DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER

      The title of this piece sounds like something taken from an old Tarzan movie, but for me it was one of the scariest moments I have had in India. We were just returning from a visiting a church in a remote jungle village, which was located on the other side of a wide, shallow river. It was a great visit, with many people coming to Christ and God’s power in evidence. After the ministry time we had a meal and time of fellowship as we watched peacocks wander around the village and picked fresh oranges from the trees for our desert. After we said a lengthy good-bye we walked back to the river. As we began rolling up our pant legs we heard the beating of drums near our jeep. As our native brethren listened intently, concerned look on their faces told we were in some kind of trouble. They told us that pagans were coming to the river to throw in their idols after offering a sacrifice to it. They suggested that we wait until they finished. After a short time, the drums stopped and after much discussion in their tribal tongue they indicated that we could now cross over, thinking that the idol-worshipers must have decided to leave. As we neared the other side of the river, the drums began again and we could see a large group dancing beside our jeep.  Our Indian brethren were concerned that there might be a confrontation. We were told that the idol worshippers would be very drunk. As we stepped on the other shore, we saw two men coming towards us covered from head to foot with brightly colored powdered paint. They had tried to pass by and they were included in this ritual the worshippers were involved in. Everyone was covered with paint, while they danced to the drums. We were told that they would likely try to cover us with paint too. I saw the priest with a red bandanna on his head, waving a machete around as he shimmied and shook to the music. A goat was tethered nearby waiting to be sacrificed. You could feel the evil in the air. We began to pray aloud as we walked up towards our jeep, which had also been smeared with paint.

     Our Hindu jeep driver made no attempt to get the vehicle started or move away from the idolaters. I began to wonder if we had been set up because he had treated us with much contempt since the day we hired him. He refused to move, pointing to the path, indicating that he was not sure that it was safe to drive on. We kept walking toward the road surrounded by our brethren, who placed themselves between us and the idol-worshippers who walked were now really dancing as the drums increased in tempo.  

    Finally, the jeep was started and slowly came to pick us up and take us away from the scene. None of us had been painted, except one of the Indian pastors had allowed some paint to be put in his hand, in order to prevent them from covering him completely. For the next few hours, I found it was hard to settle my thoughts. Pastor Ron said that what concerned him the most was what might have happened if the crowd had rushed us. He thought our brothers would be forced to protect us. This had alarming implications, which I did not want to think about. We praised the Lord that we came through it without such a confrontation.   

     In all my previous visits to India, I had not been there during the height of the festival time, which happens each October near the time of the full moon.  We had other encounters with idol worshippers, such as being stopped at night as we made our way back to the airport. A dancing mob of painted worshippers stopped us and demanded money. Our driver was not going to stop, which really made them angry, yet even this did not make me as afraid as the moment when we crossed the river.

    I thought of firing our driver, but by the time we had returned to our base, I began to feel compassion for him. I invited him to join us for tea and gave him my baseball hat. He sat with us and began to tell us how much he had hated us. He resented being assigned by the company whose jeeps we had rented to be our driver. I asked him why. He explained how his older brother had become a believer, and how much he resented it. He said he hated all Christians but did not know much about them until this week that he had been with us. I did not feel the liberty to pray with him at that moment, but I noticed that he treated us better from that time on. On the last day, when we parted company at the airport, he allowed us to pray for him and told us that he wanted to be our driver again when we returned to India.

2008 Copyright. This material is the creative property of Penn Clark