By the Side of the Trail

Every day here in Musoma my students and I read a story out of a book called "I Heard Good News Today."  It is amazing to hear stories of how God has worked throughout the world since Jesus was on earth!  When we read this story, we realized it was a great example of how KIDS can make a BIG DIFFERENCE in the lives of people around them.  We wanted to share the story with you, with a few of our own illustrations to go with it.  (You might want to read it with your mom or dad, or share it with your siblings!)

By the Side of the Trail

Once every week some boys from a Christian high school in Bunumba, West Africa, went out to a little village six miles away to tell the people there about Christ and to worship with them. 

Yomba and Sahr, Moni, Tomba, Dudu, and Sute liked walking through the rain forest.  It was beautiful.  And there were so many things to see.  Sometimes they got a glimpse of an elephant or came across some monkeys.  Besides, they liked singing as they walked.

Walking through the rainforest

One day, as they came close to the village, Yomba stopped short.  “What’s that beside the trail?” he asked, pointing at something.

“Just a pile of rags soaked from being left in the rain,” said Moni.

“No,” said Yomba.  “Look, the rags are moving.  There is something alive in them.”

Dudu walked ahead to look.  “It is a woman,” he said. 

Quickly they all came closer.  The woman hid her face and tried to cover herself with her rags. 

“Why don’t you go home to the village?” Sahr asked.

The woman raised her two arms.  She had no hands – only scarred and ugly stumps.  The boys saw that she had the terrible disease of leprosy.  Now they knew why she was an outcast from her village, sitting alone by the side of the trail. 

The boys find the woman by the side of the trail

The boys didn’t know what to say.  They didn’t know what to do.  They just stood there for a minute and then walked on to the village.

As they preached and prayed and sang with the people, they could not forget the sick woman by the side of the trail. 

After the service they asked the people about her.  The people knew her, but no one would help her. 

Quietly the boys walked home.  They didn’t feel like singing.  They did not feel like talking.  What they had seen was too terrible.

When they came back to the dormitory, they went to bed.  But they could not sleep. 

When they closed their eyes, they saw the sick old woman alone by the side of the trail in the rainy season – with no shelter, no food, and only a few wet rags for clothing.

When the other boys in the dormitory were asleep, the six who had been on the trail, quietly gathered around Sahr’s bed to talk.

The boys gathered around Sahr's bed

“We must make some plan to help that woman,” said one of them.

They all agreed.  But how?  They knew there was no way of taking her to a hospital because a hospital was too far away.  The woman could not walk, and they had no car.  They talked and talked.  Finally they had a plan.

In the middle of the night they tiptoed through the dormitory and knocked at the door of the principal’s bedroom.  The principal sat up in bed; he rubbed his eyes in surprise, and called, “Come in!”

Sahr told the story of the woman, the others putting in bits he forgot.  Then Sahr said, “We have three requests.”

“Yes?” encouraged the principal.

“We want a holiday tomorrow to go back to the village and build a simbeck of bamboo and palm to shelter her.”

“You may have a holiday,” agreed the principal immediately.

Sahr continued.  “We want to go to the market to buy a piece of cotton cloth and a blanket for her.  Among us we have enough money.”

“Very good,” said the principal.  “What is your third request?”

“Each of us will go without a meal a week.  We have friends who will give up meals with us.  We want to carry the food we save to the woman, two of us every morning and two of us every evening.”

“I have another plan,” said the principal.  “I will tell the cook to put extra rice and yams in the kettle every day and sometimes vegetables and meat.  Carrying it to her daily will be your part.  That will be a big gift on days when it is hot or rainy.  Six miles over an uneven trail is a long walk.”

The next day the same boys and a few of their friends walked back along the jungle trail.  Some had knives for cutting branches and palm leaves to weave the walls and roof of the shelter that was called a simbeck.  One carried cloth and another a blanket.  Yamba carried a large bowl full of good rice from the school kitchen. 

The poor woman was in a daze at first.  It was so long since anyone had been kind to her.  She ate hungrily.  She held the new cloth and the new blanket to her cheek, crooning an old song of her tribe.  Then she sat there in wonder as her little shelter took shape. 

Building the simbeck

When the boys left, the little old woman called after them, “May God walk you well!”  It was the farewell used in her tribe.  “May God walk you well!”

The lady was amazed at the shelter the boys built!

The boys kept their promise.  Every morning before school two boys walked from Bunumba to the simbeck by the side of the trail, carrying a bowl of food.  And every evening after the last class, two other boys walked the same trail with another bowl of food. 

A shelter of bamboo and palm does not last forever in a land of rain and insects.  After about a year the boys built a new simbeck.  This time a crowd of villagers gathered to watch them.

The whole story in a nutshell :)

“It is strange to see you boys making this simbeck,” said one of the men.  “The woman’s own people did not help her.  They put her out in the rain.  Then you boys came and cared for her.”

The man thought awhile.  Then he added, “Only Christian boys would have thought of such a plan.  Only Christian boys would have stuck to it and carried it out.”

From I Heard Good News Today by Cornelia Lehn. Copyright © 1983 by Faith & Life Press. Used by permission.