Punishment Island

So last week, we took off for a few days in Uganda, a bordering country to Rwanda. We went to a lake about 3 hours from Kigali. After spending one day just reading and relaxing, we decided to take a boat ride to see some of the islands around where we were staying.

While on this tour, our guide told us he would be taking us to see “Punishment Island”, where women/girls used to be sent when they got pregnant out of marriage. (My friend Amanda asked where the men were sent who got them pregnant, our guide had no response.)

So this is a drawing Punishment Island. It was about 50 feet across and was difficult to tell where the actual land was because of the high grass surrounding it. I have done a little reading about this and it is hard to tell exactly when this practice ended, but some guess around 1940. Poor men would also come there to collect a wife, because they couldn’t pay the bride price. So the women would either die of starvation, drown because it was rare that they would know how to swim, or they would be selected by a poor man to live with him.

I have been working through some forgiveness, not so much for others, but for myself. (Why is it easier to offer forgiveness to others than ourselves?) I was talking this over at the retreat I attended in January for missionaries and Christian workers. The counselors were talking about finding forgiveness and grace for ourselves and brought up the woman caught in adultery.

John 8:4-11: 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

11 “No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

The counselor said what if we look at this as if all the accusers have left and even Jesus walked away, the only accuser left would be the woman. How often am I the only accuser left of my sin? Jesus has forgiven me, yet I stay in my own condemnation. There are times I have exiled myself to Punishment Island. I got in my boat, I paddled out to the small area of land, got out of the boat and sat there.

In my mind’s eye, I imagine Jesus paddling by, asking me to get in his boat. He doesn't pull his boat through the high grass though, He is just on the other side where the water is calm. He stands up in His boat, holds out His arms and says, “Jamie, come to me.”

There have been times in my life that I just sit there and can’t see Him because of the high grass, so I don’t leave my self-condemnation. But now, I hear his voice, I know it’s the voice and of my savior and I run to Him. The high grass is sharp and cuts my skin, my feet are bruised from the unstable ground just below the surface of the water, but I run.

I fall into the boat in the arms of my Savior and I am comforted. He smiles and says, “What took you so long? I’ve been here since you arrived. I followed your boat here.” 

The dying Jesus is the evidence of God's anger toward sin; but the living Jesus is the proof of God's love and forgiveness. -Lorenz Eifert