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It had been a long seven hour drive from the Entebbe airport to Kigadi Girls’ school, our home away from home in Uganda. My body hurt from hours of jostling over rutted dirt roads. It was warm in third seat back.
Just seeing the cool grass under the shade of the large trees at the front of the huts was welcoming. How I was looking forward to getting off my sore behind and walking around!
Suddenly Dave, the videographer started jumping around, pulling off his shoes and socks. “ANTS!” the Ugandans cried.
We all started checking ourselves for them. They we large and black and had a sharp bite. I found a few on my leg and inside my sandals, but was grateful that I had not gotten into as many as Dave. Dave changed his clothes and we all went to our rooms to use the facilities. I found a couple more up inside my skirt–I found them when they bit me.
I kept feeling biting and asked Ken to look to see if he could find any more. He took a cursory look and said they were gone. He was busy being the team leader and really didn’t think that I had problem. I shrugged it off thinking the pain was just the aftereffects of the bites.
I was feeling a little creepy about it, so I told Paula about the ant up my skirt. I thought that as a woman she could “feel my pain.”
She laughed hysterically. “Ants in your pants!”, she said.
I truly didn’t think it was very funny—I was looking for sympathy.
Upon going outside, I asked Eric, our host, where the ants were. I didn’t want to step in them again.
He said, “We went to get something to kill them, but when we came back they were gone. They must have been a band traveling through.”
So we went into meeting/dining building for the first meeting to plan out the week. I was still feeling sharp pains. If I sat one way the pain stopped, but if I sat another sharp stabs came again.
I was working very hard at being gracious and listening, but I was truly miserable.
Right after the meeting I went back to the room to use the bathroom again when I found blood in my panties. I went and got Ken and insisted that this time, he find the problem! With the help of a flash light, he searched until he found the offending ant and disposed of him. He apologized for not looking more thoroughly the first time. I forgave him. I was trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong when one has ants in one’s pants and the aftereffect of the bites.
I got over the trauma and mostly forgot about it. After we were home in the US, one morning I was praying and remembered the ant incident. It was in relationship to leaving even a tiny bit of room for the enemy, and how relentless the enemy of our souls is. The Lord showed me several lessons:
The enemy is relentless. I was looking forward to the respite of our little room, not fighting the enemy. We had prayed all the way there for protection. We had made the 39 hour trek. But the enemy was not resting. His plan was the disruption of the team spirit—putting fear into Dave and Paula and me.
The enemy’s strategy is to divide and conquer. He tried to break the oneness in Ken and me through my being offended that Ken was not taking interest in my problem. Satan tried to keep Paula and me from getting close by my taking offense at her lack of sympathy. (Much later the ants in the pants remark was funny to me.)
The enemy likes to kill things in the beginning stages. We were all really getting to know each other and hadn’t really bonded. We were going to bring God’s Word that He had prepared in our hearts for that time and place—the enemy wanted to stop that from ever starting.
One little ant could have derailed the move of God in Kigadi!
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