Four Days Without Water

“The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” — from Isaiah 35

North of Sechele’s town lay the Kalahari, a great dry land of sand and bushes, with a lake somewhere beyond it. In 1849 David crossed the desert with two English travellers, guided by Ramotobi, a man Sechele sent to show them the way. On 1 August 1849 they reached Lake Ngami. The people living beside it had always known it, but no one from Europe had seen it before.

The next year David took Mary and their three small children, Robert, Agnes and Thomas. Sechele came too. But the children caught fever, and they had to turn back. Soon afterwards a baby girl, Elizabeth, was born. She lived only about six weeks, and her mother and father were very sad.

Mary’s mother wrote that it was far too dangerous, but in 1851 David took his family again. This time their guide, a man named Shobo, lost the way, and for four days they had no water. The children were in danger of dying of thirst. Mary did not say one word of blame, but David could see the tears in her eyes. On the fifth day some of the men found water. The children lived!

At last they reached the Makololo people. Their great chief Sebetwane welcomed them with joy, but soon he fell ill and died, and David grieved for him. Then, beside a mighty river called the Zambezi, David saw something terrible: traders buying people, to be sold as slaves, in exchange for guns and cloth. He made up his mind to help stop it.

David wanted to find a road from the middle of Africa to the sea. It was too dangerous for his family, so in April 1852 he sent Mary and their four children to Britain. He did not see them again for four and a half years. Mary was often lonely and poor.

David was very brave, but he did not always think enough about what his choices cost his family. Being brave for God never means forgetting the people we love.

Dear God, thank you for my family. Help me to be brave for you, and also to be kind and caring to the people closest to me. Amen.