The Sand Storm
By the early 70's, armed trouble in Eritrea had really begun to escalate. Two the of mission clinics had been disrupted by their demands, and the hospital at Haicto had also been experiencing troubling visits. The doctor had had a marvelous deliverance one night with armed men came demanding money and drugs. They got neither.
If you came down the highway far enough, you eventually reached a large village, near the border of Sudan, where the mision had both a clinic and a girls' school. Government soldiers had also been stationed here, possibly because of its proximity to the Sudan. Thus far, the town had been relatively quiet, but insurrection's cruel hand was to reach us too.
It was a sultry night. One of the missionary teachers had pulled her cot out onto the small screened porch at the front of the house, hoping for some relief, when suddenly the night was shattered by gunfire. It seemed to be coming from all directions, and the bullets ricocheted off our palm-frond fence.
The windows and doors of the little house were only made from split palm fronds, but the walls were cement bricks, thus offering a measure of security. The clinic, school and various other buildings in the town were of similar construction, but what of the defenceless people in their vulnerable little huts?
The cot was quietly pulled into the house, and we lay still in the stifling heat, waiting and listeneing to the distressing sounds. Naturally, the minded drifted to the pathetic remains of a village we had passed just that past summer on our way to the hot springs.
To add to our distress, a searing wind arose, laden with fine dust. It turned out to be one of the worst sand storms we had ever experience in Africa. While the bullets flew outside, we battled just to breath.
Then the shooting ceased, almost as abruptly as it had started and an eerie stillness settled over the town. The storm had forced the armed men to withdraw.
Dawn brought a blessed relief from the searing heat and the choking dust, but heaps of fine, dark sand lay on everything. Even the sheets on the cots were piled with the dark stuff, except where our bodies had lain.
We didn't even try to clean up, but just concentrated on getting ready for school. The missionary teacher who'd been outside, was anxious to see how the national teachers, and especially the girls, had fared. She wasn't the only one. We were startled to see the worker from the clinic at our door. He said he had come to try and help us get ready for school. With that, he took a large broom and started shoving the thick layers of sand from the table and the floor around the door. No doubt he was just thankful to see were were still in one piece, and he wanted somehow to be helpful. He didn't tarry long, as his wife would also be anxious. They must have been greatly relieved that their own two young ones were in the school for missionaries' children in Asmara.
The teachers, who lived on the school premises were shaken, but safe. The girls had not been so fortunate, and only a token of them managed to show up on time. The rest straggled in, too quiet, with fear in their eyes.
The trouble had all started when someone, possible from the Ethiopian Liberation Front, had put a Molotov Cocktail inside two dinner plates, and had politely placed it before an army officer waiting for his supper at a local restaurant. Of couse, when he removed the top plate, it blew up. The officer escaped serious injury, but not so with the men of the town. The army rounded them up at gunpoint, forcing them into the Market Square, bent on revenge. There had been casualties, but the dust storm had abruptly ended it all. The soldiers could hardly breathe, let alone see beyond the muzzle of their guns.
More than one mother who accompanied her girl to school that morning, said quietly, "Did you see what God did for us last night?" They knew, even better than we did, what a wonderful intervention the storm had been.
One teacher noticed that the girls had come without their usual little lunch bundles. It's just possible that they couldn't fix anything to eat in their homes that morning, so she sent over to the market place for fresh buns, as soon as they were ready. Armed with them and a large botle of calcium pills that she had dug up from somewhere, she dispensed them to the girls with words of comfort. This really helped: empty stomachs and fear make poor students.
The school was usually a peaceful place, and it soon returned to its normal routine, at least for a time.
Editor's Note: My thanks to Jean for sharing this story in Bible Study and here on the blog. FYI, there are still three more weeks left in Bible Study this term. We are using a video series called In the Dust of the Rabbi. Meeting times are Wednesdays at 9:30 am and/or 7:00 pm in the Ross Lounge at the church.
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