Africa - The Ninja Warrior

     Our children, since having arrived at Rafiki, have only been taught that which is good. They do not know hate, or prejudice, and very seldom anger or jealousy. They melt our hearts.

     Barbara and I go to a bible study with a different family each night. The children were full fledged prayer warriors, for the most part. Some were still too young or shy to talk much. The mama led the bible study, and we were always amazed when they could almost always answer her questions.

     We all sang hymns, they really got in to it. When it came time to leave, they never wanted to let us go.

     We were the only mini missionaries there now. The bloodshed was too fresh. But there were normally several at a time. I told the kids how lucky they were. They were surrounded by all these loving people, and I knew of none others who had so many people come from so far away, just to be a part of their lives for a time.

     On the way back to our guest house, the sounds of hymns being sung by many children, often filled the night air. That blissful scene could sometimes be suddenly interrupted when a big man, with a big club, face covered ninja like with a scarf  silently emerged from the darkness and was right there. Right at our elbow. Barbara always screamed.
     That would be a guard. When I got to know the guards better, I asked, "What's with the scarf over the face thing  at night?" "Our face is cold." Barb and I were very comfortable in the cool African night in short sleeves, but they had never known cold. If the temperature dropped close to 70 degrees, they started adding clothes.

     The guards laughed at us, carefully lighting up our pathway at night with our "torch." But I knew Black Mambas thrived here. One had just recently been killed. The guards just laughed that off. "Snakes don't crawl at night." They further asserted, "You Americans have used torches so much, you have lost your night vision." There may be some truth to that.

     Emily, our only guest house mate, was technically a mini-missionary like us, who usually didn't stay longer that a month. But she just could not seem to leave. We could often hear her, talking to her parents on scype, crying in the privacy of her room. She missed them greatly. But then she would come out, pull herself together, and go sign on for two more months.

     Emily once got a very large thorn embedded deeply in the top of her foot while playing soccer. After some time, she mentioned it to us. I told her, I was very good at digging thorns out with a needle, as long as it was not in me. She finally agreed. I saw it was very deep. As I dug deeper and deeper, she toughened up and never complained, other than making weird little Emily sounds.

     This was not working. Too deep. Then I thought to ask her how long it had been in there. She said weeks. That changed things. Sooner or later, a thorn will just try to work its own way out. I squeezed really hard all around it, and It just popped out.

     There were two other young women missionaries there, and they, also, were very brave. They thought nothing about walking to a distant market in a rough looking area, alone. Or, they might hop in a car and drive long distances alone to a church they had never been to. But when a lizard got in her room, Emily totally came unglued.

     Word was getting around that I worked with wood pretty well, and Yeen Lan wanted me to build her a nice bench. Doug said, just find whatever wood you need, and build it. I found some still rough dark wood, and did it. It looked really good. Too good. When Doug saw it, he turned pale. I had used his Mahogany, very hard to get, very expensive, that he had brought to trim the lunch tables with. A very valuable bench.

     Barbara was given the job of looking for baptism records for the children. In looking at all their records, she had an opportunity to see the first picture, taken when the child first came in, beside a current picture. I think that affected her very deeply. In each case, the first picture show a child with all hope gone, dullness in the eyes. In the later photo, they were obviously happy, the light had been turned back on in their eyes. That, as well as anything we saw, showed what was being accomplished at Rafiki.

     Yeen Lan stayed very busy trying to get a birth certificate for each child. It was a major task. Many public officials just didn't care. Or at best, were very lax.  She would get all her paperwork in order, drive a long way over very rough roads to get to court, get it before a judge, only to face total incompetency. It just wouldn't be ready. Sometimes, they would complain about all the work involved, expecting a bribe. She would just stare them down, saying, "I only want you to do your job." Then repeat it. Sometimes, she would be told at the very end, "This requires a parent's signiture.""So, you're telling me, I just need to take this orphan out to the cemetery, dig up a parent, and get a signature?"

     Once, a Judge told her he had left the papers at home. "So let's go get them." The Judge pointed to a long waiting line "I'm sure they would all be willing to wait, so this child can get an identity." So they did. Anything to get this woman off his back. At home, the Judge couldn't find them. She started through his papers, and found them.