Tangible and Intangible: Affairs of the Heart

My parents really enjoy the hospital drama The Good Doctor. The star is Freddie Highmore as autistic resident-surgeon Dr. Shaun Murphy. Socially inept and unflinchingly honest, Dr. Murphy provides comic relief amidst the trauma and tragedy of the San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. The show is well-written, the actors convincing, and the social issues intriguing, but ultimately the subject is too depressing for me, and I don’t care to binge through a season as my parents do.

Recently I was remembering an episode from the first season. Called “Intangibles,” in this episode the hospital engages in international humanitarian aid, gifting surgery to a foreign child. Over 100 children in need of life-saving surgery were screened, but there can be only one recipient. Allegra Aoki, chairman and Vice President of St. Bonaventure’s controlling foundation, says “there were several intangibles” she considered when finally choosing the child, a boy named Gabriel from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Dr. Melendez, the ingenious and usually supremely confident cardiothoracic surgeon, disapproves of her choice, saying that he cannot save the boy. When Dr. Melendez meets five-year old Gabriel, a small boy with round black eyes, gentle smile, and softly curling hair, he mutters to Allegra, “One of those intangibles I’m guessing is cuteness.”

 Gabriel and his mother Georgieta have come from their village in the DRC, a country with a brutal history of colonization and war, in grateful desperation. Gabriel has congenital heart anomalies that even the brilliant Dr. Melendez declares incurable.

“Your son was born with a heart that I can’t fix,” Melendez tells Georgieta, who beats a drum gently, believing her son’s heart will follow the rhythm of the drum.

But Georgieta refuses to give up now, after they have come so far.

Earlier she kneeled on the floor of the bathroom and flushed the toilet continuously. “Always more water,” she said, watching water again and again refill the bowl. In their village they must walk to fetch water. Life is hard there. Beyond the lack of clean water, food, medicine, education, even safety, Georgieta says, “Our greatest want is hope.”

She pleads with Dr. Melendez to try to save her son, to fulfill the vision their village shaman had of a healer greater than himself.

 You can probably guess that, in the way of television, Dr. Melendez and Dr. Murphy brainstorm an ingenious way to save young Gabriel. Using virtual reality technology they practice surgical maneuvers, the computer informing them of failure after failure. Finally, they get it right, and perform real surgery. Surgery that will save Gabriel’s life. Will free his mother from fear, from the necessity of beating time on a drum to inspire her son’s failing heart. Will free him at last from the “evil spirits” that Georgieta believes came to Gabriel while still in her womb, spirits that the village shaman could not dislodge.

Of course the surgeons in The Good Doctor never believed evil spirits were the cause of Gabriel’s problems. They diagnosed Gabriel’s condition as an unfortunate defect he was born with, a defect that could not be cured. Yet thanks to strategizing, technology, and persistence, Gabriel is cured. Together, the doctors save him. And St. Bonaventure Hospital can boast another marvelous success, along with a reputation for compassion and generosity, as they gift this poor Congolese boy top-quality and incalculably expensive care.

Ervens F. (Eh-vens) is a nine- year old Haitian boy. He is a solid little fellow, short with a squarish face and build. His dark eyes are large, his skin caramel-colored and always hot. He is adorable, fond of squeezing hugs, never troublesome in class. Ervens is not academically gifted. Since starting school he has usually been behind. His first year he spent much of the day asleep with his head on the desk, hot little body exhausted by undiagnosed illness. Not feeling well and missing out on lessons put Ervens further behind so he repeated first grade. Ervens tries, but he will probably never be a star student, unlike his sister. Wanchise (Whan-shees) is one year younger than Ervens but the same size and much brighter scholastically. In fact, you might say that Wanchise outshines Ervens in most respects. In her first year she was chosen by an enamored visitor to be partnered, and she has continued to be a favorite. Wanchise has the same caramel-colored skin as her brother, but her face is as perfectly proportioned as a doll, with soft round cheeks framing a fine even-toothed smile, and dark eyes fringed by smudgy lashes. Wanchise is a healthy little girl, usually full of energy and verve, with a bit of sass that only adds to her charm. She is well-behaved like her brother, but also very intelligent and a quick-learner. Very likely Ervens will repeat second grade while Wanchise will progress to third next year. There’s nothing holding her back.

Ervens is held back by illness. Sometime last year Mama F. finally took Ervens for a conclusive diagnosis. Don’t blame her for this tardiness—life isn’t easy for Haitians, especially single mothers. There is no father in the picture, and like many of our students’ parents, work is inconsistent. Mama F. is always hard-pressed to feed her children, never mind pursue medical care. And she is illiterate in a society where doctors are often dismissive of the uneducated poor. As public hospitals are underfunded and understaffed, schools neglect health education, and homes lack proper sanitation, private hospitals abound in Haiti. But private hospitals require patients pay up-front and supply their own materials, from sheets to syringes. Doctors often simply dismiss those they suspect cannot pay.  It’s callous and tragic, but understandable. Haiti is so desperately impoverished, so historically corrupt, that it has become a “survival of the fittest” society. The best way to get things done is often through connections, knowing someone in the right place; and, of course, money talks.

Ervens’ Mama F. doesn’t have these connections or money, and most likely has experienced the judgment and dismissal of doctors. There are many reasons why Ervens went undiagnosed and untreated. As his case is also serious and complicated, he cannot be treated locally. There are no specialists in Petit Goave. When at last examined competently in Port au Prince last year, Ervens was determined to have cardiac issues. Like Gabriel, Ervens has no hope of being cured where he is. Help must come from elsewhere. And like Gabriel, his mother has no means to help him. Since Ervens attends Christian Academy of Petit Goave, however, Mama F. can hope, for through the school, she has connections to people in the right places and to funding. God has never failed to provide care for His children. God provided the funds so Mama F. could take Ervens to Port au Prince, where He provided the right doctors. They determined the cardiac trouble. Then later in the year, they determined that Ervens has sickle-cell anemia, explaining his feverish body temperature, fatigue, and stunted growth.  One of our first grade girls, Ashley, also has sickle-cell anemia, and has missed a number of school days. Ashley is tiny and probably always will be, for the anemia is exacerbated in Haiti where proper nutrition and iron are scant. Still, Ashley carries on. Most days she smiles and laughs with her classmates, as does Ervens, when these two babies are not so ill they simply lay their heads on the desk and doze. Having watched Ashley cope with sickle-cell from the beginning, we were optimistic Ervens could follow suit. Sickle-cell anemia can be treated. It can be managed.

Congenital heart conditions are not always so treatable. Serious anomalies such as mitral valve regurgitation may require surgery: intensive surgery requiring an adequate facility and a specialist doctor. In the last month Ervens has been diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation. This condition, as I have just learned, is when the mitral valve, one of four valves in the heart, does not close tightly and leaks blood back into the heart. Ervens’ case requires corrective surgery: surgery that can only be found outside of Haiti. Thus Mama F., this illiterate, unemployed, single mother from a small town in a severely impoverished, underdeveloped country, is now faced with international travel and intensive medical treatment for her nine-year old son. Travel abroad requires a mountain of paperwork including visas and passports, which require money and the right person in the right place (otherwise your papers are sure to gather dust in an office somewhere for months on end.) Surgery requires medicines, supervision, proper nutrition and hygiene, all of which require money and the right person at the right time. I wonder how Mama F. feels, confronted with the knowledge of her son’s lethal condition and all that is required to fix it. I thank God that she does not have to face this alone. Our CAP Family surrounds them, with God as the Head.

God has provided, again, the right people at the right time. Ervens is being sponsored by a medical program that specializes in providing care for the impoverished. Like Gabriel, Ervens has been chosen. He and his mother have hope for treatment, for healing, because they have been selected. There is no reason why Ervens should be so fortunate, when around his country and around the world poor sick children die. Only by Grace is Ervens chosen. I am so glad for him, for his mother and his sister, and for all of us in their CAP Family. I can only thank God again that although none of us deserve saving, God saves us. We are so fortunate that He loves us without cause.

I wish Ervens could feel that love specially through the love of a Partner. Wanchise has been partnered since she was three; this is her fifth year as a partnered child, prayed for, sent letters and gifts, remembered, beloved, and provided for from afar. Wanchise was chosen and she knows it. She sees proof of her value as an individual, as a beautiful, unique little girl. Ervens has not been chosen. Now in his sixth year of school, Ervens still lacks a partner. He does not have that special assurance of his value, one considered worthy among hundreds of his fellows. All the fifth and fourth grade students are partnered, as are the third graders save ONE girl. Ten second graders, including Ervens, are yet without partners. Approximately half of all CAP students, from third grade down to Preschool 1, are awaiting partners. Each student waits for someone to choose him, to love her specially. Ervens is waiting for someone to assign to him that particular value which he has seen his sister Wanchise receive. Ervens needs someone who will love him and pray for him, be there for him in frightening, frustrating this time of illness, through travel, surgery, and recovery, as he recuperates while his classmates learn and run and play. He needs someone supporting him through this. Someone willing to dedicate remembrance and funds to this sick little boy.

Partnership changes our children. Now the belligerent boy sits and listens, because he knows his partner will hear about his behavior. The grumpy girl hugs and answers with a smile, because she knows she is cared for. These are marvelous intangibles. Accountability, desire to please, pride, come from partnership. So does radiant love, as these children take time to pray for their partners far away, as they write letters and love notes, record videos, and beam their thanks. They share the good news with their families and soon parents and siblings love and pray for this foreign partner, too, everyone sharing the benefits. Our family is always growing.

The more we grow, the stronger we become. We believe God is for us, that God sends His Angel Armies to fight on our behalf. Although the brilliant surgeons of The Good Doctor and real hospitals around the tech-saavy first world may not believe in evil spirits, we do. Life is a battlefield of Good and Evil. Evil often seems to be winning, as poverty, ignorance, violence, disease, selfishness, hunger, dejection, and despair threaten to overcome us. But we remember that God has won the war, and He will answer us when we call. Satan delights in tormenting us; Jesus delights in us. So we should delight in one another, especially the beautiful children with whom God has charged us. We advocate for them, provide for them, and fight for them. We fight for Ervens, for Ashley, for the sick and hungry and poor and illiterate, for the abused and neglected, the isolated, stubborn, combative, the unsmiling and silent. We fight for the least of these, who were born, quite outside of control, into terrible poverty, with terrible afflictions. God has given us resources to help them. God has given you resources to help them, tangible and intangible. Will you step up to the fight?

Ervens (Eh-vens)

Wanchise (Whan-shees)

Sister and Brother

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mitral-valve-regurgitation/symptoms-causes/syc-20350178

Shore, David. “Intangibles.” The Good Doctor, season 1, episode 9, ABC, 2017.

Collarbones and Hollowed Cheeks: 2 months of lock-down and what to do about it

These days Haiti is on lock-down. Haitians call it peyi lòk. There is no school. Political opposition to President Moise fund gangs to enforce closure of businesses and deserted streets outside of organized protest marches. Men, probably paid off, build and guard barricades with burning tires, rocks, guns, and machetes. They demand national solidarity: everyone must cooperate with the protests. You don’t have to march with the masses, but you cannot go about your business. Either participate or keep inside. No work. No school. No dissent to the dissenters.

So there is no school. We are bold but not foolish.

The gate is shut. The classrooms with their electric lights, painted walls hung with colored posters, and bookshelves stocked with manipulatives and notebooks, are devoid of students. The kitchen is closed. The medicines in the office and books in the library gather dust. The water buckets are untapped, the sink long-dry, toilet paper and soap in abundance.

Oh, such waste!

Most of all, arms that ought to be strong with hugs and lifts and cuddles are slack. Hearts are heavy. And eyes dim for want of food grow dimmer still for want of love.

Hearts are heavy. Mine is heavy. Heavy for myself, my own disappointment and sorrow, for my prolonged separation from our beloved Christian Academy of Petit Gôave (CAP) Family.  For months I’ve worked hard, just ask my therapist, to heal, to get well enough to return to teaching: to lifting and cuddling students, to running up and down stairs with crackers, books, Bible verses and props; to singing and praying and making an utter fool of myself for the sake of a smile, to sweating through my lovely uniform, dirtying my skirt with chalk, peanut butter, and kicking toddler feet; to scuffing up my knees kneeling beside desks, to wearing myself thin in pouring myself out and overflowing my cup of Joy. My heart hurts for myself, for despite medical clearance, the peyi lòk paralyzing Haiti for almost two months prevents my return as it prevents everything else.

My heart hurts for our kids. For our families, staff, and people all across Haiti unable to live their lives. Just last week I received a letter from a ministry I’d worked with short term, announcing their sad closure due to lack of funds—and lack of liberty to practice. Ministries and aid organizations all over Haiti have been forced to stop their services, close their doors and gates, for road blockades and threats to their lives, or the inability to pay their employees for lack of income. Lives already so difficult, desperately trying to survive on two dollars a day, now stretch thinner each day of the lockdown, disallowed to work or attend school.

Food is scarce, far scarcer than before, as goods are blocked from distribution outside of the capital. Water is scarce, as pumps lack gasoline. Medical treatment is near impossible as roadblocks bar the way to the hospital and lack of fuel prevents use of electronic machines like nebulizers.

“So what do your students do?” I was asked recently, after explaining the lockdown and school closure. “Do they have water in their houses? Soap?”

I shook my head and smiled that close-lipped, near-bitter smile we make to avoid crying.

“What do they do?” she asked.

“They do without,” I answered.

“How are your kids?” someone else asked, remembering our conversation two weeks previous about the generally egregious conditions in the poorest country in the West, and the peyi lok paralyzing so many ministries striving to save lives forsaken by their government.

“How are your kids doing?” he asked, knowing their forced absence of school creates greater hardship.

“They’re hungry,” I told him. “They’re sad. They’re frustrated and bored. They’re probably miserable.”

 Recently Beverly asked us to pray specifically for encouragement for our dear Haitian brothers and sisters, whose hearts have been made heavy over weeks of lockdown. I prayed hard for our CAP staff in particular, who, at the time, were improvising an abbreviated school hosted at Pastor Levy’s house. First through fifth grade elementary students gathered in the courtyard to sing and pray, then were spaced inside and out of the house to have a few hours of lessons. They arrived incognito, out of uniform, studied, then ate and went home as inconspicuously as bunches of children can. Our staff were the standard to which the children and their parents looked: they required brave faces and bold optimism to bolster waning spirits.

But after four weeks of oppression…optimism fades.

So we prayed that day for angels of encouragement to join those security angels guarding our beloved CAP family in their shrewd efforts to benefit the children while keeping the school building obediently closed. And I wished I were there with them to pray and sing aloud and proud, undignified to praise God and express our own solidarity as CAP, and children of God without fear of the world.

Since Wednesday, October 16, even those abbreviated school days have halted. The “secret school” was noticed; parents and students en route to the house were accosted and warned by gang members.

“We know what you’re doing and you’d better stop it, or else,” is, I believe, the gist of the warning. The threat.

Threat.

They threatened children. Children.

I am not biologically a mother. But if anyone asks if I have children I respond, “Oh, yes! 189.” Our CAP kids are my kids. Don’t you threaten my kids. I was outraged. Outraged anyone would threaten our children just trying to live. Outraged that anyone would threaten children.

 

Happy to Receive! bags of rice and beans, bottle of oil, packet of spaghetti

“How dare you?! Who do you think you are?” I envisioned myself demanding of someone taller, tougher, and with less to lose than myself. I’d have to shout this in English of course, because I don’t know these words in Creole, and when overly emotional only the native tongue will do.

Pointless, I know. It would have been an absolutely ridiculous reaction. At the moment I learned the news of the threat to our kids--my darling students I know by name, know their voices, their penmanship, their likes and dislikes, their skills and weaknesses, their risk of malnutrition, their level of neglect at home--I was glad I was not there with our children. I think my temper would have blown like Hurricane Dorian.

Instead, reading Beverly’s updates from my NH bedroom, I fell to my knees before the copy of Psalm 140 taped to my closet door, as I do most mornings, and cried out the words as I pounded my fist into the floor.

“How dare they?! Enough of this, God, enough!”

Apparently it’s not enough.

After a while of fuming, pacing the house wondering whether to call my mom and rage conveyance of the news, call Beverly and rant, or crank up rock music and shadow box into exhaustion, I stalked back upstairs and started typing a response to Beverly’s update to the messenger group on my phone. I dislike typing on the phone but often type prayers that way as the labor of each word forces deeper intention and focus. And in this case, calm.

In the ensuing calm I considered gang members. My heart went out to them. What kind of life had they known? How many accounts had I read of gangs being the only provision some destitute ever know? No welfare, shelters, social workers, no government aid, no food stamps, medical insurance—maybe no parents and no income. Gangsters could offer money for school and food, security, even status. They provided friends, community, and occupation in a land of idleness, with no place to go nor work to be found. No wonder gangs were always gaining new members, even as they lost old ones to violence.

And after all, few Haitians ever prospered financially from integrity. You cannot in corrupt place.

Thus, that unhappy Wednesday morning, I typed out a slow response and prayer, and asked grace for these gangsters who had threatened our children, who were doing their job of keeping our kids out of school. (Perverse truant officers?)

My heart ached all over again for Haiti as a whole, and our broken world, where a gang fueled by violence, illegal arms, drugs, and quick death, is the most sensible outlet to lonely, hungry children.

Yes, our hearts are heavy. So is yours, considering these starving children. Most of our kids receive their best nutrition, most consistent meal, at school. Monday through Friday they eat those heaping lunch portions of rice and beans, devour peanut butter crackers, and drink clean water. Some get antifungal shampoo, have wounds cleaned and bandaged. Adeline receives an electronic nebulizer treatment for asthma. These kids play, sing, and study in a safe place, are praised and encouraged by a loving staff who know their names and teach them Jesus loves them. We hug and cuddle them, laugh and cry with them. We give them a chance at childhood nurtured, sheltered, valued.

Our hearts ache to continue this beautiful task of running CAP school, with all its hardships and benefits to the students, staff, their families, and surrounding community, including local businesses, and to the international community of yourselves, partners and friends. We ache for our fellow missionaries and aid workers to continue their labors as medics, teachers, trainers, pastors, entrepreneurs, providers, hosts, mentors, as the hands and feet of Jesus.

We long for our Haitian friends to continue their work as venders, drivers, laborers, and providers for their families. We long to use your gifts of funds, supplies, and invested work hours for the benefit of Ti Gôave kids and families.

I long to get back to my happiest place on earth. My heart is heavy that just now I can’t, and that we as a ministry can’t do what we long to.

Truthfully, yes, our kids are hungry. Does your child look thin in photographs? She is. Is he getting enough to eat? Probably not. Are they safe? Yes.

Not because there is no danger. Gangs really do threaten. Police retaliate. Increasing desperation of hunger, illness, and fear provoke thievery. Unclean water carries parasites and disease. Latrines do, too. Insufficient food results in malnutrition, weakness, and pain. Mosquitos spread malaria and dengue; bites quickly become infected into impetigo. There are no medicine cabinets with which to treat these ailments, nor the more common cold, fever, or cough, nor the usual bumps and bruises of childhood. Rain dampens sheets and clothes, maybe floods the house. Shared sleeping quarters shares illness and rashes, scabies, conjunctivitis, and head fungus. Lack of clean water, soap, and towels exacerbates said maladies. Charcoal cook fires burn welts and blisters.

Oh, there is ample risk. There is danger.

But we know our students and staff are safe. They are safe in Christ.

“Do not fear the enemy…”

Do not fear for your children, for your missionary friends.

Absolutely do pray for them. Send messages to encourage them (not mail, as there is currently no delivery). Pray peace for Haiti and an end to this lockdown.

Send money so we can continue to purchase food for distribution. Beverly is still on the ground in Ti Gôave and is still working for these kids. Although she herself is housebound, for the past few weeks Beverly has been able to organize food deliveries to the majority of our students. Rice, beans, oil, and spaghetti are packed at the house then delivered by motorcycle to the students’ homes. God is making the way at the necessary moments for Beverly to drive to the bank to withdraw the cash to purchase large sacks of rice and beans, jugs of oil, and packets of spaghetti. (These goods cannot be bought locally with a credit card.)  She keeps us updated with messages and photos that make me cry; Beverly herself remains her steady, upbeat self.

When I compliment her, thank her, for her optimism, Beverly responds with humility.

“I thank God for that. He’s been preparing me.”

Still smiling--Directors Madame Rose and Madame Beverly with a grateful mother

Our friends in Haiti are probably frustrated, discouraged, uncomfortable after these almost two months of lock-down. Many are surely hungry and in need of clean water. They don’t understand why they should suffer for political squabbles. Neither do I. While the politicians compete for power and the wealthy bureaucrats fund gangs to enforce blockades, children approach starvation. Already some of our students have lost weight. This makes me furious. Angry. Heartsick. It makes me collapse into tears and struggle to eat for guilt. I hate that I can’t do anything. Hate that I can’t drop in with bags of food, can’t bring all the students home with me and cook for them, watch them eat to their hearts’ content; I hate that I am not there to visit them. I hate this feeling of helplessness and photos that show collarbones and hollowing cheeks. As I cry out to God on my knees I want to do something.

“You are doing something,” He says. “You are praying.”

“It’s not enough, God!” I answer. “My heart hurts!”

“My heart breaks for them, too. They are my children, as you are my child.”

God reminds me that He weeps for the suffering of His children. He reminds me it is because of love that I am in pain. And He reminds me that there is one other thing I can do.

“Write about it,” God says. “Like you do when you are angry, or sad, or too overcome with emotion to be sensible. Write.”

So I do.

I write. I pray. I tell you all that the agony of lock-down continues, well beyond reason. There is no end in sight. Schools are expected to remain closed until January. The president refuses to step down. The opposition refuses to accept him. The United States continues to support the president which cements his position and builds resentment for Americans. Gangs threaten citizens and fight one another. Anarchy is perhaps just a gunshot away. We can’t fix all that.

What we can do now is to love our friends, our children, from afar. We can pray to the God of Angel Armies so will set His angels continuously about them to secure them from the risks of life, from hazards of the third world, from the discouragement of oppression. We pray that God would grant them all, from the smallest school child to the seasoned missionary, joy and peace, and that peace would move outward to infect the entire explosive country.

 

heading off to deliver

filling soda bottles with cooking oil for delivery

I look forward with great anticipation to the day I can report the good news (the remarkable news) that the lock-down is ended. That school has resumed and the most beautiful in the world are filling the courtyard at Christian Academy of Petit Gôave. I can’t wait to tell you that the streets are filled again with motos squeezed with four passengers, vans with venders hanging off the bumper, trucks towering with charcoal, women with baskets two-feet wide, men with wheelbarrows, and school children in every color uniform.  That faces are filled with smiles for the freedom of living.

Until that happy day, let us remember the Good News that Christ is there in Haiti now, as He is here with us; and as He has never once abandoned us despite outrage or despair, He has never once nor ever will abandon our beloved children.

bags of rice

What It's Like: Realities of Life for CAP Students

This week marks, I believe, the EIGHTH week of protests in Haiti, the EIGHTH week of what they call "peyi lok," when the country is locked-down: businesses, schools, and roads are closed, resulting in loss of income, food, medical treatment, et cetera. Riots erupt all over the country. Along with the majority of schools, Christian Academy of Petit Goave (CAP) has been closed for weeks, and everyone is suffering. Our hearts are heavy for the children most of all. 

Unable to return to Haiti with said lock-down, I remain here in the U.S. and pray for our brothers and sisters in-country, from the seasoned missionaries to the hungry toddlers. I remain here and write to shed some light onto circumstances in Haiti, egregious without the added complications of lock-down. I write from the experience of listening to our students and their families and from personally visiting their homes and working with them in school. These are truths of how most of them live. 

It is uncomfortable truth, truth that makes us conscious, perhaps even somewhat guilty, of our luxurious comforts. Comforts that are commonplace to the average first-worlder: hot showers, stocked refrigerators, blanketed beds, closets of clothes, law enforcement.

The shocking, brutal, and we-wish-it-weren’t-true truth of the lives of our kids in Haiti, and millions of children in the majority world, immediately subtracts all those comforts, and even what we would call “necessities.”

Imagine yourself a student at CAP...

First, there’s your house. It’s comprised of one, maybe two, maybe three rooms, all joined together probably without doors in between, only curtains. There are four, five, six, perhaps seven or nine residents in said rooms. The walls are plywood, cardboard, tarp, woven palm fronds, cinder block, or some combination there-of. The floor is dirt or cement. There are no closets. No kitchen. No bathroom (many houses share one latrine.) No water. No electricity. Possibly curtains grant some visual privacy. Possibly a chest of drawers holds some clothes, supports an odd assortment of goods such as a radio, picture frames, a stuffed animal, pots and pans. Maybe there’s a bed for Mama and Papa to share with the baby. Or a cot. There might be a pile of blankets which you and your siblings use to sleep on the floor. Maybe there are windows, slits in the cinder blocks, or open squares fitted with wooden shutters. Maybe not. Lack of windows adds to the dim interior. Remember, there are no lights. The door is flimsy plywood with a flimsy lock thieves can easily break—they’ve robbed the house before—or severe iron that encloses the house like a tomb. Papa only locks that at night when you’re all going to sleep or when no one is home.

Outside there is a charcoal pit or cylindrical miniature range for cooking: a hollowed-out stump with empty belly for charcoal and an iron grate top. You’ve gotten burned from the fire more than once. Lines are strung for laundry. Laundry is also spread on the rusted corrugated zinc roof, the roof that makes a cacophony in the rain and always leaks. The clothes may spread along the fence about the house. The fence may be that mixture of materials such as woven fronds, wire, bamboo poles, bits of plywood, or the house might shelter behind a cinder block wall topped with broken glass. Remaining laundry may drape bushes or the ground. These clothes and sheets have been laboriously hand-washed and now sunshine to dry before mold gathers, quick in the tropical humidity. Sometimes you have to wear damp socks to school because there wasn’t enough time for them to dry. If you wear dirty socks the teachers make you wash them, and that’s embarrassing. Better to wash them at home and wear them damp.

To wash your clothes and dishes and to cook and bathe, you’ve got to collect water. Somewhere within (hopefully) reasonable walking distance is a cistern, a public water-source. In town there are large concrete tanks, maybe as high as one story, with taps and a drainage basin. On the fringes of the hills are pumps or a reservoir where you might bathe while women wash clothes, children gather water for home, or someone washes his motorcycle or his pig. You get strong quickly toting that water up and down the path to your house; you have excellent balance and posture from carrying jugs on your head.

Your feet are tough as rawhide from picking over roots, rocks, and debris. You scramble along ridges and defy gravity with the goats playing around your mountain house. If you live by the sea you learn to “swim,” and appreciate splashing about in the waves as high as your knees. If you’re really bold you’ll progress to swimming underwater, and run naked into the surf at every opportunity. If you live in town you play in the street and jump across the drainage ditch back and forth. When it’s too hot you find shade beside a wall or under a tree, unless you have chores to do: watch the little ones, tend the fire, cook food, wash laundry or dishes, sweep up, tote water. It’s hard work, but you’ve been doing it since you were four or so. You’re strong now.

When you’re thirsty you have to be careful. At school they warn you not to drink that water you bring to the house. Drinking water must be boiled down on the charcoal range. Or you can purchase an eight ounce “dlo sache” water sack: plastic sacks you drink by biting open a corner and sucking out the water. Half of that water might be used to splash your face and hands for want of a sink or simply to combat the constant heat. You like it when they play with the dlo sache and squirt water at you like a fountain. But that’s only if someone else is buying. Mama would never pay for you to waste a dlo sache like that.

You’re hot and tired when you get home from school. You have to walk in the afternoon heat and dust with your backpack. All those books are heavy. When you arrive you take off your uniform right away to keep it as clean as possible: you’ve got to wear it again tomorrow. You have two shirts and four days to wear them. (On Friday you wear the school t-shirt.) You put on your house clothes, which might be ratty and full of holes. You might have sandals to wear, you might not. Hopefully there’s food to eat. Hopefully you have some time to play, if you don’t have chores, or aren’t going to church service that evening. Anyway, you have homework to do. And you’d better finish your homework while there’s daylight. You can see well in the dark, but reading is tough without light. When you’re older you can congregate under the streetlights on the main roads with other students, if there’s city power. You’re lucky if you’ve got a flashlight or can borrow someone’s phone to shine it on your books. But batteries only last so long. Anyway, you find a way to get your work done. Perhaps you got ahead in school earlier that day or excel at finishing it in the courtyard before class starts next morning. You find a way. That’s the only way to survive.

Your parents find a way, if they’re alive.

Papa might work as a day-laborer, hauling buckets of cement, laying cinder blocks, building under the broiling sun. He might push a wheelbarrow of sugar cane, stopping to skin and chop off individual pieces with his machete for passersby. He might push a wobbling cart and sell fresco: shaving ice into plastic cups with a squirt of syrup, a popular refreshment on a hot afternoon. He might sell cell phone minutes in a red Digicel apron, sit under an umbrella with a glass case of phones, headphones, and other electronic gadgets. He might run after "papadap" express vans with a handful of Dous Makos candy, bottled soda, or pomket muffins, reaching through the windows to do business with passengers inside. He might accompany the papadaps on their routes, calling out stops and number of places left in the van. Maybe he drives a moto-taxi, tends a garden, assists an electrician, carpenter, or mechanic “boss.” He might be a tailor, custodian or even clean latrines. Maybe he works away on the mountain or in the capital city. Maybe he doesn’t work at all. Maybe he’s gone and you never knew him.

Mama might work as a vender, sitting beside the road in a melee of other women, all trying to outsell one another. She might have her wide, low baskets spread with candy, fruit, soaps and lotions, shoes, notebooks, hair ribbons or spaghetti. She might fry plantains or pate, serve bread spread with peanut butter, ladle coffee from a bucket early in the morning. She, too, might reach through van windows with Dous Makos or pomkets. Maybe she’s up before dawn to catch a "taptap" pickup truck taxi to the bigger market in the next town. She could be a hairdresser, manicurist, or seamstress, or cook, clean, and wash for another family. After school you might go there for a plate of what she’s cooked that day, before you go home without her until she finishes around dusk. She might be too ill or too busy with her own babies to work for pay. She might live far up the mountain or work in the capital, sending money when she can. She might be absent. Or dead.

Maybe you don’t live with either your mother or your father. Maybe you live with a “matante” aunt or “tonton” uncle, or someone you call aunt or uncle. Maybe you live with grandparents. Maybe with neighbors. Maybe you’ve been passed from one house to the next with never a compassionate word or gesture of welcome. You’ve always been just another mouth to feed and uniform to iron.

Maybe you hate being at the house. Probably school is your favorite place to be, better even than playing outside. No one at school has to know what it’s like at home. The teachers love you, you can play with your classmates, you get food, you have water to wash and drink, and someone else lifts the buckets. You even look the same as the other kids, and you look good. Your orange shirt is clean and starched, your blue shorts or skirt is pressed, and your black shoes are shined. Your hair is oiled and styled with blue or white bows and clips, or cut close to your head. You and your classmates look your best; you are proud to be a student. You can read and write a lot now, which Mama and Papa couldn’t ever do well.

Sometimes you can’t hide where you come from. When you’re too hungry to listen in class, too hungry to sit up, they know. It’s hard to be honest, to say you’re hungry, to admit you only had sugar water since yesterday. It’s hard to ask for food. Mama taught you not to. When you were really little and didn’t know any better you used to tell Mama you were hungry. You cried for her to give you food. She scolded you, told you to be quiet. There wasn’t any food to give you. You might as well stop crying and forget it. Deal with it. So you stopped asking. You stopped crying when your stomach or head hurt, or when you were too tired to go get water because you were hungry.

At school they tell you to ask. The teachers say you can tell them when you’re hungry and they’ll give you something, even if it’s not lunch time. You might go to the kitchen first thing in the morning to get an extra peanut-butter cracker. You might go to the office during class because you’re crying over your empty belly and they’ll hand you a plate of rice. They always tell you to drink water. Lots and lots of water. When it is lunchtime you wash your hands and wait in line for food. Madame Dada asks you if you want a lot or a little rice, and you say “a lot!” every time. You hurry back to class and eat as fast as you can so you can get back to the kitchen for your second plate. That heaping plate of rice and beans is the best food you’ll get today, so you’d better eat a lot. Most days there is enough in the pots that Madame Dada can serve you again, you and a bunch of other kids in your class who have the hungry eyes; but some days there just isn’t enough as you all want, and you all take turns scraping your spoons in the bottom of the pots for every last bit of rice. Sometimes you all share one last plate of rice. It’s hard to share sometimes, when you’re so hungry and just want to take care of yourself. But you know that they’re hungry, too, and they’re your family. So you always share. You’re good at ignoring the hunger anyway. It’s just part of your life, like toting the water buckets and sleeping on the floor with your brothers and sisters.

Not all of them come to school with you, and when you see their hungry eyes, hear how their teacher hit them when they gave the wrong answer, or just sat around the house because they don’t go to school at all, you know you’re really luck to go to school. Not lucky, blessed. They tell you you’re blessed because Jesus loves you and is taking care of you. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he is, when Mama is sick, your baby brother has a fever, your sister has a new baby from her boyfriend who left her, when the rain washes out the path to town, or when you’re all so hungry it hurts—but they tell you at school all the time that God knows and God is listening. So you pray. You pray a lot. You figure that you’re still alive, so God must care. Anyway, you’re glad that God put you in school. You hope one day you can help your family with your good education. Maybe you’ll be president. The president doesn’t carry water or sleep on the floor. You’d like to live in a nice big house like the president. Most of all you’d like to not be hungry. And for your family to not be hungry. You keep praying. God can make it happen. Even if he doesn’t make you president, he can make the pot of rice and beans multiply like the fish and loaves so everyone gets enough to eat.

You go to bed thinking about school tomorrow. You’re glad knowing you get to go.

Suicidal Missionary: The Continuing Story

Please be Advised: What follows is the most personal and vulnerable blog I’ve written. I will be sharing about mental illness, specifically depression and anxiety; suicide risk, and mental health treatment. My intention is not to alarm or frighten anyone, nor to evoke drama or pity; I intend instead to glorify God, who I credit with my survival and continuous healing; to encourage anyone who may be going through similar struggles, and to further the understanding of and lessen the stigma of mental illness. 

I’m going to tell you an upsetting story. But persevere, keep reading through (I know it’s a bit long, forgive me if I wax loquacious) to the happy ending. Let me explain why I suddenly left my job of teaching God’s most beautiful children in the middle of the semester, why I fled the home I love in Haiti, ceased communication with almost everyone I care for, why I went off the radar. Listen to how I fell off the deep end. And then listen to me brag about God. (If you don't believe in God keep reading anyway.) 

In May I left my job teaching English at school in Haiti, cut out midway through the quarter, dropped classes and students to flee back to New Hampshire where I holed up in my childhood bedroom.

I left because I was afraid to stay. In three years of living and working in this volatile third world country harassed by hurricanes, gangs, and violent protests, for the first time I was afraid for my life. Every day, several times a day, my life was threatened.

Threatened as I stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. Threatened as I approached the main street and watched for fast-moving trucks and buses. As I unscrewed the cap of a bleach jug and as I counted pills in my store.

I wanted to die. I was ready to die by my own hand.

I could no longer tolerate the loneliness, the failure, the self-loathing. All the short-comings of curriculum, of English-learning, lack of understanding of lessons or Bible application, rude words, the long line of hungry, desperate neighbors, the constancy of my foot in my mouth, deciding to sleep rather than keep company, eating food that could have gone to another, lack of French or complex Creole, that ridiculously long list of mistakes and wrongs done to others—these piled upon me. Every failure was my failure. Everything was my fault. The certainty of this was weight I couldn’t shake off.

In class I smiled and hugged the kids. I tried to sing and pray with fervor to match the other teachers who praised God through their stories of suffering: sickness, poverty, overcrowding. In between classes and duties I snuck up to the roof and cried.

When I did break down and sob, I tried to do so in secret. If discovered, sometimes others berated me for crying. Always I criticized myself. There was no reason for me to cry. My life was a breeze compared to our kids, who came from shacks without water or electricity, who slept on the floor or piled together with siblings, who had no mosquito nets to prevent bites, who had to trek down the mountain for school. My parents had never beat or neglected me. I wasn’t passed around among hostile relatives. Plenty of people sent me messages and letters assuring me I was loved and special. This crying was pathetic. A waste of time.

So onto the weight of miserable failure piled more guilt, like lead gilding an iron yoke. The yoke was breaking me. The best thing for everybody would be my absence. I was only making things worse. Since I couldn’t prevent my birth, erase my existence, I could end my life now. I’d be free. They’d all be free of me.

There were many ways to commit suicide. I’d heard that the most common method in Haiti is drinking bleach. Easy enough to acquire; I even had bleach in my room for cleaning the floors. The school and our house had flat roofs easy to mount and jump from. All that concrete could be lethal. Probably I could find a gun. We knew a mother who had jumped in front of a speeding bus. A man had been discovered on the beach after drowning himself. I had clothesline rope. In the past I’d slit my wrists lightly for relief. Cut a little deeper…

Such were my thoughts of escape.

And when I wasn’t calculating with disappointment the inadequate height of the roof or reading online warnings of ingesting an excess of Nyquil, I was terrified. Terrified I would follow through and do it: kill myself, and the resultant impact. There was much to consider.

Who would find my body? How would that affect them? How traumatizing! And if I jumped off the school roof or threw myself in front of a speeding truck there on National Road, the kids were sure to see. They had enough post-traumatic stress. What of my house family? They’d have to live here with my death tainting the premises. And what if the cleanup were messy—a literal stain upon their play space in the courtyard or those beautiful white tiles in the guest bedroom?

What of the driver of the truck I chose? The passengers? The witnesses on the road? They would have to live with another death, or the guilt of cause. And again, the kids! I couldn’t put them through such horror.

And my parents. I knew they loved me, and I loved them. I didn’t them to deal with their child’s suicide. And what if foul play were suspected? This was a U.N. recognized risky area; what if the authorities suspected my housemates or locals of harming me? What if those I loved were arrested for my murder?

And, worst of all, what if I survived? What if I were merely injured, or paralyzed? Wound up brain-dead hooked to machines for months or years to come? Stuck in the limbo between life and death and forever haunted by the shame and failure of what I’d done (or tried to do.) I’d see the betrayal on all their faces when they looked at me. Their pity and disgust.

When my mind was too worn with agony to conjure these horrific possibilities, there was still a hint of reason. I remembered my student-loan debt. If I died Mom and Dad would be saddled with it. The shallow practicality and undeniable truth of this held even when I couldn’t summon energy to empathize with those who would be impacted by my death.

Many days, nights, moments, I knew I’d be doing everyone a favor by dying and had to remind myself of the student-loan debt, the bills piling up for Mom and Dad. It was usually just enough to combat the truth: I’d caused enough problems. I wasn’t worth my keep. They’d all be better off without me.

Such was my thinking the first weeks of May.

Actually such my thinking was on and off over the past few years. But this spring was the worst. The battle had been raging too long and I was losing. It was just a matter of [little] time before I did it, before I tried to kill myself for real.

So I left Haiti, where mental illness has one translation, “fou” (crazy.)

Letting everyone down, breaking my “contract” of teaching through the year, I gave brief notice and fled to my parents’ house in NH.

Once Stateside I got in to see my primary care physician. She upped the meds. Yes, I was already taking daily anti-depressant medication. And I had tried counseling. For over a year I’d been semi-regularly conversing with a counselor over the phone. I hadn’t found her particularly helpful or insightful to the third-world missionary life. But I spoke with her, told her the truth, followed her more practical advice. I’d followed lots of advice. I tried. I exercised, hard and regularly. Sometimes I even played soccer with the kids. I slept, rested, took time for myself with the door closed. I colored and listened to music. I prayed hard in the blue dawn cool. I read my Bible. I meditated in the sunset light. I watched the stars and the palm trees and the surf. I messaged with distant friends. I confided in certain housemates. I sang praise, went to church, attended devotion. I ate as well as I could and drank plenty of water. I took my daily vitamins, brushed my teeth, kept clean, dressed neatly for school and church. I loved hard on the kids, holding back no affection nor energy from them. I studied and prepared for lessons. I took work seriously. I didn’t leave much time to idle or fret. Every morning I took that anti-depressant. Every day I journaled. Every day I prayed. I tried. I tried. I tried hard. It wasn’t enough.

My PCP has soft eyes and a gentle voice. She speaks kindly. When we met in May she said increasing the small dosage of my current anti-depressant medication was Step One. We could fight this. She gave me the number of a nearby Christian counselor. Someone to meet with in-person.

Mom and I went to the counselor’s office. I feared being too emotional to drive home safely, driving while sobbing is most unwise, so Mom drove and waited in the lobby while I went to meet the counselor, Mary. I could hardly look at her, ashamed and hopeless as I was. I knew I wasn’t going to get better. I knew my life was essentially over. But for the sake of the kids to whom I’d committed and long ago lost my heart, I had to try. So I met with Mary the counselor. She assured me there was hope for me, and I’d achieved a major accomplishment in seeking help. We agreed to meet once a week for at least 15 sessions.

So it’s been for the past five months. Each week I meet with Mary, sitting in my place in the corner of the blue couch. We talk. She listens and responds. I listen and sometimes respond. Sometimes I sob. Sometimes I nearly hyperventilate. Sometimes I withdraw so deeply we need a crowbar to prise out words. For so long I held in truth and feelings I often now freeze when encouraged to share. Sometimes we do exercises meant to induce anxiety, and then cope with it. Sometimes we make lists. Always we talk about automatic thoughts. Those thoughts that appear and can knock us flat with terror or despair. We talk about how to let them appear, amble about like a white bear foraging the forests of my mind, and disappear again. Over and over again I must repeat the three outcomes: worst, best, and most realistic. Often those three are not terribly dissimilar. Mary has given me logs to catalogue the thoughts, the emotions, the anxieties, and face them. She’s shared psychological research and tools.

Before I depart from our never-less-than-an-hour sessions she prays over me.

Mary has been wonderful. Not the least for her medicinal advice; she has coordinated with my PCP over medication adjustments. I have been on the fourth regimen for about two months now. It’s effective. My PCP has renewed the prescriptions for a year and cleared me for return to Haiti, pending the approval of the otolaryngologist and my healed sinuses. Mary deems me able to serve, as well, but as our time is beneficial we plan to meet until I depart.

I’ve never skipped a session with Mary. We have a standing appointment on Friday mornings. When my head was splitting from a five-day migraine I went. When I was still trembling from a panicky weekend I went. When I am furious with the world, furious with myself, certain nothing will ever pull me from the pit, the lump in my throat a boulder around which words cannot squeeze—still I go. Still I make that session. And even when I’m headed out, certain this was a waste of time, that I failed again, haven’t made any progress, Mary congratulates me.

“Good job. You came today and that was hard.”

From the beginning she has been confident I could get better, heal enough to go back to Haiti, return to work.

“Depression is like wearing dark lenses,” she says, tapping her glasses with a finger. “When you wear them the whole world is dark. You can’t see hope.”

I nod. I agree. In the pit of despair nothing is visible. All is darkness. It always was dark. It always will be dark. There is nothing good to remember and nothing to look forward to. No redemption. No hope.

“But we’re going to get to the place where you can take off the glasses,” Mary continues.

Since May we’ve been working on pulling off those glasses, or at least clearing the lenses. And getting a handle on the anxiety that apparently has been choking me for years.

These days suicide almost never crosses my mind.

I am so saddened when I hear of a case, of someone who gave in and ended her own life. (I would not call these “successful” suicide cases. There is no such thing.) I understand the complete despair; I understand the shame, the self-loathing so overwhelming you wish you could just peel off your skin, desperate to be anywhere except your own head.

I am so sad, so sorry, that she never got over it, this victim. Yes, victim. No one chooses depression. We don’t get to decide among depression, diabetes, or even cancer. I ache for the victim who never reached the place where it gets better and hope is visible again. Light. Laughter. Love from sympathetic or even empathetic friends. Support from folks who have been in the Pit themselves.

I am sad for the victim first.

Then I grieve for those left behind. For those who loved the victim, and those the victim loved.

All over again I know how important it is to share with the hurting. To pursue those with the shadowed eyes who always answer, “I’m fine.” Who won’t let you see them cry.

All over again, mourning with the victim’s family, considering the victim who couldn’t climb out of the Pit, I know how blessed I am to be alive.

Mental illness doesn’t wear a cast. It doesn’t need crutches or an IV. There are no infusions, bandages, or pacemakers. You cannot see it and maybe you cannot understand it. We are visual creatures, after all.

But mental illness is hideously real and afflicts far more people than you think, and probably many whom you know personally. In the United States alone approximately 16 million people suffer from Major Depression a year (Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 2017). 35% of these people will receive no treatment (National Institute of Mental Health). 47,173 U.S. Americans committed suicide in 2017 (NIMH).

Around the world the World Health Organization estimates that more than one million people commit suicide each year (ADAA); these numbers are particularly difficult to confirm in developing countries like Haiti. Depression is a serious sickness that may be circumstantial, resulting from specific events, or may be chronic and genetic, flaring up and receding without determinable cause. Sometimes we are just sad for no reason. Desperately, achingly sad. We can’t tell you why. So please be patient with us.

Like any illness, depression, anxiety, bi-polar or obsessive-compulsive disorders, or post-traumatic stress, all mental illnesses require attention, treatment, and utmost compassion.

Plenty of people in my life who I love and who love me do not understand depression. They struggle to accept mental illness as a true health concern. When first informed about depression or anxiety they rejected medical evidence and assured me I was simply sad. I needed to pray more, they said. Spend more time with God. Get a little more sleep, eat something, sing some happy songs. It will pass. You’ll be fine, they said. Perhaps they did not intend to be dismissive, I am sure that none intended further harm. However, with those dark glasses, under the shame that accompanies depression and the severe self-loathing, words such as these, light-hearted advice to pray more or to “just cheer up,” can be terribly detrimental. They can be lethal: the last push towards suicide.

Sometimes just listening is best. Being in the room with someone. Willingness to endure with someone can be lifesaving. Some people in my life who I love and who love me understand depression. They sit, they listen, they check-in. Some suffer, too. When I speak of the dread of leaving bed, of ruining the mood in a room, of being that Debbie Downer, they sigh, too. “Yep, been there.” We reassure one another that the darkness is real, that the doctors have confirmed chemical imbalance necessitating medical treatment, and we try to boost one another up. We take turns in the Pit and take turns lowering a hand, dropping a ladder, or shining a lantern in the darkness. We encourage one another to keep fighting.

We need your help, Friends.

Whether you have depression or not, whether you think it’s a weakness or a true illness, we need your help. Yes, I am far too weak to deal with this on my own. God assures me that is okay. In fact, God assures me that the weak will shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV). God also commands us to love one another (John 15:12 NIV), with love that is patient and kind (1 Corinthians 13:4), and to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15 NIV). We should not suffer alone but together (1 Corinthians 12:26 NIV).

I am not suffering as I was. I am better now. I am far improved from May, when ascending to the roof or getting in the car was a conflict of interests. These days I don’t want to dive in front of a speeding truck or jump off a bridge. I want to live. I want to enjoy God’s beautiful creation, which here in New Hampshire is bursting with autumn color. I want to love on God’s beautiful Haitian children with whom we’ve been charged.

However, I am not cured. I’m not ever going to be rid of this sickness. It’s chronic; it’s genetic. I know this depression and anxiety will linger always, like my bad skin and weak eyes. The war of worth continues in quieter skirmishes.

But I am here.

Five months ago, three months ago, two months ago, that didn’t seem possible.

That is God. Over and over again, through the conflict, beyond the darkness, the promise sounds: “You are worthy and I love you.”

Many times the only prayer I could whimper was, “It hurts, God.” Over and over again.

God always listened. And He didn’t quit on me. He put the right people in place so I wouldn’t quit either, so that I didn’t go through with suicide. He spoke life through loved ones. “You’re definitely not a lost cause,” one said to me.

God agreed. He set His children in my heart so I always had 166 beautiful reasons to keep fighting. Getting well enough to return to them, now 189 of them, has been my primary motivation for the past five months. The time is near, I think.

Every day I take medication. Each week I meet with Mary the counselor. There are those with whom I can share fully, and those who support me, including my parents. All these gifts are God-arranged.

When I cry that it’s not fair, it’s hard, I’m lonely and misunderstood and tired and sad and just want to go home to Heaven, I hear Jesus answer, “I know.” Jesus knows because He has been there, has lived it. Jesus knows better than any of us injustice, rejection, the weight of sin and despair. He was arrested in secret without warrant, tried, found not guilty but flogged and executed anyway. He was literally spit upon and mocked by those who had called Him friend. His family called Him crazy. His closest friends disowned Him. Jesus was left alone, naked and mutilated. He went willingly into the darkness we fear and goes back over and over again for our sake. Jesus drops into the Pit with us, sits beside us. We just may not see Him.

On this side of healing, I can see. I can see how God saved my life (many times). When I look back over the past five months I can hardly believe how far I have come. How far God has brought me. He continues to replace guilt, fear, and loneliness with worth, joy, and purpose. Without God there is no real hope, even with medication and therapy. For without God, without the prospect of a permanent, perfect Home, a place unimaginably better than this broken world, what is there to hope for? What is there to look forward to?

More than anything, even more than returning to those beautiful, wonderful, loving children I miss so much there is a fist clenching my heart, I want to make God proud. I want to get better, fight the darkness, work hard and live well so one day I die in peace without hastening my time. I want to get to Heaven and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

If this sad life were all there is I would have done it. I’d be dead.

Knowing this life is just the trial run before true life begins keeps me moving forward.

Depression sucks. Depression causes severe impairment in all aspects of life. Depression kills. Life can suck. Life is hard, full of pain and suffering. Man’s days are short and full of trouble (Job 14:1).

But this is not as good as it gets.

God is on my side. Your side. Our side. He knows every hair on our heads. He wants to give us better life, life to the fullest (John 10:10). Full life such as I’ve already started enjoying.

Yeah, I’m bragging. I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t surrender. I kept fighting, like some warrior hero of old, Achilles or Ajax or Odysseus. I’m still fighting, just not by my own might. And I’m on the winning side. My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing that He cannot do. That includes pulling a suicidal missionary away from the ledge and giving her hope again.

Hope, Godly hope, is why I can stop writing here. This is not a tragedy nor is it ending. This is a story to be continued, and even if I’m not always happy to live it, I am not eager to end it.

Please, please, Friend, if you are suffering from depression, if you are thinking of giving up, if you are considering suicide or self-harm of any kind, please let someone know. I am here for you. Send me a message: rachel.allyssa93@gmail.com You are not alone. Please reach out. We are reaching back to you.

If you are in crisis, call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service is available to anyone. All calls are confidential. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org 

Major Depression according to the National Institute of Mental Health, USA

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml

Facts and Statistics from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, USA

https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

Suicide Statistics from the NIMH, USA

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml