Titus gets all tied up in his ministry
BY ROBERT FOX STAFF WRITER RFOX@LAWTON-CONSTITUTION.COM
Stories are often told as much with the hands as with words. David Titus tells his stories with string. Titus said he spent most of his life as a librarian. “Storytelling is a part of the job, and I made it a bigger part of it because I was good at it,” he said. Now he uses his talents in String Ministry. The 68-yearold has spent the last 18 years as a professional storyteller. For a while, he didn’t use any kind of visual aids. “God let me get by with it for a while, and then God gave me a piece of string,” he said. Now any time he tells a story, he makes the string figures without looking away from the person he’s talking to. He has found, in traveling to 35 countries, that string figures are practically universal. “I haven’t been to a culture yet that doesn’t do some of the string figures,” he said. He said he can approach people in any country, hand them a looped string and he or she will start a string figure or “cat’s cradle.” Once, in a refugee camp in Ghana, he approached a grandmother with a string and she started a cat’s cradle. “When I’m on my knees in front of Grandmother, I’ve got it made in that whole camp,” he said. He uses the “hand trap” as a cornerstone in the ministry. He said he will do it once and ask if the person knows the story that goes with it; then he does it again with the story. The hand trap: You put your hand through a loop that he closes around your wrist, explaining everyone is trapped by sin. Then you meet Jesus, he touches one finger to each palm (a fairly well understood signal for crucifixion). You turn your hand up and through another loop, which is symbolic of Jesus’ resurrection, and your wrist is freed. “When you’re in the middle of the mountains of Ghana, you don’t want to get too into deep Bible theology,” he said. “What I’m doing with String Ministry is simple enough to work for Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians — I can support any missionary out there.” He started out knowing only a few of the figures: cup and saucer, and long tailed fox, for example. During a visit with villages in Alaska, he learned “porcupine climbs a tree.” He said he also learned that some of the figures he knew had steps beyond what the string figure books show. For example, the “squished mosquito,” “making the fox run” and others. “I got hooked. Part of it is the beauty of the figures,” he said. The other part is that instruction books left out part of the figures. On one of his early mission trips, to the Russian Far East, he pulled out a string and started creating figures. “All of a sudden, we had twoway communication,” he said. “Then we’re sharing, we’re trading, we’re communicating, and it’s not me preaching at them.” He said he knows about 300 figures, and he still learns from time to time. He taught an Eskimo student a string trick that starts with a loop around the neck and ends with the loop coming off when it looks like it shouldn’t. Titus said the student developed a story to go with the figure. He put the string over his hand and said he was being pulled around, closed the loop and said he was killed by sin, touched his palms and said Jesus made a crown for him as a gift. He held the crown over his head and said he knew he was going to mess up. He folded his hand in the symbol for prayer and said that, with prayer and Jesus, he would be free, and the loop pops off his neck. Titus said the student created the story to go with the trick so he could talk to his family about Christ. Titus adopted the story and uses it himself now because it works and has all the principal teachings he wants to impart. “I believe the Holy Ghost gave him the story,” Titus said. Another student took the Navajo blanket or hammock and figured out how to turn it into the cross. Then the student figured out how to add a loop for the head of Jesus on the cross. Titus figures to teach the creation story, separation from God, the story of the rich young ruler, and reconnection with God through Jesus. The reconnection lesson uses two loops that he connects. He can also perform it with two strings, which form two connections. “If I connect with another person, I also connect with God,” he said. He said he doesn’t call what he does magic, though he admits it’s mystical to watch, “but God is mystical (too).” He said he will teach anything he shows and share anything he knows, if people want to ask. “When I go into a place, I assume by the time I leave the word will be out that I’m a Christian from America,” he said. He said it doesn’t matter if they take anything else away from their time with him than that. It leaves people with a positive impression of Americans and Christians, and that’s a start. “If they want to know more about Christianity, they can find out — they can ask me or they can ask someone else,” he said. MICHAEL D. POPE/STAFF David Titus finishes the string heart that is the logo of String Ministries.
