Ravens

“I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” — Acts 20:24 (ASV)

Being a bishop on the Niger meant a diocese with no roads, stretching over three hundred miles of river among a dozen peoples and languages. For years he had no boat of his own. He went up once a year in a trading steamer or a navy gunboat, and he hated what that said. People assumed he owned the ships or worked for the government. He wrote that he had to choose between being called a trader, “though I do not own a pennyworth of her,” or a warrior, “although I may not fire a blank shot.”

In September 1867 he tried his own small boat. With his son Dandeson and an English bricklayer, he stopped to visit a chief named Abokko, whom he had known for years. Abokko had fallen out with his own king and was sure Crowther owned the trading posts. He seized the boat, plundered the luggage, held them prisoner and demanded a huge ransom.

Crowther kept a diary. The first night they slept on the damp ground with nothing to eat. One of Abokko’s slaves gave him his own cloth as a blanket. A boatman gave him a robe for a pillow; he gave it to Dandeson and slept on a ridge of earth with his cap under his head. For days Abokko fed them almost nothing, and the household slaves secretly shared their own scanty food. “I often told Dandeson,” Crowther wrote, “that these slave boys and tender-feeling females were our ravens which brought us daily food as it was needed.” The man who had once been a slave was being kept alive by slaves. He promised that if he ever could, their kindness “shall not pass unrewarded.”

On Sunday he had no Bible. “I felt what it was to be deprived of the means of grace.” He and Dandeson recited Scripture from memory. Then he went to Abokko and told him this was the day God’s people everywhere met to read and pray, and he had no book. Startled, the chief had his box brought out. Abokko later sent fish that had been offered to his idol; Crowther sent it back. The ransom demand climbed to a thousand pounds, with talk of another thousand for Dandeson. Dandeson was offered the chance to leave. He refused to leave his father.

On 28 September a steamer arrived with the British vice-consul, a man named Fell. Fell decided that paying would only invite more kidnappings and urged them to run for the ship’s boat. As they pushed off, Abokko’s men fired muskets and poisoned arrows. Fell was hit by a barbed arrow and died before they reached safety.

Crowther hadn’t planned the escape; others arranged it and he went along. He wrote: “It would have been more satisfactory to me, had such been the will of God, had I been shot and my dead body taken to Lokoja instead of his.” That wasn’t a pious line. He meant it. Paul said he didn’t count his own life dear. Crowther found that easy compared with accepting that someone else had given theirs for him.

Two things to take from this. First, God’s provision often comes through the least powerful people in the room: a slave’s cloth, a shared handful of food. Second, there is Someone who did die in our place, deliberately. Crowther knew that better than anyone.

One thing to do this week: notice the “ravens” in your life this week: people with little power or status who quietly help you. Thank one of them properly, out loud or in writing. And be a raven for someone else: share something of your own with a person who is stuck.