Let me tell you what it’s like for the rest of us when said missionary wife "takes Moi daddy, mommy and new born out to the big town". Her last words to me I’ll never forget – Something along the line of, "You should have no problem taking the literacy class for me. Piece of cake. What could go wrong?"
Funny you should ask. My first day on the job, as I’m making my way up to the school house, I notice two of "my" students goofing around. Pretty normal for the Moi so don’t think too much of it. Baikau picks up a pebble, (no bigger than the end of his finger – or so he claims) then tosses it at Ayaioma. Ayaioma laughing – tosses a "pebble" no bigger that his finger at Baikau. Baikau no longer laughing tosses a rock …. now you’re getting the picture. Things escalate pretty quickly from there.
By the time I’m opening the school room door, Ayaioma is trying to club Baikau with a hefty chunk of wood upon which Baikau instinctively smacks him back with with the wooden sheath of his machete. Unfortunately the machete was still in it – splits through the case and slices Ayaioma on the arm pretty good. Ayaioma crying in pain and anger, with blood dripping down his arm comes after Baikau for real. I’m trying to get between them Tepaiye is holding on to Ayaioma. Baikau finally makes his escape with all of us shouting after him "Run – run away for real!"
Somehow it felt awkward saying "Well if someone will just open with a word of prayer we can get started." So I just said, "If some could just pray for Carolyn to come home quickly ….."
With Carolyn gone, and the Browns out of the tribe on vacation, I had a lot to keep me busy. Literacy, Bible lessons and medical. We also have a small trade store that we stock with some of the essentials from town so that the Moi can buy some of those things.
One day when tending the store, while listening to every one say they had no money and were so hungry – Ayaioma again, bought a bag of peanuts. He took it outside and started to eat them when I heard a whoop. He rushed back in and presented me with enough money to buy another bag of peanuts.
"Where did you get the money?" I asked.
"With the peanuts."
"Well give it back." I said "It’s mine." Thinking that I had inadvertently given him his money back when I gave him the peanuts
He replied "No it’s not! The Creator God gave it to me. It was in the shell of the peanut when I opened it up! It’s a miracle!!!"
"What!?!"
Somewhere in all of this I happened to notice that written on the bag of peanuts was an advertisement saying that in some of the peanuts the company had placed prize money. "Hey guys, look at this. It says here that you could win up to $10 worth of prize money!" Wrong thing to say – instantly the previously poverty stricken Moi started producing all kinds of cash out of the wood work – buying peanuts by the arm load! And sure enough three others had the good fortune of finding the miracle cash in their peanuts too.
Pretty funny when you think about what must be going through their minds.
So you can see, there are ups and downs when missionary wife goes to town. But the best of all, besides her return of course happened today while I was in my office translating. Kendaya, who happens to be one of the students finishing up the literacy course, was sitting on the desk next to my computer reading from Genesis in the Moi language. We had given him a Bible some time ago as incentive to learn to read but he had never finished the course.
As he came to the end of a paragraph, reading out loud softly to himself, he paused and I heard him mutter under his breath "I thank/praise you Creator God for now I can really read your Word!"
Wow, praise the Lord! Thank you so much for your love and prayers for us and the Moi!
In him,
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