Logan’s Drawings
These drawings are especially made to be able to color inside them.
Click on the picture to view the pdf and print it out.
Hair Bees
The following is a read aloud story for February 2004 (the March story is still in the computer waiting to find a way to get out!!), especially thinking of Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the story of two Culina boys and their adventures in the great Tropical Rain Forest of the Amazon River of Brasil. One was bold and feared nothing, the other feared almost everything until one day he learned that not everything that buzzes in your hair stings.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
Niro (Nee-ROO) snuggled deeper into his cotton hammock. He began to shake uncontrollably with fear as flash after flash of brilliant lightning illuminated the night. Rain poured and the thunder roared. An electrical storm was sweeping across the great forest and over the flooded swamplands of the Culina people. CRAAAASSSH! Niro’s heart nearly leaped out of his startled mouth. “Ai! Ai! Senarra! (Seh-naw-HA) Senarra! Are you awake? Ai! Ai! I can’t take it any more! Make the thunder stop it’s shouting!”
Senarra had been sound asleep in the hammock next to Niro’s. He wasn’t even aware there was a storm raging over the village. He awoke with a start and realizing his younger brother was crying out in fear…he laughed and teased. “Hide your head, Little Brother, the next arrow from the sky will hit you! HERE IT COMES!” and he clapped his hands loudly near the younger boy’s ear and nearly rolled out of his hammock with glee when Niro gave a startled yell of desparation. Senarra feared nothing, Niro feared everything. Then both boys sat up and watched with wonder as their uncle came out from under his mosquito net, took down his old shotgun and put a shell in the barrell before he stepped outside in the rain lifting the gun to the skies and BAM! The little grass-roofed shelter shook from the explosion. “There,” the uncle said boldly, “I have killed the spirit of the storm! Now go to sleep, my son!” And Niro scrounged down not feeling one bit better.
The next morning the boys were racing to the river in bright sunshine to get in their small canoe for a ride through the swamp. Niro gripped the sides of the canoe as if at any moment he would be thrown over the side into the teeth of an alligator. Senarra calmly paddled without a tense muscle in his body. “Look, Niro, do you see that parrot peeking from the hole in the dead tree?” The canoe bobbed and the boys balanced themselves as they stared at the red and blue parrot cocking it’s eye as it studied them down below.
“I’m going to climb up and get her eggs! Maybe there will be some parrot chicks! Come on, Niro, let’s shinnie up the tree and get the eggs!”
Niro was unwilling to wiggle, let alone climb a tree in the middle of the swamp. “You go, Senarra! I’ll just wait here for you to come back down!” And Senarra was off as agile as the iguana lizard, racing up the tree with his knees gripping the wood. Foot by foot he went up and up and nearer and nearer to the parrot’s nest. Niro watched and hated himself for his lack of courage and because he never could overcome his fearfulness. The parrot protested and flapped its wings amidst mighty scolding squawks, but as Senarra got within hand’s reach the big bird flew out and screamed it’s protest at the invader. No eggs. No chicks. Just an empty nest. And down the tree the boy came quick as a flash.
The boys paddled on to firm ground. The canoe bumped to a stop and they started down a well-used trail back into the forest. Niro had troubling throughts. Would he ever be brave? Would he ever have courage like Senarra? Would things always scare him nearly witless? Senarra suddenly veered off into the thick brush chasing the small jungle turkey called inabozi (ee-naw-boo-ZEE) and Niro raced behind him. The bird was not willing to be caught…it darted here and there. And then suddenly the air was full of flying, blitzing, buzzing bees! BEES! This time even Senarra was startled. The boys ran back through the brush stumbling, lurching, racing as a mad million of diving demons circled their heads and tumbled into their thick black hair. Niro just knew he was going to be stung to death! He could feel the stings! Couldn’t he? Couldn’t he? No, he couldn’t. But he wasn’t going to slow down to figure out why that was. Suddenly Senarra shouted to him “Rrizi uauanade! (Hee-ZEE wah-wah-nah-DEH) Hair bees!” And he stopped and just laughed and laughed. “What were we so afraid of? They can’t sting! They just tangle in your hair and buzz you to death!” The boys sat on a log picking the black harmless bees out of each others hair. Niro suddenly realized that most of his fears were just hair bees.
He feared things that were harmless. He was going to overcome his fears! Yes, he would!
When Jesus walked on earth amongst boys and girls He often said, “Fear not!” Do you struggle with a fear of the dark? A fear of heights? A fear of failing? Are you always holding back and letting someone else do the adventure because you fear that you might not be as good as that person? Jesus says to FEAR NOT!! He wants you to put your hand in His almighty hand and let Him take you on the great adventures of life. Will you trust Him? Will you reach out and take His hand and go with Him? Just do it!!
The Sorcerer’s Secret
The following is a read aloud story for May 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the story of two Culina boys and their adventures in the great Tropical Rain Forest of the Amazon River of Brasil. Religious fakes. They are found everywhere. The boys were fascinated by the shamen and their ability to vomit up “curses” and declare sick people made well. But the day came when they caught the “witchdoctor” in what they thought was a terrible trick.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
Wide-eyed and filled with wonder Sano (Sa-NO) cautiously peeked around the corner of the dirty grey mosquito net and watched the people coming and going from the hammock of the very ill woman, Sobida (So-bee-DAH). She coughed and gagged and spit and sputtered and moaned and groaned. Under her hammock was the smoldering coals of a little charcoal fire that had burned all night to keep her warm and comfortable. The whole area smelled of smoke and sweat from her high fever.
Azo (Ah-ZOE) squirmed his way quietly to Sano’s side. “Sano, what is happening? Will Sobida live? Will she die?”
“Quiet, Azo! The people will hear you and make us leave! Look! Here comes the zoppinerre (zo-pee-neh-HEH) and he will work miracles! He can make her well! Let’s watch him do it!”
The shaman slowly made his way to Sobida’s side and then suddenly put his head down on her bare belly and he sucked and sucked and sucked. Then with the most excruciating raucous noise he vomited up small yellow stones! “Look!”, he said boldly to the on-lookers, “It is the Dori (Doe-REE) curse! Some enemy has sent these dori stones across the forest and into her body. I have brought them out of her. She’ll get well now!” And he began to chant and sing and seemingly rejoice in his wonderful ability to make the sick well. Everyone agreed with him and marvelled at the miracle this “doctor” had performed right there before their eyes.
The boys, too, were really impressed. “Sano, did you see? He got the dori curse out of Sobida! When I grow up I want to be a zoppinerre like he is! I want to help people who are sick!” Azo declared this rather loudly causing all the people around Sobida to look his direction with disgust at the noise he was making.
A week passed and Sobida died from the tuberculosis that had afflicted her. The people debated once again whether she had died of a dori curse or whether it had been simply “one of the white man’s diseases”? The shaman seemed a sham, but no one would confront him or ask him why she had died.
Azo and Sano raced down to the river as the a canoe load of people from a distant village came to visit. They noticed that there was a very sick man who also came and that everyone was talking about his dori and how the zoppinerre could suck it out! The boys got immersed in a bundle of ingo (Ing-GAW) fruit that had come with the canoe. Ingo is like great long string beans that grow on fairly big trees and hang down. When ripe you can pull off the long pod and then twist out the most delicious snowy white “cotton candy” fruit that slides off a glistening black seed. The boys were busily working out the white juicy sweet meat that seems to melt in the mouth.
They were sitting near the sorcerer’s shanty and noticed he had come up the pole ladder and he was busily digging into the palm leaf roof to hide a little package of something wrapped in a green leaf. He did not notice his little audience and Sano and Azo were quiet as a salamander on the shelter ridgepole. The shaman left and disappeared into the house where the visiters had gone.
“What is it?” Sano whispered to Azo, “What did he put in the roof? C’mon let’s go take a look! Be careful that he doesn’t see you!” And since everyone were with the visiters hearing their story, no one saw the two boys climb into the sorcerer’s shelter and pull out the green package. Quickly they opened it and found…yes, they found hard yellow dori stones! These were made out of hard pitch broken from the side of a scarred tree.
“He’s a fake! Maiza taui! (My-ZAH tah-WEE!) He’s a liar!” Azo was really angry at this discovery of the socerer’s secret stock of doris.
“Azo, let’s put hot pepper on them! C’mon, we can squeeze some of the hottest pepper juice on them! That’ll fix him…the big fake!” And off they went to get some very hot, burny pepper to squeeze on them.
No sooner had they done this and put the doris back in their green leaf envelope and hidden them where the sorcerer had put them…and here he came! The boys tumbled out the back of the shelter and hid behind a nearby stand of banana plants…peeking out to see what would happen next. The shaman was in a big hurry and went right to his secret hiding place and pulled out the dori package and opening it just popped them all in his mouth at once!! And then he started down his pole ladder and suddenly realized his mouth was on fire! He snorted so loud that it surely would have made everyone look his direction…and it did. Then he wheezed. He sneezed. He spit the little yellow pitch pieces all over the dirty, muddy yard. But still he had a mouth full of fire. He hiccupped so rapidly and loudly that he hardly had time to rush to the river and plunge his head under the water and take great gulping drinks of cooling water! The people ran out of their shelters and stood around the yellow, muddy dori stones. The sorcerer’s secret was out! They now knew that he never sucked them out of people, he had them in his mouth all the time!
Have you learned to study the Scriptures so that you can tell what is a fake and what is not? In Acts 17:11 we read about the Bereans. They just didn’t accept anything they heard without checking it out first. The Bible says, “they searched and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so”. Don’t be fooled by the fakes! Make sure what you believe is the Truth. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by me!” Make sure whatever you believe is Christ-centered. That goes for teachers in public schools who tell you God did not create the world. The Bible says God DID create the world, and that’s the TRUTH.
Don’t Meddle with the Kettle
The following is a read aloud story for August 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! The Culina Madirra people, one of many great Amazon Rain Forest indigenous tribal nations, have often had to deal with tragedy and death. This is a story based on an actual little Indian girl who lost her life because she “meddled with the kettle”. But, in our story the little girl survives and we wish we could write “good endings” to all of the terrible accidents that happen deep in the forest where our world never sees.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
The cows were laying all around the village center. They were a noisy lot and yet the People had grown used to their nightly visits and their bad odors and manners. A few years ago no one worried about cows sleeping in your yard, but when the Madirra were told by river traders that they no longer would buy their wild pig and alligator skins the People had to find a way to get money for salt, fishhooks, ammunition for their guns and other necessities. Cows and pigs were introduced to them as something they could grow and sell. But, oh what a mess they made in the village!!
“Sobida! (Sow-bee-DAH) Wake up! Wake up! The sun is rising and the sky is getting clear and you must chase the cows out of the village! It’s your turn this morning…remember? Go! Wake up!” her mother shouted from the hammock just above where Sobida lay sleeping on the shelter floor. Then when she didn’t respond…a hand hit her hard and brought her wide awake. “Let me sleep, Ami (Ah-ME mother)! Just let me sleep a little longer!” “SOBIDA! NOW! It is your turn to chase them off and clean up their mess! Do it or I will put a smoldering stick from the fire in your bed!”
A little wisp of a girl with long black uncombed hair and a dress that had not been washed in many weeks and had since turned grey. This was the dwarfed figure walking among the cattle with a stick from the fire and shouting, Hooway! Hooway! as the cows got to their feet and began to lazily move off towards the forest. They had very little pasture, as the ones who brought the people the cows had not mentioned that they need fields and pastures. The cattle roamed at will eating wherever they could. Hooway! Hooway! One enormous bull looked at the little apparition with the smoking stick and gave some thoughts of challenging her before he turned and followed the cows out away from the awakening village.
And so began Sobida’s day. Other mothers from other shelters sent their children out to help clean the village center from the assortment of smelly deposits that the cows had left. And soon the whole village was alive and the cooking fires were blazing and good smells were coming from the pots and kettles hanging black and hot over the flames.
Sobida yawned and began the climb up the five rung ladder to get in her shelter. She was just a bit too small for that last step and her hand went out as always to find something to get a hold of and pull herself up. There was always a kettle of water from the spring there, so she reached up and grabbed it as her support. “Sobida!” her big sister shouted from the cooking fire, “Don’t pull yourself up by grabbing the water kettle!! We have told you so many times, Sobida, that it might be a hot kettle and you would pull it down on you!’ Sobida had been scolded and warned many times about this habit she had. But, it was always just cold water when she put her fingers in it to get a grip and pull herself up. “OH, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” she retorted with a loudness that even half startled her. “Just leave me alone! I won’t put my hand in a hot kettle! What do you think I am.. a dumb toucan bird?!” “I only wish,” her sister answered, “at least the toucan has a long beak and keeps it shut!”
Habits are hard to overcome. Sometimes we think our habits don’t hurt anyone so why worry about them? Sobida was not used to pondering any thing that complex, but she was growing weary of her family constantly warning her to be careful and not to grab any kettle without thinking.
She was carrying her baby brother on her hip when she heard a great fuss coming from the shelter of her aunt. A new baby had been born!! Sliding the little brother off her hip and forcing him on another girl, she raced to her aunt’s house and shouted, “Is it a boy or a girl? Is it a boy or a girl?” and up the ladder she went. Her hand went out automatically to grab the water kettle, but this time it was a kettle of boiling hot fish and potatoes in fish broth!! In her excitement she had forgotten the danger and also had forgotten that she was going up a different ladder and into a different shelter. AAIIEEEE! The kettle slopped over and scalding hot fish broth splashed down her chest and stomach. Poor Sobida! She tumbled down the ladder in agony and rolled on the ground crying bitterly at the terrible hurt. “Sobida! I warned you! Your ears are stopped up! See, now you have burned yourself!! Why don’t you listen and be careful of what you grab??” the big sister kept scolding as she ran to her side and lifted Sobida up. Others came running. People were shouting on all sides, but Sobida just knew that she was burning up with a terrible pain down her front. She was carried to the medicine house and laid on a bed. Soon they were putting cold strips of cloth on her chest and stomach. And some soothing medicine. She cried and cried, but she also promised herself that never again would she thoughtlessly grab at a kettle to pull herself up the ladder!! Sobida had finally learned to not meddle with the kettle!!
Do you have a “bad habit”? Is there something that you continually do without thinking that will someday get you in trouble? Try to think of what bad habits you have. Can you think of any? Lying can become a really bad habit. Sassing your mother. Arguing with your brothers and sisters. Hitting your playmates when you get frustrated and angry with them. Stealing little things and toys that belong to someone else. When kids get bigger they get in a bad habit of smoking cigarets…just to be cool!! Bad habits are like hot kettles…and you will get burned if you don’t learn to not meddle with the kettle!!
Don’t Wake the Snake
The following is a read aloud story for April 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the story of two Culina girls and their adventures in the great Tropical Rain Forest of the Amazon River of Brasil. If curiosity killed the cat, it almost scared these two girls witless.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
Rarro (Raw-HOE) closed her black eyes and smelled the awesome odor of the fat rat-like creature she was roasting on her little mound of red hot coals. She and Doro (Doe-ROW) had been walking through the large field just hours after the men had set fire to it. Like other children they were scouting to see what animals had not escaped the holocaust and were scorched to death in the fire. Lizards, mice, and here and there a fat rat. Whenever someone found a smoldering piece of meat they would shout it out and all the others would search more intensely for their prize. It was sort of a Culina Easter egg hunt. Rarro’s rat had not cooked enough in the burning, so she got some coals together and was finishing barbecuing the succulent treat. Doro still looked for her find. “OCCA!” she shouted loudly! “This is MINE!” and she held up a hot little turtle for all to see!
The smoke was slowly dissipating and the field had burned well. With rat juice staining their chins the girls raced back in the forest to their trail. They laughed and teased and the whole world seemed to be a beautiful song. Life did not get better than this.
The trail went along the bank of the river for some miles and would eventually break off to a larger more well-used path that led to their shelters in the village. They skipped, they jumped, they stopped to swing on the everpresent vines and now and then they took off their dirty dresses and plunged in the cool stream and swam around like two little naked mermaids and then came back to the trail giggling and chasing each other. Suddenly Doro stopped! “Rarro, do you hear that noise? What is it?”
“Perhaps it is an old cow fish calling her calf!” Rarro teased.
There it was again! ZZZZZZZ.
The girls looked around and saw nothing. ZZZZZZ. What? It was coming from the ground just a few feet in front of them. They cautiously stepped forward all alert. ZZZZZZ. It was coming from right under them! The noise was muffled at times, but then it got louder and trailed off. Where was it coming from? Doro looked out in the river and saw nothing, but she did take note that there was a cave going back under the river bank and right under their trail. Something was in that cave. Sleeping! Something was snoring loudly!
ZZZZZZ. “Doro, DON’T WAKE THE SNAKE!!” Rarro shouted nervously trying to reason with her friend. ZZZZZZ. A giant sucuriju water snake was in the hole under the trail sleeping! That was it! ZZZZZZ. The girls started to run away, but then curiosity got the best of them. They tried to lay on their stomachs and peer under the bank, but the hole was too deep and dark to see anything. “Rarro, let’s dig down and poke it on the head!”
“I don’t think that is a good idea at all. He will get very mad!” Rarro reasoned.
“Oh, come on, let’s see if we can find him. He won’t awaken, he is sleeping too soundly!”
The girls found some pointed sticks and got to work digging in the sand on the trail and their hole got deeper and deeper. And then…GISH…the stick went right through into the hole. ZZZZZZZ. The snoring was louder now. They widened their hole and sure enough they could see a greyish green bulk, but they did not know where the snoring head was located. “Doro, let’s go!”, Rarro pleaded, “Don’t wake the snake!”
Doro lifted her stick and plunged it down with all the force she could muster and she felt it hit the snake’s body penetrating it’s flesh forcefully. Then all of creation began to roar and roll and go on a rampage! The girls stood terrified as the giant water snake, perhaps 25 feet in length, gave an ear splitting cry of war! It uncoiled from the hole and hit the water causing the entire river to suddenly boil with rage. The girls finally got their legs to function and were preparing to run for their lives! WHOSH…an ugly head came rushing up out of the river and they were looking in the two small evil eyes of death itself! Rarro nearly passed out with fright and Doro was screaming! The girls seemed to have been jet propelled as they raced down the trail towards the village screaming and crying. Had they glanced back they would have seen the gigantum serpant easily slither up on the trail and begin to whip after them. But the snake had been wounded by the stick and it stopped it’s pursuit to explore the source of it’s pain…and with a tumultuous splash it dove back in the river forgetting the girls entirely.
Has curiosity ever gotten you in trouble? Have you ever done something very foolish and dangerous? Have you ever awakened a snake and regretted it? Those snakes can be the bad things that you watch on television. Or, taking a peek at those magazines in the store that your parents have expressly forbidden you to ever open! Curiosity. It nearly cost the lives of Rarro and Doro, it has killed children as well as cats. Jesus has told us to walk circumspectly. That is a big word meaning to walk CAREFULLY, CAUTIOUSLY, and WISELY. Don’t mess with sin! Don’t dabble with what you know is very, very wrong. Don’t experiment with things older kids give you to taste, or try, or smoke, or do. It’s a giant snake that’ll get you! Walk circumspectly with Jesus all the time!
Lack of Love
The following is a read aloud story for March 2004, especially thinking of Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the sad story of an outcast Culina girl who deeply experienced a lack of love. Imagine a whole nation of people who have absolutely no word in their language for LOVE. I was the missionary who rescued the little girl from death by drowning. If you are missing any of the previous 14 stories, and would like to have them, just send us an e-mail and we will send them to you. I will send two stories a day to not overload your computer!
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
(missionary/ culturn observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
Mehi (meh-EE) and Rohi (Row-EE) sat together on a giant ironwood stump in the middle of the lake. The tree had been cut many, many years before and its hard wood had provided boards and house supports. Now, during the flood season, the stump was almost covered, but, not quite…and the twins, about ten-years-old, were perched high and dry throwing their fish lines into the lake. Mehi was very troubled and finally just blurted out to his look-alike brother: “Rohi, did you hear the old ones talking last night around the fire?”
“No, I heard nothing,” Rohi laughed, “except old Grandmother snoring!”
“I wish I had been able to sleep!” Mehi said with a sad sigh, “They were talking about the old days”. His foot was banging the stump nervously as it obviously was hard for him to go on with the conversation. “Rohi, did you know that just a few Rainy Seasons past…ai, this is bad…this is REAL bad…did you know that twins were thrown in the river at birth? Thrown to the piranas and alligators! You and I, Brother, would have been fish food! Just fish food!! How could the People be so cruel? How could our mother ever have done that to us? Could she have done that to us, Rohi? WOULD she have ever done that to us?” His speech had ended and both boys sat on the stump lost in deep thought.
What the boys could not possibly comprehend was that their language had no word for “love” in it. There was a lack of love. It has always been impossible for a Madirra (Maw-dee-HUH) to say. “I love you” to anyone. Missing. Gone. Not there. They are basically a very self-centered, uncaring society, and often extremely cruel to one another. No compassion. No love. But, then, the white long-legs came to live with them. They taught Father God’s Word and they talked about something called “amor”, that meant you treated people nice and with respect and didn’t hurt them. The Madirra were learning “love” by example and teaching.
Screams! Calls of distress! The twins were startled back to reality by someone calling for help. Aiiii! Aiiii! They looked out in the lake and saw Maraco (Maw-raw-COE) in his canoe beating something, or someone, over the head with his paddle. Immediately they knew who it was! Uarro! (Wah-HOE).
Yes, Uarro was out in the lake and her uncle, Maraco, was trying to drown her. Uarro had been abandoned by her mother when she was a baby and her grandmother did not want her. Her uncles and her aunt had agreed to raise her as a servant. She carried water and got firewood and took care of the children. They had always treated her like a slave. Abused and misused and sometimes tortured for laughs she was often hurt just for the fun of it. Poor Uarro!
WHACK! The paddle hit Uarro on the head as she came up for air. She was snorting and crying and pleading with her uncle to not hit her. He laughed and shouted ugly things at her as he pushed her down under the water with the paddle. He waited for her to come up for air and then would try to push her under before she could catch a good breath of air.
Suddenly the missionary, the white long-legs, raced down to the edge of the lake and shouted, “MARACO! PONI!! (Poe-NEE) Stop! Let her breathe! Leave her alone!” Maraco turned and paddled back to the other side still muttering curses at his wretched niece. Uarro gasped for air and was crying and managed somehow to swim to the missionary who helped her up out of the water. Then she just sat and sobbed. Poor little Uarro. “Come, Uarro, to our house. You’ll be safe there.” She followed the long white-legs to his house and was given food and comfort. Eventually she had to go back to her village and her wicked family, but for some time she just enjoyed being surrounded by this strange new thing…what was it? A happy, new sensation called LOVE.
Mehi again turned the philosopher, “Rohi, the white long-legs have done it again! Can it be that Father God wants us to be nice one to another and treat each other good? My eyes are hatching! (I’m beginning to understand) and I think it is BICA (Bee-CAW)! Good! His twin agreed and the boys continued their fishing from the stump.
A lack of love! Isn’t it sad to have no word for love in your language? To not be able to express love to someone because it doesn’t even exist in your vocabulary? When the Apostle Paul wrote the first chapter of the book of Romans he talked about people just like the Madirra, “They didn’t realize there was a God, and they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became cruel in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened”. Love is light. Love is God. Do you try really hard to love others? Do you try to help those who are being teased and tormented by others? Do your long-legs take you to the side of someone in desparate need? Jesus’ legs did!!
The Great Turtle Egg War
The following is a read aloud story for June 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the story of two Culina girls and their adventures in the great Tropical Rain Forest of the Amazon River of Brasil. Certain times of the year the turtles dig deep to lay their many eggs in the hot sand and then cover the nest well, camouflaging it to prevent any creature discovering the precious eggs. Now, Who taught the mama turtle to do that? This is the story of turtles and tikes…greed and tricks…egos and eggs.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
Orani (Oh-raw-KNEE) and Maia (My-AH) raced through the forest trail to begin the descent to the smaller brush of the Big Low. The Big Low was an old river bed that was quite wide and lower than the rest of the forest marked with stunted trees. The main river once flowed through it, but now just a clear little stream was there easily crossed on a fallen log. The girls were chattering about the up river village, the Pisideni (Pee-see-deh-KNEE), the little white monkey people, who had been recently coming through to go out to Hot Beach on the river and dig for turtle eggs.
“The Pisideni stink!”, Orani said as she marched down the trail, “And their clothes are all rags! Did you see Zequeri’s (Zeh-keh-REE’s) shirt?…it was all rips and tears and PEW it stunk like rotten fish!” The girls kept on discussing their less fortunate neighbors up the river with great cackles of laughter as they competed to see who could make the most sarcastic remark about the Pisideni.
Then they suddenly stopped. Someone was approaching. Quickly the two lithe brown bodies shimmied high up a gnarled tree by the trail and buried themselves as best they could in the branches and leaves. The approaching party was also talking quite loudly and there were more of them. As they got close to the tree one of them shouted back to those behind, “Wait until the zomarrideni (Zoe-maw-hee-deh-KNEE) get out to Hot Beach…they’ll NEVER find the turtle eggs! I made so many fake turtle nests that they’ll all be roasted in the sun by the time they find a real one!” And this brought great peals of laughter. As the Pisideni marched by under the girls, never once looking up to discover them, one of the group said, “The zomarrideni are all children of sloths!” and, again, laughter rolled through Big Low.
“Sloths! They called us sloths!” Orani said once it was safe to come down on the trail. “PEW. Could you smell them when they passed by? I had to hold my nose the stench was so bad!” The girls determined right there and then that they would go to Hot Beach and find the eggs. And they began to run to get on the connecting trail that would take them to the sandy beach.
It was the scorching dry season. Female sibore (See-bore-EH) turtles would come at night to Hot Beach and with one muscular flipper at a time scoop out a hole and fling the sand behind her. As she scooped deeper it required more work and more effort. The sand got wet and heavy, and she had to fling it above the rim of the hole she was digging. Finally, she was satisfied that the hole was the right depth and she began to drop shiny ping-pong ball sized eggs into the nest. Her instincts told her that she must cover the nest securely, so she filled the hole, tamped the sand delicately, as with loving care, added more sand on top, packed it too, then made a wide circle of disturbed sand to confuse any predators. She would finally rest in the moonlight and watch all of the other female turtles doing the exact same thing all over Hot Beach. Some time later the eggs would incubate in the hot sand and small turtles would hatch and crawl out of the hole and make their way slowly down to the safety of the river. But only a small percentage would survive! Predators loved turtle eggs and baby turtles! And, of course, so did those brown-skinned two-legged predators that had toes and fingers that could dig!!!
Maia and Orani burst out into the humid oppression of Hot Beach. The sun was so hot and the girls did not want to get any browner than they already were. But they soon could see that the Pisideni had raced around all over the beach making fake nests…and the girls dug here and there to find nothing. “Orani, come quickly! Look what I have found!” shouted Maia. And sure enough Maia had discovered a newly cut stick slanted in the sand and when she dug near it…she found where the Pisideni had stored a whole cache of hundreds of eggs. They had intended to come back later and get them. “ICCA!” (Eee-CAW!) Ours!” the girls stated again and again. Then Orani made a suggestion…”Maia, let’s fill the hole with buriti nuts! That’ll teach the stinking Pisideni to hoard our eggs!” So they raced into the jungle and soon found a buriti palm tree and gathered many, many of the golf-ball sized nuts. They made carrying baskets for the actual eggs and filled the hole with the nuts and raced back to the village anticipating the surprise the Pisideni would have when they returned for the eggs.
And so it went for the next few days. Every day people from one clan or the other would go to Hot Beach and try to find the eggs. Every day the sarcasm and name-calling seemed to get worse. And then one cool evening as Orani and Maia were laying in their hammocks trying to read their school books…proudly thinking of how they now had a school and the Pisideni did not…the village chief came up into their shelter and sat by the fire with the girl’s relatives. “Tomorrow,” he announced, “I am taking my canoe and going to Hot Beach. Some days ago my wives and my children went to Hot Beach and we buried many freshly laid eggs. I hope I have not waited too long to go and gather them”. Then he chuckled and said, “We left a big hole full of them and I put a slanted stick just where they were! I’m sure no one would ever find them!” The girls nearly fell out of their hammocks! But it was too late. They couldn’t confess. They had given the eggs from that cache to many people and eaten quite a few of the eggs themselves. But…but…what would the chief do when he found buriti nuts??? And they whispered in the dark that this must be their own secret FOREVER!!
Do you know what a “snob” is? That is a person who believes they are better than someone else. We sometimes refer to such people as being “uppity”. But, actually, they are just proud, conceited sinners. Jesus stated it correctly when He said, “The poor you will have with you always!”, but Jesus also loved the poor and less fortunate. Do you criticize and make fun of kids at your school who don’t have what you consider “nice clothes”? Or live in a house that is not up to the standard of your home? Have you ever defended the child who is being teased and tormented? Do you look for ways to be friends to them? Don’t be egotistical. That means being “stuck up” and thinking you are “big stuff”. Be ready to make friends and love and care for ALL people regardless of their social standing. Jesus did. He loved the leper as well as the lawyer. Follow His steps every day!!
Whipped Substitute
The following is a read aloud story for July 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month we tell the story of two Culina boys who go to their very first “Cocossi”. The Whipping Festival that turns into a tortuous party of purple welts and bloody stripes! Sizzling whips snapping and snarling and cutting the flesh! Nadine and I observed a couple of these festivals and just shook our heads in astonishment at how the Culina could give and take such painful punishment. And, yet, we realized here was a “cultural key” that gave us the opportunity to teach them about Jesus, our Whipped Substitute!
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL
“Here they come! Here they come! And there are LOTS of them!” Aode (Ah-oh-DEH) shouted from his seat on the branch of a tree that gave him a good view out over the swamp. He and Obai (Oh-BY) had declared themselves to be the villages “first alert” of the approach of the up river clan. “It’s the Ettedeni (Eh-TEH-deh-knee)! And they are all painted up! Quick! Let’s get to our canoe and race to the village to tell the people the Dog Clan are arriving…and ready to whip!”
For weeks Aode and Obai’s village had prepared for the big Cocosssi (coe-coe-SEE), the whipping festival. The men had some months before killed a large manatee cow fish that had become entangled in an across-the-stream fish net. The giant mammal-fish had ruined the net in it’s struggle to be free, but in the end was speared to death. The hide of the peixe boi (PAY-she BOW-ee)
cowfish was thick and strong and the men soon had made it into strips. Once dried and worked well these strips were fastened securely to strong unbreakable sticks…and, thus, they turned into “whips”. Several days passed with people practicing swinging the whips with all their strength and pretending they could hear the leather cut into the flesh. Then messengers raced to the neighboring villages and a date was set for the Cocossi in the boy’s village. The women prepared pot upon pot of sour potato soup. Deer and wild pig were roasted and boiled in large pots of potatoes or bananas. It was PARTY TIME!!
And now the clans were coming. Obai and Aode’s arms were about to break from paddling their small canoe so fast through the swamp to the village…and their voices sang out the news, “The Dog Clan is coming! The Dog Clan is coming!” Several other clans from other villages would soon arrive. The boys rushed down to the mud hole where the village men were already packing thick mud on their chests to ease the pain of the stripes they would be getting. They laughed and bragged and some older men gladly displayed ancient welts across their chests from some other cocossi of the past. Then they put on women’s skirts and everyone teased his neighbor about their faminine apparel…but they had learned that skirts are good protection in case of a “low blow”. Finally bark-band caps were placed on the head. The faces were painted with red and black lines…and some were done very professionally and to perfection. Once everyone was ready they would form a line and begin the single file dance from the mud hole to the village center. Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Hearing their loud chants the boys almost wished they were participating too…but they were not men yet! Their time would come!
Hundreds of people from all the clans were milling around. A bold up river warrior stepped out and shouted,”I will whip Uazobi (Waw-zoe-BEE)!” And Aode watched as his shaman uncle stepped out to face the challenger. A lot of people blamed Uncle Uazobi for his magic curses that made their clan members sick. Uazobi boldly stood and lifted his arms high in the air to expose his muddy chest. His opponent circled with his whip and swished it through the air several times to frighten the one he’d whip. Then as the crowd all held their breath…CRACK!! The whip circled the body and bit across the chest! Uazobi fell to his knees gasping and beating at the stinging pain across his chest as an ugly red stain came through the mud. Then slowly amidst the cheers of his clan he rose up and lifted his arms again to let his attacker hit him harder than before…CRACK!! Down again gasping for air. Up again to expose his body to yet one more mighty blow. CRACK!! Uazobi had passed the test. Both Aode and Obai were shouting, “Manaco! Mah-naw-COE! His turn! His turn!” And Uazobi grinned maliciously at his opponent who now was forced to raise his arms and receive three blows from an angry bloodied man. Uazobi swung his whip with every little bit of force he could produce and drove his antagonist to the ground blow after blow. Both men had red bloody welts, but they would not quit and back and forth it went until one or the other was not able any longer to get up!!
Suddenly Aode felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to face a young man from the Dog Clan. “I challenge you to be whipped!! Step out and raise your arms!” Aode gulped big and loud and felt desparate. Even Obai had melted away in fear someone would challenge him! And the crowd was gathering around the challenger and wanting to see the two boys whip each other. Aode’s voice was weak and his bottom lip had begun to quiver as he tried to say, “I’m too small! I’m not a man yet!”, but the bigger Dog Clan boy was swishing his whip and laughing with a pitiless glee. Aode wanted to run. But the crowd was too tight around them. And now his own clan members were shouting, “Aode’s going to be whipped! Aode’s going to be whipped!” and more of his clan rushed to watch him get his initiation into cocossi. “Lift your arms!” the Dog Clan boy shouted!! LIFT YOUR ARMS!! Tears came to his eyes and he felt terrible. He couldn’t cry…everyone would call him a baby. But the boy was so big and it would hurt so much!
Just then Aode felt a hand on his shoulder…he turned to look into the eyes of his older brother. He saw the mud on the chest of his brother and the whip marks from some encounter he had already had. “Go, Little Brother! Go, sit down! I WILL TAKE YOUR WHIPPING FOR YOU!!” The Dog Clan boy now had panic in his eyes, but he had been the challenger and he knew he could not back out. Aode slowly pushed through the crowd to a safe distance. Saved. Saved by a substitute!
Did you know that you, too, have a whipping substitute? That Someone took your punishment for you? In Isaiah 53:5 we read, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED”. When you were lost in your sins and far from God, Satan stepped out to whip you. And you were small and weak and had no escape…until Jesus came and said, “I will stand in his place! I will take his punishment! I will be his substitute! WHIP ME!” And that is what Jesus did on the Cross. He died for our sins as our substitute so that we do not have to be whipped. Have you accepted Jesus as your sin substitute? Do you know Him as your Savior? “He who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.” I Peter 2:24
Thunder Fish
The following is a read aloud story for March 2005. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about children in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who have children and would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God! The Culina Madiha people, one of the many great Amazon Rain Forest tribes, have lived for centuries in a world of superstition and fear. Primitive peoples attempt to explain natural phenomenon, such as thunder and lightning, through their isolated world view. That is the case in our story for this month. Brilliantly educated scientists in our modern world sometimes fall into the same trap. The Big Bang. Mankind evolving from apes. We call these “theories”, but they are not based on actual fact and deny the existence of a Creator God. The Culina’s eyes are “hatching” and they are stepping out of centuries of superstitious ignorance to faith in God.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
(Missionary/cultural observer with the Culina Madiha for many years)
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida
March was the month of the heavy rains. The forest was dripping! The five Culina boys huddled together in the blade-like roots of a giant samauma tree and wished they had brought a dozen or more banana leaves to spread out over them like an umbrella. But in their fun at racing through the soggy forest searching for toads and frogs, they’d not been able to see the black clouds gathering and when the storm broke they were far from home and without the wide banana leaf umbrellas.
“Keep your eyes open for snakes! My frog is telling me that a snake in curled up near us!”, shouted Noba holding up a greenish-brown bug-eyed frog for everyone to see. His unkempt black hair was matted on his head by the hard rain and now several small leaves and chunks of tree dirt perched atop the ratty mess. He poked around looking for that snake he was sure was just inches from them and ready to bite!
VAROOOM! There was a blinding flash of light and then a deafening roar right over their heads. Lightning and thunder. The astonished boys dropped their catch of frogs and toads and closed in together in a tighter group with fear written on their faces.
“I’m scared,” cried little Zequeri (Zeh-keh-REE), the smallest of the five. And suddenly he squirmed out of the huddled group and dove into a hollowed log. It was scarsely big enough for him to shove the front half of his body in. And it was damp and dark.
“Zequeri!” Noba pleaded, “Come out! My frog says that is where the snake is laying!” The boys all laughed and took up the teasing and shouting at the half covered boy.
“I don’t care, I’m not going to let the Thunder Fish get me! Or the giant heron! I’m scared. I’m staying right in here until the Thunder Fish calms down!”
The other four boys huddled closer together looking at the small legs sticking out of the hollowed tree and each one wondered about the Thunder Fish. Was it real? The Old Ones said that thunder was caused by a giant fish in a great lake in the sky. When spirits or anything else bothered the Thunder Fish he would flap his tail and cause gigantic waves against the shore of the sky lake. The pounding of the waves was the loud thundering noise that you heard. At the same time a giant heron bird would be startled by the thunder and take flight…the rain drops on his wings were like light and flashed.
“The God’s Word Teachers say there is no Thunder Fish or Lightning Bird! Come out, Zequeri, before something worse…like a poisonous snake gets you!” Noba continued to plead with the small nearly naked boy.
“No! There is no snake in here! But that Thunder Fish will flap his tail again soon and scare another heron…I’m staying right here”.
The sudden rain storm had marched on and the thunder and lightning marched on with it. The trees were dripping, but the rain had stopped and a bright shaft of sunlight suddenly pierced down into their swampy playground. How quickly the storms pass and the sunshine comes! “Zequeri! Zequeri! Your Thunder Fish has swam far away! Come out! You need to go listen to Father God’s Word and not the teachings of the Old Ones. You are nearly old enough now to go to school like all of us!”
Slowly and carefully a small little dirty body wiggled its way out of the hollowed log and looked around at the increasing sunshine. And, then, to the surprise and astonishment of the boys, a long green snake slowly crawled out of the same hollowed log!
The frog had been right! But the five boys didn’t wait another minute…they ran like lightning!
How about you? Are you afraid of the thunder and lightning? Do you sometimes want to run and dive under your bed when a big roar of thunder crashes over your house? What do you think causes thunder and lightning? Or do you know it is just an explosive expansion of air heated by a lightning discharge? God the Creator has made some awesomely beautiful things. Have you ever stepped outside and watched an electrical storm? Boy, that is better than The Fourth of July! A great and very wise man named Job said, “The thunder of God’s power, who will not be astonished by that?” Thunder and lightning show us God’s awesome power. It shouts, “I AM IN CONTROL! I REIGN!”
Don’t accept manmade “theories” as the truth, when you can know the Creator through His Son Jesus Christ.
Don’t Spill the Blood
The following is a read aloud story for April 2005. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about children in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who have children and would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God! The Asheninca people, one of the many great Amazon Rain Forest tribes, have lived for centuries in a world of superstition and fear. The following months of stories, as I catch up, will be based around the actual observations I made while living in Ridge Village, on the Breu River, with the Asheninca people. Mo-SEE-ro, is an actual 10-year-old girl whom I watched and she has become the main character in this series of stories.
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
(Missionary/cultural observer with the Amazon tribes for many years)
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida
Black eyes searched the forest and looked for fruit. Mosiro brushed back her black hair and scratched automatically at the bites and itches she felt on her scalp. She had never known a time that she hadn’t had lice in her hair and like all of her people it had just become a way of life to endure the little bites. There were, of course, those times when someone would have her sit just so they could search her hair for the lice and their eggs and then catch one and crack its back in their teeth. She hadn’t anyone right now to “crack lice”, so she just scratched and went on looking for fruit.
“Eenspockie! Eenspockie!” someone called from another part of the forest and everyone crashed through the brush to get there. EenSPAqui is a wonderful fruit that hangs down from trees in long pods and quite often the pods are so fat that they burst. Inside are seeds encased in a sweet white cottony fruit…in fact some call Eenspaqui “God’s cotton candy”. The delicious white fruit seemed to melt in Mosiro’s mouth and it was so good. She forgot her head lice for a few enjoyable minutes!
Back the happy wanderers went to their village on the crest of a ridge. They had made leaf baskets to carry the eenspaqui back home. As they approached the village they could hear old Ahoni (Ah-HOE-knee) shouting angrily! Oh dear, what had happened? Others were also shouting and as the little group of fruit-gatherers entered the village they saw everyone standing around the old mother pig. Ahoni had his bow and arrows in his hand, but the pig had already felt the arrow plunged through its heart.
Ahoni was truly upset and shouting out great curses on the pig. It became clear soon that the mother pig had taken her family of seven or eight little pigs on a trail that lead to the Asheninca gardens. Mother pig, like the Asheninca children, had been just foraging for food, and when she got in that potato garden she put her nose down and plowed up piles of potatoes for her family! But it is OK for children to go looking for fruit in the forest and it is definitely not acceptable for pigs to be pigs!!! Ahoni caught her in her crime and soon passed the death sentence on her!!! Now she would be pork in the pot!
Mosiro stood near the dead pig and watched with wide eyes as Ahoni drew a knife and was preparing to slit the pig’s throat. “Mosiro! Get a dish for the blood! Go quickly!” Off she raced to the nearest house and came back with bowl-like dish. In went the knife and the blood spurted out and into her bowl. “Mosiro! Don’t spill the blood! Walk carefully with it! Don’t spill the blood!”
There she stood. The bowl was full of pig blood to it’s rim and she was hanging on with both hands and trying to walk as carefully as possible to the house. And the lice were biting! Oh dear, how they were making her head itch. But she couldn’t raise her hand or she would spill the blood! She couldn’t hurry either or she would stumble and then Ahoni would be as mad at her as he was with mother pig. How her head itched! She slowly walked across the yard and never spilled a drop of that blood. Then she sat and scratched and scratched and scratched at those nasty lice who never let her alone.
Blood! What were the Asheninca people going to do with that bowl of blood? They use about everything imaginable in their meals, so the blood would undoubtedly be a savory dish of some kind. Blood pudding? The Bible talks a lot about blood too. But the most precious passages speak of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that was shed on the Cross for our sins! And we love to sing that old hymn, “There is Power in the blood!” The writer of the book of Hebrews in the Bible tells us in chapter 9 verses 13 and 14 that the blood of bulls, and goats…and definitely pigs…cannot save us. But he says that the blood of Christ can transform our lives and make us children of God! Mosiro has NEVER heard that the blood of Jesus was “spilled” on the Cross for her sins. No one has told her that yet in her language. Pray for this little girl of the jungles that she might grow up to to know about the blood of Jesus, her redeemer.