Rubber Duckie Bible on the Euphrates

BASRA, Iraq — Call it fowl play.

Open Doors, the legendary missions network led by Brother Andrew, recently smuggled one Bible into the Middle East. The big deal? Not in traditional format—print, cassette tape or MP3—Andrew’s crew floated all 31,103 verses of the Bible down the Euphrates River, via rubber duckies.

Visioneered in late 2006, the Rubber Ducky Bible took flight during Ramadan, when Muslims fasted and devoted themselves to prayer, and thus weren’t expecting a shock and awe campaign of bath toys.

“You got your KJV and your NIV,” Andrew said from his Webcam somewhere in the Iraqi desert. “But them Iraqis got themselves an RDV. And if we do it again, it’ll be an NRDV.”

Andrew readily admits that the toughest part was literally squeaking past the TSA when, a la the hashish smugglers in Midnight Express, his team taped the ducks to their bodies.

“Yeah, customs was rough, but in the end, you’re dealing with government workers. They pat you down, and, you know, especially around the unmentionables. If you start squeaking down there, you just cough or sneeze and look around. They don’t notice a thing. I could hear Brother Zack getting his Habbakkuk squeezed a bunch of times, but he still got through. Squeeze. Squeak. Sneeze. That’s how we roll.”

Shiite Cleric Skandar Akbar was incensed at the outreach, citing passages from the Koran at a news conference in Basra: “In the name of Allah and his prophet Mohammed (peace be upon me), I issue Edict 17: The Rubber Ducky Fatwa.”

A jihad was declared against the Rubber Ducky Bible.

“Fatwa? What in Sam Hill is a Fatwa?” Brother Andrew asked. “Sounds like one of those special effects from that campy Batman in the sixties. You know, the one where the Caped Crusader would give a knuckle sandwich to The Riddler’s cronies? BAM! BOFFO! FATWA!”

Brother Andrew was unfazed after he got schooled on Fatwa. “We have prayer partners around the world, each sponsoring a ducky. I think they’re up to the challenge. We basically told them, ‘if anything happens to your ducky, we know how spiritual you are.’”

Open Doors plans to release the Rubber Ducky Bible on the Tigris and Jordan rivers during Ramadan in 2008.

“Hee hee hee,” chuckled Andrew. “This is about the only instance I can think of where it’s OK for a Christian to give someone the bird.”