Real Monkeys in South Asia

By Boyd Uppenhouse*

Mrs. Suma* works in an office where there is no air conditioning and there are no screens on the windows that are left open during office hours.

One Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Suma was in the kitchen having a nice, relaxing cup of tea with a co-worker when she heard some rustling of papers coming from her office. She went to investigate and found three monkeys in her office going through books and papers. They had their hands full of markers, pens, glue and other office supplies. The intruders were reluctant to leave, but Mrs. Suma used all of her persuasive skills and shooed them out through the same window which was the point of entry.

As they left, she realized that one of the monkeys had her cell phone in his hand. The monkey with the phone climbed quickly up the tree outside her office and sat on a limb defending his new phone against attempts by the other monkeys to steal the stolen phone from him!

Mrs. Suma, knowing that she needed to do something quickly, picked up the office desk phone and called her cell number, thinking he might put the phone down when it began to ring. However, when the phone did ring, the monkey placed it to his ear as if trying to answer…. Really!

By now the security guards, the cook, the cleaning lady, and a host of others were there to witness the spectacle. Someone quickly found a banana and held it out to the monkey, trying to trade for the mobile phone. But the thief was too smart! He took the banana but kept the phone and climbed to a higher limb in the tree where he ate the fruit. He seemed to be thinking he was being rewarded for stealing the phone. Mrs. Suma called her cell phone number again and received a recording that the subscriber was out of range.

Suddenly the monkey began to try to satisfy his curiosity about his new toy and started to take it apart, dropping the pieces to the ground. When he had only one piece left he lost interest and threw it at his audience.

Mrs. Suma retrieved all the parts to her cell phone, including the battery and SIM card, from the ground, reassembled the phone, and made a call. It still worked!

Upon reflection, this story can tell us a lot about our own lives. Satan does all he can to steal us away from God’s plan for our lives. He will try every trick he knows to get to us. He’ll break us apart, piece by piece, when we leave a door or window open for him. It is only by God’s grace that we aren’t like that phone in pieces on the ground. Even when things do “fall apart,” God is always there to pick up the pieces and put us back together because we belong to Him.

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*Name changed for security reasons.
Boyd Uppenhouse is serving in South Asia in the Master’s program of the International Mission Board.