A man was left unconscious on the road at night in a hit-and-run motorcycle accident. He was dying; there was no choice but to take him to hospital. A doctor – the head of the hospital – ran outside and greeted me over and over again, thanking a foreigner for doing a job that local people are often afraid and hesitant to do.
His is the only local hospital with a low threshold to treat those in financial need. But the building is in dire straits: a nurse told me that the single-compartment refrigerator had broken down and there was nowhere to store medicine. So I cleaned the large refrigerator we used in our house and delivered it right away. As the Covid pandemic raged on, we provided lunch boxes and necessary items to those who work at the hospital.
“I see in him a bright future for this war-torn country: a friend who is struggling to serve others at great cost to himself.”
Then I caught Covid….
I remembered the doctor’s friendship and called him. During the time that I was sick, he visited my house many times and looked after me. I see in him a bright future for this war-torn country: a friend who is struggling to serve others at great cost to himself. He does not share our faith, but he shows me how God makes roses bloom in the wasteland.
As I enter and leave this hospital frequently, I hear local neighbours sitting on the floor and crying. “What should I do?” I ask myself. When I heard that a large 10-liter oxygen generator had arrived in the capital city, I planned to buy it right away and donate it to the hospital. But then a friend of our local doctor called.
“Through shared grace and equal sacrifice, we are coming through the pandemic together.”
He explained that the oxygen generator can allow two people to breathe simultaneously, but if there is a power outage, even that is useless. But if we buy twenty oxygen flow meters for the same price, twenty patients can use them simultaneously by connecting hoses to a large oxygen tank in the hospital.
When we supplied those flow meters to the hospital, knowing that at least twenty desperate people have been given oxygen, I saw God’s goodness in the midst of human despair. Through the tragedy of a motorbike accident, He led me to friendship with the local doctor; through my illness, He made me dependent on others’ kindness; through the advice of a local person, He gave wisdom to help ten times the number of sick people. Through shared grace and equal sacrifice, we are coming through the pandemic together.
