Kittens & Witches

9/9/09
This past week I had a kitten for about three days. It was a brief experience but a memorable one for several reasons. It all started at two o’clock last Friday morning. At Kilometer 8, there are always a variety of noises all night long from dogs barking to music blaring to one of the Bible workers talking in his sleep. It is for this reason that I usually choose to wear earplugs, if not, I tend to hear every little thing and wake up paranoid that someone is trying to break into our little homestead. Well, that early Friday morning the desperate cries of a cat penetrated my earplugs. I heard it outside of our door, but was hoping that if I ignored it long enough that it would leave. A half an hour later though, everyone was awake due to the annoying howling, but no one was making a move to check it out. Finally, Melanie and I crawled out of our beds and stumbled to the door. As soon as we opened the door, a tiny black kitten tumbled into our room and immediately became silent. Unsure of what to do and not wanting to make any extra noise, we picked up the small creature and carried him to our kitchen. Upon further inspection with our flashlights, we discovered that the cat was very sick and looked absolutely exhausted. We set out some milk and made a bed for the kitten which it promptly crawled into and fell asleep. Melanie and I headed back to bed with no idea of what we were going to do with our new little pet. When we got up at six we found the kitten still sleeping, which is pretty much what it did the entire time we had it. We bathed the little guy and tried feeding him every few hours, but as time went on it become more evident that it was becoming even weaker and would without a doubt die. Each night as I went to sleep I wondered if it would be alive in the morning, and finally when I awoke Monday morning the inevitable awaited me. We buried the little body, and at breakfast I shared the news with the Bible workers.

It was at this point in time that one of the Bible workers announced to me what he had apparently been thinking of the entire time. He informed us that supposedly there was a local witch that lived not to far from our house. His take on the whole situation was that she was not happy that we were here talking about Christ and had tried to put a spell on us through the cat. I had to admit this could be a possibility because the cat was all black, which is considered very bad down here. Before I could ponder this thought more, the Bible worker then went on to tell more stories about “real” witches, spirits, etc. that he claimed to have encountered over the years as a Bible worker. He claimed to even have heard whistling spirits around our house at night. By the end of our conversation, I definitely had some goose bumps going on. It is one thing to hear stories like that during a mission spotlight or something, but it is another to hear about these types of things that are going on right where you are living!

After the Bible worker left, I began talking to a couple of the other girls. At first, all of us admitted that we were a little spooked at the powerful work of the devil down here. Although perhaps not everything that our friend had said was true, it was enough to get us thinking. I was even calculating when I would need to stop consuming water during the day in order to avoid any bathroom runs during the middle of the night! It was at this point in time that the conversation took a positive turn. We acknowledged that we definitely had logical reasons for fearing the devil’s work down here, but that in the long run, the power of Christ triumphed all. After our conversation, our happy conclusion was that devil is not one to mess with, but that God has the ability to protect us especially as we are serving Him abroad.

That night I woke up and heard what could have been whistling in the distance. I remembered all of the promises that God has for us about being our refuge and having the power to do all things. I had to choice to freak out and let my mind go wild or embrace God’s words of comfort. I sent up a brief prayer and drifted back to sleep for entirety of the remaining night.