Rolland Baker is one tough fellow.
A grin spread across my face as I looked at the man walking next to me. Well, walking is not exactly the right word. We had been walking for more than five hours, and now we were trudging through the Muda River, sloshing through cold water up to our waists.
Several of us—five African pastors and Rolland—were on our way to the village of Nhamatanda to preach the Gospel. We planned to preach in several Mozambican villages that had been controlled by Renamo during the civil war. It was 1998 and the war had now been officially over for six years. In that time Renamo had transformed from a rebel army to a political party. But the memory of their devastating attack on Chico’s village was still sharp and painful in my mind, and I was afraid of what we might find in these isolated villages; but first we had to get there. As we slogged our way through the swirling current, I wondered what creatures might accompany us in the water. Hungry crocodiles, perhaps? Bloodthirsty leeches, definitely.
When we had first reached the Muda, the other pastors wanted to carry Rolland across, but he flatly refused. Rolland Baker is an amazing man who will get right down on the same level with the people around him in order to share Jesus. In some of the villages we visited together, we were offered food that might be considered inedible by Western standards. Sometimes we were not even sure what we were eating, but I never saw Rolland turn away from anything. He would eat and drink anything that was put before him, because he knew it would make them more accepting of what he had to say about Jesus.
The first time I met Rolland, I thought he looked like a mild-mannered professor, with his distinguished-looking beard, his eyeglasses and his long, thin face. He had the appearance of the scholar that he is, but I was completely wrong to think of him as “mild mannered.” It takes guts to spend your life on the mission field, and Rolland has plenty of those.
When Rolland rejected the offer to be carried across the Muda, the African-born pastors protested. They reminded him that they were accustomed to fording rivers like this one and that he was not. They did not think him weak, old or incapable; they merely wanted to show him the respect they felt was due him. Rolland would not buy it. The discussion was short; he insisted on carrying his own weight.
We had reached the riverbank now, and I winced as Rolland emerged from the water. Several huge black leeches about three inches long had fastened themselves onto the back of his right leg. The creatures were fat and full of their host’s blood. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the slimy bloodsuckers. “I’m afraid you’ve picked up some leeches.”
“Oh well, no problem. Help me get them off.”
His calm reaction surprised me. I had seen people cry and scream when they found leeches sucking their blood, and I did not blame them for it. I grabbed hold of one of the slippery worms and pulled. As I suspected it would, it stretched like a big piece of rubber. The harder I pulled, the deeper it dug into Rolland’s leg. Rolland was likewise trying to remove one of the other leeches, with similar difficulty. I let go and sighed. “We’ll have to burn them off,” I said.
By God’s grace we had a lighter, brought by another pastor for just such an occasion. He flicked it into action and put the flame next to the biggest leech, moving slowly and carefully to avoid burning Rolland. Almost immediately the creature withdrew and fell to the ground as blood streamed out of the wound it left behind. Then the man repeated the procedure to remove the other leeches. Within minutes Rolland’s leg was bandaged, and we were back on the road. When one of the other pastors suggested that he might want to rest for a while, he brushed it off with characteristic good humor.
It was another hour or so before we finally reached the village. The desperation and poverty we found there defies description. The “clothes” the people wore were so ragged and tattered that it was impossible to tell whether they were worn-out trousers and shirts or the skins of goats or other animals. Some wore skirts made of nothing more than leaves or other plant fibers. We saw children with bellies swollen either from severe malnutrition or intestinal worms, and many adults were emaciated from chronic hunger. They had foods like bananas, mangoes and even some chickens, but they were malnourished because they were not getting a well-balanced diet with all of the vitamins and minerals they needed.
Word quickly spread that a group of strangers had arrived in the village, and almost everyone came out to meet us. But as soon as they saw Rolland, some of the younger children ran away screaming. They had never seen a white man before, and he terrified them. The adults were not afraid, but they were fascinated by his light-colored skin, and some of them wanted to touch it. He did not seem to mind.
When we talked to some of the leaders of the community, we discovered that they did not know the war was over and were afraid to leave their village. It had been six years since the cease-fire had been signed, and the very last of the violence had occurred two years later; but word of peace had yet to reach the people living in this Renamo-controlled district. Before we left we gave them two great pieces of news: One, the war was finished, so they were free to travel and trade with other communities; and two, Jesus Christ had come to set them free from slavery to sin and death.
All the people in that community, or very nearly all, gave their lives to Christ that day. And, as is almost always the case in Africa, even though they were terribly poor, they insisted on giving us something in return. They presented us with mangoes and bananas and even offered us a chicken—which we declined as politely as possible, since the last thing we wanted to do was offend them.
Residents of the next village were just as happy to hear the good news of God’s love. We had heard talk that the people living in this area were not receptive to the Gospel and would not listen to what we had to say. Instead we found them hungry for God and rejoicing to hear the good news that Jesus had come to save them. In some of the communities we visited, people came running to hear what we had to say. We took the Gospel into fifteen villages on that trip, and all of them welcomed us with open arms.
I took many such expeditions into the bush with Rolland. When we arrived in a new village, we often started by going into the fields where people were working. I would shout, “We are having a meeting and I have something to tell you.” Or I might climb a tree and just start preaching in a loud voice. Sometimes Rolland preached and I translated his message into the Shona language; other times the preaching was left to me because my voice is naturally louder than his. After we got a battery-powered loudspeaker, our crowds got even bigger, and churches were planted in dozens of communities.
Checking on the Churches
Around this time I asked Rolland if he would accompany me on a visit to villages throughout northern Mozambique where I had planted churches. “I’d be happy to do that,” he said. “How are the people in the churches getting along?”
“They are probably poor and hungry.”
“Then we’ll have to take some food with us.” One of many things I have always appreciated about Rolland and Heidi Baker is that they care about people’s physical needs as well as their spiritual needs. I have heard it said, “People don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” The Bakers care, and care deeply.
Traveling to the churches was a serious challenge. We drove through areas with no roads at all. If roads did exist, they were often little more than rutted, muddy trails that were better suited to oxcarts than modern vehicles. Once we were on our way to visit a church that had been started in the home of a railroad worker named Frank. As we passed the beach town of Xai-Xai, Rolland told us about a nearby mission base camp that he had known about for a long time but had never been able to go to, and he suggested that we pay a visit. We turned off the road to head to the beachside camp, and it was not long before we discovered that we had made a mistake. Our truck became stuck in the deep, soft sand, and we could not free it. The more we tried, the deeper our wheels sank into the soft soil.
Several men and boys came running from nearby huts to help us. They pushed, they pulled, they groaned and grunted, but the truck tires could not find traction in that sand. This went on for four hours, until one mighty, heroic, united shove jolted us out of the pit we had dug for ourselves. “Thank You, Jesus!” someone shouted. We thanked our helpers profusely, gave them a bag of rice for all their hard work and were back on our way—although quite a bit dirtier than before. We had sand in our hair, our clothes, our eyes—to say nothing of the perspiration that drenched us.
By this time we knew people were already waiting for us at Frank’s house, but there was no way to let them know that we were delayed. An even bigger problem was that night was beginning to fall and we were still hours from our destination. It was not safe to travel after dark, so we had no choice but to stop for the night and continue our journey in the morning. We were going to arrive more than 24 hours later than we had planned.
As we drew near to our destination the following day, we were astonished to see a huge crowd still waiting for us at Frank’s house. Hundreds of people stood in the yard, sat in trees, filled every possible space as they awaited our arrival. I was shocked by the multitude of people, especially since we were more than a day late. Obviously the church here was strong and healthy.
We drove the last 150 yards to Frank’s house along a narrow, hard-packed dirt road flanked by rice paddies. In one place the road was too narrow for our truck. “Oh no!” Rolland suddenly moaned.
“‘Oh no,’ what?” I asked. Then I felt the back end of the vehicle sinking into the mud. “Oh,” I sighed.
For the second time in as many days, we stuck fast and could not move. This time, though, we had hundreds of strong arms to help us. We were quickly surrounded by friends who pushed, pulled and struggled to free us, but sadly, they were fighting a losing battle. That swampy rice paddy proved a stronger foe than the sand. Even worse, the sky suddenly opened up and rain began to pour down.
Once again the battle continued for hours. We struggled in the rain while the women, who were also getting soaked by the rain, waited for us in Frank’s yard, shivering in the cold while they lifted their voices in songs of praise. Finally some of the men went into the forest and cut some trees down to build a makeshift ramp we could use to escape the mud. It worked!
As you can see, holding camp meetings in the bush can present some difficult obstacles. By the time we got free, everyone was drenched, but we did not mind. We wound up having a great time in the Lord that day.