Mary Slessor: part 4
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mary slessor4.1.mp3
The people in Calabar were living an awful life. They were not Christians but they believed in witchcraft. Whenever anything bad happened they thought it was caused by black magic. If a chief died they would kill several people because they thought that their souls could travel with him into the spirit world where they would be his servants. If twins were born the people thought some witchcraft had caused this. The twins were not looked after and they died.
If someone was ill the people thought that this was caused by evil spirits called jujus and they were terrified of these.
Some people thought that spirits looked like the picture below.
mary slessor 4.2.mp3
If people thought that someone had committed a crime he might be given poison to drink because they thought that it would only kill him if he was guilty.
Many British people felt that the people of Calabar were not very nice people but Mary remembered that Jesus had come for everyone; even those who did very bad things. She wanted to show them that Jesus loved them.
mary slessor 4.3.mp3
She wanted them to love God and not be frightened by jujus and black magic. She knew that sometimes she would have to deal with the most horrible things but since Jesus had been brave enough to die for us, she would face up to any problem.
There was one important man who was a Christian. He was King Eyo. Mary's mother had heard about him from the missionaries who gave talks at her Church. When Mary told him about this he was delighted. He wrote to Mary's mother and she wrote back. After this they kept on writing to each other.
Mary went out and talked to the people. Sometimes she would meet someone whose child had died. This happens very seldom in this country now because we have good food, good doctors and good medicines. In Africa this happened quite often. Mary would tell them that Jesus has said that it is not the end when we die but we go on living in heaven. She talked to groups of people, telling them how much God loved them.
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