Thursday, May 3, 2012
Palawan Energy Project
There's a time for everything under the sun.
What do you do with the question of death? For those of us
who believe in a loving, caring God, death can prove to be a hard issue to deal
with especially when it’s staring you in the face. It seems to be the complete
opposite of our God. The joy He brings to a soul, the Father-like care He shows
toward us, and the gift of life He has given to us; even these can come into
question when we see a life cut short. Can one cope with the dark cloud that
rests over them when weeping over a lost loved one? Can we be happy in times
like these? Is there an answer to these questions that will lead us closer to
God? I say yes. Allow me share with you a story from a recent experience of
mine.
Just a few weeks ago on Friday, my day off from school, I
decided to take a friend up on his offer to come help him plant rice at his
farm. On American or even many Philippino farms it can seem to be an easily
accomplished job, but not so in the slash and burn, mountain farms of
Palawan. I had found myself in a
situation that was a little more than I was prepared for. We planted most of
the morning on the side of the mountain, more comparable to a Double Black
Diamond ski slope than any farm I had ever seen. My only worry leaving my house
that morning was a sore back from bending over planting all day but there was no
bending here. Standing straight up, you only needed to lean forward a little to
reach the ground right in front of you. Sore back No, sore everything else Yes,
including some nicely blistered hands. I didn’t know how long the work would
take but I wasn’t sure if could last the whole day. Around noon we rested and I
jumped at the offer to call it a day. So after a bite to eat I headed home.
Arriving at home I was fairly tired and it being my day off,
I decided to spend the high noon hours inside and out of the sun. Initially I had
intended to rest but my hands quickly got busy making a window. I had wanted to
build one for a while now. Time flew by with many aimless thoughts and one-sided
mental discussions; before I knew it I had finished my window. But with that
out of the way, there wasn’t much else I could do and far be it from this guy
to spend a perfectly nice afternoon cleaning his house. So, I decided to show
up early for the Friday afternoon Bible study down at another missionary’s
house.
I packed up my backpack, gathered my things, locked my door,
(that will only keep out an honest man) and started down the trail. I had just
left the village, when the thought seemed to shout in my mind, ‘Don’t leave
yet!’ A bit startled, I did a once over of all the stuff I needed to have; cell
phone, Bible, water, backpack, all was accounted for, so shrugging it off, I
went on. I took about ten more steps and Whack! a small piece of bamboo made a
less than comfortable impression on my leg. So I stopped and thought for a
minute that maybe there was something more to that thought about not leaving.
Conceding to wait and see, a little begrudgingly I walked back up to my house,
opened the door, and started cleaning. Assuming whatever the reason, having a
clean house in preparation for the Sabbath would be a good idea. I did my
neglected chores and finished up with the dishes and just as I was pouring the
used water outside, one of the village children shouted a greeting to Napthali,
a Philippino missionary here at the project.
He rounded the corner of my house and the first thing he
said was, “Can you help me?” He was carrying two small children, one in a
basket strapped across his forehead and the other in his arms. They had been
brought to the clinic a few hours before and needed to be carried out to the
hospital in the lowlands. Their mother who followed close behind was carrying
her third daughter, all three of her children suffering from typhoid in varying
degrees. Her middle daughter, age 3 and doing the best had only been sick for a
few days. The baby she carried in her arms was worse but her condition wasn’t
anywhere near the condition of 5 year old in the basket who was drifting in and
out of consciousness.
I grabbed a bottle of water and we set off, Napthali in
front with the three year old, I followed carrying the basket and 5 year old, mom
and the baby trailing behind, with a family friend accompanying. Climbing to
the top of the first ridge I began to hear the little girl moaning and decided
we needed to stop and check on her. When I turn the basket around I could see
that having lost all of her strength to keep herself up-right, she had crumpled
over in a position that was making it hard for her to breathe. So we
straightened her back up, resituated her, and before setting off again we
paused to vocalize our already ongoing prayers. Walking again, the groaning
persisted and began to worsen with each step, but having seen the urgency of
the situation we picked up the pace.
Her moaning became worse and worse so we decided once again
to stop and check on her. When I turned her around I saw that she had twisted
over again, and while trying to resituate her I could feel the frailty of her
body. Her breathing was very labored and every breath seem to be a struggle.
Her body and face showed the wear of fighting this sickness for two weeks with
little to no food. It didn’t take a health professional to see that this little
girl didn’t have much time left to live. Thinking it might help, I wet a
bandanna and wiped her head to cool her off. This time our prayers became more
urgent as we pleaded with God over the life of this little girl. The mom caught
up behind us as I was lifting her and the basket and so we continued on.
Her moaning was weakening as my steps were quickening. We
passed the bend in the trail leading us to the top of the last ridge and before
descending 1,000 feet out of the mountains. After passing over a small creek, I
notice that there wasn’t any sound coming from behind me. We stopped again,
this time turning around to see a limp body hunched over in the basket. I
reached down the feel for a pulse and there was still a notable heart beat so
we decided to take her from the basket so that Napthali could carry her in his
arms. As he held her, Napthali admittedly said, ‘She dead.’ But having felt the
heart beat I reassured him there still might be a chance. The mother was standing
behind me as, Napthali was holding the limp body, gasping she asked, ‘Is she
dead?’ Turning without an answer we pushed on.
Coming to Parina, the halfway marker, we stopped one last
time to pray and this time we prayed, ‘God, increase our faith so that we can
see Your power.’ With as much haste as the trail would allow we started to
descend. Not much time passed and we had made to it the creek marking a third
of the way down the mountain. We stopped and checking her pulse again I felt
nothing. We both could smell that the body had moved its bowels, assuring us
that she had in fact died. We talked about it for a moment and Napthali decided
to carry the body back to the mountains to be buried in the small graveyard in
the jungle next to our clinic. The mom having then caught back up with us asked
again, and this time we answered, ‘She’s dead.’ The mother’s countenance
dropped and tears began to rush from her eyes as she wailed over her child’s
lifeless body. I couldn’t help but do the same as I listened and saw as she
embraced her child for the last time. Napthali reminded her of the importance
of getting her other two children to the hospital and reluctantly she separated
from her child. I could only imagine what the breaking of that bond between mother
and child must have felt like.
Our pace slowed down to a walk and the moaning of the dying
child had been replaced with the cries of a sorrowful, grieving mother. Each
person we passed on the trail seemed to remind her of her loss as she would
again break out in tears. We made it down to the meeting place and waited a few
minutes for the trike to arrive.
I had been praying the whole way down for this woman and was
also trying to make sense out of what I had just seen. But now as I saw the
mother sitting there holding her two children, I began to pray all the more for
her. She asked me if I would be going with them to the hospital and sadly I
said, ‘No, but that there would be someone there to meet you.’ As we sat there
an unexpected person walked by, it was one of the Christians from the lowlands
and she began to speak with the women, not knowing what had happened. But as
they talked she discovered her recent loss and the reason for her grief. She
then did what I had completely forgotten to do, but I know now could have only
come for another mother. God sent that woman to encourage her and tell her that
heaven was very close and that Jesus was coming back soon. She told her that
she could pray to Jesus, and that God would help her and comfort her through
this trying time. A little later, I sent them off on the trike and watched as
they disappeared down the road.
I turned and started hiking, now for the first time
realizing how exhausted I really was. Having mixed feelings, I began to pray
out loud asking God why that had happened and why things had turned out the way
they did. Just then I looked down at the ground and saw a dead, trampled, at one
time beautiful, red flower, without a bit of life left in it. Looking at it, I
thought of the little girl who had just passed into death’s sleep. ‘What a
loss,’ I thought, ‘of something so beautiful.’ Lifting up my head, I saw the
long row of bushes along the side of the road that it had fallen from, covered
with bright red flowers shining with the glow of the now setting sun. They were
living testaments of their Creator, their praise and adoration for Him were
almost audible. What a contrast, to the silent, lifeless flower lying at my
feet which was a sad but true testament of the degradation that sin causes.
In that moment the lesson was driven home, that there is
only one explanation for death and that is sin. The reason that little girl
died can be traced back to the cancer of sin that has been killing our planet
for six thousand years. There is all around us the evidence of this death
causing disease. The Bible reads, ‘the wages of sin is death’ both spiritually
and ultimately physically, it is what causes all the hurt and sorrow in our
world and universe. But in the same verse, we find the promise of hope, ‘the
(free) gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ And just like my
friend told the grieving mother, that ‘gift’ is very, very close. Praise God
and His son Jesus for giving us the answer to ‘Why is there death?’ and for
being the answer for eternal life.
Update since writing this story:
The following Saturday night the mother lost her youngest
child to Pneumonia. Please remember her in your prayers.
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