The False Cross

 

When you first visit Mango, Togo you can’t help but notice the sky. The flat landscape and noticeable lack of surrounding trees make the sky appear vast and ever-changing. Foreboding storms in June, the smoky, sand-filled skies of January, the crystal clear November night skies showing off stars that hint at galaxies far away—it’s hard to keep from looking up.

I noticed the Southern Cross constellation for the first time in 2016. Since Togo sits near the equator, the well-known Southern hemisphere star formation sits low along the night horizon. I remember noticing it one evening as I walked along our dirt path, struggling with the events that had taken place over the previous few months. Even though there was nothing extraordinary in the moment, a time-stamp was marked in my memory, an Ebenezer of sorts, and I often mark the passage of time from that night.  I remember thinking that the Lord who placed the stars in the sky could certainly see me on this dirt path and knows all that has taken place.  As time passed, I would point out the constellation to visitors (since their North American homes couldn’t offer the view) and look for it each night as I strolled back and forth to the hospital. 

 

Yesterday evening, a visiting nurse and I pulled chairs out into our guesthouse parking lot at 2am to watch the Gemanie meteor shower. I was already awake for a night-shift, and Josie set her alarm for the event.  Missed sleep was no match for shooting-stars and a bowl of popcorn enjoyed in the chilly night air. I decided to download a star-gazing app on my phone to find new constellations and congratulate myself on ones I already knew: Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major.... I confidently held up my phone to the Southern Cross and no little lines connected the 4 stars. I thought it strange, but moved on to others: Leo, Virgo, Pegasus.... I went back to the Southern Cross, assured now that the app was working correctly, and still...nothing. The app allows you to click on individual stars, which I did: “Epsilon Carinae” I read, “also known as Avior”. As I began to read aloud, “one of four starts that makes up the Asterism known as the False Cross. This is often mistaken for the Southern Cross causing errors in astronavigation.” 

 

I’m sorry.....what?!?!

 

I realize it sounds ridiculous, but I was floored. Disappointed. Embarrassed. I had not only spent 4 years believing that was the Southern Cross, but also spent four years telling other people it was the Southern Cross! (my apologies if you are one of those people). I had spent the last four years, time stamping an event, a moment, that was based in something false. (those who know the enneagram, I’m a 5w6 so you can imagine my horror J) I hadn’t truly spent the time to ever find out if what I saw was interpreted correctly. I had no reason to believe it wasn’t the Southern Cross since I didn’t even know about the False Cross. 

 

In medicine we say that the most dangerous providers are those who don’t know what they don’t know. People who aren’t even aware of the knowledge they are missing. It’s one thing to know you have deficiencies, so you can go find answers when you don’t have them, or surround yourself with people who have different expertise than you. That’s called wisdom. When we can’t even imagine there is information we are missing, and assume we are already adequately informed, it borders on foolishness. 

 

2020 has left its toll on us all, but in many ways we are very shielded here in Togo, and most of my angst or frustration comes from reading the news or Twitter feeds. I have friends and family across the spectrum of political standings and COVID opinions. My own sending church is probably just as blue as it is red.  One of the most concerning aspects of watching things play out from three-thousand miles away, I’ve realized, is the rhetoric coming from fellow beleivers:

 

“Real Christians vote for ______”

“You can’t be a Christian and support ________”

“Loving Jesus means wearing _________”

“If Jesus were here he would _________”

 

I’ve read countless articles written by theologians with as much training in Biblical interpretation as I have in medical training. I want to acknowledge and give respect to them and their education. At the same time, Christ has given all believers the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit meant to reveal His Word to us for every good work. While there are clear biblical teachings about how every Christ follower should act, the “do’s” and “don’ts” of the Bible are to be a reflection (good or bad) of our understand of Christ and who He is. But I think anyone who has been a believer for any length of time is able to look back and say, “wow! I’m so glad I have grown in my understanding of ________”, or “I’m so thankful that the Lord has moved in my heart so that I no longer desire _________.”  But it would be a shame for any of us to look back on our walk and think “I probably wasn’t even a Christian before I was as spiritually mature as I am now.”  We are hopefully moving closer to Christ with each season that passes as He walks us through the valleys and mountain tops of life. We are becoming no Church at all if we look at others on the road behind us and think “they probably don’t follow Jesus at all.” Or rather, if we look at those ahead of us and think, “maybe I am not a follower of Jesus since I don’t seem to be as far along as him/her.”

 

A mature believer could probably look back and label things they believe about God now, that they didn’t know before. They didn’t necessarily seek out the knowledge, because they didn’t know it was even missing! But the Lord brought them through a situation that made it abundantly clear that they lacked the knowledge or wisdom to respond well. Maybe the Lord brought someone alongside to teach them. Maybe life itself was crushing and they began to understand the Lord’s deliverance in a whole new way. 

 

I am frightened as I watch the Church mark out who is or isn’t part of the Church using open-hand issues that have to do with (possibly) being early in a spiritual walk, a preference, or an issue that the Bible does not speak to directly. I would love to challenge everyone to reflect on whether we are fixing our eyes on a False Cross. Is there something that seems righteous, or un-righteous, to you that you have held up as a marker of, not only your faith in Christ, but as a marker for someone else? Is it a political party, a policy, an organization? Are we holding up False Crosses that are deciding our fate, or rather, holding our identity as children loved by the Almighty God? Can you only follow the command “love your neighbor as yourself” if she socially distances inside and out?  Could you wear a mask in order to spend time with a friend who is fearful? Can lockdowns both save the life of an elderly woman, and be the direct cause of a child starving on the other side of the world? Can we be thankful a child thrives in online learning with a family blessed with enough income to weather the storm, while grieving another who commits suicide from isolation? What if the Lord appointed both Trump and Biden in their respective times to bring about His plan for our country, whatever that may be? 

 

Are we willing to evaluate if the Lord is using the year 2020 to reveal to us the False Crosses in our lives? These are things that seem honorable and true, but in fact, are imitations of a Gospel Truth that centers on Christ crucified and resurrected. Remember: Christ’s perfect life for your sinful heart. Christ sanctifying your over time until His return. Christ + nothing = Salvation because salvation is determined by His work, not mine. His grace. His love. 

 

I learned that Cassiopeia and the Southern Cross can’t ever be seen in the night sky together.  If I had known this, I would’ve known that I was seeing a False Cross all these years. What is something being held up in your sky that is keeping Jesus from sharing the same space in your life? Something may seem worthy and true, but is actually a shadow of truth instead, and keeping Jesus from being the center. 

 

CS Lewis said, “The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ.”

 

And while that quote is true, that handing over your whole self is almost impossible—it is worth it. In the end, there is only one true Cross, and as Christ reminds us, “It is finished”.  We don’t need to add to the message of the cross or speak for Christ where he has not spoken. As we move towards the celebration of Christ being sent to us on this Earth, let the only message we have as Christians be: You can’t be a Christian if you don’t know Christ, so let me introduce Him to you.......

 

 

 

 

And so it begins..

When you talk to my dad about 9/11, he has a hard time relating to the raw emotion that most of us experienced on that day. That’s because when you ask him, “where were you when you heard about the attack on the twin towers?”, he says, “Haiti.” In fact, he was in a remote area of Haiti and was told by a Haitian national that “your country was attacked today.” But there was no television, no watching people fall out of buildings from the 40^thfloor, no live plane crashes. So, while he is able to relate to the sorrow the day brought, it’s not really the same. 

Many of us Africa missionaries, I think, have felt this way about Coronavirus. No matter how many news updates I read or numbers I see ticking across the screen, we have been, up to this point, quite removed from the impact of it all. Africa, until very recently, had been quite spared from the pandemic and we’ve been feeling as though Mango, Togo was the safest place in the world.

Our hospital is no stranger to epidemics and the fear they cause. As the site of Togo’s first ever Viral Hemorrhagic Fever outbreak, we have spent many hours in PPE with hands cracking from chlorine. So, it’s been quite surreal for the last 2 months or so, as we’ve watched Americans experience things that, in many ways, are norms for us here: a lack of finding food items, lack of personnel and equipment, distance from friends and relatives, and even medical workers doing jobs they weren’t trained for. In no way did this bring any feelings of “it’s about time!” or “what’s the big deal?!” In many ways, it made it easy to empathize with all the emotions that our friends and families were and are going through. But it was also all through a looking-glass, as we were still unaffected by the chaos going around the world. In fact, if internet hadn’t improved so much in the last few years, we would likely still be largely unaware of the COVID pandemic ravaging the world. (I still have Togolese friends here that don’t know that World War II happened or that any wars are taking place right now!) 

Form March 7^th— March 18, Togo only had 1 imported case of COVID—a Togolese national returning from Belgium and France. We held our breath to see if she had been isolated quickly enough. Slowing more cases came, imported cases mostly from travelers returning to Togo from abroad. More than half our medical team had plans and tickets to go to a medical conference in Greece that circles around every 2 years. It was a much-anticipated time where we would get both training, reunion time with friends serving around the world, and much needed vacation time as well. But as the virus continued to spread around the world, our hopes of travel faded away. Even after the conference was cancelled, I adjusted my ticket to fly direct from Togo to the U.S for a 3-month furlough that had been planned prior to COVID. 

But finally, on March 28^ththere was case in Togo that couldn’t be traced back to a known contact with the disease. In the world of epidemiology, this is the sign of an outbreak that is now un-controlled. Not only was this new case a marker of things to come, the case was a woman that was from right here in Mango. Suddenly, our corner of the world wasn’t so immune anymore. As we are someone used to epidemics here, I still thought I wouldn’t be affected the way I had seen on news and social media. I would watch the U.S make more and more restrictions to keep the virus from spreading and try and encourage stateside friends that the quarantines were truly necessary. I made the hard decision to postpone by furlough time for a month since Togo had stopped all incoming flights which meant no volunteers could come to cover my absence. Meanwhile, I still felt immune to the stress and fear of it all. 

In the week before our case in Mango, though, my great-aunt passed away. A few days after, my grandmother passed away. She was my last living grandparent and there was no sweeter soul on this earth. I had spent time with her on my last furlough and asked her to stay alive for 2 more years so I could see her again. She thought about it for a second and said, “2 years?! Maybe you can just write me a letter.” Both woman dearly loved the Lord and were ready to see Him face to face. I couldn’t admire either woman more. I knew I would likely not see my grandmother again, but suddenly she was gone and my solace was that I would be home in time to at least be at the funeral. Postponing my furlough time was necessary for many reasons, but as the days went on, I now could feel the stress and frustration this virus was causing in my own heart: 

missed vacation, 

missed family during a time of need, 

when will I finally be able to leave Togo? 

what will cases do in Togo?

where will our supplies come from?

how will our cancer kids get to the hospital with border and road closures?

.....

....

....

I finally wrote an e-mail to my roommate here. Why couldn’t we just talk? It was almost as if saying things out loud would both make them real and unleash a never-ending list of complaints! I couldn’t really put a word to what I was feeling—anger? Frustration? Fear?

Disappointment. I was feeling disappointment and grief. There are two types of grief at play. One is over things you had but are now gone, like the loss of loved ones. This is probably the most standard/familiar form of grief. It feels as though something has been taken, or stolen, from us.  The loss is an experience we had that we can’t have anymore, and we miss it. The other type of grief is the loss of things that will never be, a hope deferred. You can’t miss the experience but you never had it. Instead, you’ve missed out on the experience. There are no memories to rest on or be grateful for time you had, because it never happened. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”, which is what I think many of us are feeling.    

There is a beautiful article that came out in TIME this last week. “Christianity offers no answers about the Coronavirus. It’s not Supposed to.” It’s a beautifully written article about lament and the season we are in as Christ-followers. It explains, better than I could, how the Bible rarely gives an answer to “why” for our suffering, but instead offers the “how”.  Our answers are not in how to distract ourselves by finding new series on Netflix or looking for the end of the internet. Instead we are meant to stare straight into the eyes of lost-expectations and disappointments and lament before a Savior who both directed and demonstrated the practice in his own time here on Earth.  

I am clearly not in control. I don’t know when I will get to go home. If I’m able to fly out of Togo, it is also risking not being able to return to Togo for an unforeseeable time given travel bans. I know I will never see my grandma again on this Earth, but I know we will be together again before the Lord one day. I don’t know when this outbreak will end, but I know in Togo, it is only just beginning. 

So, redeem the time, with what time there is. Redeem it for lamenting or redeem it for joy, redeem it for reconciliation or redeem it for solitude. Redeem it for spreading the gospel or redeem it for learning the gospel. The Lord will redeem this Earth one day and all the illness in it, of that I am sure.

In the meantime, please go wash your hands, and stop touching your face. :-)

 

See you at the feet of Jesus sweet lady˜

On that very Day

"The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day,all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Exodus 12:40-41.

February 26th is, and always will be, an extremely important day with mixed emotions that range from celebration to somber, from praise to lament, from joy to pain. Of course, February 26th was the first day of the opening of the Hospital of Hope. Thousands of people in attendance including the president of Togo himself. Excitement filled the air as well as the bizarre playing of the song Hotel California on repeat the morning of the ceremony by the local station running our sound. (luckily no one understood the English lyrics!) The preparations had been years in the making and we will only see in heaven how everyone's stories wove together to bring us all together on that opening day. 

Fast-forward one year later to February 26, 2016. The call came that Todd Dekryger, our beloved friend, hospital surgeon and Medical Director had passed away shortly after arriving in Germany via his evacuated flight from Togo. We had literally crossed over small mountains being pulled by a semi-tuck with a canvas rope to get him on that flight. It's easy to think, "of course he'll be healed in Germany. We are under-resourced here, but they can do everything there." It wasn't to be and the rest of the story played out in months of managing Togo's first ever Lassa fever outbreak, the horrible disease we later found, was responsible for taking our friend's life. There were no 1-year anniversary celebrations taking place, as the day was instead marked with mourning and shock. 

February 26, 2017 was now the first anniversary of the loss of Todd while spending time celebrating who he was and how the Lord has sustained us during that year. Even though Lassa fever had reared its ugly head once again by this date, we tried not to let us affect the joy of remembering our friend and all He had done to make this hospital a reality for the people of Mango in the name of Christ. By that evening though, my roommate and I received news that a child we cared for over the last 10 months, Tama, often caring for him overnight in our home, had suddenly become ill and quickly passed away. It seemed impossible that the Lord could allow this to take place at all, let alone on this date. 

Over the past 3 years so much more has taken place. Some is recorded in this blog and so much more could never be. And as I think on the verse in Exodus 12, I am reminded that the Lord wastes no detail in His kingdom, especially when it comes to timing. Do you suppose that the Isrealites themselves knew that they and their ancestors had been in captivity 430 years to the day?? Why 430 years? Why not 429 or 477 or 2? the Bible points out with the small praise "to the day", and it seems like only we as the readers get to revel at this supernatural insight into the Lord's plans. 

This year, February 26, 2020 falls on Ash Wednesday. And while not all Christian denominations spend time recognizing this day in the same way, my sending church has always make this day and the period of lent, a part of our yearly rhythm. This year they sent out an explanation of Ash Wednesday as we believe it applies to us as evangelical believers: 

"Ash Wednesday is an ancient practice that opens the season of Lent—a season of reflection, fasting, prayer, and lament—that incites us to remember and confront the reality of our mortal existence. The act of drawing a cross with ashes signifies that we are from dust, and to dust we will return. (Genesis3:19). The world around us moves at a rapid pace and seems to forget that it is not eternal. So, we commemorate this event publicly, and as a community, to remember our frailty. The ashes used to make the sign of the cross are not a sacrament nor a moral duty. The ashes are not magic. This is simply a visual activity that reminds us of the sad truth of our mortality and points us forward to the hope we should cling to in Jesus’s rising from the dead—his victory over sin, death, and the devil." 

I can think of no better way to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of HOH and the anniversaries of loved ones that have gone before us, but to take time to humbly recognize my own weaknesses and frailty while clinging to the awesomeness of truth demonstrated by Christ's victory over death, sin, and the devil Himself. My sadness is almost turned to laughter when I imagine how Satan thought these things would devastate us to the point of despair and the loss of Hope. While I can mark several days when I thought this may be true, that I couldn't carry on any longer, the victory is the Lord's and it has already been accomplished and will continue to be accomplished until the very dayHe decides to take us Home.  It will not be a day too soon nor a day behind the appointed time....and maybe it will even be on a February 26th....... wouldn't that be wonderful......

See you soon friend.