SOME SCARY OCCASIONS...............................

Our family always thinks of Africa as home.  It is hard for me even after all these years to say I'm from Georgia, even though we have finally settled here and found ourselves a life.  Because Africa is home, we think of happenings there as being normal and laugh about some of the incidents and inconveniences.  There is so much to balance on the other side.  But we have gone through some very situations which most of you will remember.......

Nazinga, a name that brings pictures of elephant grass and woods and ponds and rustic living to our minds when we hear it.  It used to also be a difficult place to get to until the government improved the road in order to attract the tourist trade.  An MK from a sister mission in Burkina Faso was the one who started it as a small game park with various kinds of interesting wild animals, as well as quaint little huts and houses for tourists to live in when visiting.  Nazinga Park is south of Ouaga a few hours' drive.  We went there as a family one time - not sure who all was with us besides Clousers. Mark was still in high school so he was there too.

One afternoon we all went out in our private cars to try and spot some animals. There was no guide with us.  Our party separated.  Dad and some of the group went one direction upstream and Mark I stayed near the widening in the stream where the animals came to drink in the early evening before dark. I stayed up on the little rise and Mark ambled down nearer the pool where the animals were drinking. Suddenly, someone upstream made a noise which frightened the beasts and they got restless and one elephant started right in our direction. Mark ran hollering for me to get in the nearby car, and he came pounding after me and got in too. I guess the elephant lost our scent when we got in the car and ambled off the other way. Lessons learned: don't mess with an elephant, they're HUGE and they're scary!

During that same trip, the others in the group decided to go out in the Nazinga jeep and look for animals - lions, monkeys, elephants.  I decided to stay at the guest house and relax. The houses there were built of pressed mud bricks with straw roofs. They had very large glass windows, low to the floor. This way you could look out and see any game that might be near the houses. I was sitting there quietly, relaxing, and all of a sudden a whole troup of elephants marched by, swinging their tails and their trunks - even little baby ones. I had a front seat view and there was no scariness involved - there was plate glass between me and the big beasts!  The laugh was when the others got back from an afternoon of "viewing" the ranch, looking for beasts, and nary saw a single one. I was the only one who enjoyed the animals that day!

Many times our homes were broken into - sometimes when we were absent but also when we were sleeping.  When that happens, you feel very violated and check all the locks.  Beggar children on the streets also love to filch things from cars in the city, so you have to be alert. I always made friends of the poor, ragged children on the streets and was somewhat protected by them. I also pitied the little "galiboud boys" who were sent out by their Muslim teachers to beg for money. They often came to my car when I parked by the bakery in Bobo. I would always talk to them and even tell them their way was wrong and tell them about Jesus.  I would not give them money to give to their owners, but I always went into the bakery and bought a couple loaves of bread for them to share as they were hungry, and had been sent out to find their own food and get money.

I was thankful for all my little beggar and thief friends on one occasion. Dad was leaving on the plane the next day to go to Nairobi for mission meetings. He had just received his visa in his passport and had put the passpor in the glove compartment of our car. We went to the Eau Vive for the evening meal and left his papers in the glove compartment. Never thought of thieves. When we came out of the restaurant, the passport was gone as well as some money.  I went to one of my little thief friends and explained to them what we had lost. A few hours later they brought back the passport to us and got a reward and much thankfulness from us.  I also had my purse stolen out of my car while I was buying vegetables beside the street there in Bobo. Again one of my little thief boys found it, intact with passport and other papers, but missing the money from my wallet! 

Dad and I were visiting you, Mark, at Bouaké and had taken you out to the mission for supper. You had a friend with you. I was standing at the sink doing up the dishes and Dad and you guys were in the other room. There was a small rug in front of the sink that I was standing on. I felt something hit at my ankle as I washed the dishes and kept flicking it away with my other foot, thinking it was a mosquito. Then I looked down and saw that it was the tail of a deadly viper!  I screamed for Dad - who was a little slow coming as I also screamed for roaches!  (And there were lots of them in that guest house!)  But he realized I was serious and came running - the guys chased that fast little viper our towards the door and I think he escaped to strike again!  Scary experience!

Abidjan was also a great city for thieves, and because of our translation project and also several mission schools I was involved in, we visited there fairly often.  One day Aunt Kathy Solvig and I were peacefull strolling down a busy commercial street, crossing a street, when a young man flew out of the crowd, grabbed the pretty pendant on my neck and tore it right off, cutting my skin -  he took off with his trophy through the busy crowd!  I felt particularly bad about that theft because it was a pretty rose necklace that you had given me, Elin.

Abidjan was a dangerous - as well as a beautiful - city, as we found out one night. Again, Mark, you were with us at the mission guest house and you went along with a gang of ICA kids for an evening at the Hotel Ivoire. Always a fun place with skating and bowling and ice cream and a beautiful hotel!  We had just drivem a long ways that day, Dad had a huge stack of money to make purchases for missionaries in Burkina and for us, and he was very tired. So he stashed his wad under the mattress - in case of thieves - and went sound asleep.  As was always my habit, I could never go to sleep until my children were all in, so I waited up for you, Mark, down on the open front porch. I was there by myself as the family living there had small children and had gone in to put them to bed.  I saw a car stop - your friends letting you off, and as you came up the darkened driveway I called out to say "Hi" and ask if you had had fun. They had no dog and no guard at that compound.  (But got both the next day!) You did not answer me and had a funny look on your face and when you got into the light, I saw there was a tall man right behind you, he had a gun stuck in your back!  I felt like fainting but persuaded myself that would solve nothing.  Another thief jumped over the wall, also with a gun in his hand.  They saw the light in the family's apartment, and herded us up against their door, with the guns in our backs!  Wow, talk about scary!  The family had their door locked and would not open up, but we persuaded them that they had to. The wife and children hid way in the back of the building but the man was there and did open the door for the four of us to go in.  They asked for the safe - "Le coffre!" So Paul led them with us into the bedroom where the safe was. There was some church money in there and also some money a missionary had left with the family before travelling to the States.  So the thieves at least got a bit of a haul!  They also rummaged through drawers and found a bit more cash. Then we were herded into one bedroom - as the neighborhoos whistles began to blow, an alert for a thief in the area. They also picked up some electronic equipment on their way out! 

Of course the theft was reported but nothing came of it. I was just thankful that those guys didn't shoot us as they were really hyped and angry!  God delivered us is the only answer!  Someone ran up to alert Dad, who came sleepily down to see what was going on!  I had a hard time sleeping that night.  The next morning I was to begin to teach my classes in the pastoral graduate school, CEFCA, where I had a classroom of great pastors from all over West Africa to teach.  I felt a bit shaky as I began, but was able to make it through and again God helped me and took away my fear so that I could teach. Debs and Steve, you arrived from France at that time also. What an introduction to Africa!

Probably the scariest event of our many years in Africa happened just the year before we were to retire. We had been working day and night to finish the Bible translation. As in most translation projects, there were "many adversaries"!  And we felt a lot of pressure in trying to get this work done.  We had to make a trip to Abdidjan for checking our manuscript, so we left early in the morning.  Dad had driven away and then I offered to drive, as we drove down that paved road on the Burkina side of the border - destination, Abidjan, where our checking was to take place! I was at the wheel and we were going through a stetch of road where the village had been divided by the highway. It was very early morning, not many people around, when suddenly a little naked boy, about three years old, streaked out to cross the highway. He hit our car hard enough to make a mark on the car and of course the child was thrown and fell, seemingly dead, on the road!  There were black marks on the highway where I had slammed on my brakes to stop, but too late to avoid the child. A trucker driving a big truck was right behind us, and kindly stopped to help us. By then the villagers rushed out of the village.  The child's grandfather grabbed my by the arm and pulled me toward the village to beat me for killing their child, and I was terrified and crying. Dad and the truck driver were trying to talk to the people but they were all screaming and starting to mourn the death of their child.  Of course inside we were praying, and finally that little body made a move to show us he was still alive, though hurt!  What a miracle!  We were a little ways from a town where there was a small hospital, so we took the grandfather and mother with the child to the hospital. We also had to stop and declare all this to the police - the truck driver stayed right with us for a witness.  Before long, the Conkles and another missionary couple came down the same road on their way to Bouaké, and they also stopped to help us.  We went through the dispensary processed, paid all the bills, and sent the family, with a hurting - but alive! - child back to their village. The police exonerated me, for which I was thankful!  But what a scary incident!  Strange things happened to me when I was finishing the Bible - the devil does not want God's word published for people, and we become the victim of his tactics sometimes.