This book is part biography, part historical, part scientific, and part memoir. It weaves together medical ethics, race in America, the science behind cell lines, and the remarkable story of Henrietta Lacks. It’s an award winner and I wasn’t sure I would like it because I’m not really a science person, but I was entranced.
During my first year on the mission field — twenty years ago now — I read Elisabeth Elliot’s only novel, No Graven Image. I immediately regretted it.
Elisabeth Elliot was my hero. Her books about her first husband’s life and martyrdom significantly influenced my decision to become a missionary. Her emphasis on steadfast obedience, no matter the cost, inspired me to do hard things for God.
But her novel absolutely mystified me. It’s the fictional story of a young missionary — Margaret — in South America, working to translate the Bible for a remote tribe. An Indian family befriends her and the father, Pedro, becomes her closest ally in her translation work. I don’t remember much about the story except for how it ends: Pedro dies — and it’s Margaret’s fault.
As a 24-year-old idealistic Elisabeth Elliot fan, this was incomprehensible to me. Why on earth would Elisabeth write such a thing? It felt depressing and cynical and almost anti-missionary. Sure, Elisabeth’s own husband had died on the mission field — I knew bad things could happen — but he was a martyr, a hero. And his death inspired a whole generation of new missionaries. That story had a happy ending….right? So why write a novel about missionary failure, where the ending is actually worse than the beginning? God wouldn’t let that happen in real life….right?
The year I was 12, we were robbed on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, it was my favorite childhood Christmas.
That Christmas Eve in Liberia, as always, was warm; the equator hovering just a few degrees south of us. ELWA compound was a square mile in size, one of the largest mission stations in the world, with over 70 missionary homes surrounding a hospital and radio station. Our house had a large front porch with a hammock and a concrete railing. When you stood on that porch, the swamp was to the right, it’s murky water adorned with lily pads and surrounded by mangrove trees, their spiderly legs creeping around the edges.
The swamp was fed by a lagoon on the other side of the dusty, red dirt road, which was fed by the Atlantic Ocean. Our Christmas music was the rhythmic pulsing of the waves, their white crests glowing in the darkness.
Four or five families set up luminarias that Christmas Eve – paper bags filled with sand and a candle. We lined the dirt road with them, and one neighbor found a large piece of styrofoam and set one bag floating on the lagoon. The magic of that night – the stillness, the waves, the flickering light suspended in the shadows – settled down into my 12-year-old soul.
Later that evening we sat around our spindly plastic tree to open presents. There weren’t a lot of gift options available in Liberia in the 80’s, but I remember being delighted with everything I received. However, the only specific gift I can recall was a small, furry whimsical creature that sat in a hollowed out, heavily varnished coconut shell, a homemade toy sold by a woman who walked the mission station, her wares balanced proudly on her head.
When the tropical sun woke us on Christmas morning, the contents of our stockings engrossed my brother and me. We heard a shriek from our mom in the kitchen. During the night, thieves had sliced through the screen on the window above our kitchen sink, the only window that didn’t have bars. They removed the louvered glass, stepped over the turkey defrosting in the sink, and stole our cassette player, our thermos jug, and my mom’s purse, which had been hanging on a chair.
I volunteer weekly at an after-school program for disadvantaged kids, and I went to the banquet that celebrated this ministry’s 20 year anniversary.
We watched a video montage of how the ministry has expanded over the years. We listened to young people, now grown up, whose lives were changed because of the investment in them.
It was a lovely evening. But when I got to my car afterwards, I wept. I enjoy being a part of this ministry, but the banquet reminded me that I am a newcomer; I know nothing of the history of two decades. And all I could think about was how I had left behind 20 years of history in Tanzania.
I did not anticipate the lostness that comes with starting life over again.
In September I immersed myself in Sheshi and Trudie’s lives, working together with them to write his story.
And then I stopped writing.
Gil’s mom died. Sheshi died. Both from brain tumors. I read about the fathers in Afghanistan who are selling off their little girls so that they can feed their other children, about the nursing mothers in Tigray, Ethiopia, who eat leaves but produce no milk.
Josiah broke his collarbone playing soccer and needed surgery. We discovered Johnny needs myofunctional therapy, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Unsettling emails came from school, which led to a visit to a psychiatrist with one of our children.
I felt unwell for most of October. I stopped sleeping. I discovered I’m anemic. I still don’t know how much my body was speaking to my mind or my mind was speaking to my body.
Words left me in October. It’s the end of November and I am sleeping better and feeling better, but I’m still struggling to find words. I’ve stared at a blinking cursor on this blank document for restless days.
