Chapter Fifty Eight
I was overjoyed to see Kalou again. I did not like to be separated from her for so long a period of time. We had been gone for almost three moons, but it seemed like even longer. After we returned across the river our force had separated, with most of the Nephilim that lived farthest to the south going home. I kept about twenty leaders of the Nephilim with me to escort the Easterners that returned with us. These Nephilim would stay to participate in meetings as we decided exactly how to expand our nation to the east.
In our meetings over the next few weeks I was incredibly impressed by what I saw in my family. With me at these meetings were Kalou, some of our children, grandchildren, and even a few great-grandchildren. While I was proud of their intelligence and knowledge, what impressed me even more were their moral and spiritual principles.
Though the Nephilim were looked upon as royal warriors, in reality they considered themselves responsible for keeping the land on the path of righteousness, and they took this responsibility very seriously. They discussed openly the need to keep strong our worship of God, our reverence for His power, and gratitude for the gifts bestowed upon mankind in His creation.
My life had been one long journey. Physically, spiritually and emotionally I had been travelling nonstop for hundreds of years. My journey had begun at my parent’s home, a place where I was selfish, arrogant and jealous; a place where I was able to murder my brother and lie to God Himself. And my journey continued to this day. I was in no way perfect and often struggled as I tried to make the right decisions for myself and my nation. God’s gift of free will engendered a battle within me, and though I seemed in control, it was a battle that I fought daily.
My offspring appeared to have much less difficulty controlling themselves. Though they thought of themselves as many different things; leaders of cities, administrators, inventors and warriors, they were in reality the moral and spiritual leaders of the land. Their hearts for service and desire to lead in a righteous manner impressed me, even while it made me more ashamed of my past.
I could see in them, in a way I never saw in myself, that mankind truly was made in God’s image. Not in His physical image, but in His emotional, intellectual, and spiritual image. Kalou and I could not have been more proud of our offspring.
In our meetings we discussed how the people that moved to the east would be far from their families and everything they had known their entire lives. We wanted to make sure there would be no weakening in the faith of those that moved, no loss of moral strength and no loss of our culture and beliefs. We knew this would be difficult, so we wanted to choose our strongest people to settle the new lands.
Kalou and I met constantly with our family for two weeks. I had chosen three possible locations for the first city, and after much discussion it was decided that we would build the city diagonally to the southeast from the city of Enoch. Since the majority of our population now lived south of the capital, I decided our first city in the east should also be south of the capital. While those of us that lived in Enoch would need to travel nine days to get to the river crossing, this would be a more centralized location for the majority of the nation.
We knew of the perfect place to build a ferry crossing on this section of the river. After we constructed the ferry, the road would travel due east across the grasslands to the new city. The location we chose for the first eastern city had a clean river filled with fish, abundant woodlands full of game, and wide meadows for farm fields and grazing flocks.
After we decided on the locations for the ferry and the city, we developed our plan for building the ferry and constructing the guest houses and the road that would allow us to settle the city. This project would be undertaken by people of every city, and many members of my family desired to be involved. I was not surprised by the excitement this new city evoked. There had been many in my family that had desired to cross the river, explore the new territories and expand our nation.
Because of our nation’s history of expansion, building a new city was not a major undertaking. By now virtually everyone in the land had been involved with starting at least one of them. What made this city different and more difficult was the need to transport all the raw materials for the guest houses and water holes across the river and the wide expanse of the grasslands as we built our way east.
On our return trip we had frequently tested the grasslands for the availability of water beneath the surface. Thankfully, we found it was always there, though we had to dig deep holes to reach it. This ground water would allow us to use carts and oxen to carry materials across the grassland, and would allow animals and people not of my blood to cross the wide plains to the new city.
We would build one road from our ferry to the first city, and there would be guest houses placed one day’s journey apart along the road. Each guest house would be supplied by several of the water holes to ensure that the people would have plenty to drink and could still water livestock. It would be a long trip for anyone venturing to the new city across the grassland, at least fifteen days and possibly more. But while it would be tedious, it would not be a dangerous or horribly difficult trip.
Together we came up with an idea for how to build a permanent ferry across the river. We would make huge log platforms which would be moved across the river on strong ropes that were anchored on each side. There would be two separate ferry boat lines, and each line would cross the river on an angle. The ferry moving with the river’s current would always be the loaded boat. On the return trip the ferry would be empty and easier to pull back across. Since the boats traveled on an angle, the trips against the current would not be too difficult for the ferrymen.
After a few weeks we separated with our meetings complete and our decisions made. We would gather again in three moons on the shore of the Great River. There we would begin the construction of the ferries, and soon after that, building the road. We had much work to do before we could begin to settle our new city.
In The Beginning Page 58