Wanton Destruction

Marina and I made a trip into Ivory Coast yesterday to visit the Loron believers in the village of Gogo.

At the various military checkpoints we gave away Northern Ireland calendars and also quite a number of Every Home Crusade gospel booklets in French. The soldiers seemed to appreciate having something to read.

We arrived in Gogo in time to catch the last 30 minutes of the morning service and then we spent a couple of hours talking through some issues with the church leaders in Gogo.

On our first trip to Gogo a couple of months ago we didn’t have time to go to our house. Yesterday we went to have a look. The basic structures, the house and office building, are still there, and it wouldn’t take a whole lot of work to fix the house up again and make it habitable.

The most distressing thing was seeing what had been done to the office building. The doors were hanging off, the windows left open, and hundreds of books, and boxes and files of Loron-language and other materials had been dumped onto the ground.

Most of the books and other paper items had been taken outside and burned. Of the books that were left inside, what the elements did not destroy, the termites did. Everything in the office was either Bible or language related and it is hard to understand why anyone would be so callous.

We did salvage a couple of Bibles and a song book, but the remainder was a sorry mess.

I suppose lawlessness and war brings out the worst in humanity.