When is Enough, Enough?

Proverbs 27:20 Death and destruction are never satisfied, and neither are they eyes of man.

My cell phone rang at 6:30 this morning. I mentally checked the day's schedule before I scanned the text on my screen. Noemia's message was solemn and short. The husband of one of our activistas had just passed away. I stared at the screen wondering if the cup of suffering in Dondo screams, "FULL!" or if it just continues to overflow. Although I wanted to comfort Adelina right away, two patients from Project Life were waiting for an emergency ride to the hospital.

My translator and I stopped at Tina's Green Door house in Macharote. She walked unassisted to the car though her gait was tipsy and her pain apparent. At the hospital she was diagnosed and treated for cerebral malaria. We took her home and prayed with this widow that our Great Physician would heal her body quickly so she could care for her six children. The next patient wasn't so easy.

The message we had received was to take a relative of one of the women from PL to the hospital. When we arrived at the house the woman from PL was there but not the patient. She explained that he had become so ill the night before that he had chosen to sleep in a church in Macharote. Then, like a self-correcting processor she changed her story to say he had slept at a pastor's house. We drove to the church and found it locked. A neighbor directed us back to the woman's house confiding that it was the house of the pastor. Retracing our tracks we questioned the woman again. She gave us a different direction to the "pastor's house." We arrived at that house and thankfully were informed of the patient's presence. As we waited outside a dreadful discernment overcame us. This was not a pastor's house. We were at the house of a witchdoctor. I turned my head and noticed three men staring at us in a small hut a few yards away. I quietly prayed for God's protection. Two young men carried out our patient; a skeletal frame passing in and out of consciousness. I began to thank God that I did not know Sena, the tribal language for every bit of my being was rising up in anger like a whip. Hoisting the patient on his back, my translator hurried to the car before anyone's mind could change. Back at the car, we challenged the woman's dishonesty about "the pastor." She confessed that her family had forced this young man to go to the witchdoctor in spite of her objections. In the emergency room we laid him on a bench. We had a few minutes before the nurse could see him. His life was quickly ebbing away so I knelt down with his head next to mine and explained God's salvation plainly. He slightly nodded at me until his eyes lost focus. Another life....another death. When is enough, enough?

I stopped by Adelina's house. Women were customarily sitting beside her on the floor. She sobbed and sobbed in my arms. All of her fears of loss poured out of her heart. It was no coincidence that the week's Bible lesson had been about Ruth and Naomi. And there was no doubt in my heart that God had sent me back to Moz seasonably early for this very moment: to sit beside my friend during this difficult loss and encourage her that God had not abandoned her. Though answers to the complexities of her suffering are far beyond my grasp, I do know this, one day God will say, "Enough!" That will be all I need to hear.