Speaker: Dwayne Smith

Title: Parallel Universes: One Young Evangelical’s Experience of Being Caught in a Time Warp

Topic: This presentation is a series of three fictional short stories featuring 11-year-old Gene Montgomery, of Wichita, Kansas, in January 1967. On the day after Thanksgiving 1966, Gene awakens to a shocking awareness—his older brothers are missing, and no one even remembers them except him. He is mystified and devastated. However, as time progresses he learns that they are still alive but that he, or they, are caught in parallel universes, and they are 50 years ahead of him in 2016/2017. As a fervently committed Evangelical he is shocked at what he learns is going on 50 years in the future of his beloved country, and some of the things that are being supported by his people (the Evangelicals) and his family’s political party (the Republicans). Gene goes about trying to respond to his loss, attempting to communicate with his brothers (50 years in the future), confessing to some of his own errors and mistakes that he makes along the way, and trying to make sense out of what is happening with his people. All is written from a rather simplistic, and always humorous, 11-year-old perspective. 

Leader: Reed Richmond

Music: Shelley Mauk