She Loved Her Lord

     This story has special appeal because it happened not to an experienced worker for Christ, not to a great Christian leader, but to a young girl who loved her Lord and knew that He loved her.

 

    During the fearful Mau Mau incidents in Kenya, East Africa, in the 1950s, many African Christians were persecuted and tortured because of their identification with what some considered to be a foreign religion.  Mau Mau leaders were trying to force all Africans to take an oath that involved obscene acts and a promise to worship the leader of the Mau Mau.

     Gakui, a teenage girl who had been at our mission school only a year, determined that she would not take the oath.  Her parents coaxed her, and the Mau Mau threatened her with death if she refused.  And then one day she was seized and taken to the ceremonial hut.

     “Will you take the oath?” they demanded

     “I cannot,” she replied.  “I am a Christian.”

     They slapped her face.  “Do you want to die?”

     And she said, “I don’t want to die, and I know Jesus will save me.  I know He will!”

     At that they beat her until she fell unconscious to the floor.  Then they dragged her body over to the wall, because there were other young people to take the oath.  Gradually she regained consciousness and watched in horror as these youth performed filthy acts and swore the terrible oath.

     She prayed, “O God, save me, save me!”  And as she prayed she felt strong hands grip her feet.  She was pulled slowly but steadily through a whole in the wall.  Once outside, she rose slowly to her feet, and then, unnoticed, she slipped away to the home of a Christian family where she was hidden till the trouble was over.

     Government officials then examined the hut and could find no sign whatever of the hole through which she had been pulled!

     And when the officials asked her to identify her tormentors and place charges against them, she said quietly, “No, I do not want to do that.  They did not realize what they were doing.  I have hope that they will be Christians some day!”

     What a faith!  As daring as that of Daniel and the three Hebrews.  And what a sweet, forgiving spirit!  Like that of Jesus and Stephen!  Heaven must have been pleased beyond measure!

M. L. Lloyd