As Raul Panguene walked down the streets of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, he could not believe eighty years had gone by since the Spiritist soldiers had knocked on the door of his house!  His father had told him not to resist and he was less than ten, so there was little he could have done anyway.  He didn't really realize what was happening, why his father and mother struggled as the doctor gave them the shots.  They hadn't even bothered him that much.  He got a little sick to his stomach.  The nice doctors gave him medicine, then they went back home.  Mother and father seemed awful sad for a long time, then father got a good job.  Things got better.  They weren't poor all the time.  There was plenty to eat.  The capital began to be cleaned up.  Several of the Presidential palaces were turned into schools and museums.  New, better houses were built, and the country turned greener than it ever had been before. 
      It wasn't until Raul got older and he saw some of the new people getting wives that he asked his father why he wasn't interested in this.  "It is what the Spiritists did to you," his father explained, "to me, to your mother, to your sisters.  They took that away from us because of what our people did.  Because our President killed so many of them with the A bomb.  I used to hate them, but I really don't any more."
     There was a girl down the street that Raul had known since he was a child.  One day he said to her, "Want to get married?"  She looked at him strangely and said,
     "Why should we?  We can't have babies." 
     "But The Spiritists bring babies from all over the world!"  Raul told her.  "Do you think Marcos and his wife do not love the child that they have?  Have you seen how happy they are playing with it?  Does it really matter that it has to be ours?"
     "They do adore it, don't they?"  the girl remarked.  "Well, all right!  Mother and father are getting awfully old.  They're going to be gone soon.  And if I don't have somebody I'm going to be awfully lonely."
      So they got married, and The Spiritsts not only got them one child, but as they became richer and richer, as everything Raul touched seemed to prosper, they got seven more from all over the world!  And then when his eldest son was old enough they arranged for him to have a wife with a Mozambique ancestry, and their son, and their son.  Now he had an eighteen year old grandson that was about to make history. 
      A passer by greeted him warmly.  "Congratulations Mr. Panguene!  It's so wonderful!  Your grandson has won the lottery!  He's going on the colony ship!  It's so wonderful that The Spiritists are taking people from every nation in the world, not just their own.  Or are you a Spiritist?  I've never really known."
     Raul smiled.  "Actually, I'm not!"  he answered.  "I have always been a Christian.  My great grandson, however, has decided that he likes The Lords better, and that's all right!  They serve Jesus.  I just can't understand why they don't like God.  It is so strange.  But they are good people, and I think they have made the world better people."
      "Yes!  Yes indeed!"  his neighbor agreed.  "Congratulations again!  It could not have happened to a nicer family.  The wife would like to have you come over for supper.  You have not visited for some time."
     "I do get neglectful of my social engagements since my wife has died," Raul answered.  "I must get someone to help me keep track of things."
     "Now don't go hiring one of those little foreign girls," his neighbor teased, "and end up marrying her like that old pervert Sowali!"
     "Definitely not!"  Raul agreed.  "I don't give him more than six months before she kills him!  But what a way to die, huh?"

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