With the Mangwende's permission, Mizeki moved his growing community (several families, as well as young boys he was entrusted to teach), about two miles. They resettled across the river in a fertile area with a spring, but also near a sacred grove which was believed to be inhabited by spirits of the tribe's ancestral lions. Rather than make offerings to such spirits, Mizeki made the sign of the cross in the air, and carved crosses on some of the trees, and later felled some trees while preparing a field to plant wheat.