One Armed John

The following is a read aloud story for April 2006. 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 people in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God. Let’s change the pace a bit. For the next few months I want to share some true stories of people and events that have happened in the Amazon jungle. My favorite author is Jack London. He wrote tales of the sea and also of Alaska…and most of us have read “The Call of the Wild”. Brasil is not Alaska, but it is one of the last true wildernesses in the world. One-armed John. I met him some time ago and an old man told me John’s story.
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

He didn’t always have that stub dangling from his left arm. Joao, or John, grew up with all of his limbs in tact. Nothing missing. Well, the neighbors said that maybe he had a little “good sense” missing. He was a boy who loved the wild and felt right at home playing with snakes and hunting wild pigs and, especially, fishing in the ponds and lakes of his home area. And he liked to fish alone. Those peaceful mornings you could paddle back through the swamps to the old river beds that were full of brownish green water and as undisturbed as the grey hawk in the high old tree that was patiently waiting for the mouse to come out of his hole and greet the new day. “I’m a hawk!” John often said to himself out loud, “and I’ll get my prey! I’ll get my prey!”
The lake he was headed for was a few miles from the little grass-roofed home he shared on the muddy Jurua River. John had brothers and sisters. His father and mother were easy-going and his father would always remark every morning at sun-up, “Boys, you have to go get the fish! Mother will cook it, but you have to hook it!” More or less like that. And John and his brothers NEVER came home without a string of fish. But old Uncle Joe had many a time warned the boys, “Don’t go to Spider Lake! That lake is full of danger! Don’t fish in Spider Lake! Who knows what evil is down in the depths of that water? Stay away from there!” And they did, well, for the most part, but when someone says “don’t” usually in boys that creates a desire to “do”. It’s a challenge. And John never turned down a challenge. So, this bright morning his small canoe was weaving it’s way through the flooded jungle to the forbidden lake…Spider Lake! “I’m a hawk!” he said.
Spider Lake was calm. It certainly didn’t look dangerous. John eased his way out of the canoe to stand on a living woven carpet of vines and grass and old logs and floating junk. The mat was so thick you couldn’t break through it and so solid that it supported his weight. Under it was deep water. He inched his way close to the edge of the floating debris and carefully got the piece of bait fish on his hook. he had no fishing pole, just a handful of heavy duty nylon fishing line and the well secured hook on the end. SPLASH! He threw out the hook and then slowly pulled it in. He repeated this for up to twenty minutes and did once see a big fish surface and descend again. “I’m a hawk”, he told himself, “I have to be patient!” SPLASH! This time he let out more line and threw his hook out much farther. Too far in fact. When he tried to pull it back it was stuck…snagged on some limbs and stuff and it would not pull loose.
John’s dilemma was that he had no other hook. If he jerked and broke the line, he would lose the hook. He stood and contemplated Uncle Joe’s warning words, “The Lake is full of danger”. Then he told himself that it was so calm and undisturbed and nothing evil could be in that water. He knew that he could dive in and swim to the hook and quickly untangle it and swim back. He was a strong swimmer. He could do it! But still he wondered about Uncle Joe’s warning…he wished that he had asked Uncle Joe what made him fear Spider Lake. Well, the hook wouldn’t come unfastened and he finally got up his courage and decided to dive in and swim and unhook it.
John tried to go in the water as quietly as possible. And he wasn’t making much noise, but he knew he probably had awakened all the devils of the deep. A few strokes and he was fingering the hook and untangling it as he kicked his feet to not sink. And then he sensed the danger. He didn’t see anything in the water, but his heart began to beat much faster and he knew some evil was there! WHOOM. A giant alligator surfaced, it’s snout just ten feet from him! It was big and ugly. And John was swimming faster than he ever had before…he had to reach that mat and climb up on it. The alligator was in deadly pursuit! John made it to the mat and he tumbled out of the water and up on it, but that gator was as much at home out of the water as in the water. The fierce sharp-toothed monster was coming up on the mat after him! John’s reflexes shouted to him to strike the alligator. He swung his left arm with all the force he could and ZIP the sharp teeth amputated the arm just above the elbow! In horror he saw his arm in the mouth of the alligator. The big lake monster dove down and disappeared with it.
Waves of nausea came over the young fisherman. He lay on the mat shouting for help, but he knew no one could or would hear him. Finally, he looked at his severed arm and saw that the blood wasn’t spurting out. He stood up and wrapped his shirt around the stub. It soaked in blood. But he could walk. And so he went back to his canoe and paddled with his good arm until he got home! And then he passed out. Forever after the “hawk” was without one wing and he was called One-armed John. This time the prey got the predator!
How do you listen to good advice? Does it go in one ear and right out the other? Do you take heed of warnings in life? Or do you, like One-armed John, think you are invincible? The Bible tells us to “walk circumspectly”. That means to walk wisely, paying attention to advise and warnings from other people. You may never fish in a lake full of sharp-toothed alligators, but you do live in a dangerous world. Your computer can become an alligator! It can become a danger to you if you go on line to places that are forbidden and dangerous. Computer games can be evil and ruinous. Stay away from the “Spider Lakes” that are all around you! Don’t lose your spiritual arm because of your foolishness