A Secret Friend

“A friend loves at all times.” — from Proverbs 17

At first Mary lived in one small room in the yard of Edem, the chief of Ekenge. She shared it with the five children. On the other side of the wall were two cows, and there were goats, rats and cockroaches everywhere!

In Okoyong it was thought very rude to leave a guest alone. So the chief’s wives and their visitors kept Mary company all day long. Mary longed for a quiet place to pray out loud. So she took a big knife called a machete into the bushes and chopped at the plants, praying at the top of her voice while the noise of the chopping covered it!

The person who made those months bearable was the chief’s sister, Eme Ete. Everyone called her Ma Eme. She was a big woman who spoke roughly in the yard, but her voice went soft when she talked to Mary and the children. She brought Mary food and looked after her.

Ma Eme had a secret. Nobody knew that she was Mary’s helper. When she heard that someone had been blamed for witchcraft, or was going to be hurt or killed, she found a way to warn Mary, even though it put her own life in danger. Later they made up a signal. If Ma Eme sent a certain bottle to Mary, asking for medicine, it meant: “Be ready! Someone needs help.” The chiefs began to think that Mary could read their minds. Really, much of it was Ma Eme!

Their friendship lasted twenty-five years. Ma Eme never became a Christian, and that made Mary very sad. But Mary never forgot her kindness. She called her “my dear old friend and almost sister,” and said that “she made the saving of life so often possible in the early days.”

God often sends us friends to help us, sometimes people we would never expect. And he wants you to be a brave, kind friend to others too.

Dear God, thank you for my friends. Help me to be a kind and loyal friend, and to stand up for people who are in trouble. Amen.