Making Choices

The following is a read aloud story for August 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

It was so hot. So humid. So sweaty. Mosiro just wished she was home and could run down the banks and jump in the Breu River. But she wasn’t. She was with some other villagers far back in the forest on a trail leading through a small part of Peru. Of course Mosiro never knew when she was in Peru or when she was in Brasil. In fact she hardly even knew the two countries meant anything. It was just ALL Asheninca land to her and her people. Mosiro didn’t know anything about world events. Her world was confined to Ridge Village and jungle trails. As far as she knew the whole world was about 10 square miles wide, long, or whatever. She was so thirsty.
Then she remembered the big red and yellow bell-shaped cashew fruits in her leaf basket. She and some other girls had walked through the yard of some “uirachocha” people. They were the non-Indian residents of that area. They had planted cashew trees and it was the time of the year for the fruit. The girls had taken several really nice ones to put in their “cantsiri” baskets and eat later. Now, was later! Mosiro got a large glistening orange cashew fruit and felt it’s soft smooth skin…oh, she could hardly wait! CRUNCH! Cashew juice squirted in all directions and was staining her robe. But she didn’t care…the robe was so stained already by so many different things! The juice was not sweet, but not sour either, just kind of an acidy strange taste…but, oh so good! She very carefully picked off the small, kidney-shaped edible cashew nut and put it back in her cantsiri basket. She would roast it on the coals later. You had to be careful of those cashew nuts because until they are roasted they are poisonous and you better not put a non-roasted nut in your mouth!!!
Finally, just at sundown, they marched through their old fields and up the ridge to the village. Home sweet home. Soon a big meal of meat and “caniri” potatoes was greedily gobbled down. Then as darkness fell over Ridge Village everyone collapsed in their hammocks.
Everyone but Little Mike, the chief, who was the witchdoctor shaman. He had stayed home and spent the day brewing up a pot of jungle vines. Big pieces of vine had been boiling for hours. The vine brew was very nasty tasting, but it was used by many different tribes because it was halucinogenic. It made those people who drank it see visions and wild animals and it was kind of like having a weird television in your head. All kinds of strange colorful scenes ran across your mind. God never meant for people to drink it, but Satan taught the Indians all about it…and when the shaman drank the “tea” he would hallucinate and then see devils and demons. Mosiro was so tired. She was trying to sleep just a few feet from Little Mike and his chanting and snorting and drinking and jabbering.
“HEY! HEY! CHANA! CHANA!” he was singing into the dark. “HEY! HEY! CHANA! CHANA!” and his wife would sing background music in a falsetto voice. Mosiro never questioned the drinking of the tea. She never questioned the appearing of demons and devils to whom Little Mike would talk and whisper to. She just wished that she could sleep. The chanting echoed in her mind. Her eyes got drowsy. She soon was lost in a world of her own filled with big cashew fruits loaded with juice. She was sound asleep with Little Mike chanting and jabbering just a few feet away.
Cashew juice or jungle vine tea? Mosiro had to make many choices. Which would she choose? Good or evil?
That was a day in the life of a 10-year-old Asheninca girl. It is a lot different from your day…isn’t it? Aren’t you glad you are so loved and so sheltered and so “taken care of” by your dad and mom and others? How would you like to exchange places with Mosiro? Just for one day? You can’t do it, but you can pray for her that as missionaries come to live in Ridge Village she will hear about Jesus and His love for her. Missionaries right now are attempting to learn her language. Pray for them. Mosiro may be playing with the sons of the missionaries as they are about her age. What new influences and choices is she going to make? Cashew juice or Drugs? Satan or Jesus? Will you pray for Mosiro and all the Asheninca children of Ridge Village that they will make the right choice? CHOOSE JESUS!