Page 96 - Unseen Hands by Nona Freeman

Unseen Hands
adults. They shouted, marched, danced, and praised God without thefaintest notion ofwhy.They simply followed his direction. Early in his stay the family gave him the name Paulus and soon forgot his real name.
After the Italian invasion in 1936, he said, "Lisa, prepare my breakfast. My Father told me the Italians will take me to a place where I can do my work."
"Let it not happen," she answered, while she com plied with his request. Only a few yards down the road, Italian police stopped him and, being suspicious of his
answers to their questions, committed him to a jail in Dire Dowa. He returned several months later to a warm welcome.
"How did you get out of prison?" Asfaw's family asked.
He did not appreciate his release. "That was the perfect place for my work," he answered with disgust,
'but the authorities said, 'Send this man away; we can not stand his loud prayers,' so they sent me back."
One day Salome saw her eccentric guest staggering toward the house, holding onto the fence and sometimes
falling.
Oh, he's drunk, she thought, and hurried to help him.
When she reached him she saw that he trembled violent ly. No, he's not drunk, she realized, he's having a stroke or a heart attack. I must get him to the hospital.
Heresistedgoingand kept repeating, "I'm not sick, praise God, hallelujah. I'm not sick."
A Dutch nurse at the hospital explained to Salome, "He is not sick; the power of God is on him. The Lord has made him wonderful promises. He said, 'The name
of Jesus will rise over Ethiopia mightier than the sun.' " 94