I’m just gardening

All Salvation Army officers are occasionally called on to do something that is way, way, way outside their position description. We do it as part of our service to God and to others, and then we sit back and think, “What on Earth was I thinking?”

At one corps, I received a phone call one afternoon from an elderly single lady at our corps – let’s call her Kate – who lived just a minute’s drive away from the hall. Kate was quite frantic and said that there was a snake in her backyard. Could I come and kill it? She was worried that her dog would go outside and be bitten by the snake. Apparently, Kate wasn’t too worried that her corps officer might be bitten by a snake, just the dog.

I told her I’d be there in a moment and grabbed our youth worker, Jim, on the way out, telling him to come with me. On the drive, he asked what we were doing, and I told him we were going to confront a low-down, filthy, dangerous snake. Jim said, ”Anyone I know?”

We arrived at Kate’s house and went in. She showed us through to the backyard and pointed out where she’d last seen the snake. She said that she occasionally had one come up from the river behind her house. She said it only looked small, maybe two feet long (sorry, young folks, 60cm), and she couldn’t identify what sort of snake it was.

Jim and I approached cautiously and could just glimpse the snake behind a piece of wood resting against the fence. I took charge quickly … because I wanted to be at the opposite end of any potential snake action (sorry, Jim).

“Alright, Jim. We leave the wood there because it means he can only exit front or back. I’ll thump the ground with my shovel at this end to shut off the exit, and then he’ll have to leave out your end. When he does, whack your shovel straight down on him.”

Jim: “Doesn’t it say in the Bible that in faith we can pick up serpents in our hands?”

Mal: “Do you want to hug it or whack it with a shovel?”

Jim: “You’re my spiritual leader; let’s swap ends and you can pick it up. I believe in you.”

Mal: “The Bible also says we have authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, so feel free to jump on it if you want to.”

Jim: “I’ll stick with the shovel.”

We readied ourselves; I did a silent ‘1,2,3’ count and slammed my shovel down. In a blur, the snake bolted straight down the fence line and was gone. Leaving Jim whacking his shovel down all over the place to try and get him.

We looked around a bit but assumed the snake had headed back to the river – that was the direction he went in – and that Kate and the dog were all safe. After chatting with Kate, we departed, and no further reports of the snake were made. Clearly, our efforts to intimidate the snake had succeeded.

On the way back to the hall, Jim asked if we were allowed to kill a snake anyway. I said that we weren’t and that God had protected us from facing potential legal action by allowing the snake to escape our cunning plan. Jim said, “But what if I had killed the snake with my shovel?”, and I replied that I was just doing some gardening for Kate with a shovel and couldn’t be implicated in his deadly and illegal actions. Jim told me I was craftier than a snake. I said while that may be so, he was so slow with a shovel that I had nothing to fear.

Major Mal Davies is the Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division