Hello, Children! Summer is too severe in India, especially in a remote, tribal, upland area as ours!
We have a lot of monkeys, mosquitoes, a thousand varieties of flies, snakes, and birds in our forest. Most of our villagers have herds of buffalo and goats. Indian buffalo are very black and huge! They have a long fixed face and two strong horns. The tribals make beautiful ornaments, combs, and decorations with these horns.
Every morning these buffalo go into the forest for grazing, and come back in the evening. Many times the tribal children sit on the backs of the buffalo and drive them into the streams of water to give them a good wash. They sing a thousand songs as they bathe together in the stream with the buffalo.
As it is summer, we have a Vacation Bible School, and many of the children from the neighboring villages attend our Bible school. They are all excited to attend and learn about the Bible as it is explained by using the flannelgraph. They learn nice songs; memory verses, and color Bible pictures. We have fixed time periods for each of these activities. It is really a very exciting experience when time passes like a flying horse!
On one such day, when every one of us was very busy in our own way during the Bible class, we had a strange guest! None of us had noticed it until it straight away walked into the center of our little room. It opened its mouth and started to brawl! Oh! It made all of us jump to our feet and we all broke into peels of laughter! The buffalo looked at all of us with its serene eyes, lifted his tail up and ran away before we could drive him out.
This incident delighted all of us for awhile. Especially, I felt really good to share the simple joy of my gleaming little ones. I said, “Well children, Jesus too is very happy now because a buffalo has attended our Bible class. It has come all the way here to sing a song in his own native tongue, and when the job was over it walked out. How much more should we praise Him, sing unto Him, thank Him, and always be ready to share the news of what a wonderful Saviour we have! When a buffalo, who does not have a hat or a pair of slippers could attend a Bible class in this hot summer—how about you?”
Needless to say, I had full attendance during the whole week!