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A bleating goat

Jim Cessna

A short stay in a village is part of every Mennonite Central Committee worker’s introduction to Nigeria. So, after a few days in Nigeria, my wife Carolyn and I were driven to the village of Gawarza to spend a week with Pastor Kefas, his wife Persisa and their five children. How different from our life in North America – no TV, telephone, electricity, tap water, flush toilet or automobiles!

The whole village adopted us. People stopped by early each morning to ensure we had spent the night well and to say they were going to be working in their fields all day – just in case we might miss them. In the evening, many would crowd into our living room while we ate new, exciting foods by the light of a bush lamp. We would talk about our lives and about theirs, and we all laughed and smiled.

We slept in a room at the back of the compound, with chickens, dogs and goats just outside our door. That is, we were supposed to sleep, but one she-goat didn’t get the message. She had given birth to two babies a few weeks earlier, and for some reason they had both died. That goat bleated all night for her babies. Even worse, she was somehow convinced her babies were in our room, so she constantly banged her head against our door. All night, every night, she bleated and banged as she looked for her babies, for comfort, for answers, hoping that whatever was behind our door might bring her peace.

I could tell her that I cared about her and that her well-being mattered to me. I could even open our door for her. And I tried! I tried speaking to her in English and in broken Hausa, the local language. I tried firm discipline and pastoral counselling, but nothing brought her peace. The only way to help her find the peace she desperately bleated and banged for was to leave my room and go to her as a goat. I couldn’t do it, but that’s what it would take. That’s incarnation!

Humankind, like that miserable she-goat, has forever been bleating and banging. Lost and confused, we have banged our heads against every door imaginable, hoping to find peace, hoping to fill the God-shaped vacuum within us. All to no avail. God alone can help us. God alone knows the answers to our grief. God alone can open His door that leads to peace. And God does it by coming to us as one of us. That’s incarnation! That’s Christmas!

This article was distributed Oct. 6, 1998 as an MCC news release. At that time, Jim Cessna was teaching at Gindiri College of Theology near Jos, Nigeria.

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Last modified December 6, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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