An Instrument in His Hands

Part 2 Chapter 10

Part 2

85 BC

Chapter 10

Andrew was promoted to the temporal management of the Land of Antionum. Whether by Daniel’s recommendation, or his own friends among the Zoramite party, or a bit of both, I did not know. But I was grateful for Daniel’s friendship.

I missed Daniel’s friendship, but did not regret my decision to remain in Antionum.

Things were changing with the advent of the Zoramite party to power. True to their promises, they started construction on a large place of worship to be made out of stones excavated from the quarry ten miles away. There would be jobs for all. Many from the tribe of Zoram flocked to Antionum for employment.

About that time I noticed that the father of one of my students became interested in me. He was a fat Zoramite rice merchant, quite successful in his business dealings. He traded rice all the way up the Sidon River to Zarahemla, and his wife had recently passed away.

I laughed to think that as a young girl I had wondered about marrying either a government official or a rich merchant, never dreaming that I would be courted by either. Yet here I was, refusing a government official and being courted by a rich Zoramite merchant.

Of course I refused him. He bowed down to the rice god sitting outside the door of our school. I could never look on the rice god again without seeing him with fangs.

Andrew was incensed. ‘You are no longer in Zarahemla! You are in Zoramite territory and must accept their customs.’

‘I will not deny the Christ,’ I protested.

He wiped his brow on his sleeve. ‘This man may be the last to offer for you. If you refuse him, none other will seek your hand. None.’

I whispered, ‘I am waiting for Aaron to return.’

He laughed unkindly. ‘After all these years? You think he will want you after you publicly refused him?’

I stood in self defense, then turned away. ‘I was not public about it at all. Besides, we are digressing from the subject. I repeat, that I will not marry an unbeliever.’

Andrew gestured with his arms.‘Yet you accept my charity and live under my roof all these years.’

I turned back to him. ‘I support myself.’

‘Hmmph!’ He did not approve of my giving so much of my income to the poor.

My refusal to be courted by the rice merchant brought consequences. Three days later I was called before the head of my school. ‘I am told that you are teaching Christian heresies to the daughters of the Zoramites,’ she accused me.

I explained calmly, ‘I teach moral values, like kindness and consideration. I teach them to be honest and virtuous. If they are not Zoramite teachings also, then, yes, I am teaching Christianity. I can do no less for them.’

‘I am afraid that we must dismiss you from our service,’ she said.

It was the merchant’s revenge.

Since I no longer took income from the corn cake stand, but turned it’s profits to help the poor, and employed others to run it, I was without a job, and was not feeling overly welcome in my brother’s home. What was I to do? Was I to leave the land of Antionum?

I took my problem to the Lord. ‘Oh, God, who rules in the heavens above, and has this earth as his footstool, and controls all things, what is thy humble servant to do at this time? I have served this people as thou hast asked, for many years. Am I to remain among them now? And, if so, how can I continue my labors?’

I felt once again like the Lamanitish girl who had arrived in Antionum with nothing but a pack on her back and enough money to buy a few bags of corn to make corn cakes. I laughed. Perhaps I could go back to making corn cakes in the market with Chariott and the other women. How would Andrew feel about his sister doing that?

As I had back then, I walked the streets of Antionum searching for some way to earn my keep and not be beholden to Andrew.  I trudged along the streets where the merchants dwelled, and viewed their gardens and towers and statues to the rice god. People were employed to trim and tend yards, coming and going along the road. There were servants to tend small children and to cook and to clean.

I knew how to run one of those houses. But that did not feel right to me. Since I had refused the rice merchant, I could only be employed to cook or to clean in one of those homes.

So, I walked farther out of the city along the river where there were rice farms. Each farm had several statues to the rice god, where people implored him to bring fertility to their lands. Wives and young children were busy in the fields sewing the young plants into the wet soil. It was back breaking labor, and I prayed that their harvest would prove bountiful.

What job could I do?

Then, at last, I went among the small huts of the poor that I served all these years. Could I possibly find something to do among them? They were more prosperous than they had been when I first came to Antionum. With the new Synagogue being built, there was employment for all. Surely there would be employment for me!

Instead of servants coming and going in these streets, there were mothers home with children of all ages doing chores – weaving, cooking, sweeping, tending goats, beating rugs. I stopped and talked to a mother that I knew and asked how her life was going.

She unhooked her loom from her waist and leaned over the fence to talk with me. Two little girls came to hang on her skirts. ‘Ah! If only these children were not under my feet all day! If their father could take them to work with him – but no children are allowed to work at the Synagogue site.’

‘Oh,’ I asked as I reached over and patted their heads, ‘what would you propose be done with the children?’

‘School! Would that there was a school that could take them, like the children of the rich. I’d like the boys to learn to read and write and cypher so they can grow up to be merchants, like those that live in the center of the city.’

‘And there is no school to take them?’ I began to smile. Several boys were playing in the muddy yard next door.

‘The rich will not allow their children to be educated with the likes of us. Yet how can we prosper without education?’

I knew what I must do. God was leading me to serve full time.

I prodded her for information. ‘Can people afford to pay for schooling?

‘Not at those schools,’ she said with great disdain.

I calculated, then asked her, ‘Can they pay at all?’

‘A bit,’ she said with a shrug of her shoulder.

I put my hand on her arm confidingly and smiled at her daughters. ‘Well, I am a teacher. If there is a schoolhouse for me to teach in, I will teach boys and girls for what they can pay.’

The mother was delighted and called her neighbors to us. That day I gained seventeen students. The fathers of my students gathered after work each day to build me a schoolhouse made of rods and palm branches.

And so I remained in Antionum.