Friday, June 18, 2004

The Man and the Machette

Unlike the city, there is very little night life
in the village where we live, and even less
movement when it is pouring down rain. However,
it didn't stop the two men who were calling
outside our front door on this particular night.

The men were soaked with rain and had been
running for about 3 miles to get to my house. A
friend of theirs had slipped and fallen
backwards onto a machete he was carrying in a bag
on his back. They said he had lost a lot of blood
and needed to go to the hospital.

We got the men some towels and jumped in the car
to go get the man. The roads were not pretty
and the man who had fallen lived in a hilly
area, so we were unable to make it all the way
to his house. I stopped the car and turned off
the lights and immediately we were surrounded by
the blackness of the night. In the distance,
from the direction of the injured man's house I
could see the light of flashlights bobbing up
and down as they moved closer.

As the lights got closer I could see they were
carring the injured man on a cot type bed. The
man was on all fours like a dog and his fingers
gripped through the strips of raw hide that
laced the cot's surface. He grimaced as they
sat the bed down. The machete had been driven 3
inches deep underneath his shoulder blade.

The rain poured even harder as we left for the
hospital, but we arrived with out incident.
After the doctor cleaned and sewed up the wound
we started for his house. I felt the road back
to his house was now impassable and didn't know
what to do. Then about a 1/2 mile from his
house the man said that he could not ask me to
take him on such a difficult road and told me he
would walk the rest of the way.

In the heavy rains and darkness my headlights
barely reached 20 yards and the barefoot,
shirtless man quickly faded from view as he picked
his way down the path looking for the best
footing.

I will visit this man in the coming weeks to see
how he is doing, read the Bible and invite him
to our men's Bible study on Saturdays.