The Cultured Slave (Part four of the Lost Children story)

 

Far away, beneath a blazing sun in a foreign country, Kenneth toiled all day and sometimes late into the night loading bundles into ships. Nobody, he supposed, could ever guess that he was not a native there. Sometimes he dreamed of another time and another place, but he had been a slave for so long that he was beginning to doubt the dreams meant anything: except when American ships were unloading their wares. Gradually it dawned upon the lad, now called Codadad, that his master always kept him busy far from the harbor whenever ships with the United States flag proudly unfurled, sailed into harbor.

Once or twice when he had tried to sneak away to see what was so mysterious about the American ships, he had felt the swift, cutting sting of the lash on his bronzed shoulders and decided it was not worth the effort.

 

Time went by, and while the peach blossoms bloomed abundantly, Katrina, wearing a snowy white bridal gown, trotted arm and arm with her happy groom down a sun dappled path.

Nearby her mother clasped her hands in awe and wonder at the radiant beauty of her only (?) daughter. Did anyone guess that the tears shining in her eyes were not only for the girl so soon to be happily wed, but also for the children she had lost?

Katrina was not quite like the other happily married young ladies that surrounded her from that day forward, since there was often quietness, bordering low-spiritedness, which kept her somewhat aloof, although gracious with her peers.

One day, well into the third year of their marriage, while cradling a newborn to her bosom, she made a suggestion that astounded her dashing, young husband.

“Sure, I know we have talked of going to a mission field, but why there; why Korcha of all places? We have no mission there. ”

Katrina leaned forward, gently patting her baby’s back. To Brian’s added astonishment, there were tears in her eyes. “But are there not Christians, there also?”

“They are persecuted.”

“But aren’t they, also, our brothers and sisters in Christ? Should they not be succored by their American brethren? Aren’t there many who have not heard the word yet also need a Savior?”

Brian did not want to continue this conversation; it made him most uncomfortable. He had asked for Katrina’s hand in marriage because he had been charmed by her quiet, compassionate spirit, but really preferred to ‘go with the flow’ instead of risking danger and discomfort in a country where persecution abounded.

Katrina signed, and let the conversation drop as the years slowly moved along.

Meanwhile Kenneth’s dreams continued to awaken him from time to time and sometimes they were like Bible stories that he vaguely remembered. He was not at all interested in the multitude of idols that his neighbours seemed so attached to, so would go out on many a starlit night and cry to the God of His childhood. He seemed so far away, and many times Kenneth wondered why no one came to tell them the true gospel story.

One day he did meet some Christians and discovered they were meeting in secret because persecution was severe.

“Do the American Christians know what you are going through,” he asked, once he had gained their confidence.

The stooped shouldered leader shook his head sadly. “If they know, they do not care. It has been said that they don’t want to risk their lives and the lives of their families to assist us.”

“But know they not that you are Christians also? That you are their brethren?”

There was something about such cold heartedness that grieved the young man and he wondered if he could ever accept such a religion.

Katrina however, and her parents, never quite praying for their family members, whom they felt sure had not died, so, although lonely and sometimes full of doubts and fears, never drifted too far into sin.

Will someone ever go find them and bring them back to the fold? The End