“My Love Affair with Chickens”

Having returned recently from American Samoa and Samoa (Savai’i and Upolu), I have come to appreciate more and more early morning roosters. Most roosters crow in the mornings at 4:00AM to around 5:30AM, more or less.  In Samoa, particularly American Samoa, these roosters crow starting at 2:00AM.  I am a witness to such unusual behavior.

Lying in our bedroom, attempting to sleep after working all day seeing patients in a medical mission, I could not believe it when a rooster positioned himself right outside our window, flapped his wings and began crowing, “ERR rERRR e ERRRRRRR!”  He crowed at least five times, starting at 2:00AM.  His robust performance served to stimulate the other twelve roosters in the neighborhood who for the next two and a half hours attempted to best our first rooster’s performance!  This provided for a most entertaining, but rather prolonged night.

In Ghana, Africa, on the one occasion when a rooster crowed and woke us too early, in our mission there, this same rooster quickly appeared on our dinner plate the next day, fried, golden and tasty!  I had used that rooster as an example in the morning devotional of how God’s trumpet would sound at the end of days and awake even the dead sleeping in the earth.  I can gratefully say, all the Samoan roosters are still alive and have every feather intact!  There was no attempt at swift justice in A. Samoa.  The same rooster welcomed us each morning at the same time over the course of three long days and nights!

I do not know if it is illegal in A. Samoa to kill a neighbor’s chicken either in the morning or at night, but I am sure it must be.  These chickens appear often on the plate at various dinner gatherings. I am sure these roosters also belonged to someone important.   I can truthfully say, no animals, chickens or any creatures were harmed in any way in the writing of this story.

Those persons we met in A. Samoa are wonderful, kind souls.  We had a wonderful time getting to know them, worshiping in their churches and enjoying their kind fellowship and love.  They allowed us into their homes and gave us the privilege to care for their medical needs. We saw about 1700 persons over the course of five clinic days spread over two weeks of our visit.  I must say, I liked everything about the Samoans except for their roosters that crowed at 2:00 AM in the morning.  I suppose this could be an effect of being so close to the equator.  The brains of these roosters must have some type of faulty programming.  The magnetic fields may be too weak to properly align the compasses in their heads!

I do not fault these roosters for obeying their own genetic programming.  I fault myself for not remembering to bring ear plugs with me on this long journey to Samoa.

Addendum:

Dorothy and I met some of the most generous people in the world during our trip to Samoa.  These are the kind of people you hear about in the Bible, whose hearts are truly full of the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.  I am working on an article to try and describe our experience on this trip.  I have not yet been able to bring this to words.  But I do want to say thank-you for the genuine hospitality and Christian love we all shared.  Our worship together in Christ and their heavenly singing is something I will always remember.  Thanks be to God, for such a wonderful gift!

Bill Wilson, MD