Sleep, Peace, and Lions

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Psalm 4:8 King James Version

⁸ I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

 

I love the majestic English of the King James Version of the Bible, don’t you? I read Psalm 4 this morning, and it reminded me of an incident in our Tanzanian experience and also of Rose, our fearless leader, who assigned us the prompt: “Write about the blessings you have in your life.” During this NaNoWriMo month, I am trying to whip my Ikizu Memoirs into final or at least semi-final form. I am on chapter 53 of 58 planned chapters. Sylvia is my editor, and she recently sent me chapter 41 entitled Lion Encounter.

On Sunday night we were camping with our group in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Serengeti National Park. In our tent we had our one-year-old daughter and the three Conway children, too. I awoke in the predawn to the sound of something dropping onto the roof of our tent. Deciding it must be a small branch from the tree we had pitched under, I turned over to go back to sleep. Suddenly, George’s shout: “Get out of here!” from the next tent, shocked me into action. Grabbing a flashlight, I jumped up and raced to the door of the tent, unzipped it, and shone the flashlight out into the darkness.

I stopped dead. Frozen. Not ten feet were the shining eyes of two lions staring back at me. There was nothing between me and two lions! They lay between me and the campfire. Time stretched out. The lions watched me but made no move. I remained still. Slowly, I swung the light of the flashlight in a wider arc. There were at least seven lions around our campfire, staring at me. Their eyes roved a bit to my right. There was George, clad only in his briefs, standing frozen in his doorway—and more lions.

I yelled to wake up the others in the group. Two teenagers sleeping in an old Land Rover looked out their windows. They started the Land Rover, and it backfired into action. All the noise was disturbing the lions’ tranquility. Slowly they got up and stretched. Regally, thirteen lions filed out of our campsite. There was no hurry, no obvious fear in their attitude, maybe only a bit of disgust.

No one got any more sleep. When daylight arrived and we got up to eat breakfast, on the roof of our tent we found two dusty lion footprints. Conversation centered around whether or not the lions were hungry. Two or three miles down the track towards the park headquarters in Seronera, we came upon our thirteen lions, busily polishing off two Thompson Gazelles. That ended the discussion about the lions’ lack of hunger.

This morning, my gratitude extends from not being devoured by lions then to an almost complete Ikizu Memoir now. Rejoice with me!

How grateful we are, Lord, that we can lie down and sleep because of the assurance that You make us dwell in safety.

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.instagram.com/elmarvn/p/CqPs67XKbTg/

Why Do the Wicked Prosper?

 

March 3, 2022

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Psalm 73 Good News Translation

²  I had nearly lost confidence;
    my faith was almost gone
³ because I was jealous of the proud
    when I saw that things go well for the wicked. …

¹⁶ I tried to think this problem through,
    but it was too difficult for me
¹⁷     until I went into your Temple.
Then I understood what will happen to the wicked.

¹⁸ You will put them in slippery places
    and make them fall to destruction!
²⁸ But as for me, how wonderful to be near God,
    to find protection with the Sovereign Lord
    and to proclaim all that he has done!

 

During the late 1960s I taught at a rural boarding high school in Tanzania. The main support of the small village that had grown up near the school was poaching from the nearby Serengeti Game Reserve. Several villagers owned Land Rovers that they would use to drive out into the reserve at night and bring home animals that they sold for their meat and hides.

In order to avoid suspicion the Land Rover owners would strip the wheels, seats, and engine which would be kept by other villagers. They parked the stripped vehicles next to their homes. They were all old and showed no signs of having been used within the last several years. However, in the late afternoon a group of men would cluster around the vehicle. They would bring the missing parts and reassemble them. About five o’clock they would pull into the school gas station for gas. By the next morning they would have finished their hunting trip. The dusty vehicle would again be lying next to their home, wheels, seats, and engine all missing. It would appear to have not been used for a long time.

Several hunters would climb into the reassembled vehicle and drive out across a river that harbored both crocodiles and hippos. They were very careful to take a slightly different route each time so that no track appeared for rangers to follow them. They would mainly shoot large antelope, hack the carcass into liftable size pieces, and load them into the back of the landrover. When It was full they would head home and sell the meat to the villagers, including some of the staff of the school. Sometimes the Land Rover would break under the heavy load; then they would come on campus and seek me out to weld the break.

One of these poachers was much more prosperous than the others. His Land rover was practically new, a pretty green color. He dressed well, spoke passable English, and was much revered amongst all the villagers. We became friends. While he was making a delivery to one of the staff on campus late one night, I asked him if he had official permission to shoot the game. He smiled and assured me he did and produced an official looking requisition that had several animals listed on it.

One night he was out in the reserve loading the animals they had shot into his Land Rover when the rangers came upon him. Instead of jumping into the vehicle and fleeing like was usually done, he decided to have a shootout with them. During the fight he was killed. The rangers brought the vehicle back to the village with his body in it. The other hunters were carted off to jail. This time I saw his blood mingled with the blood of the animals. Of course, this did not put an end to the poaching.

There was a huge outdoor funeral for him. I joined hundreds of people who came to it, not only from that village, but many of the surrounding villages. Our school chaplain preached the sermon. He preached for several hours, while everyone stood or sat around patiently and listened. He covered the grand themes of Christianity in detail, including salvation, grace, the state of the dead, and the Sabbath. He told me later that he knew that this was the only time many of these people would hear the whole Gospel. He felt compelled to use the occasion to the best advantage for the Lord.

Oh Lord, thank You that You look after Your followers so well, even though we might not be as prosperous as the world’s tycoons. 

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[1] https://www.nrt-kenya.org/news-2/2020/11/5/10guardians-grevys-zebra-champion-stephen-lenantoiye