267
August, 1944
One of God's Little Things
By FRANCES NOBLE PHAIR
I T WAS just a little thing—that glass of iclear, rosy jelly. Whose hands made it? Who knows? Were they the hands of a busy mother many miles away from the Navajo Indian country, who perhaps took it from her cupboard with a sigh, wishing she had something of more value to give for the missionary box? Might it have been the first glass of jelly some little girl ever made, which she carried joy fully to put in the box which her Sun day-school class was sending to far-off Arizona? Or perhaps it came from the kitchen of the missionary’s own little house where Mrs. Missionary worked late into the night after the visiting Navajos—who had come to hear “the Story”—had gone home. We do not know who made the jelly, but some day when we stand before our dear Lord Jesus who delights to give lovely rewards for the work He gives us strength and wisdonf to do, the one^ whom He knows made and gave that glass of jelly will hear this story just as it really happened and will be— oh, so very happy. You see, that glass of jelly was like a little wedge that God needed to open the tightly closed door of a desert hogan, or home in Navajo Land, the home of Spot of Whiskers on the Chin. This man had learned to love the strong drink brought on to the reser vation by evil white men before he learned from the missionary of the wonderful Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And liquor made him very mean. His hogan was filled with mis ery. His poor wife was weak and ill, and their children were hungry, cold, and unhappy. More than that, the man’s meanness kept the hogan door tightly closed to the missionary with the Good News of the saving power of the Lord Jesus.
Here is a family of Navajo Indians in front of their home, called a hogan. The reservation on which these In dians live is the same reservation on which Spot of Whiskers on the Chin had his home. The picture was sent from the Navajo Bible Schoo l and Mission, at Window Bock, Ariz., where several friends of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles are working as mis sionaries among the Indians. They will be glad for your prayers. minutes he was at the door with his request for help. Spot of Whiskers on the Chin was sober that morning, and a Navajo is polite and friendly, so he was soon at the missionary’s side with his pony and ax and a few boards, and before long all had done their part and the auto was free to travel. The missionary had found that this otherwise friendly Indian did not care to have him stop for a visit, and he wondered what he might give as a little token of his gratitude for the help he had received.
It was a very unhappy family that sat on their sheepskins and blankets around the slow fire that spring day after the rain. The clear air had that sweet rain-washed smell that comes after a storm, and high in the blue desert sky rode white clouds, pure and shining. But the g r o u n d was still too wet for the children to play outside, and the sullen roar of the Chin Lee Wash, or r i v e r , with its current swollen with the recent rains could be heard plainly in the little hogan. Early that very morning in a distant part of the desert, Mrs. Mis sionary had packed her husband’s lunch box for a three-day trip. The road that he planned to travel was one that ran past the hogan of Spot of Whiskers on the Chin, but neither he nor the missionary knew anything about what was to happen—but Some One else knew and had silently, lovingly planned for them. At the Wash, the missionary hesitat ed a moment as he looked into the swirling waters. Then he rode boldly in—and out—but teams and trucks had been there before him, and the road on the other side was deep with mud. Before he was a yard away from the Wash, the wheels of his auto were bogged down in the heavy clay. Work as he would, he could not free them. Looking around for possible help, he spied over the hill the top of a hogan with its thin haze of smoke curling upward. In a few
Suddenly he remembered the glass of jelly he had seen his wife pack in his lunch box that morning—it quick ly changed hands, and soon became the object of interest of the whole family in the hogan. . The gift greatly pleased Spot of Junior King's Business By M AR THA S. HOOKER Member of Faculty Bible Institute of Los Angeies
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