Ant Food

While in the Ashéninka village of Pueblo Libre I slept for a few nights in our well used Coleman tent that Quilmer and Jonathan had very thoughtfully put up for me while I was en route. They had arrived a week or so before. The tent is built for four people and I was only one person so there was more than ample space for me to fling my belongings about with reckless abandon.
On one of those nights I opened and ate a bag of “Torti Frits” corn ships (one of the local answers to taco flavored Fritos, but which pales in comparison). While studying I laid the bag of remaining crumbs aside and later went to sleep. About 12:40 AM I awakened and kept feeling little sensations of movement on the skin of my arms and my face. I slapped at them and found that I had a few ants on my person.
Turning on my light I found that I had more than a few visitors. In fact my whole pillow was covered with black ants which meant I was lying on my face in the middle of them. My sleeping bag under me was also quite populated and on the floor, streaming to and from my little corn chip bag were many dozens of the critters.
I jumped up and grabbed my repellent and started discouraging them as I also killed as many as I could with toilet paper in my hand. I thought I was managing until I decided to look under my pile of clothing. To my horror I found no less than a thousand of the six-legged beasts congregated for no apparent reason under my pants and underwear (on the tent floor, not on me) and that the whole convention had streamed in from a small hole in the floor. I quickly dispelled the mass of the Hymenopterans (Hymenopterids???) with repellent and they began to organize for a hasty retreat the way they had come in. In minutes the rascals had made their way back to wherever they came from ( at the time I was sure they had come from and returned to the underworld—at least they came from under the house.
I went back to sleep that morning keenly aware of the stragglers who couldn’t find the hole in the floor and who might just like to sink their little jaws into my skin. So much for peaceful sleep in the jungle!
It makes me think about how our enemy, the devil, can set loose his strategies upon us while we “sleep”. We think all is well while the armies of darkness are marching against us. We allow holes to form in our spiritual protection and in they come and are soon scurrying all over us with temptation and sin, and our spiritual condition sinks lower and lower. When finally we awaken we are shocked that so much has gone wrong.
Lord keep us spiritually awake so that we may truly rest in You!