On Spiritual Retreats and Emergency Medical Evacuations

It is strange how a single unexpected event can so suddenly and radically change one’ s plans.  Carroming is the word I would use to describe it (from the game).  Like a cue ball miss-shot that bounces off an unintended target and sets others in motion, perhaps landing the 8 ball in a pocket.  Or a better image still, the frenetic motion of a ball in play in a pinball machine.

It has happened to all of us, it is not unique to our work here.  For me it happened on Wednesday morning about 9:45 am.  It was a normal morning, I had swum, prayed and was just sitting down to work on one of two talks I would be giving at the partner’s retreat that weekend.  We had a very tightly scheduled last 2 weeks of activities, the partner’s retreat being first on the list.  We were going as a family with childcare so Rebecca and I could share the many responsibilities of running this event.

The following week was to be dedicated to helping a service worker family end their term as well as find housing for incoming volunteers in the fall, with a slew of other last minute details to sew up before our departure.

That was until 9:45 am on Wednesday morning.  My mobile phone rang and the husband of one of our service worker families (I am keeping this anonymous intentionally) called to say his wife was having a medical emergency and asked me to meet him at the emergency room of a local hospital. 

I called Rebecca, who was on the way to a Bible study, to alert her.  When I arrived at the ER I could see that the person was in serious distress and would almost certainly need to be taken to another country to get sufficient care.

I should back up to say that when I use the word ‘emergency’ room, I am referring to a ward with curtains around each cot.  There is no cardiac equipment, ekg, oxygen, not even an IV stand or syringe--just a bed and a small table. 

A doctor did make rounds but did not seem to have much by way of explanation of what was happening and had virtually nothing with which to work. And this was in one of the better hospitals in Burundi.

That is a pretty good description of Burundi urgent care.  On the one hand, serious illnesses like malaria and typhoid are easily recognized and treated. But serious trauma beyond setting a bone or suturing is pretty much in God’s hands.  So a complicated problem must be dealt with elsewhere.

MCC has provided those of us working in remote places like Burundi, with a protocol for just these emergencies.  There are several air ambulance services that offer trips in a small ambulance leer jet to another country.  (It runs between $15,000-30,000 depending on where you need to go.  Nairobi is closest and cheapest for us.)   Calling in an air ambulance is serious business and something we have not had to do before.  But this was just such a case. 

For Rebecca and I the question was, would this work?  We knew the procedure, but would the phone #s called be in service? Answered?  While I stayed with the patient and worked on trying to get a good doctor in Burundi, Rebecca started to go through the process of getting the plane here.  It turned out that none of the MCC staff involved in the chain in East Africa had ever actually done this. 

God was with us though and Rebecca was able to get clearance for the jet to come.  We were told it would arrive by 4pm.  As we waited, the next question was, who would go with the patient.  The obvious answer was her husband, but the next question became, what would happen with their two young children?  (About the ages of Oren and David.) 

The very difficult answer to that question was that Rebecca and I were really the one family they could stay with in their parents’ absence.  In the hours before the arrival of the plane Rebecca and I started to strategize around this upending set of events.  The only way we figured we could survive this was to divide and conquer once again (this is our least favorite but often necessary approach to problems these days). One of us would have to stay with all the children while the other went away for 4 days to lead the partner’s retreat alone.  It was a toss-up which one of us would have the most challenging job—4 children, 2 potentially traumatized, or leading 18 adults in a 4 day retreat, including worship, discussions, presentations, and many other activities. 

You might be surprised to hear that I elected to be the one to stay home, and that was primarily because Rebecca plays the guitar and had done all the preparation of worship time for the retreat.  (I think either one of us could have handled the facilitating.)

I will let Rebecca fill you in on the retreat, but I will say in brief that I did survive the 4 days with the 4 kids.  Regrettably Oren and the older child of this couple are not great friends and they did tend to push each other’s buttons.  David and the little girl did fine. 

There were further complicating factors for me in that this was also the last opportunity the children would have to say goodbye to friends as they would be leaving Burundi shortly.  So during our time together, there were many other children that came by to play and bid them goodbye.  There were times I was caring for 8 children at a time. 

Through all this, I did manage to keep our kids going to school and even getting everyone a good breakfast in the morning.  Marcelline our cook and the regular nanny of the family also helped me during the day.

At night I felt lucky that the children all did sleep relatively well and that the children of our volunteers did not seem overly upset about having to stay at our house.

One difficulty was imagining how this would all resolve.  Would the parents be back soon? Would Rebecca or I have to accompany the children to Kenya the following week?  There were many unknowns about this and the answer came as a welcome but unexpected blessing.  The mother of the patient came to Burundi from Europe where she was teaching and took the kids to Nairobi.  She arrived Friday evening and left Sunday morning.  Although it did mean one more house guest, it made life easier here to have two adults to handle the children. 

I admit that I was looking forward to Sunday morning when I would have the house again to myself and my 2 children.  I was worn out from both the children and also trying to do some packing on behalf of the couple so they and the children would have clothes to wear.  They left at about 8am on Sunday.

I took my kids to church with a feeling of relief.  We came home and played on the trampoline.  When Rebecca arrived in the afternoon we went to the beach and swam in the surf for several hours and ate dinner at Club du Lac.  It is the end of one exhausting week, but hardly the end of a very hard week ahead to finish off here before our home leave.

Here is Rebecca’s side of the story: 

Each year, our MCC program hosts a retreat for our partners, that is, each partner sends one representative. We gather people for professional development, spiritual reflection, and mutual encouragement, since working in peace and development can be a lonely, frustrating and discouraging calling at times. We feel that these gatherings are a real gift to our program, to us personally and to our partners, but so far, they have also been an incredible time of testing. For our first retreat, Oren was quite sick as we had to leave to go up-country (along with other practical hassles). Last year, I was just barely able to travel to the retreat because of malaria, and could only participate minimally. This year, I was praying hard that God would protect our family – and he did! – but we were not spared trying circumstances.

It was incredibly unnerving to leave Paul with four children and head up-country for four days. But packing was much simpler than for any retreat I’ve gone on before in this job. No snacks, no games, no 5 extra outfits for muddy boys… A group of 6 partners and I headed up-country in our jeep right after lunch, with our program assistant Felix behind the wheel – I was feeling a little too mentally overwhelmed to face the drive up-country. In just two hours, we arrived at our retreat venue, a small Catholic Institute for training Catechists (lay people who offer Christian education). Their guesthouse is nestled in amongst picturesque hills near the town of Kayanza, an easy trip from both Kigali and Bujumbura. In fact, the Rwandan group was already there to meet us when we arrived.

After sharing tea together, I decided to start with personal introductions before dinner. I had a simple, interesting question for our retreat participants to answer. “Tell us a story about what motivated you to become involved in peace and development work.” I started and told a simple, short story about experiencing poverty in Bangladesh as a teenager and wanting to do something to reverse that vicious cycle. The next participant started speaking, but he found that he had to start with his birth, his family background, all the unjust circumstances in his life. He spoke eloquently for at least 15 minutes, and came to this essential point: as a young man, he had to choose whether he was going to be a Hutu or a Christian. This was a choice with real physical ramifications. Would he join a rebel group and take vengeance on the tribe which had killed his father? Or would he decide to believe in the God who told him to love his enemies, in spite of the injustice he’d suffered at their hands? He chose to be a Christian and is now directing a major peace NGO in Burundi, but it was a hard-won choice.

The next participant also took 15 minutes, sharing about his experience in northern Rwanda during and after the genocide. He was almost killed numerous times, once by fellow Hutus who thought he looked Tutsi, other times by Tutsi soldiers who thought he might be aiding Hutu rebels. At the end of this story, our MCC counselor observed: “this sharing is very good. This is the reasons I came to this retreat. But we will not possibly hear from all 17 people before dinner.” We ended up giving ample time for each participant to share during our worship services throughout the weekend, and it truly became a focus and a gift of the retreat to hear personal stories from each partner.

I also found myself wondering how I could have been so naïve after three years as to not expect this kind of response. We from the West come to work in peace and development because of some theological or philosophical conviction: For example: “Our God hears the cries of the poor.” or “We are part of a system of structural injustice, in which we have received all the privileges, so it’s our responsibility to try and dismantle that unjust, violent system.” In contrast, some of the partners we work with have been stripped, thrown on the ground, and felt the muzzle of a gun against their backs. They have survived these things, wounded and battered, with a conviction that revenge is a dead end. Many of them still struggle with feelings of hate, with fears and distrust. But they have worked hard to be reconciled with their enemies, and they continue to lead others towards confession and forgiveness, towards conflict transformation. During the retreat, two partners came to me and observed, “There is a real difference between your stories as mzungus, and our stories. We are working to heal people, but we are doctors who are sick ourselves. How can we help other people when we continue to live with such deep wounds?”

I found myself returning to Psalm 126:5-6

Those who sow with tears

Will reap with songs of joy

Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow,

Will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

I have a deep conviction that the wounds themselves are the seeds. The tears are the seeds. There would be no planting, but for the tears. I cannot explain or justify why my friends and colleagues have had to suffer the things they have suffered. But they are faithfully sowing what they have learned from being wounded themselves. 

I was grateful on this retreat that many of the presentations were done by other people on our MCC team or by partners. I had to lead the retreat, but I certainly did not feel that I was alone. I was also grateful that finally, after 3 years, I could share brief meditations in French on a series of psalms. I hope I made sense! I kept it simpler than I might have in English, but it was good to be able to share directly in a language that all of us could use. 

There were two moments of levity I want to note as well: On the second night, I had just gotten off the phone with Paul and went to get something from my open suitcase when a rat leaped out! It was a bit of a process to chase it out of the door, and I can’t say I’m proud of my language throughout that process. After that, the scurrying noises in the ceiling alarmed me just a little more. Also, during one free time, I asked the Sister if we could borrow a basketball for some participants to shoot baskets on their court (it’s a rarity to find a basketball court in Burundi). Long story short, I unexpectedly found myself playing a game of 2 on 2, MCC (me and Felix) against her partners (2 other middle-aged guys). MCC won the first round, entirely due to the skill of Felix, and the partners congratulated themselves on not alienating their donor! Then they challenged us to a re-match. About halfway through that, two of us had to stop. We’re both pushing 40 and haven’t played basketball for at least 25 years – all my swimming has definitely not prepared me for that cardiovascular workout. But it was good to have some moments of fun with partners, along with the moments of seriousness. 

Paul again:

That is all at 11:00pm on Sunday night.  It is hard to believe we will be back in the US for homeleave in just 7 days.  Don't expect another posting before next Monday night US time or Tuesday at the latest.  Pray we will not have any other unexpected deviations from the routine this week.