“Every woman has two sacks,” explained Moumouni one afternoon as we sat under Dave’s tree waiting for the chai to boil.
“What do you mean Moumouni? Two sacks like the one I carry on my motorcycle?”
“No, no, no. Two BIG sacks. The hundred kilo sacks you see in the market.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
Pouring the tea and mixing in the sugar he explained further. “You see, every woman has two sacks. In one they put all the good things you do for them. Every nice thing you say, every gift you give them, all the favors you do for them. They put it all in one sack. The other sack they fill with all the bad things you do to them. Every mean thing you say, every time you forget to do something, every time you leave dirty laundry on the floor, any bad thing you do goes in the second sack. But there is one problem. “
“What’s that?” I asked, taking a sip from the first round of chai.
“The sack with all the good things has a hole in the bottom. So every time they pick it up to look inside, all the good things fall out. They can’t find one good thing you did for them. Meanwhile, the sack with all the bad things is getting so full they have to cram things to the bottom,” he explained, stomping down the load of an imaginary sack. Then, with a devious grin, he said, “You will see one day when you get married.”
“I don’t need to wait till then. I know enough married couples to know that’s true.”
That got a good laugh out of Moumouni. “You think you understand, but you can’t understand fully until you get married.”
“Why?”
At this point he is putting the second round of chai on the coals to boil. “You think you understand a woman. You think you know her. But I promise, you don’t. It doesn’t matter if you are engaged for 10 years, you don’t know her true character. Women are experts at hiding their true selves. But the day you get married, their hidden character rises to the top like a thermometer. And women are FULL of character.”
****
This is Moumouni, the day guard at the Johannson residence. He’s the type of worker who gets disappointed if you don’t bring home a truckload of groceries because then you don’t need his help unloading. He’s the type of worker that, if you leave your laundry on the line too long, will iron and fold it all for you… even your socks and underwear. Dave’s car is always freshly washed, his garden always watered, and despite the best efforts of his two sons, his floors are always clean. But beyond being a great worker, he’s the type of person who, when you greet him, refuses to believe you are in good health unless you a do a little dance. He’s the type of person that will bring you tea just because he noticed you look tired. He’s Nathaniel’s third favorite person, next to his mom and dad, because of the way he loves the Johannson boys like his own.
In February Moumouni attended a three-day sermon series on Biblical principles for success in business that I taught at his church. I started the series teaching from the parable of the three servants who were given money to manage. The first two servants used it in various business efforts and made large profits for their master. However, the third hid his money in the ground until the master asked for it back. In the parable, the master gets angry that the servant did nothing with the money he was given. I explained that God isn’t unhappy when we try and fail, but he is unhappy when he gives us gifts we do not use.
I don’t know for sure if it was my teaching that caused Moumouni to approach me a few weeks later about his garden. Maybe the teaching made him think about his current situation and how he was sitting on unused resources. Maybe he was already thinking about asking for help and my sermon was the final nudge he needed. Maybe my sermon had nothing to do with his request. No matter the reason, he came to me and asked if I could discuss a farming project with him. We set up a time and one afternoon we rode down to his riverside garden.
Walking down the path to his plot of land he turned to me and said, “Now you are going to see why I cried.” I didn’t really understand what he meant at the time, so I just said “OK” and kept walking. After passing through a row of trees we came upon a hectare of beautiful land, practically untilled save the few rows of lettuce he was growing. He stopped me and said “This is my garden, come I want to show you.”
Excited, he took me by the hand and walked the perimeter with me. He introduced me to his wife, who was pulling weeds and watering plants with their baby tied to her back. “This must be the woman who is so full of character,” I thought to myself as I shook her hand. He showed me the plots that were good for lettuce, for rice and for tomatoes. He showed me the cistern where he draws water for his plants and then lead me down the pipe to the river where he pumps the water. As we walked back up to the garden from the river, he started to explain his situation to me.
“This was my father’s garden. I grew up working this land with him; me and my brothers. All of my brothers eventually moved away from the city, so I was the only one left to help him. Since I work all day at Dave’s, I could not help full time, but together we managed. A year ago my father died and he left the land for me to farm. After my father’s funeral, I came down to the garden and, as soon as I saw it, I cried. I cried because I knew that I did not have the strength or the resources to work the whole garden. That is why, right now, there are only a few rows of vegetables. It is all I can do.” Looking out on the huge plot of land still left to be worked, I understood what he meant. “It is not work that I fear. It’s working and not gaining anything that I fear. I know this land, and I know if I farm it that it will produce much. So what I fear even more is not working and losing what could be won. With just a little bit of money I could hire people to help me work this garden and I know it would produce much.”
I asked him lots of questions about the garden, just to get a feel for how it operates and how much it produces. Then, that day we sat down and worked out a small loan agreement. We talked about how much he would need to get the garden working and how long it would take before it would start producing. We talked about how he would pay it back and with what amount of interest. After discussing all the details of how the loan would work, I told him I would have a response in two weeks.
Yesterday afternoon I rode over to Dave’s house and met with Moumouni in the guard’s quarters. We went over the small loan contract I had prepared and reviewed all the details. Before giving him the money, we prayed for his garden. We prayed that God would send the rains needed to make his crops grow. We prayed that God would multiply his efforts and yield a harvest greater than his father ever saw. We prayed that this loan would be a blessing to him and his family and that it would help them to earn the extra income their household needed.
When we finished praying, I handed him an envelope that held the loan and our signed agreement. After taking the loan, he shook my hand and then pulled me close for a hug. Near tears, he took a deep breath, smiled and said, “Thank you Daniel. You have no idea what this means to me.” That may be true. But he has no idea what that loan meant to me.
To the casual observer it was just a small loan. But for men like Moumouni there is nowhere they can go to ask for a loan. There are no credit cards, banks will not give them a second look, and loan sharks charge interest upwards of 100%. What seemed like a small loan was to Moumouni, a source of livelihood and the fulfillment of his late father’s wishes. And for me this loan had just as much meaning. It was the fulfillment of my call to Niger. It was the reason I came here. It was for Moumouni and others like him that God called me out of business school to work in Niger. And what excites me more than that loan is that I know it is just a taste of what is to come.
