My Worldview is Always Changing

July 30, 2023

 

Greetings from eastern DRC!  Thank you for the many e-mails, prayers, and support for Warren as he recovers from uveitis.  This has been a challenge for us, but we have known the faithfulness of God in part because of your prayers.  This will be a meandering of reflections and stories from Lindsey’s perspective.

 

Worldview

A conversation I had this last week sparked my attention towards the idea of worldview.  As the dialogue concerned the health of women and children in our province and how to best assist vulnerable populations, I realized how much my experience here has changed my view of the world.  I mentioned a pregnant woman who weighs 70lbs in an isolated, neighboring community.  There was silence on the other end to the line.  The question was, “What is the best way to promote women’s health and nutrition in situation of conflict?”  What a complex question.  The problem is multifactorial, but comes down to not being able to farm enough land.  Also there may be a lack of a man (or extended family) to help her around the house.  In the hospital, I find myself gravitating more towards the need for counsel for the whole family to make needed changes.  Educational programs are not bad in themselves, but by themselves are unlikely to lead to lasting change.  People need on-going relationships that can help them in their daily lives.

 

What is worldview and why does it matter?  I like this definition:  “A worldview is a collection of attitudes, values, stories and expectations about the world around us, which inform our every thought and action.  Worldview is expressed in ethics, religion, philosophy, scientific beliefs (!), and so on.”  Sire et al, 2004

 

Living in Congo continues to shape me.  Relationships are the fabric of society here, and I would say everywhere.  Strong relationships are the basis of health and progress, in childhood and into adulthood.  Young children need to develop strong bonds of attachment with their parents.  When attachment is missing, children lack confidence to advance in life, in academics and personal relationships.  They are more likely to drop out of school, etc.  When I see malnourished children in the hospital it is usually because of broken family relationships-things like divorce, substance abuse, absent fathers.  These are difficult things to solve and require much prayer for God to intervene.  However, I do have an opportunity to bring the family together and talk about things that they can do to improve the health of their child.  

 

After a pastoral counseling session with a mother and father of a malnourished child, the pastor turned to me and said something like, “Let’s give the father peanuts to plant.  This will encourage him to do something small to help his child.  We can visit him and see how things are progressing and work on this relationship.”  What wisdom!  This will be a wonderful way to stay connected to this family and may afford us opportunities to encourage their faith.  

 

What am I trying to say?  Simply that living cross-culturally, having cross-cultural relationships has enriched my life and challenged me to think differently to resolve problems.  

 

The Simple Things in Life

Recently I found myself ecstatic to discover an abandoned toilet seat!  We needed a new one and these are not easy to come by.  It is hard to find one the right size and that is well made.  In the USA I would simply go out to Lowes and buy a new one, giving it little thought.  People rarely have toilets here, simply latrines.  Well we took that toilet seat and installed it, only to discover that it wasn’t quite the right size.  My husband then suggested that we should have a mahogany toilet seat custom made.  This is what we did and here is the beginnings of our new toilet seat.  Stay tuned as it gets installed and goes into use.

                                                 

A Special Patient 

A women greeted me at the hospital the other day with a big smile on her face.  She was radiant with joy!  I couldn’t place how I knew her, but she knew me.  I simply welcomed her in Swahili and said that I was so happy to see her.  Warren informed me later that this was the woman who came to Nyankunde Hospital with an upper gastrointestinal bleed late in the evening with the hope of life-saving care.  It was a desperate attempt to save her life.  She underwent endoscopy to stop the vessels that were bleeding.  She received several units of blood and made it through the night.  A blood clot in her abdominal venous system was found and thought to be the cause of the on-going bleeding.  After many units of blood she ended up with a splenectomy as a last effort to save her life.  She survived and was able to return home to her husband and children.

 

The day she greeted me on the sidewalk was the day of her medical follow-up.  Warren asked her how she was feeling and she broke down in tears of thankfulness.  We learned that she had basically said goodbye to her children before coming to our hospital, thinking that she was unlikely to survive.  She was so grateful to God and to our hospital for working to save her life and re-unite her with her family.  

 

It is cases like hers that inspire us to advance in our medical knowledge.  Warren had not encountered a case like hers previously that required a splenectomy.  He is more likely to look for blood clots in the future in patients that continue to bleed.  The future of our patients is in God’s hands, but He does ask us to be courageous.  

                                   

Growing up Cross-Culturally

Emmanuel is growing up in a very rich environment.  He is learning where food comes from shelling peanuts with this neighbor friends.  He enjoys making things with his hands like chairs, treehouses, and life-size play airplanes.  Emmanuel is learning Swahili and Congolese dance like the rumba.  He knows local pop artists and has figured out how to play Swahili songs on Alexa.  He likes sugar cane and understands that candy is made from this plant.  He is creative with what he has.  He watches his friends “soccer moves” and imitates what he sees.  He notices the needs of others and offers to give clothing to those in need.  He knows that he is different, but he feels like he belongs.  We were a bit uncertain as to how he would adapt to not having English speaking friends in the village, but he has adapted very well.

  

Preparing for a US Visit

We are planning a visit back in the US in September for a few weeks.  Warren has been asked to speak at a conference for Samaritan’s Purse.  I will be joining him on one of the talks called “Medical Missions in a Conflict Setting-experiences from eastern DRC.”  We have been working on this talk for a couple of weeks.  It is difficult to know how to share our experiences with others…even how our Biblical worldview has been shaped by living in this place.  There is a need for courageous witness in many parts of the world.  Paul knew this.  He saw idolatry, the effects of false teaching, witchcraft, and even just wrong beliefs about God loving all people.  Paul knew that a Gospel witness was critical and found ways to continue encouraging the church through letters from prison or by sending others to bring encouragement (sometimes reproach).  We are living through a time when many people are asking if the Church is still relevant to their lives.  Does God see them?  Does He care?  The Church is struggling here.  We are listening for how God wants to use us here.  We hope to be able to share some of the burden we feel for communities in eastern Congo at this conference, from a health and spiritual perspective.  This a public health poster that is framed in our hospital, entitled "Health facilities save lives!  Don't attack them!  Protect them!"  

                              

 

We plan to be mostly in North Carolina this September.  We would love to connect with you!  Send us a message.  Thank you for your interest in our lives.  

 

We appreciate prayers for:

-Lasting peace in our region of Ituri Province and for more freedom of movement.

-On-going Gospel witness of Nyankunde Hospital.

-Upcoming travels to the US in September.

-Wisdom in raising our son Emmanuel and teaching him about the Lord.

 

“Finally, brothers, good-bye.  Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace.  And the God of love and peace will be with you.  Greet one another with a holy kiss.  All the saints send their greetings.  May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  2 Corinthians 13: 11-14

 

Lindsey

 

 

 

 

My left eye - an update.

We are back at Nyankunde!  

This is what has happened, in a nutshell.  We went to Vanga Hospital.  I got uveitis, a serious inflammation of the left eye.  Despite appropriate management my vision deteriorated rapidly.  After two weeks at Vanga we left for Kinshasa to receive more specialized care.  In Kinshasa I  benefitted from excellent care.  I saw a Congolese ophthalmologist and I have been treated by a team of American ophthalmologists who came on a surgical mission trip.  Despite the treatment, my vision was still very blurry.  The initial thought was that this was a result of clouding in my vitreous humor, the jelly which resides in the posterior part of the eye.  More evaluation revealed that I was rapidly developing a cataract.  This is a common complication of uveitis, and the consensus was that it would continue to get worse and eventually need surgery.  

So, if something is going to get worse and eventually need surgery, why not just do the surgery early?  There are plenty of reasons to wait, I think.  It’s better to let things settle down before doing an operation. I had plenty of reasonable people tell me to take a vacation, just stop doing surgery for a while, and relax.  Unfortunately, if I was going to be back at Nyankunde, I know that I’d end up doing surgery.  It was just a question of whether or not I could do it safely with one eye closed.  There was also the fog, which made me feel disoriented and irritable. 

Long story short, I ended up having cataract surgery in Kinshasa and I’m now on the mend!  My vision is not perfect, but it’s much better.  Glasses will help.

God has shown us his tender mercies during this time.  It this had happened to us in Eastern Congo, I don’t know what we would have done.  There are no specialists here and we could not have traveled without our passports (they are still in some office in Kinshasa).  We would not have had access to the specialized testing that we received there.  The presence of this eye team was such a blessing to us.  Did God somehow know that our trajectory was to intersect with theirs?  On the day before we traveled to Vanga, before I even knew a problem was developing, we “happened” to meet an ophthalmologist, who ended up being instrumental  in advising us and facilitating our ability to see the team of specialists.  There were so many things that happened that make us realize that God knew what was going on, and he had a good plan for us.  As a Christian, I believe this, but I also find myself occasionally thinking, “Maybe this particular situation slipped past him.”

In John 9, Jesus explains the purpose of it all, the reason for blindness and for restoration of sight.  It is simply “that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”  The same was true for Saul.  The same is true for me. I can testify to the works of God!

Of course, I would have just preferred to have avoided the whole ordeal. It has been destabilizing and disorienting. My abilities to perform basic tasks have deteriorated. Lindsey and Emmanuel were so great in Kinshasa, making sure I didn’t step in an open sewer or get hit by a car.  Its going to affect my ability to do surgery, and it’s going to make me go slower in many ways. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not great.  Some days I seem to see ok in the left eye, other days not so great.  I have a different tint in my eyes, like the seeing a cool white on one side, and warm white on the other.  Things will get better with time.  I’ve also been on steroids, which has not been much fun.  It has made me jittery and causes me to wake up at odd hours.

I am thankful for the CHOSEN eye team who treated me with such compassion and expertise.  I am also thankful for Lindsey and Emmanuel who put up with me when I was not easy to be around.  They dropped eye drops, reminded me to take my medicines, accompanied me on countless trips to appointments.  They tolerated my irritability, and occasionally told me it was time to snap out of it.  They sat in Kinshasa traffic with me.  Emmanuel was such a trooper. Every morning he would hold up fingers and make me count them.  I am so thankful and proud of them.

I am thankful also for the many who supported us in prayer.  We were overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern and love.  

What a miracle of God are these eyes of ours. I’ve taken plenty of them out, for various reasons.  Believe me, they don’t look like much.  There is a little ball, filled with goo. How astounding that they let in light, focus the beam, and show us what is outside.  Sitting here in Nyankunde I can see the beauty of the world.  At the hospital I see the suffering of my fellow man.  I see something of the glory of God, and in my heart, I feel grateful. 

Warren