The Lion That Ran Away

It happened in Uganda, in East Africa. And it was right by the Nile River. It was a dark night (that made it all worse). We were in trouble! And it was long ago.

But first, let me tell what happened.

I was way out in the country, far from home, visiting our little Nawanende School where we had a boarding dormitory for boys. It was a grass-roofed mud building. No nice bathrooms, no running water.

One day I took one of the teachers with me to the town of Jinja to buy some supplies for the school. My car was that old Model A Ford touring car that was so weak it couldn’t climb hills easily, and its brakes were almost no good. (Remember? The car with the dirty black oil.)

We spent a lot of time in Jinja buying the things we needed. One thing was soap for the dorm. It was not like any soap you have ever seen: it came in long bars about two feet long, and it was a little bit spongy, not hard like your bathroom bars of soap. (That was a blessing, as you will soon see.)

We also bought some empty “debbes,” big five-gallon cans that boys in the school use to carry water up from the swamp (you see, out there at Nawanende we had no water faucets as you have). And those debbes were a blessing too, as you will see.

We put all these debbes and bars of soap in the back seat, and started off for the long drive back to Nawanende. It was getting late in the evening.

And then of course, the sun went down; and since there is little twilight at the Equator, it soon got pitch dark.

All went well because we had headlights on the old Ford and we were going along fine until we were going down a hill on this winding dirt road. Around a curve, there was a herd of black cows smack in the middle of the road. The man in charge of the cows had a kerosene lantern and it was lit, but he was in front of the black cows, so I couldn’t see him or his lamp until it was too late. I tried to push down on the brake pedal as hard as I could, but all it did was to slow the Ford down a bit, and we plowed straight into that herd of cows. (Now, don’t worry about the cows. Later I used my flashlight and saw that none were seriously hurt.) But our poor little Ford was!

Both of the headlights were pushed back so that they pointed up to the stars. One of the cow’s horns had punched two big holes right through the radiator so that all the water gushed out. (You know, a radiator is where the engine keeps its water to keep it from getting too hot.) And that meant of course that we couldn’t drive the car any more. And remember, this is in Africa right out in the country where there were no Motel 6s, no filling stations, no garages. In fact no people lived there at all, nothing but jungle-like bushes. And no other cars came that night on that desolate road.

The reason why nobody lived there was the “mbwa flies.” It was near the Nile River. “Mbwa” means “dog” in that language. These tiny insects were there in millions, it seemed, in my hair, in my nose, in my eyes, buzzing in my ears, all over me. As fast as you swatted them, more came. And when they bit you, they drew blood. There was no place where we could go. I realized that if we stayed there for the night, we might not even be alive next morning. What to do? It was dark, and no Ford that ran.

We did have a flashlight—oh, what a blessing! We pulled the mangled radiator back off the engine where it had been pushed. I took one of those big bars of soap and stuffed it into the two holes, and I asked the teacher to run down to the river and bring up a debbe full of water. We poured that in the radiator, and with the teacher sitting on the front fender holding the flashlight instead of a headlight, we started off. It wasn’t long of course until the soap melted and all the water ran out again. So we stopped, the teacher ran to get another debbe full of water, I stuffed more soap into the two holes, and off we went again. Finally, long after midnight we crawled into Nawanende.

Now why am I telling you this crazy story, even though it’s true?

(1) Before you go to sleep tonight, kneel down and thank the heavenly Father that you don’t have to live on the banks of the Nile River where the mbwa flies are.

(2) Thank Him too that your parents have a good car with brakes that work.

(3) Thank Him too that it has headlights that don’t point up to the stars.

(4) Thank Him too that when you need some water, you can just turn on a faucet and there it is. Lots of people in Africa still have to carry it from the swamp in five-gallon tins on their heads!

(5) And thank Him, of course, that He has been with you all your life up until now. He is your Savior!

And please remember—our very life, even the next breath that we breathe, has been bought for us, given to us as a gift that we don’t deserve, because of the sacrifice of the Son of God when He died in our place on His cross. When the Bible tells us “Christ died for our sins,” it means He died instead of us (1 Corinthians 15:3). All we have we owe to Him!