Sovereignty and Suffering

I will never read the story of the Good Samaritan the same ever again. Because now I have lived it. 

Just as we were loading up the car to head back home after an overnight stay in the village, Daniel asked if we could take his brother, Dabiyo, back in the car with us while he and his wife, Valerie, went ahead on their moto. "Not a problem!" I replied. Daniel is the nurse practitioner who serves as the major of the CSPS (medical clinic) of the village. The interns and I have been going out to work alongside Daniel once a week, learning about nursing practices and medical care at the village level here in Burkina Faso. Dabiyo is his younger brother, who is also studying to be a nurse. He is at the top of his class. 

Bouncing down red dirt roads on the way back home, the interns and I talked about how we had seen Jesus in the past dew days during our stay.

We saw him in the miracle of new life when we experienced the delivery of Ezekiel (http://www.seesomethingmore.blogspot.it/2015/07/baby-ezekiel.html). 

We saw him in the hospitality of Daniel and his wife Valerie as they served us joyfully and took care of us in a measure that was above and beyond. 

We saw him in the bright-eyed children as we taught them about Jesus, the Good Shepherd. 

We saw him in the patients we received as we got to see into their lives and suffering and come alongside them through medical interventions and the power of prayer. 

As soon as everyone had shared an answer and our conversation seemed to be over, we hopped onto the paved road only a few kilometers from home. That's when we saw the tree branches in the road. 

Usually tree branches layed out in the road signal cars to slow down because there has been a breakdown or an accident. But this time I noticed that there was no big truck stopped in the middle of the road. In fact, there were no vehicles at all. Just a crowd of peopled gathered around something in the road. 

I slowed down to see what was causing the commotion, and a general gasp came from inside our car when we saw him. 

It was a man, fallen in the road. He was surrounded by small puddles of his own blood, and his face was marred beyond recognition. He had obviously had a moto accident, and it hadn't happened too long ago. 

I passed by and my heart was beating a million miles an hour. Was he alive? Was he dead? Keep driving? Stop? What can I even do to help if I do stop?  

With this battle going in my mind, one of the interns spoke up from the back of the car. "Pull over!" And that was all it took for me to make up my mind. 

A man came rushing up to the window. "Is he okay?" I asked before I had even rolled down the window half way. "Yes," he replied, "but can you take him to the hospital?" 

Looking back, I honestly don't know if that's even what he said because I couldn't concentrate very well on my French, but that's what I heard, and before I knew it, my mouth was speaking back. "We will take him. Does he have someone with him to accompany him?" 

While Dabiyo and our two male interns started moving things from the back seat to the roof to make space, I went over to examine the man. I knelt down and touched his hand, the only part I could see that was not bloody, and he looked at me, his eyes radiantly white compared to the thick blood covering every inch of his face and head. 

"It's okay," I said. "It's okay. My name is Ashli, and I am going to take you to the hospital." I didn't know what else to say except, "It's okay now. God is with us." 

And then he opened his mouth to speak, and I saw that half of his teeth were gone and all the rest were completely destroyed and sticking out in all directions, like he had slid across the pavement on his face. The first words out of his mouth were, "Yes, let's pray. Please let's pray."

Relieved to find him somewhat responsive and oriented, I smiled weakly and said, "We will pray in the car on the way." I rushed back to the car and backed up until I reached the scene, where we loaded up the man in the back with an onlooker who served as a witness and a helper to the man. I still don't know exactly what happened, and I never even saw his moto, but I know he was the only one injured. He was completely alone. 

We prayed immediately as soon as we got in the car, and the two men were very thankful. I sped all the way there. 

When we arrived at the hospital, there was no emergency entrance. No one to greet us. No one to help us. Dabiyo got out of the car to ask where we needed to go, and he pointed us in the direction of a dark building. We parked and unloaded the man, laying him on a bench. Still, no one came to help. There were other people around, staring at the coagulated blood dangling from his chin, but no medical professionals in sight. We hunted down a hospital worker who explained to us why it was so dark. "The electricity is out. There is nothing we can do. Take him to the CSPS." 

So we loaded him up again and took him to the CSPS, which is really more like a medical clinic. It's a step down in the level of care compared to a hospital, but we had no other option. When we arrived, they took one look at him and said, "There is nothing we can do with this man. Take him to the hospital because he needs sutures and possibly surgery." Dabiyo, who was by this time excellently serving as a fluent French speaker and medical professional intermediary, tried to explain that we had just been to the hospital and they sent us here, but no one would listen. They would not even touch his face with a wet cloth to clean him up. 

For the third time, we loaded him in the back of the car and went back to the hospital. When he got out of the car this time, he could barely stand. He began to waver and his knees went weak, and I feared that I was about to watch him in slow motion hit his face on the ground again. No one would even reach out to steady him. Since he was covered in fresh blood from his head to his toe, I could not touch him without gloves because of the risk of infection. It took every single ounce of my physical and emotional energy to restrain myself from doing something. I wanted to steady him, to get under his arm and walk him to a safe place. I wanted to get some gauze and clean his wounds. I wanted to give him a cup of water so he would quit spitting blood. In the nick of time, the man who accompanied him took hold of him and lowered him gently to the ground. 

A few minutes later, we finally found someone to help us, and he came to direct the man to a place where he could wait. Wait for the electricity to come back on. Wait for a doctor to come to the hospital. Wait for someone to give him care.

I am pacing like a crazy person, trying to keep myself together. What if he has an internal injury? What if one of his lungs is filling up with blood and we don't even know it? What if...what if...what if...?  

In America, medical professionals would have swarmed around this man and rushed to his aide. Here, it seemed like everyone just wanted to get rid of him, to pass him off to someone else so he wouldn't be their problem. I didn't understand how you could look at his face and turn away. And in that moment, I realized one of the hardest things about being a missionary nurse. Sometimes you have to intervene and save a life, depsite cultural boundaries. And sometimes you have to step back and let the Africans do things their way. And you have to have wisdom on how to make that call. 

This was one of those times where I had done my part. I picked him up off the side of the road, and now I had to let Africans do their job. It was possibly one of the hardest things I have ever done, and it took all the restraint I had in my being. 

Before leaving the hospital, I felt that I had to give the man some money to pay for his care. Sometimes they won't even see a patient if they don't have the money up front to pay for medicines and wound care supplies. I followed Dabiyo to find the man and his companion. I looked all around and couldn't see him. That's when Dabiyo shone a light on the ground, and there he was, resting his bleeding head on the rocks with his back up against a concrete wall, waiting for the care he so desperately needed. 

This is emergency room care in Burkina, and it literally made me sick. 

I climbed back in the car and fought back tears of rage and confusion. Less than 24 hours ago, I experienced the inexpressible joy of a new life coming into the world. Within the same 24 hours, I also saw one of the most distressing things I have ever seen. I was filled with rage at the injustice of the world we live in. I was broken-hearted for the man who lay on the ground, feeling his pain and anguish like it was somewhat my own. 

I didn't know how to feel. Such a paradox of emotions, a contractions of thoughts. Joy and anger and pleasure and grief all mixed together. 

I remembered the words of Valerie and Daniel the night before. We had been discussing some passages from the Bible while gazing at the stars before going to bed. Daniel and Valerie both encouraged us to keep our faith in God even when difficult times come. "It's easy to believe in God when everything is good, but we must remember to pray and put our confidence in God when difficulties arise," they said. 

I also remembered a question that I have been discussing with the interns over and over again during their internship here: "How have you seen Jesus today?" We have talked about how God uses every single circumstance and event, both big and small, to teach us something about himself. We want to keep our eyes and ears wide open so that we don't miss a single lesson. 

Now it was time to put these things into practice. I was beginning to see something more. 

Just five minutes before we found the man, we had been talking about how we saw Jesus in the village. In the baby. In the children. In all the good things that had happened. Now could it be possible that he showed us this man and this accident for a reason? Could it be that this event, too, was to teach us something about God?

"We say that we want to know God more," one of the interns said, "and sometimes this is how we truly come to know him." 

It was suddenly like I had been given a new pair of lenses, and I could see the story not only from my perspective but also from the ariel-view perspective of heaven. I began to see the presence of the Lord in the trauma. 

I saw a sovereign God who knew we needed Dabiyo in the car with us, a fluent French speaker and medical professional to assist us in the tragedy. I saw a faithful, caring God who caused our car to pass just in time to take the man to the hospital. During the 10 or 15 minutes it took us to stop, figure out what to do, and load the man up in the car, not a single other car passed by. We also later learned that an ambulance had been called, but the only ambulance was already on the way to another city. Therefore, God perfectly placed our car there at the right time to carry the man to the hospital. 

I thought about Valerie, who after the event said, "You saved a life today." 

"No, God saves lives. We were just there to help," I replied. 

"But it's like the Good Samaritan," she said. "You didn't pass by on the other side of the road." 

Valerie and Daniel, who had been on their moto in front of us, had stopped when they saw the accident. "First, a bus drove by," Valerie said, "but they refused to pick up the man. They didn't even stop. Next, a car passed by with a catholic sister, a nun, inside. But she refused him as well. You were the third car. You were the Good Samaritan."

And just like the Good Samaritan, we took him to a safe place, dropped him off with some money, and promised to return to settle accounts. 

We visited him the next day and found his head cleaned and bandaged. We learned his name, prayed with him, exchanged contact information, and promised to be there for him if he should need anything. 

Because of this, I will never read the story of the Good Samaritan in the same light. I used to think of it as a pleasant children's story, but now I have lived it and was quite terrible. But I keep reminding myself that the story is not over. By the grace of God, he had no broken bones or internal injuries, just serious wounds that will heal. I long for the day when I will look on his face and see him smile. Yes, the story is not over yet. 

In the meantime, God is teaching me and our team a lesson from this experience that we will remember for the rest of our lives. Within 24 hours, we experienced both amazing joy and amazing grief. An extraordinary gift and an extraordinary injustice. A deep awe and a deep distress. And I realized that God sees these things every day. He sees every birth and every accident and every death. He knows every person on this planet and keeps track of their every joy and every pain. I don't know how he can handle so much every day. I can't even handle two events in 24 hours. I can't balance the joy and the grief, but he can. I know he must be one incredibly sovereign, holy God. And one amazing, loving Father. 

Because of the birth and the accident being so close together, we got to experience a part of our father's heart that we hadn't experienced before. A part of what he feels everyday when he looks upon his children on the earth with all their sufferings and victories. 

I saw the things I saw and experienced the things I experienced for a reason. To gain a deeper understanding of the heart of God. To gain a bigger picture of the sovereignty of God. To gain a deeper knowledge of the comfort of God. To draw me closer to him. To teach me to see his presence in it all - in the birth and the brokenness. In the glory and the grief...and there is grace in both. 

In it all, I realize how broken our world is and how desperately we need redemption. We have a Savior, a Redeemer, who will one day make right everything that has been broken. Until that day, we work for him and alongside him in the mission of redemption. He is the hope that we have to offer to an injustice, broken, hurting world. 

That's why we can bless babies a few hours after helping them take their first breath, and then we can also encourage the beaten and broken to take their next breath when it's hard to keep going on. We offer hope to the family with a newborn baby and to the man who is barely hanging on to life. In all this, we surrender our own breath, our own gasps of awe and gasps of terror, our joy mingled with sorrow, to the one who is sovereign and forever in control, the one who loves us deeply and passionately, the one who is present in every pleasure and pain. 

At the end of the day, we could say that we still saw Jesus, even in the marred face of a man left helpless on the street. We saw him in his plea for prayer, in the divine coordination of placing us there to help him, and in the reality of what it's like to be the Good Samaritan.