By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
I was surprised when Jacques handed me the revolver. “Take it. For protection,” he said in a low voice. His Afrikaans accent was flat and stern. Before I could decide what to do, I snatched the weapon from his massive hand; a similar reflex sprung me out of bed early Saturday mornings, back home in Canada, before my dad had to wake me up to do my house chores. Jacques is the only preacher I’ve met who is ex-military and carries a gun, and my dad is the only computer tech I know of who has outsmarted and escaped French soldiers. They had worked together as missionaries in Rwanda the December following the genocide. For a month straight, I had been following the preacher-soldier around Johannesburg and its outskirts - through squatter’s camps, homeless shelters, and high security prisons up north - and as I shoved the revolver into my jacket pocket all I could think about was how I had the chance to backpack through Europe that summer. Instead, I was laboring as a missionary in a country where everyone lived behind barbed wire fences. I helped Jacques finish setting up the stage and PA system in the township’s soccer field for our open-air crusade the following night. Soon he’d leave me and meet with local pastors, wouldn't be back until morning, and instructed me to keep an eye on the two men he had hired to guard our equipment from township thieves. Jacques had been gone a few hours when I watched the red sun rest just above the countless rows of makeshift homes. I rolled onto my bed in the back of our rig to write in my journal. When I cracked open the window, I could hear the two guards laugh and talk by their camp fire. They were young like me. I was drifting. It was winter in South Africa, and the mild country air reminded me of the summer nights I was missing back home. I thought about my friends and wondered if they thought about me. Missed me. The smoke from the fire was sweet. The gun’s metal in my pocket was cool as I ran my fingers along its shape. Just as my eyes became too heavy to keep open, a boy tugged on my jacket’s sleeve. My fingers were still on the revolver. “You must come. My auntie is sick.” Just as easily as he had slipped past the guards the first time, the boy used his stealth to lead me away from the rig, the campfire, across the moonlit soccer field, and into his world of narrow dirt roads, squawking chickens, skeletal dogs, and tin shacks. The air suddenly smelled of curry and burning rubber. “She is this way.” He took my hand with purpose, now, and guided me through the twist and turns of his neighborhood. Every corner looked the same. We continued downhill; I jerked my head around once more and could no longer see the soccer field behind us. We arrived at a small shack. I crouched under as the boy introduced me to his mother. She pointed to a woman curled into a ball on a thin mattress. “Can you make her walk?” My heart rate increased and my breathing quickened. I couldn’t believe how impossible the request was. I said the kind of prayer Jacques and my dad would say. Deepened my voice. Tried to sound as big as them. “Keep believing,” I told the boy’s mother. “Trust that God will heal her.” I left awkwardly. I had no way of telling the time but knew it was late. I ordered the boy to bring me back. My voice was low. Flat and stern. I felt like all the township men had eyes on me. Like they were closing in. At that moment, I realized my fingers had never left the revolver. I moved my trembling index over the trigger. My dad had warned me about missionary work in Africa. That it’d likely change the way I see myself. Force me to choose the kind of man I wanted to be. “I long to go back,” he’d say. “Even if it cost me everything.”