2. Safe

Written by Pops in lockdown

Last week Miss Lily and Miss Rosie asked if I knew any stories about chickens. Well as it happens, I do. But before I start don’t forget Pops is going to need more pictures this week too. Pops was very pleased with Faye’s pictures last week; he is definitely going to put them in his book.

This story takes place on a big sugar cane farm in the middle of Kenya, Kenya is in the middle of Africa. Right in the middle of the sugar cane farm lived a man, his wife and their five children.

They were one of the happiest families I have ever met. They all lived in a small round hut. The walls were made of mud, the roof was made of dry sugar cane and the floor was made of cow muck , not soggy cow muck because that would have been disgusting, but rock hard cow muck.

Mrs Buwane would sweep the floor every day, everything was very clean and tidy . In the hut there was a small wooden table just big enough for Mr and Mrs Buwane and one guest to sit and eat at, the children would always sit on their small beds which were also made of cow muck and so was the guest’s bed and guess who was the guest , it was Pops! So, pops has slept in a bed made of pooh!

Mr Buwane and his family lived in a big town, Mr Buwami was a bank manager and Mrs Buwami was a teacher. One day God spoke to them and said He wanted them to leave their jobs and their nice house and go to the sugar cane farm to preach the gospel to all the people who lived and worked on the farm. So they did what God said and I suppose that was the reason they were so happy.

Mr Buwane had invited me to help him preach the gospel. Every afternoon we would walk to a big clearing in the field where a wooden stage had been built, there would be lots of music, singing and dancing and everybody would gather round the stage, about two thousand, workers and their children from the farm and surrounding villages, maybe I will tell you a bit more about all that in another story.

Every morning (the meetings happened in the afternoon) if we were not visiting people I would sit outside their hut drinking tea from Mrs Buwanes best china, a lovely baked bean can!. Mrs Buwane kept chickens and while I was living with them (the family not the chickens) a mother hen had produced lots of eggs and the eggs had produced lots and lots of baby chicks.

So there was Pops with his baked bean tin of tea watching mother hen clucking away happily and all the baby chicks running all over the garden looking for things to eat. One would pick at an ant , another would be trying to catch a fly and never succeeding , others would be turning over leaves to see if there was anything worth eating underneath.

It was a beautiful African morning with a pure blue sky and the sun not yet enough to chase the “mzungu” (a white man) into the shade of the hut.

Everything was peaceful in the farmyard, the chicks were chirping, mother hen was clucking, and Pops was drinking his tea. Then suddenly mother hen’s voice changed, she hadstopped her friendly clucking and now it was a loud alarm as if she was calling all her baby chicks to come back to her as quickly as their little legs could manage. From all over the yard baby chicks were running back to

mum. What was the reason for the panic? I looked up and there high above the farm yard was a big bird of prey ready to swoop down and take one of the little chicks home for lunch!

But he was too late, mother hen had opened up her wings just like a feathery umbrella and all her family were hiding safely under them. As she closed her wings she gathered all herchildren safely under her and there wasn’t going to be any takeaway chicken for Mr Eagle today.

One day as Jesus was talking to the people in the city of Jerusalem He looked at the crowds and cried out, “Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how often have I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings “. Jesus sees danger long before we do and calls out to His children. If we let Him, He will gather us under His wings where there is no fear but perfect love for every child big or small who puts their trust in Him.