Tears

Salut!

I can't sleep. It's still dark and a cool wind is rustling the leaves
outside my window with a hollow wail. I lie under the mosquito net with a heaviness in my eyes that screams for slumber to come, but my mind is racing and my stomach is churning. I want to just roll over and fight to sleep but something deep inside is pulling me elsewhere.

I roll out under the net trying not to wake Sarah. I slip on some shorts and bang the front door open (there's no other way to do it). I feel for my flip flops with my feet and stumble through the dark across the porch and down the steps.

A faint tinge of slightly less blackness touches the eastern horizon. The stars are brilliant. There is no moon and not a single light, lamp or fire anywhere. I've learned to find my way around the compound even in the dark. I brush against some low lying mango branches and steal cautiously towards the back gate. It's locked and I don't have the key.

I scramble over the chain link fence to the side of the cement post holding the door. As I slither over the top I scrape my leg against the cold, rough concrete. I land with a thud on the other side jarring my spine. I dust off my hands and stand up.

With my eyes now adjusted to the dark and the continued advancement of the dawn I can barely make out the trail through the millet field out back. I walk to the middle and gaze up.

I start to cry.

As tears stream down my face my body is wracked with sobs. It's been too long and too much. The national strike. The closing of all the other hospitals. The countless surgeries. The red tape in N'Djamena. The poverty. The needs. The kids in tattered clothes. The dirt. Equipment breaking down. The government project shutting down. The fear. The ignorance. The witchcraft. The weird traditional practices. The drums all night. The grasping. The begging. The manipulating. The young guys hungry for something better. The almost palpable longing for hope. The AIDS patient on the way to recovery stolen away from the hospital by her sister so she can die at home. The Arab boy with complications post-op who despite 2 surgeries lasting over 8 hours ends up dying anyway. The immensity of the task. Being in over my head all the time. Never-ending needs. But most of all...sorrow, a deep unexplainable sorrow for the people of Béré. A longing to somehow be a part of bringing them out of darkness, fear and ignorance into who they were made to be. A cry from my heart that God will help me to love when I don't feel like it...

Through the haze of my watery eyes I spot shooting stars. To the west, far across the plain, lightning flashes. Some clouds steal up over the eastern stars. Insects are chirping. Roosters are crowing. Bats are fluttering past my ears. Guinea fowl are squawking in their night time perches. Various coos, warbles, trills and hoots waft around me in a symphony that sucks the tightness out of my chest and abdomen and relaxes things I didn't know were tense. I slowly become still, filled with an extraordinary Presence. I turn slowly towards the house as dawn breaks across the town of Béré, Tchad...

James