A Christmas prayer for those far from families they love

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Grace Cabalka , evacuated five years ago from Congo due to violence, wrote recently in her blog, Sacred Space: 

“Many of us glamorize missionaries, or think that they are somehow more spiritual than the rest of us, that they've been given extra measures of strength to live in difficult circumstances. Not true….”

I think of Deborah, an Occupational Therapist working in Galmi Hospital in Niger, West Africa. Her work, lifestyle, stamina, and commitment leave me in awe.

Her blog, Avec Deux Mains, is one of my must-read favorites. Her posts are delightful. I’ve never met her, but she must be delightful, too! She has a fun sense of humor and faces countless cultural challenges with optimism and wit.

Every once in a while, though, in the midst of fatiguing, emotional workloads, Deborah admits to the toll missions work can take. She writes:

“My six-year-old friend, N., died last night. Her last twenty-four hours of life were spent suffering, fighting to not succumb to the grip of death. She came for a surgery on her leg that would allow her to walk again, but then contracted malaria. We often tell ourselves that death is simply part of life, part of the process. But if it were really so natural, why would she have put up such a fight?…

You know, here at Galmi, we make a big difference every day. Patients come from all over the country to be treated in our hospital. I even have a patient right now arrived from southern Nigeria because they had gone to several local hospitals, and were turned away by ‘there’s nothing we can do,’ until one day someone said, ‘you should try Galmi Hospital in Niger.’ I was once asked to work with a spinal cord injured patient—he had a bullet lodged in his spine—as he had come here because people say ‘miracles happen at Galmi.’

But, to be honest with you, most of the time the severity of the loss experienced outweighs and overshadows the ‘difference’ made. I want to climb up our water tower and scream out over Galmi, ‘LITTLE N. CAME HERE TO BE ABLE TO WALK AGAIN, NOT TO DIE!!!!’

Because Deborah is so upbeat 99 percent of the time, I worried when, on another day, she wrote:

“Last week … I realized just how tired I was. It had been a rough couple of weeks … and my capacity for staring suffering and death in the face has reached its maximum. I am tired, and I have nothing left.

… Monday, I nearly broke down in tears three times during wound care of our burn patients … three times by 9 a.m.

On Thursday a baby I’ve been treating died just a few hours after I washed his burns and redressed them.… [I had gone to] his room to bring his roommate to therapy and there was a new child in bed where I had left baby. I turned to the little boy I had come to see. ‘Where’s baby?’ I asked. He stared at me. ‘Did he leave, did he go to his house?’ My little friend silently shook his head, no.

… There comes a point when nothing is left, that feels a bit like emotional shock. Everything sort of shuts down temporarily … the instinct to survive kicks in and only what-is-necessary-to-keep-going functions. It is only when survival-mode shuts off that the emotional dam breaks.

Back to Grace Cabalka’s blog, Sacred Space: Grace wrote a touching prayer for missionary women during this Christmas time:

"Dear Jesus, I abide with you this morning

for my sisters around the world

who have left homes, family, familiarity and comfort

to take your message of salvation to your children.

It's December, Lord, and good or bad,

we all have expectations of what this month should bring.

I pray for those far from families they love

and long to be with,

comfort them Dear Comforter.…”

Read the rest of Grace’s moving, insightful prayer at Prayer for those far away, and perhaps you will join Grace and me in praying for thousands of missionary ladies like Deborah, and for men, too, far from home this Christmas.