Aaron’s Dream

Aaron lived in the Sebungwe Valley just below the Mission school. He started climbing up the mountain to attend the Sunday morning church meetings we had at the school. He became interested and started coming up and studying the Bible with Jordan, our evangelistic school teacher. On a Monday morning, I saw Aaron and Jordan coming down the trail from the school toward our house.

“Aaron wants to be baptized,” Jordan announced proudly. “Will you come?”

“Wait till I get my hat,” I answered. I also collected my rifle in case of crocodiles and we went down to Kariba Lake. On the way down, Jordan related Aaron’s story.

Sunday night after going to church in the morning he had a dream. There were three angels who showed him a bare plain with a big baobab tree growing in it. They told him this was the place where Jesus was crucified. They seemed to be floating across the plain.

I interrupted the account with a question. “What color were the angels?”

“They were black like me,” answered Aaron. Logical.

They all floated along until they saw Jesus standing on the other side of a pool of water.

I interrupted again. “How did you know it was Jesus? What did He look like?”

“I just knew,” Aaron asserted. “He had on a white robe and a blue head covering.”

“What color was his skin?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” he admitted.

Good. I had been preaching that Jesus was not and African or a European. He was a Jew, a race hated by many, and he died for all races. Color is not important. Aaron’s dream agreed with that.

As they approached the pool where Jesus stood, the angels started singing a hymn and Aaron joined them. Then his wife woke him and asked why he was singing in his sleep.

He couldn’t go back to sleep so this morning he climbed the mountain to the school to ask Jordan what he thought the dream meant. Jordan promptly told him it was clear that the only thing standing between him and Jesus was baptism. Aaron agreed and so he was baptized that morning while I stood guard with my .300 magnum rifle. Misael took a picture of it and I sent it back to my supporters. Then I had to explain that, no, that’s now why we had so many baptisms, the gun was in case of crocs.

The changes in Aaron after his baptism were apparent to all. He became a better man, a better husband and father, even a better farmer. Christ made an immediate difference.

The Government tried to make better farmers but didn’t have much success. The Binga police told me a story that emphasizes the futility of education without Christianity. They had Land Development Officers (equivalent to our County Agents) who went around trying to help the local people improve their subsistence farming. There was a very serious young European who really wanted to help. He was trying to teach the Tonga better farming methods.

“There are three things you can do to grow more food. First, plow or spade your fields instead of just poking a hole with a stick to put your grain in. Second, use cow manure from your cattle Kraals to fertilize your field. Third, plan the new, fast-growing hybrid seed we will give you.” He lectured.

The Tonga resist change. “We never did it that way before,” they complained. “We will do it the way our grandfathers did.” Why does that sound familiar?

The LDO persisted and finally got one man, Mugundi, to try a test plot. It was a great success. The grain came up sooner and produced better. It was a model of modern farming.

The LDO was ecstatic. Here was the proof he needed. “Look,” he pleaded. “See Mugandi’s wonderful crop. You could have grain like this if you’d just do like he did.”

“Ah, but you do not know what Mugandi has done,” the Tonga replied.

“Yes I do,” he stated. “He did what I told you all to do. He plowed, fertilized and used the new hybrid seed.”

“That’s not why he has a good crop,” the people stated firmly.

“Of course it is, he insisted.

Finally one man said, “There is another reason that you do not know. Meet me here tonight with a shovel and I will show you.”

That night the LDO met the man and they dug in one corner of Mugandi’s field and uncovered the remains of a child. The next morning the police came and dug in the other three corners and uncovered the rest of the body. They arrested Mugandi.

He had been to the witch doctor and they had committed “medicine murder.” They had kidnapped an innocent child who was not related. They had cut off body parts while the child lived to make “mouti” (medicine) and then killed and buried the child and mouti in the four corners of the field. The Tonga believed it was this “magic” that caused the good yield. And the LDO was telling them, “If you’d just do like he did…”

In Aaron’s case, I didn’t tell him how to be a better farmer. He already knew how. He just didn’t care. He believed the gods were out to get him anyway and it would offend them to change from the ways of his fathers. When he understood that the only real God, Leza, who created the world and everything in it, loved him and proved it by sending His only Son to die for his sins…that changed everything.

I never met a Tonga who didn’t know he had sinned even by is own limited understanding of right and wrong. They had never heard of the Ten Commandments but they recognized naturally the four basic moral values of Life, Family, Property and Truth. They knew that they had violated at least one of those values, even if only in their hearts. They just didn’t know what to do about it until they heard the Good News about Jesus.

When we revisited the Zambezi Valley in December, 1991, the first Tonga we saw was Aaron. He has a trading post beside the road to the old Mission site and came running out to meet us since he had heard we were coming. It was great to see he was still living and being faithful to God.