Orna wakes with a start. Her heart races and the baby moves uncomfortably in her womb. She carefully counts the weeks and knows she is through her first trimester. Delivery won’t come for twenty-six weeks, and God promises help through the miracle of birth.
It will be ten weeks before her husband arrives home from his journey upriver. In the distress of the moment, she prays silently.
‘Could you please be close to him tonight, Lord, he needs you more than he has ever needed you before.’
Her daughter, Chava, and her kids stir in an outer alcove—the one Nokh had crafted so beautifully, it is one of his greatest creations.
A stream of water bubbles alongside a tall partition decorated with mementos which each family had collected or crafted.
A secure covering overhead looks like evergreen branches that never lost their needles. The floor of the alcove is the talk of their neighborhood.
Both Orna and Nokh had worked hard at tanning skins, cutting, coloring, and weaving strips into the thickest, amazingly soft carpet.
Whenever Chava and kids come over, they beg to sleep together in this place. Tonight, her husband sleeps here too.
He comes to Orna and comforts her.
‘What is wrong?’
She looks at him questioningly.
He answers,
‘I think I know why you are distressed.’
Word has spread, in the center of town, that a scouting party went at Ywek’s command to spy on Enoch as he travels. He and Chava know something bad could come of it. That’s why they stay close to Orna.
‘Has our God put into your heart to pray for Father Enoch?’
“Yes! He has taught us that we do not need to wait for the altar sacrifice to pray. We do it; anytime, anywhere.’
Chava speaks up.
‘You know, mother, dad talks to God all the time.’
‘You are right Chava. His prayers remind me of one talking with his or her best friend. For your dad, prayer is about relationship with his personal God.’
Then Orna exclaims,
‘He does not just say a prayer –Enoch communes with the Lord!’
Orna adds with conviction and confidence in her voice. She knows her own trust in God has been strengthened by her husband’s example of faith.
The whole group of them pray together until morning – parents, children, grandchildren, together.
At the same moment, many miles upriver, Enoch wakes with an uncanny feeling. His shoulder burns from infection, where the cat had slashed him, but something else troubles him.
Silence surrounds the place where he lay. The birds are quiet. Absence of birdsong is unusual just before morning light.
Squirrels stop dancing through the trees.
But Enoch’s continual reliance on God, settles his troubled mind. Today he expects to arrive at his grandfather Mahalalel’s place. Both he and Orna have been here twice before, and they always enjoy hospitality and welcome refreshment and rest.
And the best part of their visits has been the stories about Adam and Eve; about the Garden of Eden, and God, who created all things that have been created.
After breaking fast, he reads words he had written:
‘The Lord was pleased with Abel’s offering.’
Abel died! He was murdered because he did what God asked him to do.
‘Will the Lord take my life if I stand against the false teaching of the festival?’
To be honest Enoch hates death. God did not want death. Enoch has been created to live a life of freedom. All people are like God with intellect, emotion, and the power of choice. Humans are not puppets to be manipulated in God’s hands. They are not animals.
Enoch is afraid to die. The stench of rotting flesh convinces him that death is unnatural. It is inevitable.
‘God created all of us, male and female, in his image. I can’t get my head around it: Perhaps Adam can help me, if I could only meet him.’
He carefully folds the words he had written from God, places them in his pack, swings it up, he takes one step, making sure he leaves the camp site as clean as he had found it. He winces from the weight on his injured shoulder when motion from behind alters his senses and causes him to stop dead in his tracks.
Pivoting quickly on one leg Enoch looks into the faces of three young men – athletes, strong, virile, desirable.
There is good and there is evil. If they are evil, their countenances do not betray them. The knives they hold do.
‘How can evil look so beautiful?’