Into the Unknown

"Who are those two old men?," the boys asked their father, pointing to the two approaching white- haired men who seemed to be enjoying a lite conversation. The old men walked like they owned the ground, with confidence the size of a great mountain.

"That's Joshua and Caleb," their father replied. "They are the only survivors of the generation that came down from Egypt, he continued. "God allowed them to see the promised land because they gave a positive report when they were sent out by Moses to spy the land, he said, with a look of pride on his face as they approached the old men.
"Everyone else who whined and grumbled died in the wilderness," their father said, with a lowered tone that made it sound like he had lost someone important in the wilderness. "You can find their whole story in Numbers 13 and 14," he said.

The kids looked scared as Caleb and Joshua approached them. The boys' father made a customary bow as he extended his hand to the old men. Caleb walked passed him straight to the boys.

"You look scared little man," he said to one of the boys as he lowered his walking stick to pick the boy up. Joshua seemed lost in conversation with the boys' father.

"I want to be like you when I grow up," the other boy said to Caleb, as he picked Caleb's stick up to hand it to him. "Not afraid of giants, you know," the boy continued. "Then I too can see the promised land," the boys continued, as he pointed to the endless stretch of the desert behind them.

Joshua overheard the boy and turned around to face him.
"What a brave young man you have here Simeon," he said to the boys' father, proudly. "This one will for sure be useful in your old age; feed him well," Joshua remarked, as he briskly shook Simeon's shoulder with a strength that almost put the 40 year-old Simeon to the ground.

"You almost dislocated my shoulder old man," Simeon said, jokingly.
" I have been dislocating men's shoulders ever since I was a young man," Joshua said, alluding to his war days. "Let me have one more shoulder before I die," he continued, joking back.

Then Joshua turned to the boys and said, "Boys, I can tell you for sure that fear kills. But fear of the unknown? Well, my friend Caleb here and I believe that that's just a waste of time," he lectured.

"To become anything in life, you must first conquer the fear of the unknown," Joshua told the boys, pointing to the same desert that one of the boys had pointed to earlier.
"And second," he continued, "Never allow your dad here to stop you from dreaming big," he said, running his fat wrinkled fingers through Simeon's bushy hair. The boys laughed, remembering how their father usually rubs his fingers through their hair the same way.

The younger boy walked up to Joshua, almost locking his chest with Joshua's knees and said, "I am going to conquer the world like you," flexing his almost-not-there muscles.
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Happy not fearing the unknown!

Amon Munyaneza