James Patterson’s Journal—The Story of The Congregation of Andria Church During the Dark Time (Patterson’s Tale #7)
(Note: Parts #1 to #14 of “Civilization’s Interregnum” can be read by logging on to >timesexaminer.com>, and then clicking on my name on our Home Page under “Local Columnists”. Scroll down the lists to Part #1, published Aug. 5, 2023, to read the entire series to date)
“We were keeping a steady rain of bullets and arrows, with a few spears, down onto our enemies. Our people close to the center of the battle signaled Pastor Lee that they estimated the enemy still numbered 110 to 120, and their weapons were far more superior to ours. They mounted a fierce attack against Edrood’s position, forcing him and his men to retreat up the hill toward our Old White Church. What none of us knew was that hiding in the forest just behind our church was a mixed pagan and Jesus Sect force of about 75 men, plus several women fighters, who had arrived from a nearby village that had not yet been attacked. They had volunteered to help Andria kill our Enforcer enemies, knowing that they were next. Edrood was told of this fresh force, and ordered one of his men to tell them that he was going to pretend to retreat into the forest behind the church to lure the enemy right toward them.
“Pastor Lee ordered 30 of us to go up the hill on the unseen side and help our friends as they ambushed the Enforcers. He led this group and I was beside him as we pushed our way up the hill through the brush and weeds. We soon heard Edrood’s men yelling and acting panicked as they ran past the church and into the forest, making sure that our enemy saw them going into the tree covering. The Enforcer officers tried to stop their men from pursuing us into the forest, probably remembering what they had surely been told had happened to their comrades two days before. But the young and inexperienced Enforcer troopers were so determined to pursue and kill us that they ignored the screamed orders from their officers, and large numbers of them ran after Edrood’s men into the trees.
GOD GRANTS A VICTORY TO THE DEFENDERS OF ANDRIA VILLAGE
“This proved to be their fatal error, for our enemies ran after us in groups, eager to spill our blood and avenge their fellows who we had killed two days previously. As it turned out, the Enforcers did finally avenge all of the losses that the forces of liberty heaped upon them in and around Andria. But this was not that day, for our God gave us a glorious victory over the forces of tyranny in the forest behind the Old White Church. Among the many marked and unmarked ancient graves of the heroes of the past, our people exacted an almost divine retribution upon these evil people, for Edrood and his men suddenly turned and faced the pursuing Enforcers, while at the same time the allies from up river had them in a trap which extended perhaps 100 yards long. Pastor Lee and his men, me included, came up behind them and closed the trap.
“Despite their superior firepower, our enemies were so bunched together in their determination to overwhelm us that they found it difficult to aim their long firearms rapidly enough to save themselves. Our up river allies had only about 10 to 12 single bullet rifles, but they aimed them well. Most of us with Pastor Lee had firearms and used them with deadly accuracy. Six of our expert archer teens came up the hill just after we cornered the four surviving Enforcer officers and they cut these officers down with rapid arrow fire before the realized they were under a fatal attack.
“In less than 30 minutes the battle was over. We had lost 56 men, either killed or wounded, from all of the defenders of Andria. The last 8 or 10 Enforcers dropped their weapons and fell flat on the ground, pleading to be spared. We were in no mood to do so, and Pastor Lee told our pagan allies to kill them mercifully. As we went back down the hill we heard their screams for a few minutes, until all we heard were the pagans walking down the hill, laughing and drinking that strong beer they always carried with them. Both of the Lees hugged the pagan leaders and shook hands with them, telling them how much better it was for all of us to stand with each other and defend ourselves, rather than fighting each other.
“After our great victory we split up the firearms and bullets we had taken from the dead Enforcers (the pagans killed all of the wounded at the end of the day’s carnage). This time the Jesus Sect followers got more firearms than did the pagans, but they took 4 of the captured 6 hand blasters, the new type of weapon used by some of the Enforcers, and still rare. Of course, we took whatever bullets our enemies were carrying, but it was a small amount compared with what we knew the Enforcers possessed. Only Rachard and Edrood Lee understood how to use the plasma blasters, and the pagan leaders asked them to show them how they worked, which they did. They were all the 50-blast military type, but we found no spare magatrons for them among our captured supplies. Pastor Lee made the pagan leaders use their own blasters to practice, thereby depleting their blast capacity.
“All of us worked together in piling the dead bodies of our enemies along the river, which were covered with wood and fire oil and burned. For a few years there was a big pile of burned bones along the river, until a flood came and washed them all away. About half of our village had burned down, so many of our people were homeless. This was hard for us as our families returned from their hiding places in the forest, only to see the burned remains of their homes, and several JS families who lived near the edge of the forest even took in a few pagan families. This was difficult at first, since the way of living among the JS followers and the pagans was so different. But both groups did their best to adjust to each other, and over a few weeks they did, and most became very friendly to each other.
A PERMANENT TRUCE IS AGREED TO BETWEEN THE PAGANS AND THE JESUS FOLLOWERS OF ANDRIA VILLAGE AS THEY FACE A COMMON ENEMY
“The leaders of the JS and the pagans met together within a few days, and agreed to a permanent truce between each group, for when people fight and die side by side with each other, facing a common enemy, their understanding of each other becomes very basic, and very forgiving. As I write this journal, after the terrible massacre of most of the remaining JS followers in and around Andria village, I can only rejoice that our Lord preserved some of us. Although we are now without a human leader, our Heavenly Leader will always be near to us, praise His Holy Name! Perhaps our seeming resignation to our fates will be difficult for you of the future to comprehend, if any of you actually read my words, but that is what those of us in the Jesus Sect in this time believe, and always will.
“For almost a year, after our battle with the Enforcer brutes in Fall Late of 2406, our persecutors did not return to harass or kill us. The truce with our pagan neighbors held firm during this time, and both groups tried hard to understand each other and give each other as much support as was possible. Their ways were somewhat rough and crude, and they all seemed addicted to drinking too much of their strong beer, even the women and the older teens. But they taught us some of their ways of hunting larger meat animals like deer, tusked bores, wild bulls, and even the occasional small herds of elk that migrated near Andria in the spring of the year. The men of the JS shared their methods of farming and building up the soil by rotating crops each year. And we taught our pagan friends the concept of cleanliness, which was very strange to them.
PAGANS AND JESUS FOLLOWERS BEGIN LIVING PEACEFULLY WITH EACH OTHER. THE PAGANS BEGIN TO WILLINGLY LEARN ABOUT JESUS THE MESSIAH
“Our JS women shared their cooking methods with the pagan women, particularly the need to keep all cooking containers and eating tools very clean, using strong charcoal soap and warm water to keep them and all eating and food preparing surfaces clean. As I said before, keeping their cooking rooms, and themselves and their children free of dirt was a concept the pagan women found hard to understand. Leah often complained about their offensive body odors when they came among us, and slowly, over many months, most of the pagans, men and women, began to keep themselves much cleaner. Pastor Lee and his two church Elders kept very busy during this year, trying to slowly and patiently tell all the pagans who would listen about our Savior, Jesus the Messiah and His Good News, and about how they could live forever, a teaching that the pagans found very difficult to understand. But he and Edrood kept up regular training of their militia members and men from the village who volunteered to be trained.
PASTOR LEE BAPTIZES SEVENTEEN FORMER PAGANS DURING A BAPTISMAL SERVICE
“During this year of relative peace I remember that three different pagan families all became members of the Jesus Sect. We had about 40 members of our church at this time, and we all gathered at the river early on a misty morning in Summer Late of A.D. 2407 for a service of praise and to baptize our new members. Pastor Lee explained that baptism was a sign of obedience to our Savior, since it was commanded in His Word, but that it, in itself, did nothing to bring about the salvation of any person’s soul. We led all of them into the shallow area along the bank of the Tomak river, where Lee baptized all 17 of them, even the older children who understood what it was that he was doing. The children, and two of the wives, elected to be totally put under the water briefly, and they came up sputtering but smiling. The men, and one of the wives, elected to have our Pastor pour the water of baptism onto their heads. Either method was acceptable to our Lord Jesus, Pastor Lee explained. Interestingly, this was the same place where 29 years before, the Enforcers had arrested our then Pastor Torash and killed some of our members. This time, may God be praised, a large group of our pagan friends stood guard in the forest to prevent any kind of unexpected attack from our mutual enemies.
“As we all walked back to our somewhat rebuilt village, the pagans made fun of their friends who had just been baptized, but it was not in a spirit of hatred they did this. And all of our newly baptized members witnessed to their old pagan friends about how their lives had been changed. The pagans seemed to listen carefully as they walked with all of us, and I think our Lord Jesus was pleased that this happened. We then all had a wonderful midday meal with our members and with many of the pagans of the village, who had stayed true to the truce between themselves and the JS followers.
THE ENFORCER DEVILS RETURN TO SEEK REVENGE
“Sadly, that was the last time of real rejoicing among the Jesus Sect in Andria, for a few weeks later our deadly enemies, the Enforcers, began to come back among us, only this time their hatred and animosity was much more intense. They stationed 100 men in their Andria building and fortified it to dissuade us from attacking them. At first they only were their normal vile selves, breaking into our homes unannounced at all hours of the day or eve, using as their excuse that they were searching for forbidden weapons such as any implement with a pointed blade, or especially any kind of firearm. The penalty for having a firearm found in your home was immediate death for all of the people in that home, no matter their ages. This went on for most of the year of AD. 2408, and by the end of that terrible year, around 20 of our villagers, both Jesus followers and pagans, had been killed in this manner.
“However, after the first 5 or 10 villagers were killed for possession of forbidden weapons, the people began to strongly resist. The first villager to do so was a man named Adam, a pagan but a good man who cared well for his family. The four Enforcers who raided his home late in the eve found a long knife hidden under a table, and were in the process of arresting him when his wife ran out of another room carrying another long knife. She fatally stabbed one Enforcer and stabbed a second one before she was shot and killed. The beasts that killed her had concentrated on her, whereupon her husband attacked one Enforcer with his feet and hands, breaking the arm of the one who had killed his wife. He grabbed the long knife from that one and plunged it through the man’s throat, killing him instantly. Adam managed to kill the Enforcer that his wife had stabbed before the forth one shot and killed him. He resisted their tyranny over him to his last breath.
“From the middle of A.D. 2408 to its end, the Andria villagers managed to kill at least 20 Enforcers who broke into their homes in their usual brutal and arrogant manner. The beasts killed 20 villagers, both pagans and Jesus followers, but by the end of that year they knew that the people were resisting their tyranny. We complained to the Overmasters, of course, but we never heard anything from them. It was obvious by the beginning of the year A.D. 2409 that Andria village had been marked for total destruction.
NEXT TIME: All of the citizens of Andria village meet to discuss their future actions that might increase their chances of survival. They consider abandoning Andria village. Ultimately, they all agree that the only realistic choice was to resist their enemies and battle against them as long as humanly possible, and never to capitulate. The Lees begin organizing Andria and nearby villages to take the offensive against the Enforcer/Overmaster enemies. By the middle of A.D. 2409 the people are ready to carry the war aggressively to their enemies.
