The Saga of the Poor Shepherd Boy

There are days when nothing goes your way and Sunday was the day for this young man. He must be in his mid teens, and make a few extra shillings being the herder for the "Mosza" (big man) Mr Atheo, but he really was having a bad day.

It started out Sunday morning at Worship. He was there and not paying any attention to the goats, to the word being spoken, but only to the young women of the mission!!! That was his first mistake, and the rest was downhill from that.

None of the young women were looking back at him, and his goats were in the mission fields, making lots of noise, and a few were even trying to join us on the concrete slab. Mickey, the Tricarico's dog, who is a real prayer puppy, was trying to head them off the slab and move them away from the services so the Pastors could preach. But the goats started to run and Mickey was having fun trying to catch them. Then the trouble started...he caught one...by the neck...and wouldn't let go.......Craig was hitting him with a stick and trying to pull him off the goat and finally Mickey let go. The goat didn't look so good after all that excitement, so Craig and Ed let him "rest" there on the ground and came back to the service.

Pastor Dave was preaching and had to remind people to not be distracted by all the activity in the field. People were standing up and talking out loud and laughing and pointing at the chase scene. Ed tried to pick Mickey up by the scuff of his neck and put him in the van to take him back to the compound, and Mickey was not going to go. He didn't bite Ed though it sounded as if he had torn off all his limbs and was now going for Ed's neck. He was one mad dog...

Everything settled down and services went on as the shepherd boy, who missed all of this, went and got his bow and arrows and went into the field to try to find his goat. He wondered around for about fifteen minutes, and never found it. After services everyone who was there went out into the field to find the goat, and it still wasn't there.

It must have recovered from the "excitement" and left. But the shepherd boy couldn't find it, and now he was fearing for his job. He had lost a goat and had many people who saw how he wasn't paying any attention to his goats and let this happen. Well he was going to go after Mickey now. He was aiming his arrow at Mickey and waiting for a shot. The dog was going to die!!!!!! It took many people to tell him that he couldn't kill the dog because there was no dead goat. And that Mr Atheo would be upset if he killed the dog of his friends, the Tricaricos. People were standing in line to rebuke him for wanting to do this. Finally he left to be with his goats and Mickey was taken back to the compound to be locked up.

Later that night a group of adult thieves tried to kill and steal some of the goats for the home of Atheo. They were not successful and one of the thieves lost his life. The wages of sin is death.....................

We have not seen or heard about the punishment of the young shepherd boy, but we are hoping that the punishment is not too severe.

~Kris