God's Gardener

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Mary Moffat stood in silence in the doorway to her home. The baby, her namesake,* whimpered in her arms, aware of a tension she was too young to understand. Mary jiggled her gently and the child fell silent, calmed by the familiar gesture.

The barren landscape shimmered under a blazing sun, heat radiating from the hard baked ground. It hadn’t rained for a very long time—too long. Like mirages in the desert, the scrub and stunted trees seemed to wave and roll in the rising heat, but the delegation of Bechwana warriors confronting her was all too real.

They were not happy.

“You must leave. Because of you, there is no rain. The cattle are dying, the springs are dry, and there are no crops to harvest. If you do not leave our land right now, we will kill you where you stand,” threatened the leader of the group, his spear pointed at her husband’s chest.

Mary shifted the baby to her left side, out of sight of the men now threatening them. Robert stood just in front of her, facing their visitors and partially blocking her from their view.

He had urged her to go inside when the intentions of the Bechwanas had become obvious, to which Mary had replied: “Robert, God made us one, and as one we will face whatever happens.”

She and her husband had been at Bechwana station at Lattakoo in the interior for several years. Robert, along with several co-workers, had arrived in South Africa in 1817, under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. Mary had followed in 1819 when her parents had finally relented, given her their blessing, and allowed her to travel to Cape Town to marry her fiancé.

Robert slowly began to unbutton his waistcoat. Throwing it open, he said: “If you will, drive your spear to my heart.”

For a moment, time stood still. In that brief space, as the implications of her husband’s solemn words settled, Mary remembered her father’s nursery garden near Manchester, where she had first met Robert Moffat. Even then he had been preparing himself for missionary work, convinced that God wanted him to nurture a spiritual garden rather than the physical ones that he first put his hand to at the age of fourteen.

From behind the relative safety of her husband’s body, Mary heard the shuffling of feet and murmuring.

“Robert?”

Anticipating the question, Moffat turned slightly. Keeping his eyes on the warriors now huddled in conference, he spoke softly to his wife.

“I don’t know. I think they were startled by my answer.”

Mary allowed herself a small smile.

“Or your state of undress?”

The threat of death had often hung over Robert Moffat’s head. As a youth he’d gone to sea, causing his mother great anxiety. On his first trip across South Africa, he’d been stranded in the desert without water. In one of his letters to her after that experience he had commented: “I feared that my first trip would be my last; that my dream of planting a garden for God in Africa would end before it had begun.”

Later, Robert had terrified his friends when he mentioned that he was going to move to the kraal of the infamous Afrikaner, a man whose name was hated and feared across the countryside. Not only had God protected Moffat but Africaner, his brothers, and others, became ardent believers under his ministry.

However, the Bechwanas had not been such easy ground to work. They laughed at the concept of salvation. Love didn’t exist in their vocabulary. The only softening they had shown was some moderation in how they went about stealing cattle. They had also gone without the services of their rainmaker—the results of which they now blamed on the missionaries.

Robert had despaired at the lack of response, only to be gently reminded by his wife that the Bechwanas needed to hear God’s Word in their own language before they would be convinced. Robert immediately dedicated himself to that task.

“Mary, look.”

She left the shelter of the doorway to stand beside her husband. The warriors had finished their discussion. As one man, they lowered their spears and turned away. As they moved off, the Moffats heard their leader say to his companions: “This man must have ten lives, since he is so fearless when he is faced with losing this one.”

Once more faith and courage watered a corner of Africa’s garden.

*Baby Mary would grow up to marry David Livingstone

Tale of a Missionary Car

It wasn't quite this bad! (Google Images)

(Author's Note: This story came up in a Bible study I was leading this week, so I decided to post it on the blog today.)

A single candle flickered in the room, threatening to leave us in darkness as we prepared for bed. Chilling drafts crept in through cracks in the wall, the roof, and the partially opened door. Rain pounded down outside.

I lay shivering on a straw-filled mattress. What we had come to this community to do was not going to be easy. Fear and superstition in rural Colombia, South America made it difficult to explain the Gospel. How could an inexperienced team of Bible students break through years of deep-seated tradition?

It was during summer vacation in 1978, and I doing children’s ministry with some of my students from our Bible Institute. We had planned to offer the program in six churches—three in Medellin, a highly industrialized city of over a million people, and then three more in our rural churches.

My coworker Maria and I—plus Gustavo, our lone male team member, and two other students, headed out to a farming community about an hour outside of Medellin. Once we got off the main highway, the going got very rough. The path was filled with craters and jagged rocks that seemed destined to rip something vital off the bottom of my small car. We finally decided to get out and walk, leaving Maria to drive, in the hopes of lightening the load and avoiding any major damage.

When the path ran out, we were still some distance from the home where we would hold our program. Maria parked the car by a small schoolhouse on a hill just off the path. The school yard was about 10 feet above where the road ended. The car was out of sight. I was sure it would be safe enough parked away from the embankment with the doors locked and the brake on.

Our hostess Guillermina and her husband Efrain were poor tenant farmers. They entertained us royally with what little they had and they were so excited that we had come to tell their friends and neighbors about God’s love and forgiveness.

That afternoon we rounded up children from the neighboring farms and began our first kid’s meeting. It was late when we escorted them back to their homes. A house meeting was planned for the evening. The church people began to drift in one by one. Some had walked a long way. Because it was beginning to rain, the return trip home promised to be a wet one.

By the light of gas lanterns and with every bed and bench occupied, Gustavo delivered a stirring message from the Bible. Outside, the storm grew worse.

After the meeting, all us girls were glad to climb into our beds to escape the cold. The bedroom door wouldn’t shut, so I propped it closed with a box to keep out the worst of the draft. At last, Maria blew out the flickering candle and we settled in, seeking a little warmth against the dampness of the night.

I could hear someone talking on the porch outside. Suddenly the door flew open, sending the box crashing against the wall.

“Señoritas, señoritas!” Guillermina cried hysterically as she burst into the room and threw herself at the foot of the bed. “Forgive us!” It took some to get her calmed down enough to find out what we were supposed to forgive her for.

On the way back to their homes after the meeting, the Christians had found my car upside down in the middle of the path. Two tires had been slashed. The other two were flat. The gas line had been ripped out and some damage attempted to the motor. Earlier Gustavo had offered to sleep in the car for the sake of security, but it was too late for that now. What will we do? I wondered.

“Señorita,” our hostess continued, “we know who did this. Efrain is going out with his machete to punish them.”

Efrain, a new Christian, had once been notorious for his temper. Once again, anger had taken control. As our avenging angel he was now prepared to do battle.

“No”, I begged, “tell him to stay here. Murder is not God’s way of dealing with this.” Guillermina scurried out of the room after her husband.

Voices rose and fell outside the door. The four of us prayed that somehow God would prevent Efrain from this evil mission. Gustavo talked and prayed with him all through the night and our prayers were answered.

I shook uncontrollably as questions raced through my mind. How bad was the damage? How will we get back to Medellin? Why did this happen on the first night of six weeks of ministry? How will we do all the other clubs without the car? Was there worse to come?

Just hours before, I had congratulated myself that we had gotten the car this far without any damage. Now it was ruined.

As I lay there, God began to minister to me. Verses of His care and protection flashed through my mind. He reminded me that where the Spirit of God is, there is no room for fear, for “the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them” (Psalm 34:7). There on that prickly mattress, peace returned. The car was His. Hadn’t I given it back to him when He first provided it? It was no longer mine, but HIS to do with as He pleased.

I fell asleep, thanking God and asking His forgiveness for my worry and fear.

The next morning, before we went back up the road to see the car, we had devotions together as a team. We prayed that God would glorify Himself through this situation. By the time we reached the school yard, a small crowd had already gathered. News travels fast, even in the remote, telephone-less hills of Colombia.

We answered the questions of all who passed, telling them about God and explaining to them why we had come here in the first place.

Our efforts at getting the car on its “feet” and back to town, accomplished with the help of La Unión’s battered fire truck, were closely watched and reported. As a team we resolved that we would stay, finish out our week, and not only talk about God’s love and forgiveness but prove it.

The meeting that night gave us the first glimpse of what the Lord was doing with His car. We were invited to hold our service in the home of a neighbor who wasn’t a believer. Strangers appeared at the door and the house was full to the rafters with people who had never heard the Gospel before. Curiosity had overcome fear. This amazing blessing would repeat itself every night during that week.

Colombians are very careful with their cars. Damage is swiftly repaired and keeping the car looking good is a “must”. But even after we returned to the city, I was reluctant to fix the car. Apart from the tires and the damage to the motor, both passenger and driver’s sides were crushed from being rolled down the embankment. This external damage provided us with endless opportunities to witness. At gas stations, stop signs and parking spots, people always asked what had happened. And when they asked, they received far more than just a “tale of a missionary car.”

With my limited understanding, I thought of the car as only a means of transportation from one place to another. But in God’s hands the car was to become an invaluable part of the missionary team, proving once again that He is always creative, always right and always faithful.