No, I'm serious! The title is for real.
On Sunday, July 8 our JESUS Film mission team went to the neighborhood of Cacoso, a suburb of the city of Lucala, Kwanza Norte. We were in the middle of showing the JESUS Film to the people in that part of town. People were watching the film from both sides of the screen. I was sitting behind the projector with Bruce, Adam, and Maggie. Haley was on the other side of the screen sitting with many of the children. In the movie, Jesus had resurrected, and the women had just discovered that his body was gone and saw the angels when we heard a car engine being revved and getting closer to us from behind. The driver made quite a bit of ruckus as he drove to my left, barely missing people. On the backside of the screen he almost hit a couple women as he drove off.
Most of the young men who had motorcycles and were watching the movie immediately left in hot pursuit. One of the last motorcycles I saw chasing the car was the police officer who had been there since the beginning of the film showing. We remained seated even though some people evacuated the area, some of them running in the direction the car went.
When we finally thought all the drama was over, the car came back for a second pass! Haley picked up a baby, and she and the kids on the other side of the screen ran for cover between the walls of the buildings where the car wouldn't be able to get. By this time, Adam, Maggie, Bruce, and I were standing, wondering what the driver was going to do next. He drove on the left side of us again with an entourage of motorcycles behind him.
Some women from the community got Haley's attention and got her to go into one of their houses where they invited her to sit on their couch with the baby while they excitedly talked about what was going on.
He started making a third pass, this time toward the rest of our team and our equipment. Adam, formerly having been a firefighter, kept a really cool head during the fiasco and helped to direct our actions. Having dealt with a few medical emergencies at work, I wasn't scared, but I was certainly nervous. So far no one had been hurt, and we all had enough time to react to this troublemaker, but there was no way for us to move the equipment out of the way in time. Throughout this whole ordeal all of us were praying Jesus precious name, and our Savior saved us from this as well!
The car made its approach toward us. Maggie, Adam, and Bruce moved to the driver's side (the left of the screen), and I moved to the passenger side, picking up my chair behind me. I don't know what I was going to do with the chair since it was made out of plastic and it didn't really matter if it got destroyed or not. Suddenly, right in front of the equipment, his car died for no apparent reason. After going over the events for awhile, I believe that God's angel killed the engine.
Then the driver made his worst mistake of the night. People were hitting his car with their plastic chairs and hands. The driver got out of it and was beaten to a bloody pulp by the crowd. I saw him get out of the car and people grab hold of him, but because of my angle and the number of people between me and him, I couldn't see very much. Adam was able to describe what happened to the man. When the crowd was done with him, he was an unconscious mess.
We didn't know where Haley was, so Adam told Maggie to go find her. Maggie finally found Haley inside one of the mud brick houses there. She stayed with Haley until we were ready to go.
We were about to put everything away and immediately leave, but some of the members of the church told us to stay put. Somehow even though they were speaking Portuguese we knew what they meant. Eventually in all the commotion, they told us that we needed to go and started helping us. I saw that they were taking boxes to the van before things were put inside them because they were in such a hurry. I had to go to the van and stay with the van to make sure that we got everything, that it all remained safe in this riot, and that the stuff that was empty got sent back to the front line.
One lady put a cassava root in the van. I didn't know what that was about, but it was a strange night anyway.
Meanwhile, Bruce and Adam put away what was left of the equipment as quickly as they could with the help of our host church's members. There was a man shouting at them from near the front of the crowd. He was obviously angry at us for some reason although I don't know why. He had been angrily spewing Portuguese apparently even before I went for the van. I hadn't noticed him since my attentions were on the equipment, but there was so much commotion that it was hard to notice everything. He wanted to get in Adam's and Bruce's face and perhaps fight them, but the crowd kept him at bay. It was still confusing in the middle of the crowd as Adam and Bruce finished up. Still, it was interesting that the crowd protected us.
The father of the baby Haley was holding came to the residence Haley and Maggie were in and gratefully took his child.
Finally everyone got inside the van, and all the equipment was accounted for. We were about to leave when the police showed up. Our driver and a police officer started talking, and it got a bit exciting for a little bit. We later learned that the police wanted to blame us for the riot. The officer claimed, though I don't believe the story, that someone in the crowd said that we beat up a man. I think the officer was lying; I don't believe anyone said that. The evidence of the lie was that the crowd disputed that story to the officer too. There was some question why we were showing this film in the middle of the street. Fortunately we had all of our permits, so the officer finally let us go.
But it wasn't over! We had to go to the police station, less than five minutes away from that community, and re-explain the mess. As we left the suburb, several people waved and smiled at us. From what we could tell, most of the people wished us the very best.
The situation with the police bothered me a bit more than the actual riot. The police in Angola aren't known for being honest. If they decided that we were to blame for the incident, we would have gone to jail. Who knows how long we would have been in jail! Their justice system isn't like ours. We could be in jail overnight or for weeks before there was a hearing, let alone a trial. Who knows how just their court system is!
Their jails are pretty miserable places. Don't expect there to be a toilet let alone toilet paper in the room. More than likely it would have been a bare room with a dirt floor. If we were lucky it would have a cement floor with a hole in the ground to go to the bathroom in. Food would have to be provided by other people, since the government doesn't provide food in the jails. That would have made things more difficult because of the contamination problems in Angola.
We continued praying as our driver got out of the car and explained the issue to the police officers. It was at this point that they asked to look at our passports. Up to this point, the national police hadn't looked at our passports yet and had waved us on when we were on the highways. In Angola, officers often stay on main highways and pull over many people and ask for bribes and examine everyone's papers unnecessarily.
One of the problems that the pastor driving was explaining to the officers was about how we registered while we were staying. We were staying in N'dalatando, but when we tried to register at that town on Friday, the people that needed to be notified weren't there, and we were told to come back on Monday. Well we got off on that one since we and our hosts fulfilled our legal obligations. But after that incident, the officers told us to register with every city we went into when we showed the film so that we'd stay out of trouble.
This was a perfect example of how identity and representation counted for more than witness accounts in Angola. We got off because we had all of our identity papers in order and because we had every single darn permit that we needed. If we were going to go to jail, it wasn't going to be because we caused the riot, because everyone knew that we didn't; it was going to be because some piece of paper was neglected. The police were looking for a reason to put us in jail, but didn't and sent us on our way home instead. Praise God! We carefully made sure that we got our passports back (because sometimes officers play that trick too), and went home.
As we were leaving, we were told by one of the pastors that at least this wasn't too bad because no one died! What a statement! I hoped that it was a translation problem since the idea was being translated from Portuguese to French, and then to English, but I kind of doubt it. When we got home, we asked Domingos, our main contact and host during our stay about the frequency of things like this. He said that in his 26 years of ministry, nothing like this has ever happened before. Everyone agreed to the demonic nature of this riot, especially concerning the timing.
What a night!
Though this incident we thank God that he sent his angels to protect us, and kept us safe from the unwarranted accusations of wicked people.
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