The following is an excerpt from Land Where Cattle Wander, published in Pursuit of Glory, available June 2018 from Crown and Covenant Publications. Some names have been changed.

As time progressed it seemed that there were always visiting missionaries coming and going from the Cush4Christ team. In fall 2012 we had Luke with us. He was from Kansas and was to stay in South Sudan a few months.

The rainy season had faded into the dry season, leaving the compound full of dead grass. One of the much-needed jobs was to burn the grass so as not to encourage snakes to live nearby. Each evening we would gather with Luke and burn different patches of grass throughout the compound. Because of the height of the grass, the flames would sometimes reach 15 feet high.

That Christmas was a relatively quiet one because the Farises and Uncle Scott were on break. We invited Justin, Aunt Jan, and Luke over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was a wonderful time of decorating the tree, singing carols, and opening presents. Our tree was nothing but a stick tepee with green string wrapped around it. It did, however, add a little flavor to our home furnishings.

A week later, we got together on New Year’s Eve to celebrate. My mother made sushi, and we were sitting around the table enjoying ourselves when Justin’s phone rang. It was his grandmother calling, so he went outside to talk to her. A few moments later he came back in and, while covering the phone, said in a low tone, “I think there is a snake out there, and I don’t want my grandmother to know.”

My parents got up quickly and hastened to the porch to grab the tools they needed before searching with flashlights to find out where the snake was. Justin continued to talk to his grandma. Luke stayed inside with us.

After a few tense minutes they located a good-sized puff adder slithering in the dry grass outside our house. My mother brought down a long rake handle hard on the snake’s head. A loud crack was heard as the handle broke in two. Thankfully my mother was able to quickly grab the lower half of the broken rake handle and, in doing so, kept the snake from slipping away. My father was holding the shovel, but he could not see the size of the snake or where it was. He handed it to her, making sure not to get too close. When my mother got the shovel, she was able to make the kill by cutting the snake clean in two.

My mother brought in the two-foot-long puff adder to show us all. Puff adders kill more people in Africa each year than any other snake. They are known to puff when nervous, hence the name. The next day we eagerly dissected the snake and put its skin in a bottle of salt to dry. We usually killed only about two puff adders a year, so when we did it was certainly exciting news.

The same year, before one of our vacations in Kenya, we were thrilled to hear that my grandparents would be coming to spend a week with the team in South Sudan before flying to Kenya. They stayed at Aunt Jan’s house.

Sam and Liam [Faris] seemed a little shy, because they didn’t know them well, but my siblings, Amina and Zakari, and I thoroughly enjoyed their visit. It felt like Canada was coming to South Sudan. After the brief visit, we flew to Kenya together. Following a wonderful time with Grandpa and Grandma in Nairobi, we returned to South Sudan and they to Canada.

Justin’s sister Kathleen came and stayed with Laurie for a while to help with the teaching, since the school was growing quickly. During this time, I began to look forward to our time in Canada. These times of rest and relaxation, R & Rs, were always exciting, for we got to see family and friends that we rarely saw otherwise. And we always visited the Stringers in their new home in Canada.

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The village lay asleep, unaware of the two men making their way down a dusty path. Without even a whisper, the men stopped at the khawajas’ [foreigners’] compound. They climbed up the fence and jumped in. Slowly, and low to the ground so as not to be seen, they made their way to the porch of Deng Garang’s [Samuel’s father] house. One of them started to tear the screen of the porch door while the other looked around to make sure no one saw or heard.

My mother had been awakened by the sound of the tearing and had gone to the door that opened into the porch, only to see two thieves trying to make their way into the house. She went to wake my father but he didn’t wake up, so my mother went outside by the back door and made her way toward the intruders. They heard her coming and climbed to the top of the fence.

My mother got to them and called out, “Who are you?” upon which one of the men threw sand into her eyes. Momentarily blinded, my mother stumbled back into the house and was able to wake up my father. It was at this time that I awoke and, since it was hard to sleep when thieves had just tried to break into the house, I stood up and watched the scene unravel through the wooden trusses of our house. My father went onto the porch to talk to the men. In response, a volley of stones landed on our metal roof that sounded like gunshots in the quiet stillness of the night.

“Give us ten pounds!” one of the men demanded.

“How can I give you ten pounds when you throw rocks at my roof?” my father replied.

When they would not let up from asking for ten pounds, my father retreated inside and called our landlord to come with his gun and scare them off. He agreed, and, while my father waited, he continued to ask the men questions. A minute later our landlord sprinted around the corner, jerked his gun up, and let it go off. In that split second the men were off the fence and running for their lives down the path.

An interesting thing to note was that my father seemed to recognize one of the men as the same man who sold him his bike a few months before. Perhaps the man was trying to steal back the bike, which we kept on the porch, to sell again. One can only speculate.

This incident happened just a few weeks before leaving for a trip to Canada. We said our goodbyes to the team members, most of whom we would see when we returned. Kathleen, however, was going to go back to America, her time in South Sudan being finished. Laurie was to go out on the same flight, though only for a vacation.

My excitement grew as we piled into the car (which by this time had become very old and worn) one morning and drove off to Aweil Airport, from which regular commercial airplanes flew. We flew to Nairobi and after that to Canada.

We had a great time on home leave, though we were met by some pretty alarming news while visiting my grandparents (my mother’s parents). We received an email that Laurie and Kathleen’s flight had been canceled because of fighting in Juba. The vice president had turned against the president in an effort to gain power. It became a tribal incident when the Nuer sided with the vice president and the Dinka with the president. Much fighting followed, but by God’s mercy it did not come to Parot. However, to be on the safe side, the team evacuated to Nairobi on an NGO (nongovernmental organization) flight. When we returned from Canada to Kenya, we had a wonderful sleepover with the Farises in Kenya while we waited until it was safe to return home. Sam and Liam had their new baby brother with them, whose name was Isaiah.

The Farises went to Uganda for their usual break while we waited with Laurie and Aunt Jan for the right time to go back. My father returned because he was needed to continue the training of local leaders. Justin was the only team member who had remained in Parot. Our schoolbooks were flown to us and we continued school like normal.

Finally, after about a month of waiting, it was deemed safe enough to go back and, together with Laurie and Aunt Jan, we flew back. We usually took a charter plane into South Sudan since we could carry more food and other supplies than on a crowded commercial aircraft. We had to stop for the night in the small town of Lokichogio in northern Kenya. There were small huts we were able to rent for the night. The next day we continued our flight and arrived about noon, very happy to see my father once again.

When the Farises came back from their vacation in Uganda, we had the usual team meal. This was quite a joyful occasion, though that night something happened that I will never forget.

Zakari, Amina, and I had just gone to bed when we heard much barking and Daniel [Faris] calling Bullet’s name urgently. After a while my parents realized that something was wrong, so they went outside. I waited anxiously in my bed to hear if everyone was okay. About 15 minutes later my father returned and told us that Bullet had had a fight with a puff adder and eventually killed it. Before this, though, the snake had sunk its deadly fangs into Bullet’s neck.

The next morning I was told to go down to the kennel to say goodbye to Bullet. I hurried over and found him lying on the ground, hardly breathing. Sometime later, he left us. I started to cry, because he had been the team’s most loyal dog, even risking his own life to protect Daniel from the snake. We buried him not far from where George, a previous guard dog, was buried.

Not long after this, Daniel went up to Kenya and purchased another German Shepherd, who we called Rex. He never replaced Bullet, even though he was a fairly obedient and gentle dog.

Samuel Ward was born in Canada in 2003 but soon moved with his parents to South Sudan, where he lived for over nine years. He is homeschooled, along with his younger brother and sister, by his mother, Julie. He considers Africa his home. Land Where Cattle Wander is his first book.