As the time passed, she felt the lostness of her spirit, and then she thought of death itself—and what came on the other side of death. The Jewish religion had little to say about it, but she knew that Christians were very positive about heaven, believing that the moment they ended this life they would step into the presence of a holy God and a living savior.
For a long time she thought about this, and finally she began to pray. At first it was merely a cry, “Oh, God, help me! Don’t let me die out here!” But then a strange awareness came to her. She felt that she was, somehow, in the presence of God and did not know what to say or what to think.
“Help me, God, because I cannot help myself.”
Suddenly she thought of the story of Jesus and the prostitute. How she had come to Him weeping, and how He had simply said to her, “Thy sins be forgiven.” And then He had said, “Thy faith has saved thee.” This story had never left her mind, and now she cried aloud, “Oh, Jesus, I am no better than that woman! I’m worse than she is! I’m just a sinner. But I’m afraid, and I need you. I need you to help me. I believe that you forgave that woman’s sins, and I bring my sins to you, and I ask you to forgive me. That’s all I know how to do, Jesus.”
Suddenly deep within Kefira, something began to happen. She started to weep and did not know why. The tears flowed, and she covered her face with her hands. She knew she was still in terrible danger, but now there was a difference. The fear began to leave, and she knew she was in the presence of God himself. “I don’t know how to become a Christian,” she sobbed, “but I will do anything, Lord Jesus. Forgive my sins and take me to yourself.”
She said no more but sat there, and the peace that came to her was beyond belief. She kept her eyes closed, but she felt almost as if an arm had been placed about her and someone was whispering peace into her ear.
“Is that you, Lord Jesus?” she whispered, and then in the silence she heard no voice. But in her heart there was a peaceful certainty she had never experienced before, and she knew that she had found her Messiah.
****
Josh was flushed with the heat of the sun. He had drunk half of one of the bottles of water and could spare no more. He had made three circles and seen absolutely nothing. With almost every step, he was praying that God would guide him.
He pulled out his watch and saw that it was after three o’clock. She must be terrified, lost like this. God, help me to find her!
He pushed forward with his breath coming short as he punished himself with the pace. There was no thought of giving up, and he kept hoping to hear the sound of the truck, but there was nothing but silence. From time to time he would call out, but his voice seemed thready and futile in the vastness of the desert.
He followed a track broken across the desert and passed by a small wadi. There was no water in it, and he knew by this time Kefira must be terribly thirsty.
He pushed on, and ten minutes later he raised his voice and called, “Kefira—Kefira!”
He kept walking, and then suddenly a tiny movement caught his eye. He looked up, shading his eyes. He ran forward staggering, the bottles bumping against his side, and then he saw the flash of blue, and he knew that he had found her. “Kefira—!” he cried. He ran until he saw her climb out of the wadi and stumble toward him. She would have fallen, but he caught her before she fell. Joy raced through him, and he whispered, “You’re alive—you’re alive, Kefira! Thank God you’re alive.”
Kefira felt his arms around her holding her up, and she heard his voice thanking God for her safety. She had no strength and began to slump. He helped her to sit down and uncapped one of the bottles. “Take a little,” he said.
The water was heavenly, and she drank several swallows before he pulled it away. He said, “You can have more later. Not too much right now.” He sat down beside her and held her in his arms, and she put her face against his chest. “I was going crazy, Kefira.”
She held on to him for a time and felt him rocking her back and forth as a man would rock a child. Then she lifted her eyes and through chapped lips, she said, “I’ve found the Messiah!”
Josh stared at her for a moment, and tears came to his eyes. “You accepted Jesus?”
“Yes, He came to me, and He gave me peace. And He brought you to me, my dear.”
The two stood there, a mere speck in the vast desert. The sun was beating down, but Kefira Reis knew she had found what she had sought for all of her life. The God she thought was her enemy was now her beloved enemy—not even that. Simply her beloved!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Needle
Kefira bent over the table, her brow contracted, and chewed her lower lip. She studied the sheet of paper she had been writing on, and then shook her head. I don’t know how Chaim is going to take this, she thought. He may hate me, but I have to tell him.
And so, my dear brother, I have become a believer in Jesus the Messiah. I tremble when I write this to you, for you are all the family I have. I know this decision would have hurt our parents terribly, and I fear it may hurt you, but I have to be absolutely honest with you. I’ve told you how I thought I might die, and I have told you how I have been reading the Christian Bible for some time, and how the figure of Jesus has become more and more appealing to me. Oh, Chaim, I wish you would read the New Testament! We both had the wrong idea about Jesus. He is love itself. He showed nothing but compassion toward everyone He met who was in trouble or sick. He was stern only with the self-righteous, but to those who confessed themselves sinners He showed nothing but a love such as I cannot describe.
Since that moment in the desert when I cried out to Him to save me, I have been filled with an absolute peace. Even at that moment when I thought death was near, there came into my spirit and into my heart a great quietness that was like nothing I had ever known before. Everything, I knew, was going to be all right. Even if I died, that would be all right too, for I would be with Jesus.
Kefira put down her pen and rubbed her eyes and then prayed silently. Lord, help me to say the words that will help Chaim understand what has happened to me. And I pray, Lord, that you will save him and bring him into a knowledge of you, the savior. I can’t do this alone, but, O Jesus, you can do anything. So I pray you will open his heart to receive you.
Picking up the pen, she began to write again. The letter got longer, for she felt the need to let him know fully what was in her heart.
The work here has gone very badly. Professor Welles seems to have lost heart. He was always so cheerful and so filled with excitement. It was a joy each morning to fix his breakfast, for he would come in rubbing his hands, his eyes sparkling and talking with such great excitement. But that is all gone now. I think he had placed every hope he had in the tell where we were digging. I have come to admire him so much, and it hurts me to see him so affected by the way things have gone.
And Josh is saddened too. He saw this as a chance to begin a new career. He has had a bad life, Chaim, but he has turned from it. I know you would admire him if you could be with him. He is, in many ways, the best man I have ever met.
Kefira suddenly stopped and stared at what she had written. “That’s not honest,” she whispered. “I must tell Chaim the truth.” She began to write again with a hand not quite steady.
You are my brother, and I must tell you that I am in love with Joshua Winslow. This is not a sudden thing, I realize now. We have not known each other all that long, but from the very beginning I felt something for him. Perhaps it had something to do with caring for him when he was injured and helpless. I do not know how love comes, but I must tell you, my dear brother, I care for him greatly. I think he cares for me too, and since Diana Welles left, he has been happier, more free, it seems. I think she had some sort of hold on him, and now that is broken. He has not been a perfect man all his life, but now he is a devoted Christian and determined to serve the Lord with all of his heart. And I admire this in him. I do not know where this will lead, but he cares for me. I think he is afrai
d of his past. He has made mistakes with women, and, of course, he knows that I have had unfortunate experiences with men. So we are a little bit guarded around each other.
I cannot send packages from here, but I am sending money to the chaplain with instructions to provide what you need. There is nothing to do with money out here, so I am so happy to be able to meet some of your needs.
May God richly bless you and keep you. The day will come when you will be free from prison, and I must say that my prayer for you is that you will be free in your spirit as I am now free.
Your loving sister,
Kefira
Sighing deeply, she put the pen down, flexed her fingers, and then read quickly over the letter. It did not satisfy her, but then nothing would, except to have been able to go to Chaim and tell the story of her new life in person. The words seemed so weak, but it was the best she could do. She folded the letter, put it into an envelope, and addressed it. Finally, standing up, she stretched and bent over, blew out the lamp, and got into bed. It was very late, but she was not tired. For a long time she lay there thinking about her brother, and then finally said simply, “Lord, I cannot help him, but you can. Please touch his heart.”
Kefira had discovered that prayer could be like this. She had always prayed formal prayers before, but now she was discovering that sometimes a single sentence, just a word or a phrase uttered to God, would bring her peace. This intrigued her, for she had always been prone to worry about things, keeping them until they became a burden. She remembered the Scripture she had read before she began the letter.
Slowly she began to grow sleepy, and her last thoughts before she drifted off were rather hazy. She was thinking about the professor and about Josh and even about herself, how they all longed to find success in their mission. “Things have gone so badly, Lord Jesus,” she said. “Please help us to get on the right track.” She prayed this prayer until she drifted off to sleep.
****
Josh did not notice anything particularly different about Kefira the next morning, except perhaps she was a little quieter. As usual, she and Lisimba fixed a very good breakfast, and then she sat down and ate with him and Phineas. Josh did most of the talking, for he saw that the professor seemed rather overwhelmed. He made himself keep the conversation going, and finally when the meal was over he said, “Well, we’ve got to keep going. We’ll find something, I’m sure.”
“I’m not sure, Joshua.” Phineas drew his hand across his face and shook his head. “I have no earthly idea of where to go next. This has never happened to me before. Always, on every expedition, the problem was not so much where to dig as how to get to it and how to keep the work going. Now I seem to be a ship without a rudder.”
Josh spoke rapidly, trying to convince the professor, but finally he ran out of things to say and fell silent.
“I have something to tell both of you,” Kefira said.
Joshua noticed that her face was strained, and he had a sudden fear that she might be falling ill.
After a moment’s silence in which Kefira seemed to struggle, she said, “I’ve not known whether to tell you about this or not, but now since everything’s gone so badly, I think I must. You will probably think it’s crazy.”
“What is it, child?” Phineas asked, his eyes becoming more alert. “Is there some sort of trouble?”
“Not trouble, but I don’t know what you think about dreams. I’ve had the same dream over and over again.”
“What sort of a dream, Kefira?” Josh asked gently. He saw she was having difficulty and said, “In the Scripture God spoke to people through dreams many times, and you know my stepmother. She believes greatly in dreams—that God sometimes uses them.”
“I’ve always dreamed very vividly. As a matter of fact, I dreamed about Egypt before I even knew I’d be coming here. I didn’t know what it meant, of course. I dreamed about the sphinx and the pyramids and the desert.” She turned to Josh and said, “And, Josh, I dreamed about your house before I ever saw it.”
“Our house in Georgia?”
“Yes, when I was in New York before we ever met. I had the most vivid dream. I didn’t understand it. I dreamed I was walking down a road, and there in front of me was the house, two stories, four columns, freshly painted white … just exactly as it is. Why, I even saw a woman hanging out clothes—and Stonewall, that bluish dog. I saw him.” Her eyes grew excited, and she said, “I saw it all.”
“You really saw all this?” Josh asked, incredulous.
“Yes, but those aren’t the dreams I’m talking about.”
“What did you dream, my dear?” Phineas urged her.
“It was the dream of a place. There were no people in it,” Kefira said thoughtfully. “All I saw really was some kind of large black rock that was very sharp and pointed. It seemed to point to the sky almost like a finger. It was out by itself in the desert—just like out there,” she waved with her hand, indicating the desert that lay outside the camp. “Nothing but emptiness, and this one black stone pointing up. And beside it was a house made out of stone, and there was grass on top of the house, and a goat was eating the grass.”
“Well, I’ve seen that kind of house many times,” the professor said quickly. “You’ve probably seen them too. The people sometimes build flat roofs, and the grass seed takes root. I haven’t seen a goat on one, though.”
“Was the dream the same every time?” Josh inquired.
“Every time. I dreamed it again last night,” she said, “and just before I went to sleep, I prayed that God would show you where to dig, Professor.”
“Why, how kind of you, my dear.”
“Do you think that this dream could mean something?” Kefira asked. She was embarrassed now that she had told it and then shook her head. “It probably doesn’t mean anything. There probably isn’t any stone like that except in my dream.”
“Oh yes, missy, there is such a stone!”
All three of them turned at once to see Lisimba, who had been standing back waiting to pour their coffee. Now he bobbed his head up and down and grinned mightily. “Yes, indeed, there is such a stone. I have seen it myself.”
“You have!” Professor Welles exclaimed. “Where?”
“It is not too far from Thebes, but it is out in the desert. Far out.”
“What did it look like?” Kefira asked eagerly.
“It looked like you said. A black finger pointing at the sky. It is well known to the natives. They call it the needle.”
“And you’ve seen it yourself, Lisimba?” Josh demanded.
“Oh yes. I was working for a man, and we went that way, and I saw it. One of the men who worked with me lived close by. He told me that place was haunted. It is not good.”
“But was there a house beside it?” Kefira asked, her eyes bright.
“Yes, just as you said. A stone house is not far from it. We passed by very quickly, but I remembered it, for I had never seen a rock so sharp. There was no goat on the house when I was there,” he said apologetically.
Kefira turned to the professor and said, “I don’t know anything about archeology, but I’ve had this dream five or six times, and it’s always the same. Could it possibly be that God is telling us that that is the place to go dig?”
Professor Welles stared at her for a moment, then slapped his thighs. “Well, by George, I don’t have any other ideas! I think it’s worth taking a look at anyway.” He laughed. “Please, don’t either of you tell any reporters about this. I like to appear a little more scientific than going out on an expedition based on a woman’s dream.”
“I think we ought to try it, Professor,” Josh said quickly. “We don’t have any other options really, so I say let’s go take a look at it.”
“All right, we’ll do it!” Phineas said firmly. He rose and said, “Let’s pull the tents down and get out of here as quickly as we can.”
The work then began with th
e professor and Josh shouting orders to the pared-down crew, and Kefira and Lisimba began packing away her cooking gear. Once Josh came in for a drink of water, and she said, “Josh, it may all mean nothing.”
“Who can tell? God works in mysterious ways sometimes, Kefira.” He reached out and took her hand and held it for a moment. “Don’t worry about it. We can’t be any worse off, and I’d like to see that black needle myself!”
****
Kefira was sitting in the front seat between Joshua and Lisimba. The winds were driving the sands in swirling tiny whirlwinds, and she strained her eyes ahead. Ever since they had left on their quest, she had been terrified, thinking that it was all merely a dream. She had said almost nothing, but Josh and Lisimba had carried the brunt of the conversation.
Suddenly Lisimba said, “There, you see him?”
Both Josh and Kefira eagerly strained their eyes, looking forward. “I see something over there,” Kefira said. “Is that it?”
“Yes, go that way, Mr. Josh.”
Josh turned slightly and saw in his rearview mirror that the professor was following close behind. “Mighty barren out here,” he said, “but then most of Egypt is.”
Kefira did not answer. She had all her attention focused on the sight before her. As they drew nearer, her heart seemed to leap into her throat. “Look, Josh, do you see it?”
“I sure do. Never saw anything like it.”
As they drew near, Kefira exclaimed, “Look, there’s the house over there—and look, Josh, there’s grass on it and there’s a goat!”
Josh gasped with surprise. “You’re right—there is a goat!” He turned to Kefira and, taking one hand off the wheel, put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. “Just like in your dream.”
“Yes, the Lord God, He gives us good dreams sometimes,” Lisimba chortled.
Josh brought the truck to a stop twenty feet from the house and from the large rock that was set firmly in the earth. He got out of the truck, helped Kefira out, and the two of them waited until the professor climbed out of the other truck and came to stand beside them. “Well, Professor, what do you think?”
Beloved Enemy, The (House of Winslow Book #30) Page 28