The Champion's Way

by Carmen E. Richards
Photography by Greg Poole--Manager Kafunta River Lodge, South Luangua, Zambia, Africa

Our four-tiered Toyata Land Cruiser, with eight fully equipped tourists of the bush aboard, motored along the even, red-dirt road in South Luangua National Park in Zambia, Africa. This is a nice change, I thought releasing my ‘hanging on for dear life’ grip from the steel bar in front of me. We had been in the vehicle for several hours and most of the roads were rutty, bouncing us up and down as if we were on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. Here, at last, I could for a moment let go and relax.

I could freely smell the fresh and musty scent of ‘the Real Africa’ and could enjoy the various trees and grasses that were taller than usual due to the heavy rainfall. We traveled back to Kafunta River Lodge after an early morning search for the lions—monarchs of the jungle. We had heard them speaking the night before, groaning as they conversed about some bush business. When I heard them, it stilled every aspect of my being with a chilling fear and reverence. The sound rumbled in my chest like a deep cosmic hum and left me vibrating for seconds after.

Our guide, Johosophat, a husky bodied black man with an Anthony Hopkins voice, drove a good clip while chatting with one of our team members up front. I sat on the upper tier enjoying the ride with roving eyes in hopes of spotting something new and unusually beautiful. Periodically, Johosophat would spontaneously stop the vehicle turning off the engine and then say something like, “Carmen do you see the Acacia tree over there on the right? Look at the branch to the far right that is somewhat curved; about half way down there is a Lilac Breasted Roller.” I would lift my binoculars with delight to find the six inch body of color exactly where he pointed out. He did this kind of thing continuously and it amazed me that he could be driving, talking and also spotting some random bird in a tree, bush or piece of sky and be able to identify it so accurately. The man had eyes like an eagle and made my safari experience that much the nicer. (The Lilac Breasted Roller is a bird they call the Rainbow Bird because it has every color of the rainbow on its body. It is amazing and beautiful.)

We continued riding along with the hot wind blowing back our hair, feeling the warmth of the sub-equator sun beating down on our skin. Some might say we were recklessly riding since we had no hats, no sun-screen, no seat belts and were often moving 40-50 mph. However, those confinements seemed to have no place in this landscape of freedom. We came around a corner, which always lent itself to more focused staring in hopes that one might encounter a group of tall Thorncroft giraffe meandering along, hippos wrestling in the shallows or the lionesses themselves lying by the side of the road, lazy after a feeding or a kill.

This time, as we came around the bend in the road, Johosophat brought us to a full stop and our eyes rose to behold a giant male elephant with two magnificent tusks protruding from the sides of his jaw. His trunk was about five feet long, which means his body was at least ten feet tall. His head, with perfectly shaped ears, made it have a wingspan of about seven feet wide. His feet lumbered along leaving basketball size prints in the muddy road. His legs could be called ashen poplars for their size and shape. The lashes on his wrinkly eyes were course, long and curled about three inches long. At first, his eyes were shut and he just walked along the middle of the road like he owned it. Then he became aware of our vehicle and opened his eyes.

We sat there, not twenty feet away from a massive that moved steadily toward us. Soon, he began tossing his head back and forth, lifting and dropping his trunk, in continual motion with his giant legs, and leading with those glinting tusks directly at us. We were all breathless. Johosophat waited a moment to see if the ‘big guy’ would take to grass. “He is in must you see,” he said pointing to the honeydew melon sized testicles, which dripped with moisture. “This makes him a little more aggressive,” he added as he restarted the engine and backed up about twenty more feet. How did Johosophat know the Land Cruiser would start everytime, I wondered momentarily. Our eyes stayed fixed front. The elephant continued forward in the middle of the road with no apparent intention of giving way. We are playing chicken with a two-ton elephant I thought to myself, not really knowing how much he weighed. He seemed big though, like at least two-tons. Johosophat waited a minute longer then exhaled with resolve, “Ok Champion, you are the winner today. I am moving back." We stared in stunned wonder. "If he were not in must," Johosophat announced, "I would be challenging him; but today, he is the champion."

Again, the engine turned right over and backwards we went. Oddly, there were no other elephants around at this time; else, we might have been caught between them. The night before, we had seen two of the big boys fighting and tooting their horns quite aggressively. That sound also can make your spine shiver. It is like in the cartoons; it feels like it could blow your hair and body all the way back to bed.

Champion stopped at a nearby patch of tall pampas grass and we stopped as well some feet away. We watched him pluck the grass about three fourths of the way down and plunk it into his mouth with that handy trunk. We could see stubby teeth inside his mouth and he began chewing, making hollow chomp and swish sounds. His entire body was wrinkly and he kept it on the road so that we could not pass. Soon, he grew tired of that patch of grass and turned toward us again shaking his head and tossing his trunk as if saying, “Get back jack, I’m coming through.”
At this point Johosophat determined the elephant was not going to give way. We were pulled off to the side of the road and I thought perhaps Johosophat would just let him walk on by us. The road seemed wide enough for both of us but Johosophat must have remembered his scripture and thought this particular wide road might lead to destruction. So instead, he became no talk and all action. As Champion approached, Johosophat asked us to be very quiet and still. Then he pulled the Land Cruiser back about forty yards until he found a small clearing. Underneath the shade of a giant Baobob tree, occupied by active monkeys and meandering baboons, sat groups of serene impalas and pukus. They were families enjoying quality time together at the park.

Johosophat pulled our backside right into their afternoon siesta and I turned to see a large baboon hurry from his throne point and scamper up the tree. There I saw many of his family members moving about to make way for this alpha male. The impala and puku remained motionless in their quiet beauty, unaffected by our intrusion or the march of the Champion. Johosophat killed the engine and we rested with all else. Champion was on pace.

We watched him with bated breath, frozen like statues in amazement and wonder, barely whispering with giddy hysteria. The animals behind us did not move a muscle. Champion moved to about fifteen feet from us and I noticed his eyes seemed shut. He walked like a blind man who instinctively knows his way to his destination. A brave enthusiast with zoom lense decided to get a closer-up shot and clicked the shutter of the camera. Champion opened his eyes and with a slight nod of his head almost seemed to say, “Yeah, that’s all of me you’ll ever get the best of.” And then, he continued on his way and out of our sight walking down the middle of ‘his’ road. I never imagined I would come to Africa to play chicken with a male elephant in must. We were chaste and he was the admired Champion.

Epilogue…10 days later...Muyende Bwino (travel well)
Lilongwe, Malawi--Kamuzu Airport: We brought some of our team members to the airport for departure. We unexpectedly met up with a friend and lodge owner from Zambia near the location we had visited. We were surprised to see him, as he was to stay in South Luangua for six months. Tony, a gregarious and kind, clear eyed UK citizen, we fondly nicknamed "The Brit 2" (Jim 'the Brit' was our original UK citizen back at Njewa Mission Center in Malawi) told us the day after we left the reserve; the Kafunta River Lodge, had been evacuated and soon after that all the lodges along the river had been cleared out due to severe flooding. The Luangua River had overflowed its banks and flooded the entire valley. The heavy rainstorms caused the flooding and washed out an entire distant town--Mfuwe. Tony described the five feet of water in his lodge area that forced them to swim from the kitchen to the reception area. He told us many others were evacuated holding a machete in one hand, while grasping ropes with the other and watching with all eyes for crocs. “Two male elephants were washed away by the rushing flood waters,” he said. One of the bodies had been recovered down river. We thought of our Champion and hoped he was not one of them. The best we could do was grieve with Tony in those short moments, rejoice that he was well and pray for the people of Mfuwe, our friends back at Kafunta--Greg, Johosophat, Mayam and the rest of the staffs from all the lodges in the valley.

On the day we encountered him, the Champion of the Bush, it seemed unfathomable to me that anything could move or defeat him. Now, here we faced the possibility that water, a liquid, giving, flowing substance that God had created for refreshment of the earth, man and all creatures, could have been his downfall. I thought to myself, why are we surprised? Why do we doubt the forces of nature that God has created and thereby doubt God Himself? Are we really so arrogant to think we can hold back the sea and the firmament, the rivers, the movement of the wind or the earth? We are foolish indeed to think so because only God can ordain such things. Job 38-42.

Perhaps this explains why it was so amazingly miraculous for the disciples and others to see Jesus calm the storm, walk on the water, call the dead back to life etc. because they recognized the Divine in what He did and the finiteness of who they were in comparison. This humility and recognition of the superior forces is what we need in our world today for more people to accept Christ for who He said He was. He said, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; or else, believe Me, for the sake of the works themselves.” John 14:11

Jesus asks us to believe Him. Is this really so difficult when He has given so many viable proofs of His Divinity? He also said, “Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way, you know…I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:1-6

Why do we trouble our hearts so much in trying to find any other way to God except through Jesus Christ? It is so simple really. Either we choose to believe or we choose not to. Like Thomas who doubted and then upon seeing with his own two eyes declared “My LORD and my God” we must not be “unbelieving, but believing” as Jesus said. John 20:27-29. We must see Him through the eyes of faith and acknowledge Jesus for who He really is. Then we will be counted among those of whom Christ said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29

We live in a world where we think we know it all and can do it all. However, God and His forces are no match for the sturdiest of us. We do not see Him in flesh and blood as they did in the time of Christ on the earth, but we see Him via word, Spirit and truth as he commanded us to worship Him. We see Him by faith, by the testimony of faithful witnesses, by the sure word of prophecy, through the everyday Divine miracles He accomplishes in, through and for us. Just like the Champion of the Bush who will not yield the road, Jesus Christ is the Champion of Heaven who pursues with patience and loving perseverance, declaring, “Believe Me, Come, Follow Me; Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:14 To enter the Champion's way we must first love and then believe.

Photography by Greg Poole--Manager Kafunta River Lodge, South Luangua, Zambia, Africa