Snakes

I am not afraid of snakes, but I have much respect for them. Through the years I have learned to tell the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes. My wife does not enjoy a walk in the woods during any season as she is afraid of snakes. If she finds herself in an area that even looks snaky, then she will stomp her feet as she walks. She says that snakes feel the vibrations and flee. That sounds like an “old husband’s tale” to me!

She has been known to say, “The only good snake is a dead snake.” One of those occasions was when a rat snake swallowed a baby duck just a few feet from Cheryl and two-year-old Caleb. I was not at home, so she called across the way to our neighbor who was tending to his chickens. He came with his snake stick that would allow him to capture the snake alive. Cheryl told him that she did not want him to catch it, but she wanted him to kill it. But he was not agreeable as he and his wife were vegans who did not believe in killing any animal.

Our family has encountered snakes many times over the years in different countries from spitting cobras in eastern Burkina Faso to snake charmers in Marrakech.

There is an adage that snakes travel in pairs, and those who study snakes say that it is not true. However, we killed a sand viper on our back screened-in porch in the bush of Burkina Faso and the next day another one appeared at the back door. One of our colleagues was bitten by a sand viper on the wrist. We often slept outside on cots because the heat was so stifling. Our colleague was reaching for his flashlight on the ground when the viper bit him. If we had not stored an anti-venom in our kerosene refrigerator, he would have been seriously ill. His entire arm was swollen and discolored for two months after the bite.

John Hill was the “river rat” who taught me so much about plumbing, electricity, welding, and other skills. Once when the Mississippi River was flooded and water backed up in its tributaries so that islands were formed where the land was more elevated, we were hunting rabbits. Mr. Hill and I would approach one end of the island in his hand-made flat-bottomed wooden boat and walk through the brush to flush the rabbits. One day as I was stepping over a log, Mr. Hill fired his shotgun and it hit just under my foot. On the other side of the log was a rattlesnake. That shotgun blast scared the “you know what” out of me, but it probably saved my life.

While living on our farm here in north Georgia, I had a running battle with snakes. The poisonous ones by and large left us and our animals alone. There were occasions when we were threatened by rattlesnakes or copperheads, but most of them were when we were the aggressors in trying to get them off our porch or removing them from the road—in a permanent sort of way. The biggest problems were with the king snakes and rat snakes. Both are predators and they love chicken and duck eggs, and adults can swallow baby ducks and chicks. However, I liked having them around as they thrive on mice and rats that love to inhabit barns and eat animal feed.

Therein was our problem on the farm. I could not bring myself to kill them as they were beneficial to keeping rodents away from my barns. I tried catching them and transporting them a mile of so down the road, but I learned that they are very territorial, so they would return to our farm.

One day Collin and one of his friends were helping me with chores at the barns. His friend went with me to check out a duck nest in a small goat barn. As we rounded the corner there was a huge rat snake with a large lump in its body just behind the head. It had begun to swallow one of my duck eggs. With one foot I held the snake still while with the other foot I massaged the snake in front of the passage of the egg until I backed the egg out of the snake’s mouth. Then I continued to gently massage the egg until it was expelled from the snake’s mouth unbroken. I placed the egg back in the nest. The mother duck sat quietly on her nest during this altercation. This snake made me mad, so I hauled it off three miles hoping never to see it again.

Snakes played an important role in the religious traditions of Canaanites, Egyptians, Greeks, and Mesopotamians, and they are mentioned over 80 times in the Bible. They are almost always associated with poison or craftiness beginning with the Garden of Eden and culminating in Revelation as “the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan.” (Revelation 12:9)

Today, we use a lot of metaphors and examples of snakes including “a snake in the grass;” “cold-blooded as a snake;” “snake eyes;” and “if it was a snake, it would have bitten you.”

During our service in other countries over the last four decades, Matthew 10:16 has been particularly important to me as we served in some countries that do not welcome foreigners coming to tell their people about Jesus. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”