I’ve had several visitors this week. Monday, “Sam” showed up with his mother. They are relatives
of our night guard who were in town for medical care. The story I’d been told
was that they had spent the last month or two in the national hospital but that
they didn’t do anything but keep taking his money. They said his cheek had
swollen but then the swelling had gone done when a hole opened into his mouth.
I figured that this might be a tooth abscess that penetrated the skin on his
cheek. I wondered if maybe they were experience some prejudice as
foreigners—they are Malian nomads from the north—not always the most popular
group since the war in Mali though many of them suffered violence from rebels
themselves.
We went to see the doctors at our friends clinic a
cooperative run by a local church with Western doctors. I asked them to bring
all the paper work from the hospital with them. I hadn’t actually seen Sam’s
face until we arrived in the doctor’s office since his head was wrapped with
the traditional turban that also covered his face. We quickly realized that
this was much more serious than a tooth abscess. The paper work he brought
indicated he had been on chemotherapy , and the large gaping wound in his cheek
was actually mouth cancer in advanced stages. Sam is only twenty but the
doctors were not optimistic about his future. Today he is travelling back to
Mali with his mother to see his dad who has been selling his camels to pay for
his son’s medical care. I told his mom that I would pray that God would bring
him health.
Wednesday night I had another visitor. I first met Kareem in
December when he banged on my door one Saturday afternoon demanding a job. He
was a hefty looking guy angrily yelling “I need a job. You have to give me a
job!” I quietly told him I didn’t have any work for him right now but if he was
hungry I could give him some rice. When Jennifer brought a bag of rice he said
he didn’t need any food he just needed a job—he needed to know that at the end
of the month there would be a salary for him. Despite his intimidating
demeanour something inside said this man needs to know that God cares. He told
me how he felt despised by people as he went around town, that people treated
him like dirt. When I told that wasn’t true, that he was a person of worth
created in the image of God, he stopped talking and looked at me not knowing what to say. Finally, he said,
“But you have to come see where I live with my mother and little sister to see
how hard things are for us.” I told him that I would stop by the following
week, thinking it might be better to take another man along with me. I stopped
by the following week and later delivered some cookies on Christmas Eve.
This week Kareem called saying he wanted to talk to me. He
arrived in a security guard uniform. Apparently he’d found work earlier this
month. He talked for an hour or so, talking about his family and his own
uncertainties. His real reason for showing up was to thank me for caring for
him when he had made it difficult. That my actions had demonstrated God’s love
in ways that he hadn’t seen in others around him. He was very confused about religion and wasn’t able to choose between Jesus and Mohammed (that had split
his family) but that it meant a lot to be treat with real compassion by a
stranger. Please pray for him and his family.
Please pray for Jenn as she has discovered that she has
cataracts. Pray that she has wisdom in knowing how to deal with this situation
and that God’s hand would be at work through all of these circumstances.
