18
Chapter Eighteen
I had been up this mountain many times during the day, but never during a night of pouring rain and roaring wind. By this time the rain was seeping through the coat that was supposed to have been waterproof, and water ran down my neck. “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors. . . . Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. . . adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers . . . through many a sleepless night. . . in cold and exposure.” The Apostle Paul had listed his hardships, not pretending that he had never made a sacrifice. I might list one or two of my own. I felt exhilarated by the wildness of the night, the streaming, slashing rain, the screaming, lashing wind. But why hadn’t the man at least brought a light? My flashlight was feeble, and since I had given it to him to carry I walked mostly in darkness.
The man had come to my house late that night to say that his little daughter was desperately ill with what seemed to be poisoning. Word had run from hut to hut over the mountainside that Manuela had given birth to a feet-first baby, and that the white señorita had made it live, and since that time increasing numbers of Indians found their way to my door in Indi Urcu. Sometimes they came under a pretext of selling me something but often it was with the frank request for medical treatment of one kind or another, or with a plea that I come to visit a sick relative.
Here was another one. The idea of treating such an emergency frightened me—my reputation as a miracle-working midwife did not qualify me for this job, but I did not see how I could refuse at least to attempt assistance. I found an emetic, which I put in the bag with the other standard remedies, and we started off as fast as we could up the mountainside.
The night was perfectly black and the trail soon became a rushing river of water. I could feel the water squelching in my shoes, and apart from the knowledge that they would be ruined I rather enjoyed the memory of childhood puddle splashing that the cool wetness evoked. The trail, however, became more and more slippery as we ascended and I could not see whether I was putting my foot down on a rock or on greasy clay. The effort of trying to keep up with my guide, who was understandably in a hurry, and seeking a foothold at the same time tired me quickly. How far would it be? I knew it was useless to ask—time and again the Indian estimate (‘Just over that hill” or “Now we are in my dooryard”) had been wide of the mark. I hunched my shoulders up higher to keep the rain from trickling down my neck and hoped most earnestly that this journey would not be in vain.
There was a time when “in vain” to me had meant that there was no visible spiritual result. A study of the public life of Jesus convinced me that he regarded things differently, since comparatively few of his encounters with individuals or groups resulted in manifestations of true faith. I still wanted proof of my effectiveness in some area, and the success with Manuela had been gratifying. Perhaps God had not intended to draw her or her immediate family to Christ through that cure, but at least He had given the physical evidence of His power, and there was reason to hope that spiritual results might ultimately follow. All my life I had been conditioned to regard every chance conversation, every accident by which my path crossed that of another human being (especially if that human being was a stranger, people I knew somehow fell into a different category) as God’s way of thrusting in some truth. During the past two years this dream had suffered some revision which, as I hurried along in the dancing fragments of light thrown by my guide’s flashlight, I tried to define. What had taken place? Originally I was a missionary with the broad scope of service that the name implied in my thinking: to win souls, to translate the Scriptures, to use medicine and education for the sake of the Kingdom. Then I accepted the role of mere translator. I was prepared for that, I seemed to do better at it than at evangelism, and the task was so demonstrably the work of God. In recent months, however, I had been reluctantly a doctor. The Indians had finally discovered a use they could make of me, and although I dreaded the thought of becoming a quack and studiously avoided advertising my medical skills, there was no escape from duty which presented itself at my door.
We were skirting the edge of a quebrada. The wind scooped down into the ravine and rushed upward into our faces, slapping sheets of water against us and tearing at our soaked clothes. It was such a journey as I had never made before, and I thought it would have fit quite nicely into St Paul’s catalogue. His sufferings resulted in triumph. Lord, let this trip, too, at least be worthwhile. I don’t mind losing sleep and a pair of shoes if I don’t lose the patient or the opportunity to speak of Christ. If Jesus did not always gain a disciple, at least He healed the sufferer who came to Him. Which would it be tonight?
The roar of wind and water made talk impossible, but at last the Indian turned and shouted, “There is my house over there—do you see the light?” I could not see any light, but I thought I could hear another sound above the swish of the wind. The Indian heard it too, for he stopped short, leaning into the wind, and then, the flashlight making a swift arc in the fog, he threw his hands to his head. “Already dead.”
It was the death wail that we heard, a wild, hopeless song lament reaching us in waves through the rain.
He resumed his steps, more slowly, and we reached the house to find the mother rocking the child, limp and still in her arms, and a crowd of people shrieking and keening in despair. They stopped long enough to recount the last moments, and I stayed to try to comfort them with the words of Him who said, “I am the Life.” But they were in no mood to listen to talk of any kind. It was not talk they wanted. The child was dead; the white woman had not come in time; it was all over. I might have spoken to them, have pronounced a verbal prescription for their need, but I saw that I had no right to presume on their plea for help. They had wanted me to save a life. I had failed to do that; I could go now. No matter what I had to say, what other offers I might make, it was over. The one thing they had wanted from me they had not gotten.
One of the children was sent to guide me home again, and as I walked, still in lashing rain and wind, still in darkness, I told myself that I was not to blame. Clearly I had done what I could. The child could not in all probability have been saved if I had arrived in time—even a doctor loses patients and this child had not been my patient. God knew I had had nothing to do with her death. But if He knew that, He knew ahead of time that she would die. Why this useless frantic race up the mountain in the mud and rain, in the middle of the night?
For nothing. For nothing. For nothing. The rain came in increased force, sending stinging scourges against me. If only this rain would stop—now that the job was over, the trip seen to have been fruitless, what was the point in having to keep up the struggle just to get home? I slowed down a little, for there was no reason for urgency now. Still the rain beat down.
A few days after Manuela’s delivery I had written a circular letter, asking my friends to pray for her spiritual enlightenment. It was satisfying to be able to recount the medical success, and to tell them of the completion of the translation of the Gospel of Mark—Pedro and I were now working on Genesis, and he had shown real interest in the Scriptures and understanding of the task we were jointly engaged in.
If I were to write of tonight’s incident, what would I say? The rain swiped at me, as though a troublesome Providence nagged for my attention when I wanted to focus it even for a moment on my own anxieties. Thoroughly drenched anyway, I resolved to ignore the storm and pursue my thoughts.
Medicine, I had understood, was to be used as the servant of missions, a means for bringing the masses under the “sound of the Gospel.” Why didn’t it work for me here? Lynn’s clinic, the vaccination of the school children, my countless visits, the giving away of hundreds of sucres’ worth of drugs, even the resounding success of Manuela’s childbirth had produced hardly a single exhibit to prove that medicine was a means to the great missionary end. And if it is an end in itself, I thought wryly, what business have I to be involved in it without proper training? Lynn was legitimately involved—she was a doctor.
But then, of course, if I were to write in my next circular about tonight’s journey, I couldn’t put it in either category. It was nothing, really, except an adventure—it would seem an adventure to my friends at home, though right now it was sheer misery.
“Are you coming, señorita?” The child was far ahead, and had stopped to call back. I tried to quicken my pace a little but the effort was too great.
“I’m coming,” I said.
Why this need to find meaning at every turn? Why do I struggle to sort out the material and the spiritual, to separate the failures from the successes? Well, if you’re going to write honest prayer letters. . . . That was what tormented me.
I thought of that sunny afternoon when I had traveled down this path with Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Harvey, appalled at the ease with which Mr. Harvey assessed the work of the Lord—these are the victories, these are the defeats. Who was I to label things?
The rain had subsided to a gentle whisper, and I could hear the quick little splashes of the child’s feet in the water which still flowed in the trail. By the time we reached my gateway the sky over the eastern cordillera had grayed. The night was past.
“Will you come in and have a cup of coffee?” I asked my little guide.
“Bueno, señorita.” She followed me inside and I set about finding something to eat with the coffee. I was suddenly aware of a ravenous hunger.
“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink. . . do all to the glory of God.” St. Paul had recognized even the common things. Of course I knew that; I had heard sermons on it. But I saw now that if my task was far smaller in terms of the effect it was to produce, it was far larger in terms of my own life involvement. If there were times when I must be willing to pay any price for what was called the “advancement of the Kingdom” there were also times when I must be willing to let such a price—climbing a mountain, for example, in rain and mud and darkness—be paid in vain. This, too, was a place to glorify God. This must have been what Lynn meant, I thought as I set the table. “Jesus told us to do what is true.”