I dreamt of Africa...

Kimberly Wallace’s Dream of Africa

My husband, Rob and I are in Africa. It feels like we are in the Congo, in a deep forest, there are no cities, just villages upon villages, with mud huts and no running water. There are no missionaries that we know of there. The only other white people are new age type of organizations bringing education, and Habitat for Humanity building homes, and other types of help. I know that we are there to share our resources. Somehow, we have been briefed about the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) that they come often and frenzied looking to kill people or to put them in jail. We know that they make their own laws and do whatever they feel like, because they are so completely corrupt.
 
(*Note [in real life]: The last time I was in the Congo with a team of Pastors and an interpreter, we were held up at gun point. They threatened to shoot us and wanted our money, but we didn’t have any. I opened my suitcase and gave them my protein "Power Bars", they stopped waving their guns in our faces and took the protein bars and walked away. The other Pastors reported that this was the first time they had experienced not getting beaten up when held up at gun point, and so we were praising God!)

Where we were in the Congo, was very near a large body of water. In one area there were great cliffs, in another area there were steep hills going down to the water and yet another area there were small beaches. We went on many expeditions. I went on one expedition (for some reason Rob wasn’t with me) and befriended a local black man and somehow we understood each other. I asked him about the LRA and how to avoid them. This man told me that often when they would get all hyped up to go arrest and kill people, they were usually so frenzied that they didn’t look real carefully. He told me to go into the forest or jump into a hole or ditch and pull mud around me and the smear it on any of my skin that wasn’t covered with earth already, for camouflage and to hold very still until they passed. Usually they are too frenzied and excited to do any real searching. They’d do quick visual scans and if nothing caught their eyes, they’d move on. They were interested in immediate results, with as little effort as possible. Suddenly this man tells me, "The soldiers are coming. RUN! HIDE!" So I run into the forest and jump into a hole like a foxhole and bury myself up to my armpits in mud and smear mud on my arms and face and sit very still. The soldiers run through right past me, frenzied shooting off their guns and they never see me. So I wait awhile to make sure they aren’t coming back this way. I dig myself out and carefully make my way back to where our hut is.

It’s pitch dark. There are window openings on our hut with wooden shutters, but no actual windows. I tap lightly on the wooden shutters. Several people on the side of the other huts stick their heads out the window. I can see that they have tape over their eyes and mouth and they get shot at, so they duck their heads back in. I tap again very lightly and this time Rob pops his head up. I see that he too has tape on his eyes and mouth. Rob is trying to speak but only makes muffled noises. I say "shhhh" and tug on his head to pull him through the window and he somersaults out the window. I tear off the tape from his eyes and mouth and whisper that we must be very quiet. I have on a rain coat with secret pockets that hold money and my smart PC phone. Rob still has plastic and duct tape around his wrists and ankles. I try to remove it, but am unable to. I find a jack knife in my pocket and cut the tape off.

Slowly we crawl, stop, crawl until we get to this open desolate area where there are steel girders. We hear running in the distance. We jump into foxholes pull mud around us and smear mud on our exposed skin and hold still. The soldiers actually run within inches of us and don’t see us, they keep on running and shooting their guns. When they are far enough away from us, we look around, and suddenly we see Rand (a real friend who is a missionary in Uganda with his family for the past seven years). He is covered in mud like us. He tells us to wait stay motionless to see if the soldiers might return this way. They don’t return so we get out of our pits. We notice that Rand has no cloths on and is covered in mud. He tells us that he has done this so often, that he doesn’t like to get his cloths full of mud, he retrieves them from a tree and puts them back on. Then Rand tells us that Kristi (his wife) and children are waiting on this big cargo carrier ship and that we must get there without being caught.

We make our way silently and carefully to the cargo carrier. Somehow we are on the ship. There is a large platform with a single foam mattress that runs down the entire side of the deck. Only people with money can use the platform bed. We are down at least one floor below the top deck. For some reason Rob isn’t with me. I am with Rand and Kristi and their kids but no Rob.

I go look for my husband, and find him at the other end of the deck curled up on the floor. I ask him why is he there, and he says because we have no money. I tell him that I have all this money in my coat. He tells me not to use it now. So I take off my coat and roll it up for a pillow and we lay our heads on it. We are laying on the floor head to head, not next to each other. The edge of a blanket dangles over us and Rob tugs on it, and more of the blanket hangs off the ledge over us. Quietly he asks, "Is this anyone’s blanket?" no answer. He asks again, still no answer. So he gives it a quick tug and the rest of the blanket falls down. He covers himself, but leaves me uncovered because we are laying head to head. So I move around to lay next to him and he says there’s not enough room for the both of us and that one of us will fall off. I say nonsense, there is enough room, but he argues with me and tells me to stay where I am and I tell him that I am cold and want to get under the blanket too. Suddenly some LRA soldiers show up and shove Rob in this metal container that is way too small for him. Rob is yelling, this isn’t fair why are they putting him in prison? They tell him they arrested him for arguing and making too much noise on the deck.

Suddenly I am with Rand and Kristi at the other end of the deck, I tell them what has happened Rand tells me to return to Rob’s container and wait for an opportunity to pour hot water over the container to warm him up. I am now at the container where Rob is and I have buckets of hot water. I begin pouring it over the sides of the container. I can hear Rob say that it feels so warm and nice. I continue to pour hot water over each side of the container. I am almost finished, but LRA soldiers show up. They grab my arms and threaten me and ask me, "What do I think I am doing?" Rob hears them and starts yelling and making a ruckus. The soldiers turn to him and start banging the sides of the container with their guns and yelling at him. I run down to the other end of the deck where Rand and Kristi are and they hide me under their pillows.

Rand pulls the pillows off and tells me that he has some special keys that will open any of the containers on this ship. So we creep back down to Rob’s container and he puts the key in the lock. Nothing. He jiggles it. Still nothing. Then I ask him if I can try. I take the key out of the lock and reinsert it, turn the key and we can hear this click, click, click and the door opens. Rob steps out and as he steps out, we are all stepping into a room in Rand and Kristi’s home in Uganda. It is not their home that I stayed in before, but a different one that is smaller, but it is really lavish and beautiful. Rand tells us to take a tour and help ourselves to anything and to make ourselves at home. Rob says he has to pee and for some reason I know where the bathroom is. We go upstairs to the bathroom which has two toilets and Kristi is on one of them and tells Rob if he has to go it’s ok, come in. So he does. Then a strange man knocks on the door and we all shout that this bathroom is being used and he says that he will wait. They are finished and we walk out of the bathroom and the strange man goes in. I explore some of the rooms. I find this one room filled with antiques. Lots of pictures of Rand. An old picture of him when he was a teenager and then others of him at different times in his life. There are books and statues. All the statues are of him. It kind of creeps me out that his study is full of pictures, busts and statues of himself.

I find myself downstairs with Rand, Rob and Kristi, suddenly we hear LRA soldiers and they barge into the compound area. Rand tells us to hide in his study and to stand still like statues, quick, quick! We can hear the soldiers rummaging through the house. They open the door, look in, they don’t see us and they leave. When we don’t hear them anymore we go looking for Rand. We find him where we left him. I ask him why they didn’t arrest him. He has a cigar in his mouth and he puffs it and says "It’s all in who you know! And besides, I just stood still like a statue and they never saw me, like they never saw you. That’s why I put statues in my study, to confuse them on their random searches!" And I thought, wow, that’s why there were so many pictures and statues of Rand in his study.

Rob and I are now back in the Congo back near our hut. There is the kind of "u" shaped building with a high roof and there are soldiers everywhere with guns. We are underneath the building, one of the few safe places to be. I decide that we should stay under the roof area as long as possible to keep from being shot at. I fall in this hole and Rob jumps in after me. We aren’t hurt. There is a black man who motions to us to be silent and then motions us to follow him. We walk through these underground tunnels. We come to a hole above our heads and he points up. So we crawl up through the hole and find ourselves at our hut. We jump in through the window. We laid there and prayed. We were hungry and so we decided to go into the village to get food to cook. So we jump through the window and down the hole and returned the way we came through the tunnels.

We are returning from the village with backpacks filled with food. We are back at the U shaped building beneath the roof and can hear gun shots and rapid gunfire. We jump back down this hole. Neither Rob nor I are hurt. That same black man is there motioning us to be silent and to follow him. He jumps down another hole so I follow and Rob jumps in after me. We walk through a maze of tunnels and come to another hole, before we jump into this hole the black man ties ropes around all of our waists. We jump down the hole and now are walking upside down on the ceiling. I notice that below us are the LRA soldiers, drinking, getting stoned, cleaning their guns and some are even shooting their guns, but they have no idea that we are above their heads. We continue walking until we get to another hole and the black man motions for us to climb up that hole.

The hole opened up into a huge well lit room. There is nothing there except a charcoal cooker like you see in Africa. It was made out of an old wheel well, there was a burlap bag of wood charcoal and two huge pots. The black man shows us this big tub of water and tells us that we can either cook with it or take a bath, but we can not do both. We must decide. I vote to take a bath, we hadn’t had one in months. Rob votes that we use it to cook with, because we hadn’t eaten in weeks. We unload the food from the village in our packs and I start cooking.

I just finish plating up all the food (huge servings) on our plates and suddenly all the locals, mostly black people and a few of the Habitat for Humanity and the new agers were there and everyone appeared with these tin plates and spoons. I looked at Rob and said that we must share our food. We began to put small spoonfuls on people’s plates and I noticed that our food on our plates did not diminish, so we continued to dish out our food. I kept shouting and exclaiming that this was "like the fishes and the loaves multiplying to meet the need!" and I was crying about God’s faithfulness. Then the LRA soldiers showed up with their tin plates and spoons, looking very mean and fierce. I looked at everyone and then at Rob and whispered to him that we should feed them so they don’t kill us or arrest us, he nodded in agreement. So we began dishing out our food from our plates again. When it seemed like hours, we finally served the last soldier.

We started to eat our own food on our plates. Rob put down his plate for some reason. Then suddenly little children, two, three, four, and five year olds through ten years old swarmed into the room where we were. And I began weeping. I could see their hunger, some of them had bloated stomachs from starvation and each one of them had a little tin cup and a spoon. So I put my food in their cups. As I served each child each one offered the sweetest "thank you" I had ever heard. I was weeping because the food on my plate kept multiplying and we were able to feed all of the children. I kept thinking about how faithful Abba Father was to multiply our meals to feed all these children! Then Rob picked up his plate off the floor and we shared his food with each other.

We were back in the tunnels with the same black man who helped us before and he took us up through the holes, up to ground level. Rob and I began walking and these LRA soldiers came running at us and we froze still so that we wouldn’t be seen. The general yells "I see you, I see you." And walks right up to me face to face and yells again, "I see you!" He takes me by the arm and turns to the other soldiers who now have my husband by the arms and says, "You are the one that fed me and my soldiers. From now on, wherever you go, you will never be shot at, attacked or have fear of being arrested by us. But anyone with you will be shot dead on sight. I have sent out pictures of you to all my men and they know that they will die, if they go against my word. Go in peace." They let Rob and I go.

Now we are in Kampala Uganda. Many of the buildings have been blown up and there are gaping holes where buildings used to be, filled with rubble. I recognize many of the places and am crying. We are walking around Kampala completely stunned. I see that same black man who helped us in the underground tunnels and mazes. He motions to us to follow him. We hear the beautiful sounds of children singing accapello, and he brings us down to this coliseum-like arena, where the same children we fed with our multiplied food, were. They were singing and dancing. Some had on traditional dress with body war paint, some had on western clothing with face paint on and all were singing and dancing. The black man led us down to the center of the arena. The children came around us and sang and danced. Then one by one, each child came up to us and gave us a single shilling. This took along time. When they were finished there was this incredible pile of shillings laying next to me on the ground. The black man was still standing with us and one of the children came forth and spoke in his language. The black man interpreted for us and said, "First you fed the many people out of obedience, then you fed the soldiers out of duty and then you fed us, the children, out of love. We thank you for your love." I wept and wept, because I know how much a shilling is worth to a child. It is the widow’s might! Then I looked at the huge pile of shillings on the ground next to me and it turned to gold. Then I woke up and remembered everything vividly.

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I would appreciate anyone's revelation to this dream, and welcome the input, since I will be leaving for East Africa at the end of March 2010. I believe that some of this dream has to do with my marriage, but most of it has to do with my multiple trips to East Africa. I was curious to see if anyone was willing to share to see if I had any confirmation by the Spirit.