Quite often, when I leave the hospital to go home my family is already sleeping. It gets dark here around 6 pm, and my family is usually in bed by 8 or 8:30. I happen to be a night owl, which has been difficult here, and I usually stay up until 9 or 10 at night. About a month ago, I came home one night in the dark to find that our gate was not only closed, but locked with a small deadbolt from the inside. What to do? I figured that I had about three options:
1. Knock on the door, wake someone up, and be let in
2. Try to reach through the small opening between the wooden
door frame post and the brick wall to unlock the gate
3. Attempt to climb the brick wall
I didn't want to wake anyone up, and I really didn't want to try climbing the wall in crocs and scrubs. So, of course, I tried to squeeze my hand through the opening. I managed to stick my arm through the hole and got to where I could almost just reach the deadbolt, but my arm couldn't bend at the right angle for my hand to get a good grip on the lock. I tried this for about 5 minutes, readjusting my arm every once in while, but with no success. The only things I had to show for my effort were a few scratches from the wooden post and the bricks.
I still didn't want to wake anyone up, and I still didn't really want to climb the wall. But desperate times...
I'm not very good with giving estimates of distances and heights, but I would say that the brick wall is maybe an inch or two short of 6 feet tall. I am not terribly tall, have no experience with rock climbing, and there were not exactly any good footholds. You can probably imagine how silly I looked trying to scramble up the wall in the middle of the night by headlamp light. I got up with fairly few problems, but as I sat perched on top of the brick wall getting ready to descend, several thoughts went through my head. First I thought, "I hope no one in the house wakes up and thinks that I'm a thief coming in, or worse, I hope no other locals pass by the road and think I'm a thief trying to get in." My very next thought was actually somewhat humorous; I remembered the Bible verse about people who don't enter through the gate being thieves and robbers ("I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber" John 10:1), and then I really felt like a criminal. As I was shifting my weight and turning so that I could climb or jump down, I immediately thought, "Oh no. What if I fall and break my ankle or something? Then I will have to wake someone up, which is the whole reason I did this- to avoid waking someone up!"
Praise God, I made it down with no injuries, and there were no observers of my "criminal" activity. Since that night, I have had to climb over the wall many, many times. I've actually gotten quite proficient, although I still very much dislike climbing the wall. After the third time or so, I actually told Hawaa and my family that I had been doing this, and they looked at me in amazement, laughed, and said that I should just knock on the door and wake them up. I have not taken their advice, and will continue to climb the wall whenever the gate is locked.
There's more to the story though. Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked Hawaa why they lock the gate, why they don't just shut it. She told me that sometimes animals try to push the door open in the middle of the night and she doesn't like that. That seemed to make sense to me, but I didn't realize that it was a big problem, especially because pigs and chickens come in the back of the yard through a small opening in the toilet area anyway.
One night recently, I was walking home late at night, and I was rather tired. As I walked home, I prayed, "God, I really don't feel like climbing the wall tonight. I'm so tired. Please let it not be locked."
As I came upon our gate, I looked, and much to my surprise, not only was the door not locked, but it was a little bit ajar. "Odd," I thought, "but nice. Thank you God."
I had just finished thinking this and entered through the gate when my light fell upon an extremely fat pig standing about five feet away from me. I must have startled him as much as he startled me because he squealed and charged straight at my shins. Luckily, my reaction time was short, and I jumped to the side just in time as the pig ran past me and to the gate. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, this was a very fat pig, and when he tried to get through the gate opening, he got stuck, which only made him squeal all the louder. Despite this small difficulty, he made his escape and left me staring wide-eyed at the gate opening with my heart racing from my fright.
I now know why they lock the gate and am glad for it.
In all seriousness though, I do believe that God gave me experiences in the States before I came here to prepare me for my work in Chad. When I worked as a nurse in America, I ended up on an Oncology (cancer) floor. The job was perfect for me-- my nurse manager worked with my school schedule more than I ever could have hoped, the people I worked with were so sweet, and because of the type of floor it was, people were more open to being prayed with despite it being a non-religious hospital. But I remembered thinking, "Why oncology? That's not really something I want to do for the rest of my life."
Working with cancer patients was emotionally draining for me. I cried several many times while at work, and often I would come home feeling exhausted physically and emotionally. Dealing so closely with death and suffering was hard on my heart.
As I prepared to come to Chad, I thanked God for my experience with oncology because I knew that I would be encountering death and suffering much more often than I ever would in the States. Unfortunately, it has been true; since I've been here, I have had to deal with death, with suffering that I can't fix, and it has been so difficult for me. But again, I thank God that He knew what I would be seeing here and that He gave me my experiences with cancer patients and their families to help prepare me for the work here in Chad.
Praise God for divine preparation.
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