In the
summer of 1986, the time between my sophomore and junior year at Nyack College,
I went on a summer long missionary assignment to West Africa.
It was
an exciting time; we travelled through the jungle and bush land to get to the
missionary compound in Burkina Faso. The culture was in the throes of change,
pro Khadafy militants had just seized the capital the year before and the
country was full of militants with guns. Even the children had guns! I remember
well our driver giving a ride to a girl of 8 or 9 who wielded an AK-47 very
nonchalantly as it bounced up and down with the barrel pointed toward my head
as we made our way down the pot hole littered dirt road in the wilderness. Yes,
these were exciting times indeed!
But
however chilling the civil turmoil was at the time, the real off putting situations
in which I found myself in that summer were in the realm of the supernatural.
I've talked about some of them before, most notably the encounter with a cryptid
worshiped as a god of fertility by locals around Banfora. But most of my time
in Burkina Faso was on the road, going from remote town to remote town to
preach, sing and show a movie on the life of Christ. We would pull into a small
remote town on the savanna which was home to a mere handful of mud brick
buildings in the afternoon and by evening the entire area was filled with
thousands of people. They had come from miles around just to see a movie and
hear songs songs and a message. In the evening, after the show, we often had a
wide array of hosts who gave us a place to sleep overnight. Some were
indigenous church leaders, fellow missionaries and relief workers.
It was
one evening after a large gathering in a remote village that I had a very odd
and disturbing encounter at a relief worker’s home.
The
relief worker welcomed us into his small home. He was in the deep savannah to
help with agricultural and modern infrastructures for the many small villages
in the area. In this remote location, the well water was infested with
parasites. The outhouses were crawling with flying cockroaches that were a half
foot long. And the house itself was small, there was only one bedroom. So with
a group of our size, one person had to sleep outside and I volunteered. There
were rumors of bands of robbers that traversed the scant forested areas that
appeared hodge podge over the countryside. While they rarely came close to
these remote villages, I was told to take my bush knife with me as I made my
bed atop our aged and battered Land Rover.
The
village was located on the edge of one of the sparse wooded areas, where most
of the trees were cultivated bananas of various height. The dirt road where the
aid worker resided contained six to eight mud brick buildings and a few
concrete block houses. The wide road was one of two in the village and it was
on the main north-south highway that connected the larger towns to the south
with the capital to the north. The only electricity in the area came from our
generators which lay within the Rover that I slept upon, so the street was
pitch black.
The
darkness that you encountered at night in Africa is different than the darkness
which you encounter during nights in most American cities. Often in America the
light pollution dulls the brilliance of the night sky; but in Africa with there
not being a light for almost a hundred miles, the skies are alive.
I was
lying back enjoying the view of the cosmos before me when I heard something
move at the end of the street. Lying flat, I tilted my head in the direction of
the noise and in the pitch black I saw movement. It was something BIG. A large
black shape meandered through the street, heading slowly in my direction. I froze
in fear as I realized this massive shape moved on four legs, with a pronounced
pelvic swing as it moved. If I was in North America, I would have sworn that it
was a bear that was moving through that deserted evening street in darkest
Africa. But it was Africa, and there were no such native creatures as this for
hundreds of miles. Lions once roamed the savanna territory, but the last one to
be seen in the area was over a hundred years before this. Whatever it was, it
made its way to the parked Rover and began to circle the vehicle. I barely
heard a thing, but I saw the shadow pace around the vehicle for a tense minute
or two. I had slowly pulled my bush blade out of its sheath, expecting whatever
animal it was to suddenly jump in attack. But it never did. Whatever it was
finally walked away and I heard the occasional ruffle slowly recede behind me.
What was
it I encountered that hot summer in Africa decades ago?
Was it a
straying lion, roaming back into ancestral territory? Physically, that could be
the only explanation. However, there were old missionary stories of shaman who
could shape shift and prowl the savanna at night. Many had claimed to see a
shaman transform into a giant snake or jungle cat. Or could it have been a
territorial spirit, taking a shape to inspire fear? I had heard many stories as
such while in the area as well. Or maybe it was the specter of a long lost pride
of lions who had roamed the area for millennia until climate change had turned
their lush jungle into a dry desert borderland.
I will
never know, but I am glad it went away. I had never prayed so hard in my life.
Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope
