03.06.06
Grace at the Mosque
by Anthony Parker
Our family plans to leave Africa in a couple of months. I returned a few days ago from a visit to Benin, where I previously worked for eight years. I hope to get back one day, but this was my last visit for a while. The trip was made more special because I was accompanied by a former teammate, Tod, as well as his mother and his daughter. Tod’s ministry in Benin was cut short when his wife (Hannah’s mom), was killed in an roadside accident. Hannah was eight months old at the time; she is now eleven. I think the trip, though hard in some ways, was healthy for all of us as Hannah connected with that part of her story, and it gave me a sense of closure to have her back with her dad after our lives being so dramatically torn apart.
After spending a couple of days among the Fon people where we had ministered, we traveled down to Benin’s capital city of Cotonou for a night before returning to Togo. As we prepared to leave Cotonou, I backed out of my parking space, and then had trouble getting my vehicle into gear—but eventually it went and we took off. Before getting out of town, I had another, similar problem, but decided to continue on. It was just after noon on Friday. Everything, including garages, would be closed until 3:00 p.m. With Benin elections coming up on Sunday, and the borders likely closing, I didn’t think we could afford to spend a night in Benin waiting for the car to be repaired, especially since the Vogts were scheduled to fly out of Togo Sunday night. So we went on.
Less than an hour down the road, my clutch started to feel “spongy†(if you felt it, you would know exactly what I mean), and soon went straight to the floorboard of the car without any resistance. I could not change gears, and I was in neutral, so I could not drive at all. We coasted to a stop at the edge of the main road leading across the southern coast of West Africa—a two-lane highway with a narrow shoulder on each side, with a steep bank.
At the bottom of the bank we saw some junked cars with a shabbily painted sign advertising “Garage Auto Soudeur (welder)â€. Ah, so we had a mechanic. Well, not quite. He wasn’t around, and he wasn’t a mechanic; he just did body work. Also down the bank, just behind us, was a small mosque, painted in the familiar green and white colors that, for some reason, often adorn mosques here. We got the attention of some people from the village, and they called on a taxi driver who lived nearby. He came and started looking at the car. He and the three or other four guys who had gathered shared their opinions about what could be going on.
I was growing increasingly nervous. There was no phone nearby and I wasn’t sure who to call if I had one. We had missionary friends in the country, but would they be able to come and help us out? Would we be able to get back to Togo in time for the Vogts’ flight? What was going on in Tod and Hannah’s mind, as they found themselves stranded on the roadside in Africa, in a situation similar to the one that had led to Nancy’s death over ten years ago? Were these guys really trying to help, or were they looking for a chance to rob us? (Remember my pick-pocket incident?)
The driver discovered that we had a leak in the line that carries the clutch fluid. I “just happened†to be carrying an extra can of brake fluid which, I learned that day, is also used for the clutch.
The driver/mechanic sent some on-looking children down the road to borrow some tools, took the clutch line apart, isolated the leak, and then tore a string from an old rag. He wound the string around the fluid line, and sealed it. He then put everything back together. It worked. The guys who had helped us gratefully accepted a “thank you†gift, which amounted to less than $4.00. Tod talked to them a little bit and learned that they were all from that village—a Muslim village. We continued all the way home to Tabligbo, and a “real†mechanic was able to make a more permanent repair the following day.
It’s so easy, and sometimes wise, to be suspicious. But it is good to be reminded that not every African is a thief, and not every Muslim is a terrorist. There are some real notes of grace out there, and I am thankful that, on that day, God led me to some of them.