It was very quiet! Andres sat on a balsa log on the bank of the great Amazon River watching the water flow swiftly past him. A half dozen scrawny chickens, long-legged and quarrelsome, scratched about in the fenceless yard surrounding his home just behind him. Two very thin, long-nosed and long-tailed pigs were rooting in the dirt.
His home somehow looked a bit like the long-legged chickens, for it stood up high on stilts, and had a feathery-looking roof made of palm leaves. Steps leading up into the house were merely notches on a pole. But it was home to Andres, a black-eyed, black-haired Cocamilla Indian boy.
Dreamily he sat on the big log and gazed out over the broad river. Grandmother had taken the canoe and gone across the water to visit a friend. Father and Mother were at work on the farm.
Andres was too young to have many worries, but one thing did make him afraid at times. He would hear his people talk about the "River People."
The "River People"! Andres had always feared them as did all the Indians of their tribe. No one knew much about them, but they thought that they captured people to make them their slaves.
This morning as Andres sat and dreamed, he became aware of a rumbling and a great movement beneath him. The log began to move toward the river. It was a small landslide, and before Andres could flee to the safety of the bank, he found himself carried swiftly into the great stream.
Terrified, the poor boy clung to the log and screamed and cried for help. But all the while the powerful current was carrying him swiftly downstream. As fish nibbled his toes, and now and then a branch would strike his foot, he was terrified, thinking surely it was the dreaded "River People" trying to capture him!
An hour-two hours went by, and Andres was carried down the river, clinging desperately to his log. If the "River People" got him, where would his soul go to? Many thoughts went through his frightened mind as he was carried along on the swift water.
Back in the jungle garden Andres' father had heard the noise and his son's cries. Knowing that their canoe was gone he ran through the jungle to the next farm to get a boat. It was several hours before he finally reached Andres, fearfully but bravely still holding fast to his log.
With great rejoicing they returned up the river together, and how good it was to be safely home again at last! But Andres could never forget his experience.
One day he asked his father, "Where would my soul have gone, Father, if the 'River People' had taken me?"
"I do not know, my son," answered his father. "The priest no doubt can tell you."
"Can you tell me where my soul would have gone?" he asked the priest, but the priest could not say. For several years he asked many people that question, but no one could tell him.
Then one day, three years later, strange people moved into the nearby village of Lagunas. They were not Indians, but were white people. Andres and his parents soon realized that they had come to teach them things that they read from a black Book. This Book they said was from God in heaven, and it seemed to answer many questions that were in Andres' mind. He wondered, could it answer the question no one else had been able to answer, the question concerning where his soul would have gone if the "River People" had taken him?
These white people Andres learned were missionaries; and soon they began a Sunday school where they taught all who would come from their black Book, the Bible. Andres longed to have a Bible for himself, for it seemed, although he never missed Sunday school or a meeting, that he could not hear enough from this wonderful Book.
"The Bible has sixty-six books in it. It is good to know the names of all these books in their right order. I will give each one of you who learns the names of these books a Bible as a reward," the missionary announced one Sunday.
What wonderful news that was to Andres! The missionaries thought it would take the Indian children a long time to learn these names which were new and strange-sounding to them.
But the following Sunday Andres returned to say, "I have learned the names of the sixty-six books of the Bible!" and he was able to say them perfectly.
As Andres listened carefully to every message that he heard, and as he searched his Bible for himself, he found that there were two places his soul could have gone to had the "River People" taken him: either to heaven or to hell. As God's Holy Spirit convicted his heart of sin he realized that the place he would have gone to would have been hell.
For over a year, Andres longed to have his sins forgiven and to be sure he was going to heaven. Finally one day he came to the missionaries, and boldly asked, "Please, tell me, how can I get to heaven?" Gladly they told him that the Lord Jesus had come from heaven to save him, and had borne God's awful punishment for sin when He died upon the cross. Now all that Andres needed to do was to believe, and to receive.
That night after Andres got home he opened the Bible the missionaries had given him.
"Verily, verily," he read, "I say unto you, he that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."
Andres' father was already asleep in bed, but Andres went to him and awakened him.
"Father, Father! Are you awake? I have found the answer to my question! I know now that my soul would have gone to hell if I had drowned in the river. But I have learned, too, that the Lord Jesus has died for my sins that I might go to heaven. Father, may I accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior?"
Startled awake, the father listened carefully to his boy. Perhaps he remembered his own terrible fear the day he thought surely his son would be drowned in the mighty river.
"Yes, my son, you may!" he answered.
With a heart full of rejoicing Andres received the Lord Jesus as His Savior that night. Later his father and mother, grandmother and sister accepted the Lord also.
Today Andres is preaching the good news of salvation to his own Indian people who are still living in fear of such evil spirits as the "River People."