Seed Sowers

Late one evening Dorothy sat at the kitchen table and listened to her ever-present tape recorder. She was transcribing a conversation she had    Late one evening Dorothy sat at the kitchen table and listened to her ever-present tape recorder. She was transcribing a conversation she had recorded earlier, a common task in the translation process.

The sense that someone was watching her made the fine hairs on her neck stand on end. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something near the door move. Slowly she turned to look and gasped when she saw the bright, watchful eyes of a large ocelot, a Peruvian wildcat, staring at her through the door!

The door’s light wooden frame and transparent plastic sheeting offered little protection from the predatory wildcat. Dorothy tried to breathe slowly and stay calm. She remembered latching the door earlier, but . . . could the cat still get in?

With slow, measured movements, she rose on trembling legs and crept farther into the kitchen, wondering what to do. Then, the ocelot leaped gracefully from the doorstep to the ground. For more than half an hour, it paced back and forth outside the house—first watching her through the transparent door, then spying on her through the gaps between the stacked logs of the walls. Those golden eyes locked on her—its potential prey.

The reality of her predicament clamped icy bands of fear around her chest. She had no weapon. If the cat clawed its way through the thin door, she had no means to defend herself. And she wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with the ocelot stalking her.

While the cat watched her, she searched the room and tried to devise a plan. Finally, she pushed a makeshift ladder against the kitchen wall and climbed to a narrow ledge just under the roof.

As she slipped out of sight, the cat screamed in anger and tried to climb the outside walls, slashing the plastic sheeting covering the windows with its razor-sharp claws, shredding it. Dorothy gasped. The ocelot could enter the house through the windows! Once inside, it could easily climb up to her ledge.

Dorothy’s heart raced. While the cat continued to shred the plastic sheeting, she called for help from anyone who might hear her. “Pi-poki! Pi-pokiiiiii!” she yelled.

No one replied. The only response was the enraged roar of the cat just outside the window. Soon the cat would be able to enter the house and come after her!

Dorothy’s mind flashed back to a story she’d heard recently. A crazed ocelot had entered a house in nearby Obenteni, pulled a young woman from her house, and killed her. While these terrifying thoughts crowded her mind, Dorothy turned to God in prayer, knowing He was her only hope: “God, please send this animal away! God, please protect me!”

The immediate result of her frantic prayer was total silence. No more feline screams pierced the night. No more claws shredded the plastic sheeting. Could the cat really be gone?

Shaken, Dorothy climbed down from her narrow perch and cautiously peered outside. It was true. The cat was gone, but evidence of its visit was visible everywhere.

Dorothy breathed a prayer of thanks to God and collapsed on her bed in exhaustion. She slept soundly until the bright Peruvian sun awakened her and washed away the terror of the night before.

                Dorothy hiked down the hill to the nearest house and told the Peruvian family there about her nocturnal visitor and her stressful experience, but they didn’t believe her. “Ah, Nana, I’m sure that couldn’t have been an ocelot,” one of the men said.

Dorothy convinced the men to come and see for themselves. When they saw the large feline paw prints surrounding her house and the shredded plastic sheeting hanging from the window frames, concern etched their faces. “We will go out on a hunting trip,” they said. The next morning Dorothy’s heart rejoiced at the sight of the little plane that would take her back to the mission station at Yarinacocha (yuh-ree-nuh-KO-cha)—far away from the wildcat and her terrifying experience.

Later, no one could tell for sure whether the big cat was a large ocelot or a young panther. “When you may be the animal’s next meal,” Dorothy pointed out, “you don’t take the time to identify the species.”