it. Once everyone was inside Kenny led the group to the area in the warehouse where the ship was.
“Ok, dude,” Trevor complained, “I don’t see anything.”
Kenny smiled, and pulled out an I-pad looking device. He touched the screen, and a ship decloaked right in front of everyone’s eyes.
“Oh boy, this changes everything Kenny.” Trevor said, “sorry to have doubted you, man.”
“Wow,” Aisha exclaimed, “this thing uses highly advanced light bending technology to hide the ship!”
“Unbelievable,” Candace announced, “we may be the world’s first-time traveling teenagers.”
The entire gang was completely blown away by the advanced technology, and the possibility that this ship could time travel. Using the I-pad looking device Kenny let the ramp down, and he led the way into the ship. Everyone followed slowly walking up the ramp trying to take it all in and not miss a thing. Kenny told the team, “The first level of the ship is operations, and there is a briefing room over here, and in the back is a storage area, the top level of the ship houses the sleeping quarters, the mess hall, with area for food storage.”
“I’m not trying to be doubting Thomas here,” Trevor said, “but I think we need to see if this thing can fly, and if it can actually travel through time.”
“I agree!” Kenny replied without hesitation. “Kenny from the future showed Z and I how to do a few things with the ship.” Kenny went to the controls in the front of the ship, and starting working the controls, and the ship began to rise, the ramp began to come up and close. There was a huge whole in the roof of the warehouse caused by a previous fire, the ship passed through that big whole as it ascended from the warehouse it was cloaked, in invisibility mode. Kenny is a little bit of a showboat, he turned to his captive audience and said, “This ship can also be operated by voice commands. Watch. Computer, navigate to the coastline.”
The voice from the computer mechanically responded, “Affirmative.”
And the ship started moving towards the gulf. Kenny smiled. “Cool huh?”
“Kenny, you have no idea how much this ship cost to make do you?” Talisa asked still amazed.
“Hummm, not really.” Kenny said just being honest.
“Normally, I’d say millions,” Talisa commented thinking deeply, “but with the extreme advanced technology that I see here, billions is more likely.”
Then the computer announced, “There is an urgent message for Kenny, should I put it on the main viewer?”
“Absolutely!” Kenny responded.
“Kenny, it’s me,” a video image of future Kenny’s face appeared on the screen, “hey we got an emergency at this end, I need to transport aboard the ship right now.”
“Ok,” Kenny said, “what do I do?”
“Have the computer ‘allow transport.’” Future Kenny said.
“Computer,” Kenny commanded, “allow transport.”
Future Kenny instantly appeared on the transport pad. He was taller than Kenny and had bigger muscles. He dressed like people of our time, he only appeared to be 3-4 years older than Kenny. Trevor, Candace, Ezekiel, Talisa and Aisha stood there in complete shock. The first thing was the seeing the technology in action, future Kenny just appeared out of thin air. The second thing was there is an emergency, and the team is not remotely prepared to deal with it.
“Hey everyone,” future Kenny said as he rushed over to the main control panel of the ship. “We got to get out of here, right now!” future Kenny starting working the controls, “Everyone, I need you to get seated and lock yourselves in.” No one questioned him, they trusted him like they would trust Kenny. Everyone just found a seat and strapped themselves in. After everyone was safely secured in a seat future Kenny turned to the team and said, “Don’t freak out on me here, but this is going to be different, things will slow down for about 10 secs and then everything will go back to normal. Time travel can get a little weird.” He pressed the button initiating a jump back in time.
Everything began to move in slow-motion. It was a weird sensation. Sounds were distorted, and the team began to look at each other in this slow-motion state. You could move but you were moving slowly. This only lasted for 10 seconds just like future Kenny said, and then in an instant everything went back to normal speed.
“Wooh,” Kenny said, “that was a strange feeling.”
“No, it’s ok,” Kenny from the future said, “there are no harmful side-effects from that, it’s just the way time travel works.”
“So, what is the problem?” Trevor asked.
“And where are we?” Aisha asked.
“And when are we?” Candace asked.
“I apologize for this sudden time travel trip, but it was unavoidable. In short there is someone who is trying to get control of this ship for selfish motives. At headquarters this person is running scans looking for this ship. These scans are time specific. Which means that each scan can only cover a 6-month period. They were about to scan your time. These scans are 2 hours in duration. My plan is to let them do the scan of your time, and then after it is completed send the ship back to your time. Since they already scanned for the ship in your time it will safe. But you can’t return to your time for 2 hours, I say to be sure don’t return to your “home time” until 4 hours have passed.
“Where are we?” Future Kenny looked down at the screen and said, “We are due south of Jerusalem, not far from Bethlehem. And when are we? This is the day that Jesus was born.”
“Wow,” Aisha said, “are you kidding me?”
“Team,” future Kenny said, “I’m going back to my time to keep an eye on the bad guys. I will contact you if we have any further problems, don’t let anyone except me or other team members transport onto this ship. Protect this ship.”
“Wait, but what are our instructions?” Kenny replied desperately.
Future Kenny got on the transport pad, and starting imputing his destination time information while he was speaking, “Return to your home time 4 hours after you left, but while you are here go see Jesus in the manger. Look, I know that you are not prepared for this mission but you shouldn’t miss this, use the resources on the ship and stay out of sight, try to avoid interacting with the people on this trip. And after you see the baby Jesus, go back to your ‘home time’ and start preparing for timetravel, like I previously instructed Kenny and Z. Return home at least 4 hours after the time we left your time. Good-bye and may God be with you. And congratulations you are the first teenage time travelers ever.” With that future Kenny pressed the button and vanished.
“Ok,” Kenny said to the team, “in order for us to go and see Jesus we need clothes, we would stand out like a sore thumb in our current attire, jeans and tee shirts. Does anyone have an idea for clothing.”
“We are not prepared,” Trevor said, “we don’t have clothes for this time period on the ship. This not a good idea.”
“Well,” Candace put forth, “maybe we could improvise in this one situation, after all we are talking about going to see Jesus in the manger. What did people of this time wear?”
“Mostly robes, tunics, just simple things,” Aisha chimed in, “these people were not wealthy, so nothing extravagant. Our problem is that we don’t have any clothing on this ship.”
“Wait a minute,” Z exclaimed, “When future Kenny gave me and Kenny a tour of the ship, he showed us sleeping quarters on the top floor, and in the sleeping quarters were beds, and on the beds were sheets and blankets.”
“Bingo!!” Kenny shouted, “We can cut up the sheets and make some robes for everyone to wear, that way we won’t stand out. Z you are the man.” The team got to work. Trevor and Kenny found some scissors in the equipment room, Candace and Talisa went to the top floor of the ship and found a linen closet, where the linen was stored. The team started cutting the sheets up to fit each person. They made the robes long enough to cover everyone’s feet, they didn’t want the people of Jesus’ day to see their shoes.
“We don’t speak Aramaic the language of these people,” Kenny reiterated, “so let’s not interact with the people. We just want to get a look at Jesus when He was a baby, and see where Joseph and Mary were staying.”
“How do we find Jesus in the manger?” Talisa asked.
“Kenny,” Aisha asked, “can you pull up the account from the Bible that speaks about the shepherds in the field when the angel appeared and announced Jesus’ birth?”
Everyone filed into the ‘mission room’ where there was a large screen on the wall. Kenny had the computer pull up this story in the Bible at Luke the second chapter:
“And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:8-14 ESV
“You see it says that ‘the glory of the Lord shone around them.’ Just follow the light.” Aisha reported, “This light was really bright so let’s look for this light.”
“The computer shows us that Bethlehem was a very small town,” Kenny pointed out, “some estimate that during this time there was only 200-300 people living in this city, other estimate from 300-1,000 people. In either case it was a pretty small village. It is located on a hill.”
“Move the ship over the hill the village is on and let’s see if we can find this light.” Aisha encouraged Kenny.
They looked all around scanning in every direction, but they didn’t see any bright light. So, Kenny took the ship up higher in the sky to be able to see more area at one time.
“Keep an eye out for shepherds too,” Kenny said, “because the angel appeared to shepherds in the field.”
After some time went by Candace spoke up, “Guys! I see a bright light; it is to the south of Bethlehem.” Kenny took the ship over there quickly. The team saw the angel shining brightly as he spoke to the shepherds. They were amazed; and they were speechless to be seeing the exact scene that the Bible described in Luke chapter 2.
“That’s what an angel looks like.” Talisa muttered under her breath.
The entire team was mesmerized by the whole scene. But Aisha realized what was about to happen, and she told the team to get ready to get out of the ship. Because the shepherds are about to go to Bethlehem to find Jesus in a manger. “We got to hurry up.” Aisha directed, “Kenny land the ship, and keep it in invisibility mode.”
The team rushed out of the ship and headed for the shepherds; so they could follow them.
“Keep your distance,” Trevor commented, “we don’t want to interact with them, since we can’t speak the language. Stay together, we don’t want to lose anyone.”
They followed the shepherds that were headed to Bethlehem. The shepherds went through the city looking for the sign that the angel told them about, ‘a baby in a manger.’ They kept going until they made their way to the place that Joseph and Mary were staying. As they came closer, they saw exactly what the angel of the Lord told them they would see, a baby in a manger. This was Jesus the savior, of humble beginnings.
The team watched from a distance captivated to see the Bible unfold right before their eyes. They moved closer to see the baby, Joseph and Mary the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. As they returned to the ship they began to speak about what they had seen.
“Jesus was just like any other baby,” Z noted, “I could tell that Mary was a caring mother, did you see how she had the baby wrapped up?”
“Yeah,” Candace agreed, “wrapping a baby so that the entire body, including the arms and legs are covered is called swaddling, only the head is exposed. This keeps the baby warm, supported and protected. It is a practice of many cultures going back to ancient times and is considered the proper way to care for a new born.”
“You can see that these people were poor,” Aisha commented, “Imagine the weight that was on the shoulders of Joseph and Mary. They had the responsibility to raise the Son of God, to teach him the ways of their people, to teach him the law of Moses, to teach him to love righteousness and truth, for this child would grow up to be the Savior, the Messiah. This was no small task for these two ordinary people.”
The time traveling teenagers had seen their first biblical event. Now it was time for them to return to their time. Kenny made sure that he set the time of their return to 4 hours after they departed. He landed the ship back inside the abandoned warehouse and put it in invisibility mode. Everyone on the team knew that they needed to be completely prepared before they took the time travel ship back in time again. Kenny outlined to the team the problems that they had to overcome in order to time travel successfully:
- “Language barrier – we are going back to the past; English does not yet exist as a language. We must be able to communicate with the people of the past in their language.
- Money – We must have the currency that is being used in that time period to transact business. Paper money does not exist in the past.
- Communication – our team needs to be able to communicate with one another, there are no cell towers in the past.
- Clothes – we need appropriate clothes so that we can blend in with the people of the past.
- Food – we must take food along with us so we have something to eat.
- Culture and Religion – We need to understand the culture and religion of that time so we can interact with the people without offending them.
- Time-travel ship operation – We need to understand how the ship works so we can use the cloaking ability, and the transport ability of the ship.”
Candace is the organizer on the team, she is good at managing people and settling differences. She spoke up after Kenny outlined the problems that the team needed to overcome.
“Look, the best way to attack these problems is simple,” Candace explained, “we should assign each problem to a team member. For example, Kenny, can you work on the problem of the language barrier? We need to be able to speak to the people of Jesus’ day and understand them when they speak to us. Talisa can you work on the currency problem for us? We need to be able transact business with the people of Jesus’ day. Next problem is team communication. How do we communicate with each other while we are in the past? Trevor, could you tackle that for us? Next is proper clothing for the time period. Aisha, could you handle that problem for us? Everyone will need suitable clothes to blend in with the people of the past. Also, we need to take food along with us. Ezekiel, can you handle that? There is a large refrigerated storage unit on the top floor, you can store the food there. And we need to understand the culture and religion of the people of Israel. I think that Aisha and Kenny are the most qualified to help out in this area. As for the operation of the time travel ship, I your humble servant Candace will take that assignment using Trevor as my assistant. But ultimately, I will train each one of you to operate this incredible ship, which will create great flexibility in mission assignments.”
“Also,” Kenny added, “everyone we do need to test out this ship, so we know its capability. What I suggest is that we go and work on our assignments and Saturday at noon we come to the ship and compare notes to see where we are on solving these problems and we can test the ship out at that point.”
Everyone agreed that was the best course of action. So, the team left the warehouse quietly one by one, not drawing any attention. Kenny was excited about the prospect of time traveling back to the past with this team. But really how did it get started, how did Kenny help select the team and how did Kenny meet future Kenny in the first place? Ok, let’s go back to the beginning of these events and tell how all this got started.