Dancing

Suddenly, Samedi jumps to his feet. He has just finished translating my story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus by the well. We are in front of a packed house. Daniel, a school teacher, has just gotten up to sing in his tribal language, Kera. The rhythm is catchy and many heads are bobbing. The drums are pounding and Samedi can't hold back any longer. His overweight, yet strong, body has lost it's flexibility as he stomps to the small group surrounding Daniel and raises his fist pumping into the air. He circles around with the inner foot pounding out the beat as his body weaves back and forth. Bruno jumps up. The smallest of Pierre's boys, he has stayed to same size since he was 13 and despite being almost 18, he still has that pre-teen look. His energetic body bounces up alongside Samedi his knees bobbing up and down and both arms raised. Doulgue slides in smoothly stepping fluidly in and out of the dancing circle. The beat intensifies. Lam is whipping the drum as if it was a delinquent child while Allah lifts up his chin staring to the sky as his little hands flap in a furious blur all over the surface of the goat skin drum head. Koumakoy sets his drum down and hauls his lanky, athletic body across the aisle to join the fray, his shoulders bobbing up and down as his bent arms are held in closed fists against his chest.

It started with me telling stories of a woman caught in adultery and brought before Jesus and that same woman washing Jesus' feet with her tears at a dinner party. The young people around me seemed shocked at a God that would love that much. I finally went around and reluctantly got all of them to admit that God loved them just as much. Then the festivities began. Pierre's second oldest daughter and three friends got things off to a slow start as the younger girls were embarrassed to dance and the older girl was embarrassed to be dancing by herself. Amos then kicked things off in Nangjere with a furious rendition of "Kukusebur ne Jesu Christi" as Tabitha rounded it up with a raised, twirling fist and a high pitched "Ayyyee yi yi yi yiiiiiiiiiii." A flat song in English with the guitar and several Chadians singing in bad Nigerina English was soon forgotten as the same group kicked up their heels and clapped their hands to a up beat French song accompanied by a tight, but simple guitar stacatto.

Doulgue jumps up and looks directly at me. "It's not only Nangjere that can sing Nangere songs. James, come here." Grinning from ear to ear and throughly loving the first truly spontaneous church service I've ever been a part of I stand up and walk over to him, my brightly colored matching pants and shirt swishing as I walk. It's a song about Peter walking on water and we belt it out at the top of our lungs as Amos and a couple others join us. I'm not much of a dancer but I find my head, shoulders, and legs unable to resist the pull of the rhythm. We finish strong to many hearty amens. Degaulle's daughter stands up in the back, her baby hanging from her breast and lets out a high pitched wail. Antoinette echos from the back row of the choir, keeping herself hidden shyly behind the kids in front, but she can't hide her smile as Tabitha finishes off the response with a piercing cry that can only be appreciated by those who have lived in an African village.

We go into the early afternoon, much later than usual as group after group gets up to sing. We have sung in English, French, Nangjere, Ngambai, and Kera. No one has understood everything, but everyone has been moved.

That afternoon finds me on the new bridge staring down into the muddy, swirling water below. A crowd has gathered and I can't back down. I step up on the railing and launch myself out. My outstretched arms smack the water hard 30 feet below as the current quickly sweeps me under the bridge. I swim over to the support posts and find an eddy in the center. I rest briefly before striking out for the shore and clambering up the stony bank. Back on the bridge, someone shouts out "Lapia." I turn and see Marty smiling in the midst of the crowd along the rail.

Marty has survived a hippo attack and tuberculosis and looks in perfect health.

I rush over and grab his hand with both of mine shaking it vigorously as I greet him in Nangjere.

I call Jamie and Tammy over.

"Hey, this is the guy in the documentary that was bitten by the hippo!"

Carson and Michelle come over. Tim and Melody join us as well. All the foreigners want to shake his hand. I tell the crowd that Marty is famous in the United States, that's why all the white folk want to greet him. Everyone laughs as a local man translates my French into Nangjere. As everyone gets there picture taken with Marty I think how ironic this is. Usually it's the foreigners who are the center of attention that everyone wants to stare at or greet. Now, it's a poor fisherman who just happens to have been bitten my a hippo right before a film student came to make a documentary of our hospital. The film won some awards and was shown all over in the Adventist Church in the US and Denmark. Because of that film, many people gave money to support the hospital allowing it to become one of the best in the country.

I walk back over to Marty and the man who translated before.

"Tell Marty that while getting bit by a hippo was a tragedy, that God used that experience to help the hospital to become what it is today thanks to the film that he was in. Despite all he suffered, God turned it around to help many more people who are suffering."

As the man translates, Marty looks at me with a warm smile out of his small, bearded face. He nods and shakes my hand before walking off down the bridge.

James