Mango Thieves and Unreached Villages

It has been a longtime since I’ve written a post, and there has been so much to write about! The internet has worked so poorly that I think it takes away any motivation. It can take hours to a day to post anything. I just keep hitting retry.

Because the internet comes in spurts, messages still go through, but phone calls have been difficult. Occasionally I feel like I’m stranded on an “island” with no outside contact (slightly dramatic), but overall, between home, school, ministry, projects – I don’t notice too much.

Christmas is always a busy time. Each kid had a gift they wanted to help make and we baked a few goodies. One of the things we did for the ministry was help put together gift bags for the hospital and prison. The bags contain a few necessities like: soap, cooking oil, matches, etc., and also a John and Romans with a tract. The kids were so excited that we were able to go deliver the bags to the prison this year!

When we arrived, all the prisoners were sitting under a big tree. In front of them were set out chairs and benches for us. They sang some songs, recited some verses, Eric preached, then we passed out the gift bags.

Both men and women were at the prison before, but they recently moved the women to a different part of the country. At the end of the service, one of the guards told me that they had one female prisoner who had just given birth in another section of the prison. Because she had not yet been convicted, she was waiting there. The girls and I grabbed one of the bags and followed her.

She opened a door and led us through a little, unkept courtyard area, up to a small room. It was dark, but when our eyes adjusted we could see bundles of fabric on the cement floor. Snuggled in there, on that hard, dirty floor, we caught glimpse of a tiny baby head. We were told she was no more that a week old!

Oh! My heart broke! Words fail to give a good description of the room, which was shocking for us, but may not be any worse than their normal living conditions. I have heard of people sleeping on the ground in their own homes, without even a mat.

Soon the mother came in. She knelt as she talked with us and avoided eye contact (which is a common thing here to show respect.). After greeting her, we sang a few songs for her. As I handed her the gift bag, I told her that God loved her and sent His Son to die for her.

Sometime around that time, Pastor Nelson was having thieves coming in his garden and stealing mangoes. There is broken glass cemented in the top of the garden wall, so I think they were climbing over from his yard.

One night, he, Brother Shadrick, Daniel, and the guard planned to catch him. They thought they would definitely be back because the next day was market day.

They found him that night, sitting under the mango tree, eating a mango! Even after they tied him up, he was still trying to eat his mango! They brought him to the police station, pockets filled with mangoes. There were others involved too and the police were able to get their names.

Pastor Nelson didn’t press charges, but the police gave them a good scare saying things like, “There are azungoos there. Don’t you know that all Azungoos have guns? Don’t do that again or someone could get hurt.”

Saturday the men in Phokera mentioned that we have kids coming to church from a village across the stream. They thought it was the village that the kids, Shadrick, and I had attempted to get to a couple months ago. We had walked over an hour and hadn’t gotten to it. This time we were going to drive.

Off we went. Everyone was in their fields, so the boys became our arrows – running out passing tracts.

After driving a while, they decided to turn back to a new village we passed that was being started. Their village had been near the river, but everything was destroyed by the cyclone and flooding last year. We thought maybe the kids were coming from there, but we were told they didn’t know about our church plant.

The Lord gave us the opportunity to spread tracts and witness there. Eric and our group went to get permission to pass out tracts from the chief and had the opportunity to witness to his family. Some made professions. We look forward to going back and telling others the Gospel there.

Everywhere you turn, there is a village without a Gospel message. Eric and the men plan to go to the village we keep hearing about, but haven’t got to yet, but they are going to leave us behind that day. I’m a little disappointed about that as we’ve tried two times now to go there! They noticed, though, that the further we went down that little road, some were very scared when they saw us. For some, we are the only white people they have ever seen. Running away in terror, screaming is a common reaction we get. Sometimes it’s a little funny, but it can make you feel bad too knowing that you’re like a monster to them. They want to make sure to prepare the way, let people know who we are and what we want to do instead of overwhelming them with a group of white people. Fear can drive some to do crazy things, and they want to be cautious.

I know that even though I’ve left out many things, I’ve already written a book. I’ll just share one more incident.

In the church here, we have a little structure for the kids class. On one side is the brick wall, and just wooden posts on the other. The kids all sit on mats and we have a few benches for the helpers. The girls’ sit on the side closest to the wall. The bench where I sit (when I’m not teaching) is in front of them along the wall. Suddenly, in the middle of the lesson, the girls jumped up yelling, “Njoka!”, and slithering beside them on the ground along by the wall was a snake coming right towards me! Everyone moved very quickly! Thankfully, the snake found an escape in the wall and exited our class….and everyone continued on as if nothing had happened.

Near the end of class, the kids started yelling about a rat – one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. One of the helpers stuck his hand over the hole to try to keep the kids from being distracted…but then it bit him! So much for that! Surprisingly, I was oblivious to it all, except for noticing he was holding a flip-flop over a hole in the wall at the closing of class. I got the full story later.

Never a dull moment!