I had been guarding my fields from monkeys and wild boar and I grew sleepy. I sat down under a tree and dozed off. Suddenly, I heard a rustling in the bush and jumped up. As I did, my gun began to fall. I grabbed the end of the barrel and a stick wedged in the trigger slot. The gun fired and severely injured my finger.
I took off my shirt and wrapped my finger and ran as fast as I could toward the missionaries’ house where the doctoro muso lived. When I arrived she took one look and said, “This is too difficult for me. I don’t have the equipment to do this. But you’re bleeding too much for us to take you to town.”
With that she left and walked into the small room where she stored her medicine. Later, after I believed in Jesus, she told me that she always went into the room to ask God for wisdom about what to do.
Doctoro muso quickly came back and said to her husband, “Please get your blowtorch and that flat-bladed dental tool you use.” He brought it and heated the blade white-hot. Then she put it on my finger and the bleeding stopped immediately. She put a heavy bandage on my finger and explained to me that I’d have to keep it over my head -- all night. The missionary also said I would have to come every day for a new bandage and couldn’t work in my field.
As I walked home, I thought, “What can I do? If I can’t work in my field how will I feed my family?” I worried about that one all night. I couldn’t sleep with my arm up anyway.
The next morning when I went to have my bandage changed, the missionary Bible teacher, Brent, was there. He said to me, “Madindingo, would you help me put the Bible lessons into Malinke? I will pay you and you can buy rice for your family.”
So I agreed. Day after day, I went to Brent’s house and he would ask me questions: “Do you understand about Abraham?” he would say, or, “Is it good, clear Malinke?”
When we came to the lessons about the Debt Payer (the Malinke term for Jesus), I just couldn’t believe it. He was perfect. I loved Him right away. When Brent did the lesson about how He died and rose again, I knew I believed in Him.
If I didn’t hurt my finger, I would never have been helping Brent and listening to Jesus’ story. I lost part of my finger, but I found Jesus.
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