“A deal is a promise. And a promise is unbreakable.”
- Wonder Woman
Why did I promise to come back to Bere Adventist?
Here’s why.
Bere is a front-line hospital, far from any large city, and exactly where it needs to be.
The people are poor. Many are nomadic. They carry their mats rolled up under their arms with them into the hospital grounds. They roll them out on the dirt, and that’s “home”. That’s all they’ve got.
It’s hot and dusty. The night-time darkness can be as black as ink.
The 50-year-old hospital infrastructure is breaking down.
There’s just one power generator on the hospital compound and that’s it.
Sometimes my house had no water. I carried water buckets home so I could flush and take bucket showers. It’s not exactly where I would send someone on their first mission.
It’s the challenge of being at Bere that draws me. Getting some dust on my shoes.
Getting the satisfaction of doing something that is hard.
When I get a tiny taste of what my patients go through every day, I am more respectful.
I can’t do enough for them. I help them work through their problems , shoulder to shoulder.
I want to be here and fight their battles with them. Am I tough enough? Ok. Let’s see.
What also draws me here is the need. I am transparently needed. It’s real. I’m not lost in the crowd.
It’s a small place so I can immediately see the results of what I am doing. If I don’t do it, it’s not done. I can see that I am making a difference. And that is compelling.
The tough part is that Bere is resource poor. While there are things that I can do, there are many things that I cannot do. People arrive with cancers that are so advanced that I can’t treat them. And people who need operations that I am not skilled enough or know how to do. I just want to learn more so I can help more. But I stay in my lane. I refuse to try to do things that I’m not qualified to do.
So, because of all this, and a chance to serve the poorest of God’s poor, I came back to Bere.
When old friends see you, greet you, and smile it’s truly a wonderful feeling.
Mission Aviation Fellowship: A new way to get to Bere
I’ll confess that I am not that tough.
On this trip, instead of taking the 11-hour bus ride from the capital N’djamena to Kelo;
and instead of coming in by motorcycle and pontoon boat from Kelo to Bere for another 3 hours,
I splurged and hired a plane from the Mission Aviation Fellowship: MAF. It was great. I rationalized by saying to myself that I’d be better rested when I got to the mission.
When a plane lands on the local airstrip, many of the town’s children come to watch the spectacle.
They call me “Papa”.
Gosh, I hate being called “Papa”. But that’s my new nickname.
Why? Well, it’s not because I have any children. It’s because I’m older and my hair is all white. It’s a gesture of respect for age and experience. But I don’t really like the name. I don’t like being reminded that I’m older, even though it’s completely true. Sigh. As usual, I just have to get over myself and go with it.
The Mango “bombings”
BAM! It’s mango season! The entire Bere mission compound has metal roofs and many mango trees. BAM! So when the mangos fall, and they hit the roofs with a BAM!
These unexpected “bombings” occur at all hours of the day and night. BAM!
Cherise: “I am 16 going on 17”.
What happens to children brought up in the missions? Are they ‘normal’? Can they function in the real world? MY answer is an emphatic “YES”.
Cherise is the daughter of veteran missionaries who have served all over the world.
She has spent her entire life in the missions. When I asked her how old she was, she laughed and sang those first few lines of that tune from “The Sound of Music”: “I am 16 going on 17”.
Has Cherise suffered from being a “mission kid”? I would say emphatically “NO!”.
Cherise has lived in South America, Asia and Africa. She can speak 3 languages. She rides a motorcycle around the mission compound, and she can fly an airplane. No, I don’t think that she’s suffered at all!
I was so lucky to have Cherise. One morning, she randomly arrived on the surgical ward while I was doing morning rounds. She immediately blended in. I used her as my French translator. She enthusiastically embraced the job and “took over”. I also gave her a lot of little jobs to do around the hospital and she rose to the occasion. I would playfully remind her that St Joan of Arc, the patron saint of France, was also “16 going 17” when she led the French army against the English in the 1600’s. I think she would have got along with St. Joan very well.
Bats in the trees!
One morning I was amazed at the huge number of “birds” high in the tall trees above the mission. “Wow! Look at all those birds!” I said. To this, I received a playful elbow bump to my side from Cherise. “I hate to tell you, but those aren’t birds! They’re bats!” What!? Really? And sure enough, when I looked more closely upward, I was shocked. Cherise was right! “Oh my! Fruit bats! Lots of them! They’re munching on mangos, right? They’re harmless, right? I hope so.
Honey Dressings
One of our young children suffered burns to his arms and legs from sitting too close to a campfire.
Our honey bandages really helped. Cherise and I covered his burns every day for 2 weeks with gauze dipped in honey. And voila! Most of his wounds healed. The high sugar content kills bacteria.
Prayer Lessons
I am the victim of good example.
My Christian Evangelical missionary friends pray aloud verbally and frequently for just about everything. If I playfully exaggerated and told you that they prayed even when they crossed the street, I wouldn’t be that far off. My style has been to pray silently. Their style is to pray out loud. It’s a good idea and I am beginning to imitate them. We always pray together before starting every surgical operation.
Come with me
Imagine that you and I are on the mission compound.
The night is dark, and the power is out. It’s very hot and humid.
You and I are walking towards the hospital in the darkness to check on patients.
We can’t see exactly where we are going, but we’ve got our cell phone lights on and pointed to the ground so we can see where our feet are.
And we look up. The stars above are so bright that we feel like we can touch them.
We can see Alpha Centuri on the horizon. We can never see that back home. These are more reminders of God’s power.
Finally, we get to the hospital to do whatever we can with whatever we’ve got.
I am glad that we’re there, trying to do something. I may not be hitting home runs every day, but I console myself by knowing that anything I do, no matter how small, would not have happened if I wasn’t here. The harder it is and the less we have, the more aware we are about how
dependent we are on God.
When I’m armed with prayer, a strong and worthy purpose, good people to work with, and maybe a fan, and a cool glass of water, I find that I don’t need much else.
And yes. I’ll be going back to Bere again.
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