Naughty Natures

The following is a read aloud story for September 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. This the final story 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. I am returning to Ridge Village and will be seeing Mosiro again and gathering more 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

“Shoo, you pigs! SHOO!” And shoo they did with squeals and snorts and pushing and shoving one another. Mosiro ran after them with a stick in her hand trying to whack one of them on it’s fat back, but they dodged and darted here and there and out of her reach. She had been appointed the “camp protector”…”shooer of the pigs”. While everyone else was out in their gardens or down at the river, Mosiro was to make sure the many pigs did not get in the shelters and eat the potatoes and other food laying around. It got boring at times. She dug in the dirt with her toe and lazily scratched her head to see if she could catch a louse. They were hard to catch. The pigs were gone for the moment. “People are coming! Strangers are coming!” the shout came from Xiji (She-jee) who raced up from the river. Mosiro had fallen asleep and now was startled awake and looking right at a pig eating the potatoes just a few feet from her! “SHOO!” she shouted and raced after it, her stick flailing in the air threateningly. Foreigners? People who did not speak Asheninca? Who were they? Wide-eyed with curiosity, but also being very cautious she watched them come into the village. The regular villagers came too, to meet their guests. And the “white people”, the visiters, looked so pale and sickly without any red dye on them. Mosiro pondered why “outsiders” never wanted to look good! She was glad that she had applied a lot of red dye to her face that morning.
One rather large lady was making all kinds of motions. She seemed fascinated with everything she found in the shelter…picking up gourds and eggs and baskets and examining them all with such enthusiasm. Little Mike, the chief, knew enough Portuguese to carry on a somewhat intelligent conversation. The woman wanted to go back in the forest and see the red dye pods on their bush. She was very curious about them. Why did Indians paint their faces?
“Mosiro! Can you take this stranger back to see the red dye pods? You know where there are some good ones!” Mosiro jumped down and the lady was practically trampling her in her eagerness to go back into the brush on this mission. As she walked, Mosiro suddenly smiled big. Little Mike was chattering away in broken Portuguese distracting the lady. He was not paying attention to Mosiro’s trail which she knew was going to lead right into a low-hanging bees nest. Mosiro almost chuckled out loud. As she ducked under the branch where the bees nest dangled from it, she bumped it just enough to make the hornets angry. The lady was close behind unaware of her peril! Suddenly Little Mike grabbed the startled lady! He motioned to her to not go on. Stop. Come back. The poor woman looked around in confusion as the chief waved back towards camp. And then the lady saw the dog. Oh, the chief was warning her about a rabid dog! And to Mosiro’s comoplete delight the woman charged forward right into the hornet’s nest! And then all bedlam broke out! Bee’s attacked and stung and everyone was charging every direction. And Mosiro just sat and laughed and laughed. A very sore and stung-up lady left their village that day never knowing Mosiro’s naughty nature had caused her plight!
The Bible says we should “be kind one to another”. But every last one of us was born with a sinful, naughty nature! Have you ever noticed that? Did your mother teach your little brother to lay down and kick and have a flying fit? Who taught him to do that? Who taught you to want to be mean to your sisters? Why do you get a strong urge to pull someone’s hair? Where does that urge to be naughty come from? Well, like Mosiro, you were born with a naughty nature. You were born to be mischievious. To disobey. To fight. To want to hurt people sometimes. To Mosiro it was just a painful prank, but she didn’t realize she had a naughty nature that stank. She doesn’t know that she needs to invite Jesus into her heart and to become “born again”, a NEW person in the Lord Jesus. Have you done that yet? DO IT TODAY!