why its dangerous to ask for directions

For those of you who know me, you know I am passionate to a fault. You know that I am stubborn and persistent. I don’t just let things go.  This a blessing and a curse.

For those of you who don’t know me, let me give you the short of it. When I was a freshmen in college, I read an account of two Catholic physicians’ experience in Eastern European hospitals just after communism fell. They described rows and rows of children tied to their cribs, malnourished and severely emotionally neglected. The children’s only crime was being born with some medical abnormality whether it was a heart murmur or spinal biflda. The children all had the same fate, a life sentence in a prison called a hospital without family, without medical care and without a name.  I am not sure what made this so much worse in my mind than all the other horrid injustices disabled people face every day all around the world. But something in me broke when I read this.  That something might have been my sanity. 6 months later I found those rows and rows of children and I held them. I am pretty sure everyone thought I was a little nuts but my passionate stubbornness was driving.

And I think at some point I just hit cruise control. Because I kept going back… 2 more summers in Eastern Europe, an 88 page honors paper, a giant Romanian flag on my wall, countless pictures of children whose names I still remember, reoccurring dreams of holding babies, a semester of Russian, etc, etc.  A little obsessed?  I admit it I am.

Everyone still thinks I am crazy but most of them  are now waiting for me to  move to Eastern Europe and practice medicine,  adopt babies and teach about disabilities, inclusion, Jesus and liberation theology.  So naturally when I found out that I have exactly 8 weeks during my 4th year that I can go abroad in during the next 3 to 5 years, I was set on going back to Eastern Europe.  Then this past weekend happened.

I have an opportunity to work with a community based rehab program in the developing world. A program that teaches parents and lay people from rural villages and towns how to integrate disabled children into their communities and help each child reach their physical, emotional and spiritual potential. They care for children’s medical needs including orthopedic and neurosurgical interventions (for things like spinal bifda, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, muslcoskeletal issues, craniofacial abnormalities etc, etc), help families and communities accept the children and continue their rehab. I as a 4th year would get to work in the rehab side and play pediatric hospitalist for post-surgical kids.  Plus they want me as a disabled young adult to go into schools and teach about disabilities and build relationships with parents of disabled kids. The medical education program is well established in one of the best teaching hospitals in the developing world.  I would live on site and I will work with students and physicians from around the world. Its like someone took my vision for my life in 20 years (minus a husband and 2-3 kids (at least 1-2 from Eastern Europe) and made it into a 4th year elective (a year and half from now).

One small detail. Its not in Eastern Europe.

Its in Kijabe, Kenya. That would be A F R I C A people and while I have joked about living in a hut in Africa one day, I really was joking. Africa is not in the 10 year plan. Africa is hardcore, Africa is not a train ride away from Western Europe.  A place that I can’t even name the countries around it. A place of overwhelming needs and problems.There are very few disabled children in institutions in Africa. They just die.

If I go back to Romania, I will work in a family practice clinic and only be able to work with the disabled kids on the weekends. I will have little to no rehab education and little to no supervision while I minister to these kids.  There is such a depersate need for rehab medicine which is why these children haunt my dreams, yet there is no education for me there.  However, in Kenya my primary task would be take care of disabled folks and I would sit at the feet and veteran rehab missionary physicians and surgeons. The choice is clear.  If I ever want to be useful in Eastern Europe or elsewhere I need to go to Kenya.

But it breaks my heart. 5 years is a long time to go without Eastern Europe, I know that sounds ridiculous but remember my passionate stubbornness.  It also terrifies me. Eastern Europe is familar. I know its history, I know its problems, I know bits of its languages. I know its food, its culture and customs. I know how to navigate its cities, I know how to take a wheelchair on its public transit.  I have friends there. I have buried friends there. I have unfinished business there, I have children who I am following. I am clinging to Eastern Europe because  I can handle it.

I wasn’t looking for a change of plans, I wasn’t looking for a one way ticket out of my comfort zone. But I have should have seen it coming.  Because I think I have let my passions get ahead of my calling. Its not about being comfortable, its about the work. And the work is taking me to Kenya.

God is for about the millionith time reminding me that its really not about you. And I am learning to let go, slowly and with tears.  There is joy in the journey, praise God for that.