Attacked by a mother hen

I've lived in Africa for the past ten years. I've seen a lot and done a lot of very interesting things. I've sat on the back of a crocodile, held a crocodile's tail, thrown a live chicken into a crocodile's mouth (don't tell the animal rights people), but I've never been attacked by a mother hen. I have walked hundreds of miles in dusty villages, seen thousands of animals in those villages, chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, cows, monkeys, parrots, mice, rats, dogs and cats. In all those miles and with all those animals, I've never been threatened once until now, by a chicken!

This past weekend our family travelled to Kumasi to visit some of our very ill colleagues who were diagnosed with terrible malaria and to pass on the generous contributions of a church in California to over 200 orphans at Adullam Orphanage by purchasing beans, rice and fish for them. While Claire and our intern Rebecca went to deliver the food items, Luke and I stayed behind in Kumasi to meet with some of our leaders. Luke and I went to lunch with our dear friend Joe Otsin and then decided to take a nostalgic walk through our old village of Adiebeba. As we got down from Joe's car and crossed the road we decided to walk on the back side of the village between the houses rather than go on the main road. Usually this is the place where people direct their run off water from their houses so it's very narrow, undulating and smells interesting. As we were making our way up the alley I saw a bevy of chicks drinking the run off water and the mother hen was close at hand. As I started to step in their general direction, the mother hen went into attack mode, threw her wings out and went bezerk on my feet. Thankfully she didn't draw blood and I decided to back up and start over. When I backed up, a sweet Ghanaian lady had heard the commotion out the back door of her home and she was laughing hysterically at my predicament. Luke was standing just behind me and said, "Daddy, I'm not going that way." I started up again and she went after me a second time. But, I persisted and made it through, Luke had no choice but to follow suit and he was right on my heals as he didn't want to meet the fury of a mother hen feeling threatened.

Great life lesson. God says he will cover us in his wings...I know that experientially now. God really loves us and doesn't want anything evil to happen to us. Luke and I have a new appreciation for mother hens and for how much God longs to protect us. We finished our walk through the village felt the extreme heat that Ghanaians live in everyday. We loved the old scenes of banku being boiled, sellers selling their wares and school children buying their snacks during their break.

We made it to Ankaase later that afternoon to find our dear friends and colleagues, the Dalenbergs, prayerfully concerned for their son Samuel. He originally had +5 Malaria which is very dangerous and his body had reacted to the treatment of quinine and damaged his liver and kidneys so he was jaundice, weak and on a drip. We prayed for him and spent time with the family. Since that time they've had to move him to the teaching hospital in downtown Kumasi. Samuel is not out of the woods yet and desperately needs your prayers. If you read this, pray for Samuel Dalenberg and his family.

Blessings,

Michael