Snakes!

The rainy season has started. People always look forward with anticipation to this season. The rains bring a refreshing coolness after a long period of heat and dust. But more importantly they are a sign of hope for food; at this time of the year food stocks from the previous year’s rainy season are about to finish. As soon as the first rains fall, you especially see men early in the morning wearing their old clothing and heading towards their farms. Some use bicycles, while others walk. The two tools they always carry are a cutlass and a hoe which is an iron shovel attached to a curved stick with which they plough their land. However, working on the farms is not without danger. During this time many farmers are bitten by poisonous snakes and sometimes this can even prove fatal.

Even in our home we sometimes find very thin poisonous snakes which are able to enter houses under the doors. We had an incidence of this during the past week when one evening we saw a snake in the house and were able to catch it before it had an opportunity to hide in a corner somewhere. This was really fortunate, as Micah loves little creepy crawly creatures like worms, crickets, spiders. He regularly catches them and then shows them to us, full of pride at what he has been able to do! There is not a lot of difference between a long worm and a small thin snake in Ghana, so we’ve now made sure that all holes where a snake might try to get in have been closed.

We are also regularly visited by people with snakebites. This happened twice last week. The first man was bitten on his hand by a thick short snake. The snake was hiding in his yam seedlings. He was able to shake the snake off and kill it and then came to us with the dead snake. The second man was weeding on his farm when he was bitten on his leg by a snake.

"the short thick snake"

Why do these people visit us? A missionary who worked with our church in the past introduced a “shocker”. A “shocker” is a small tool which we can make locally. It is able to produce electrical shocks around the snake bite which neutralises the poison as long as the treatment takes place within about one hour of the person being bitten. The cost of this treatment is about 1 euro which covers the purchase new batteries needed for each “shock”. A treatment in the hospital costs between 50 and 150 euros!

"the shocker"

"applying the shocker"

In many villages where we have a church, we have introduced the “shocker” and of course we ourselves have one for people in our neighbourhood. The “shocker” serves, first and foremost, as a lifesaving gadget but it also gives us the opportunity to build bridges for evangelism; a word of encouragement, a short prayer, something to eat or drink or medical care if the treatment with the shocker is not sufficient..... giving many people pause for thought........

PRAYER POINTS:

Praise:

• Thank God for the early start of the rainy season

Prayer:

• for a good farming season
• for protection for the farmers


• for funds to make more shockers (each 'shocker' costs about 10 euros but they are sold to the villages for 5 euros)
• that through the love and compassion of the 'shocker service' people will be attracted to the 'Main Shocker' (Numbers 21:8)