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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: TOURIST TRAP (08/20/15)
LOOK NOT, TOUCH NOT AND HAVE NOT

Sharon enjoyed every moment of the trip to Atlantic City with her cousins. She was from Nepal and was visiting USA for the first time. Her mother, Esther who was working in a nursing home sponsored this as a birthday gift to her only daughter. Her cousins who were born and brought up in USA told Esther that taking Sharon around to places of interest and sightseeing was their gift to her. They took her to the Niagara Falls that was a breath taking sight for anyone no matter how many times they visited the place. Sharon was thrilled more than anyone and had to be forced into the car saying that there were many other places that would interest her. They visited New York; did some shopping and let Sharon choose whatever she wanted and everything was going so well. Then someone suggested, “How about Atlantic City?”

“Yeah, let’s go to the slots!” shouted everyone and that is where they went.

The guys pulled out their wallets and generously stuffed dollar notes into Sharon’s bag and told the girls to teach her how to play. The girls added some more and taught her how to play. They said that not only was she smart but lucky too and went their way and told her to give them a call if she had any problem. Sharon was amazed at the generosity of her cousins when she counted the money. ‘This is the amount my Mom makes in three months; should I play or take it and give it to her,’ she thought. She shirked this thought away when she decided that she could make much more than that because she was a lucky girl as all her cousins had told her and she would be careful. She first counted and pulled out a small amount and played with it and soon she found out that she had doubled it. She stopped counting and decided not to take any more from the purse but continue with her winnings. Her winnings went up and down and there came a point when all that she had was gone. She took some notes and changed them to coins and continued with her winning and losing, getting the notes changed into coins and at one point she put her hands and there was no money. She realized that she fell into the trap of gambling in such a small time.

Eve decided to take a tour alone in the Garden of Eden. There were so many trees laden with all kinds of fruits that she had tasted because God told them that they could have all of them except just one tree. She must have a taken a tour of this beautiful and perfect garden so many times with Adam and admired at the beauty of everything God had created. As she walked around she remembered every time that they wandered near the forbidden tree Adam would say, “Let us not go near that tree, God told us not to eat of that fruit and why should we go there?”[Gen. 2:16, 17] Eve always wondered why Adam never wanted to even go near that tree, today was her chance and she decided that this was the right time. She would not eat it but she wanted to take a good look of that beautiful tree laden with bright, shiny fruit. She walked towards the tree fast so that Adam would not come by. She stopped by the tree and raised her eyes towards the top of it and thought what a beautiful tree that was. She slowly put her hands and touched the beautiful fruit and remembered God’s command and quickly took it away. Then came the voice of the evil one and she could not resist it. She fell straight into the trap; she plucked it, ate it and lost her soul. Not only did she lose her soul she tempted Adam to lose his also.

That is how we are; we wander all over the world as tourists watching all the attractions that this world has to offer. We first gaze at them, tough them and then fall into the ditch of sin. If we are there already all that we have to do is to raise our hands to the Savior who will save us from this trap of sin.
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This article has been read 336 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Pat Small
08/28/15
Your sentences felt too run-on and therefore harder to follow. You also need more white space. It was an interesting way to present the enticement of sin.
Jennifer Woodley 
08/29/15
Probably needed to separate the paragraphs into smaller ones for ease of reading. Might be a typo in the second last sentence 'tough' is meant to be 'touch'. I thought it was interesting the way you compared Eve to a tourist, and like her, we are can easily fall into a trap being enticed by sin.
C D Swanson 
08/29/15
You did a great job with the topic and in a super fabulous creative way. I really enjoyed your take and your writing...entertaining and unique.

Well done.

God bless~
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
09/03/15
I enjoyed your story. You made some great points and I enjoyed the lesson at the end.

The first two paragraphs were all telling. Try to use dialog and body language to paint a picture for the reader. Sharon stood at the railing and her eyes widen as the spray from the Falls turned into hundreds of tiny rainbows. Laughing at the water trickling down her cousin's face, Sharon thought, This is such a beautiful place. I never could have imagined so much force from water.
It's not perfect, but I hope it helps show you what I mean. Notice I put her thoughts in italics.

The switch to Eve was quite sudden and needed a transition. Something simple like this would work: Just like Sharon, Eve fell into a dangerous trap thousands of years before casinos were built.

I do like your message. You did a nice job of highlighting the topic throughout the article. Comparing Sharon to Eve was a creative way to bring in the Bible and to show how humans have fallen into traps since the beginning of time. Nice job.