A Ride With A Stranger - written by Alfred (a short story for kids)

Once upon a time in a place called Cameroun, there lived a pretty little girl named Doris. She was raised by a single Mum who always told her not to talk to strangers or accept car rides from them.

Doris had a weakness for cute little puppies but her Mum refused to buy her one.

One day, while Doris was walking home alone, a stranger’s car pulled up and the stranger started talking her. Doris ignored the stranger but soon noticed that there was another little girl in the back sit along with two cute little puppies.

When the stranger saw that Doris liked puppies from the way she looked at the puppies in his back seat, he promised to give her one if she would agree to take a ride with him and let him drive her home. After he noticed the small Gideon’s bible sticking out of Doris’ breast coat pocket, he told her that he was a Christian Missionary and this was one of his Good - Samaritan deeds for the day.

Doris could hear the Holy Spirit telling her to walk away, she could feel a strong feeling in her gut that it was best to walk away. She could even hear the voice of her Mum in her head telling her not to accept car rides from strangers. Doris wanted to walk away. But she was going to get a free puppy, beside this man wasn’t a bad man he was a missionary. There was nothing to worry about. This was an exceptional case, if Mum were here she would have seen that the man is a nice man too.

Doris got into the car, gave the man directions to her home and started playing with puppies and the other little girl in the car.

The other little girl offered Doris some of her soft drink. Doris drank it and immediately fell asleep. When she woke up six hours later she was still in the car and the other little girl was sitting comfortably in the front seat beside the stranger. Both sides of the road were covered with trees and bushes. There was no building in sight. It was clear that she was very far away from home – very far away from the city.

Doris tried to get the man to stop the car. She tried to get an explanation. She didn’t want to believe that what she thought was happening was what was happening. She screamed with tears in her eyes. She hoped it was all a bad dream. But all she did was make the stranger pull over, get into the back seat and then start beating her up; leaving her with cuts and bruises after which she had no choice but to keep quiet – crying silently to herself as she sat beside the puppies she now loathed.

7 days later, Doris was in a little room with five other girls that were also abducted. They were in a totally different country which spoke a different language. She and the other girls were being groomed to become prostitutes. The unthinkable had happened to her just because she failed to obey the advice of her Mum and listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Doris felt dirty, empty, hopeless and useless. She blamed herself for the condition or the turn her life would just have to take. She would never see her Mum or her friends from school or have a normal life anymore. She would become a sex – slave of Hip Hop loving irresponsible pimps for the rest of her life. There was no way out.

Just at that moment, Doris remembered a sermon a preacher had once preached in church. The preacher said that with God there is always a way out. He spoke about how God sent an angel to get Peter out of prison. And about how the chains broke and prison doors opened when Paul and Silas sang and praised God while in prison.

Doris immediately, started singing, clapping and giving praises to God in that little room they were locked up in. The other girls thought that Doris had lost it, how can she be giving praise to God and be happy considering the situation they were all in?

The pimps soon rushed into the room to beat up Doris to get her to keep quiet but they soon got tired. No matter what they did, she just won’t stop praising God. The pimps decided to leave her alone what difference did it make, she was in there camp; nobody would hear her. With time they would break her like they broke all the others.

That night with Doris still singing – her throat dry and her voice cracked, the police raided the camp and rescued them. She knew it was the hand of God at work. It was no coincidence that the police finally tracked down the gang of pimps they had been looking for, for years. It was actually her loud singing voice echoing through the camp that was in a secret location that helped the cops know where the camp was. None of the pimps knew there were any cops anywhere near their secret camp looking for them.

The police had Doris safely returned to her own country and reunited with her mother who had been having sleepless nights since the day her only daughter was abducted.

Doris walked away with two valuable lessons from that experience. 

First, don’t disobey Mama. 

Second, with God there is a way out of every crisis cause nothing is too difficult for God.  

THE END.