Adapted from the biography of Samuel Morris by Lindley Baldwin

Kaboo’s Heavenly Adoption

The hot afternoon sun beat down on the field where several African boys were working. “Kaboo, are you going to the Bible lesson tonight?” Tomi asked, stopping by his friend who was busy picking. “Miss Knolls said that she has a new song to teach us.”

Kaboo’s brown face lit up with a smile. “Sure I am,” he said. “I will hear more about God, our Father, and Jesus who came to save poor boys like us.” As Tomi left to empty his bucket, Kaboo whispered again the wonderful words, “God, our Father.” He knew that his Heavenly Father was nearby, even though the teenage boy couldn’t see or feel Him. That was a comfort to the lonesome boy.

Kaboo’s earthly father was an African chieftain, but he was far, far away. “If I go see him, I know I will be captured again,” the boy thought, fearfully. Only a few months ago he had been the helpless prisoner of a cruel enemy chief. “You will be beaten every day until your father pays me all that he owes!” the drunken chief had said. But when Kaboo’s desperate father had brought everything that he had, the greedy man was still not satisfied. Kaboo remembered his father’s hopeless eyes when he looked at him for the last time. He had left him to suffer alone, because he was too poor to save his son! The memory brought a terrible darkness of fear and hate over Kaboo’s heart, and he buried his face in his hands. “It was bad, very bad,” he muttered to himself.

Then Kaboo remembered the day that the wonderful Light from heaven had come to him and told him to flee. “That was my Deliverance Day,” he whispered, lifting his eyes to the sunshine once more. He had been so miserable and weak that he wished he was dead, and then suddenly he had strength to run through the forest to freedom! “God, my Father, did that for poor Kaboo,” the boy said aloud. “But I did not know that it was You, Father, until I came here. Then Miss Knolls told me about the Light, and how Jesus can save us from hate and fear. Now You are my Father, and Jesus is my Brother. This is good, very good.” The sun was setting behind the trees and it was almost time for the Bible class to begin. Kaboo lifted his full buckets and stretched his long legs to catch up with Tomi. “I want to tell others about God, our Father,” Kaboo told him. “Many are afraid and full of badness and hate, but Jesus is good. He can save them and show them light from heaven, because He loves them. I want to tell them, like Miss Knolls told us.”

“That is good, Kaboo,” agreed Tomi. “You will be a good missionary, like Miss Knolls.”

“No, I am not like Miss Knolls,” Kaboo said, sadly. “I am not so good. Sometimes I think bad thoughts and hate the bad chief who hurt me. That is not what Jesus said I should do. Jesus said I must love my enemies.”

That evening, as they listened to Miss Knolls and sang songs, Kaboo did not feel happy. After the lesson was over, he spoke to his teacher about it. “Can you talk to God, our Father, for me?” he said. “It is bad that I am such a no-good boy.”

“What has happened?” asked Miss Knolls kindly.

“I think a bad thought,” Kaboo said. “Jesus said to love my enemies, and I think it is too hard. Jesus said to tell others that God is love, but how can I? I want to tell them, but I no-good. You are good. Will you talk to our Father about it?”

“Yes, let us pray,” said Miss Knolls. “Dear Father in heaven, Kaboo needs help. Please show him how much You love him. Thank You for saving him and forgiving him. Help him to forgive his enemies and pray for them.”

“Yes, Father,” added Kaboo. “I thank You always for saving me. You are good and You forgive poor Kaboo. Now I will pray for the bad chief. He doesn’t know You, Father. Show chief that drink is bad. Show him light from heaven. Help Kaboo’s poor father, who has nothing. Father in heaven, You have everything. I thank You for Your love. Help poor Kaboo to have love, too.”

“Amen,” said Miss Knolls, with a smile. “God helped you to love your enemy when you prayed for him, didn’t He?”

“I think so,” said Kaboo. Then he smiled, too. “Yes, I do love him. I am glad I talked to my Father about it!”

“Keep talking to your Father, Kaboo. He will help you to do what is right, because you are His child,” Miss Knolls encouraged him.

The bunkhouse was dark when Kaboo crawled into his top bunk that night, but he didn’t feel sleepy. His mind was full of the thoughts of the day. “You will be a good missionary, like Miss Knolls,” Tomi had told him. Kaboo wanted that very much. If only he could tell others about the good Father who loved them! “Miss Knolls said that my Father will help me because I am His child,” he reminded himself. But deep inside, far back in his memories, Kaboo was still the poor beaten boy who was afraid. Dark fears and anger seemed to fi ght against the bright light in his heart. What could poor Kaboo do? He felt scared and alone. Suddenly he sat up in bed. “Father, help poor Kaboo!” he said out loud. “Bad thoughts are making me afraid! Father, I am poor boy in trouble. Help poor Kaboo, Father!”

“Shhh! Can’t you be quiet?” someone muttered in the darkness. “We want to sleep!”

Kaboo tried to be quiet, but soon his pleading voice could be heard again. “Father, You are good. Help this poor boy. I don’t learn well. I don’t remember what Jesus tells me. My heart feels cold. Help me…” The boy in the bunk below shook the bed and Kaboo shut his mouth, but the heaviness in his heart didn’t go away.

For many nights after that, Kaboo talked to his Father about the needs in his heart. Sometimes when he prayed he felt happy, but many times he felt sad and afraid as he thought of all his problems. And one of his problems was that his prayers kept the other boys in the bunkhouse awake. “If you don’t stop, you will have to sleep outside!” they warned him at last. What could poor Kaboo do?

“Miss Knolls said that we should be hungry for good things from God,” he told Tomi at lunch break the next day. “My body is hungry for this food, but my heart is even more hungry for good things from God. I cannot stop asking, because Jesus said that if I ask, I will receive.”

“True,” said Tomi. “But when you pray, you are keeping everyone awake. Is that good?

Remember what Miss Knolls told us about Jesus, after He fed so many people? Then He went away to pray by himself.”

“That is good,” Kaboo agreed. “The other boys need to sleep. Tonight I will go away to pray by myself in the woods. My Father will talk with me there.”

And that is what he did. One night, as Kaboo sat under a tree in the dark woods praying, he thought about all the trees around him. “I am just like one little tree in all the woods, Father,” he said. “How can You love one little tree, like me? I am not a big good tree. I can’t do much. You are a big, great Father. Jesus said that You love the little birds and You love me more. My father loved me, but he couldn’t save me. You love me, and You saved me. But I am a poor boy and can’t do much good for You. Help poor Kaboo.”

Slowly he stood and walked with tired steps to the bunkhouse. It was past midnight, but his mind could not rest. As Kaboo lay in bed, his heart continued praying. “I need You, Father. I have nothing. I am nothing. Father, please take this nothing. I give it to You. Your love and power can make it into something good.”

All at once the room started to get light. Kaboo sat up and looked around. Was it already morning? No, the others were still sleeping. Brighter and brighter the light became until it seemed to lift Kaboo right off of his bed! A thrill of love and power fi lled the dark-skinned boy. Kaboo smiled. Then he shouted. “Thank You, Father! You are so good to poor Kaboo! You said that You love him that is poor and little. You have good plans for me and will give me everything I need. Now I know that I don’t need to be afraid, because You have adopted me!”

“What has happened?” asked a voice from a nearby bed. “Why are you shouting?”

“My Father is here and He has adopted me!” Kaboo said with a joyful laugh. “Do you see the light?”

“You are crazy,” the boy replied. “It is the middle of the night and you are waking everyone up.”

“Is something wrong?” someone else asked, sleepily.

“No, it is good!” Kaboo replied. The room was dark again, but his heart was full of light. “My Father is good and I am thanking Him!”

“He is crazy,” muttered the boy beneath Kaboo.

“He’s been out in the woods and a devil has gotten into him!” said another voice, fearfully.

“There is no devil here, but my Father is here,” Kaboo replied calmly. “The devil brings hate and fear, but my Father is stronger. He is the Heavenly King and I am not afraid anymore.”

It was not long after this that there was a baptism service at a nearby river. Kaboo was one of the new Christians that stood on the riverbank to tell his testimony. Before he followed the minister into the water, Miss Knolls spoke to him. “Now that Jesus has forgiven you and given you a new heart of love and peace, you will have a new name, too,” she said. “There was a good man who taught me to love and serve Jesus. I will give you his name: Samuel Morris.”

Kaboo’s brown face glowed with happiness. “I am not Kaboo anymore,” he agreed. “I am now Sammy, and I will teach others to love and serve Jesus. My Father will give me everything I need, because He is the Heavenly King.” And it was true. Sammy was a new boy after that. He was no longer afraid or lonely, and when he thought of the cruel chief who had made him so miserable, there was no bitterness in his heart. “My Father fills me up with good things and there is no room for bad things here,” he said to Miss Knolls one day, patting his chest. “I want you to teach me more of the good things from my Father. I want the other missionaries to teach me, too!”

His patient teacher smiled at him. “Yes, Sammy. We will teach you the good things God has promised in His Word. You are learning to read and soon you will read the Bible for yourself.”

Reading was still hard for Sammy, but he was eager to learn. After spending the day working, he would go to visit one of the missionaries and listen to them teach from the Bible. One day he learned about the wonderful promise that Jesus gave in John 14. “ ‘I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever,’* (John 14:16)” he heard.

“Jesus was telling his disciples that He would soon return to the Father in heaven, and they were sad about that,” the missionary explained. “But Jesus said they should not be sad, because God’s own good Spirit, called the Comforter, or the Holy Ghost, would come to stay with them.”

“Stay with them all the time, and not leave them?” asked Sammy. “That is good!”

“That is right,” the missionary agreed. “We need God’s Comforter to be with us and give us power to do what is right all the time. Our Father will give us the Holy Ghost if we ask him.”

“Sammy has the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,” the boy said, with a bright smile. “Once I was poor Kaboo who loved Jesus, but bad thoughts often made me afraid. I asked my Father to take this poor boy and help him. And then my Father came with a bright light. He adopted me to be his own boy. Now I know the Holy Ghost is here,” Sammy said, patting his chest. “I am glad that He will stay with me and never leave me. I want to learn more about the Holy Ghost!”

“Yes, now you will learn even more, because Jesus tells us, ‘He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,’* (John 14:26)” the missionary told him.

“I am a poor boy and don’t know much, but that is okay,” Sammy said. “My Father has given me the Holy Ghost to teach me. He knows everything, and that is good!”