16

Death Follows Me Home

Our second son Timothy had battled asthma since he was seven. It typically flared up when we moved and his body had to adjust to a new environment. But he had experienced no serious attacks since we had moved to Nairobi—until a 1996 school trip to Mombasa. He stayed in a damp hotel room where the mold triggered a severe reaction. One of the chaperones on the trip rushed him to a hospital emergency room where the medical staff quickly got his breathing stabilized. When the teachers reported the incident to us after the trip, we immediately followed up with doctors.

The doctor assured us that Tim was recovering fine, but he said that we were right to be concerned. The good news was that Tim’s lungs and heart had grown strong from fighting off asthma-causing infections for years. He was now a robust and healthy young man. The bad news was that Tim was so resilient and his body so good at fighting off asthmatic events that, by the time he evidenced serious symptoms from another attack, he might already be on the verge of cardiac arrest.

We took the doctor’s warning very seriously. We even stocked up on epinephrine pens that could be used at the first sign of an episode. But there were no further episodes for over a year.

Very early on Easter Sunday morning in 1997, Tim woke Ruth and me up. It was 1:30. By the time he stumbled into our bedroom, Tim was already having such difficulty breathing that he couldn’t talk. We had never before used an epinephrine pen, but I immediately stuck one in his thigh. There was no noticeable improvement in his breathing. I gave him a second one. Nothing seemed to change.

I rushed Tim out to the car—leaving Ruth with the other boys—and drove toward the closest emergency room. Halfway to the hospital, Tim went into cardiac arrest.

The dark streets of Nairobi were deserted. I could find no one to help until I spotted a man coming out of a darkened shopping center. I quickly blocked his car with mine and jumped out to explain what was happening. I demanded that he drive my car to the hospital while I climbed into the back seat and frantically administered CPR on my son. Thankfully, Tim’s heart began beating almost immediately, and he started breathing again. When we reached the hospital, the medical staff began emergency treatment for Tim. In the meantime, Ruth was making her way to the hospital.

By this point, Tim was unconscious, but breathing. As Ruth, Shane, and some friends began to arrive, we huddled to pray. When we next saw the doctors, their eyes told us what had happened even before they spoke a word.

Tim was gone. He was sixteen years old.

Time stood still as we leaned over the bed to hold him. In that moment, something inside me died. Even in that moment, we were sure about Tim’s place in heaven. That reality was a certainty for us. But I was overwhelmed by my own loss. Ruth used the word “resurrection” that night; I was fixed on the crucifixion. The pain was unbearable.

Because there was nothing else to do, we returned to our home and began making calls to our family members in the States to tell them what had happened on this early Easter morning.

Later that morning, we sat with our other sons and talked about what had happened. I said, “We did not choose this horrible thing that has happened. And I don’t know how we are going to live through it. But we are going to make sure that we don’t waste Tim’s death. Somehow, we will do our best to honor God through even this.”

Our loved ones in the States were heart-broken, but they were so far away. We knew that they loved us, but it was hard to feel the comfort of family members who were eight thousand miles away. Most of our family members did not even have passports. Ruth’s brother, however, began making immediate plans to travel to Nairobi. He would be on a plane the next day.

The sad news spread quickly and triggered a worldwide outpouring of love. Friends who lived close flooded into our home. (Between the day of Tim’s death on March 28 and our departure for the United States in June, we did not prepare a single meal for ourselves. Every meal for almost three months was provided by friends and neighbors.)

We could have taken Tim’s body home to Kentucky for burial, but we knew that he would have had other wishes. As a high school sophomore, he was already telling us that he didn’t want to go back to America for college, but wanted to remain in Africa and become a teacher. Africa was his home.

Knowing that, we decided to bury Tim at his school in Nairobi. It seemed like a miracle when the school administration granted our request and agreed to set aside a little plot of ground. We considered it an even bigger miracle when the government officials approved our request.

The funeral was scheduled for the following Saturday. During that week, our home was filled with people every hour of every day. Neighbors, Tim’s fellow students, colleagues, and friends from our Kenyan church enveloped us in their love and care.

Probably the biggest surprise of the week came on Thursday when Omar Aziz, our senior Somali staff member still living in Mogadishu, appeared at the front door. I was stunned to hear him say: “I have walked here from Somalia. I had to come to help bury our son, Timothy.”

As soon as he had received word of Tim’s death, this dear Muslim friend had started a five-day odyssey. He had walked through minefields, deserts, and mountains. He had crossed rivers and national borders. He had hitched rides and he had ridden on cattle trucks. And he then arrived at our home hundreds of miles later with only the clothes on his back.

I have never been quite so humbled. And I have never seen such a demonstration of friendship.

Omar Aziz would sit between Ruth and me at the funeral.

The funeral took place in the school’s outdoor amphitheater. Hundreds of people packed the hillside seating. Much to our surprise, our oldest son sang with his school choir. Ruth’s brother, the high school chaplain, and our Kenyan pastor each shared during the service. There were other words of testimony and shared memories from Tim’s classmates, friends, and teachers.

The theme of the day was God’s love and grace. That clear message was heard by everyone who came: young people from all over Nairobi, our Hindu and Muslim neighbors, shopkeepers from the surrounding community. After the service, we heard a common refrain. People would say to us: “Your son had been talking to us about Jesus” or “Tim befriended our daughter (or our son.)” How heartening to discover, after the fact, the witness that Tim had been to so many people!

After the service, we buried Tim’s body about fifty meters down the hillside from the amphitheater.

We had been held up by the love and care of friends. God had proven Himself to be faithful. We were confident in His promises. Still, we were empty and broken, crushed by grief and loss. The pain that we had felt for years in Somalia had now come close. From the outside, we probably looked like we were doing fine. Inside, we were in despair.

We began to make plans for a trip to America to rest and visit with family. Before that happened, however, we found ourselves on the receiving end of another distressing eight-thousand-mile phone call. It was Ruth’s father telling Ruth that her mother had passed away. Another death. More crucifixion pain. Our sad hearts were even heavier because we couldn’t even make it back to America for her funeral.

Before returning to America, I felt the need to make one last trip to Mogadishu to say some good-byes. Omar Aziz met me when I landed. I gathered with the few staff members who were still doing relief work. They knew that, soon, the entire operation would come to an end.

I thanked them for their years of faithful service helping our company help their people. I also thanked them for sending Omar Aziz to us in our time of grief over Tim’s death. I described how surprised and moved I had been to see him standing at my door. I told them what comfort and joy his presence had been at the funeral.

Omar took that opportunity to talk about his journey to Kenya.

“There is one thing I don’t understand about that funeral,” Omar admitted to his Somali friends. “Nik and Ruth buried Timothy—a son who they loved with all their hearts. During the service many people were talking about Tim. People were singing. People were crying. But everyone there seemed to know that Tim was in paradise! Why can’t we Muslims know that our loved ones are in paradise when they die? Why is it that only these followers of Jesus know exactly where they are going after death? We bury our people. We weep. We walk away. And we do not know where our loved ones are. Why? Why have Jesus’ followers kept these things from us?”

His words were a powerful, though perhaps unintended, witness to his own people. But his words were a severe challenge to me. Why, indeed, had Jesus’ followers kept such things from Somalis for over two thousand years?

I was concerned that perhaps Omar Aziz had said too much. I feared that perhaps he had gone too far with his words. I was afraid that he too might become a victim of Somali violence, perhaps even at the hands of our own Muslim staff.

Everyone in the room, however, shifted their attention to me, as if waiting for me to answer the question that now hung in the air. Why had Christians ignored Somalia for centuries and kept Jesus to themselves?

They expected an answer. I didn’t have one.

Instead, another question burned in my heart. It was a question for God: Why, Lord, when we are ending our work here, are their hearts finally ready to ask the right questions?

I had no answer to that question either. Then it was time to leave.

In those final moments, I told my staff how proud they should be about their years of hard work helping to feed and clothe so many Somali people. I reminded them of how many lives they had saved. Then I said, “I would like to bless you. Would it be alright if I prayed for you?”

They were eager to have that happen. I shared with them the blessing that Moses recorded in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, ancient words that seemed especially pertinent for a people in a land not all that different from Old Testament times.

I held out my hands in the manner that Muslims often pray and I offered aloud this benediction for some of my best friends in all the world:

“May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. Amen.”

On the way to the airport, I talked with Omar Aziz about what he had said about Tim’s funeral. I reminded him that he had been dreaming about Tim during his time in Nairobi. Evidently, Tim kept coming to Omar in a dream. When Omar had shared that with me, I had told him the Old Testament story of Samuel and Eli. I told him how the boy kept having a dream that the old priest was calling him. Samuel would get out of bed to find out what Eli needed. Every time, Eli insisted that he hadn’t called and he sent Samuel back to bed. Finally, the priest realized that Samuel was actually hearing the voice of the Lord, so he instructed the boy to tell God that he was listening and ready to hear what God would say.

Now, I reminded Omar Aziz again of Samuel’s story. I said, “I believe that God has been speaking to you for many years, through a lot of different people, Omar. He is calling you to Jesus. In these difficult days for Somalia, you may be the last and only chance that your people have to find Him.”

That was the challenge I left with my friend as we said good-bye.

On the flight back to Nairobi, I wrestled with the doubts that haunted me day and night. After all the time, the expense, the energy, and the sacrifice expended by so many people, what (if anything) had our years in Somalia really accomplished?

I thought of the story that Jesus had told about the farmer sowing seed. We had done just that; we had sowed seed. Over thousands of days, through thousands of deeds and thousands of natural spiritual conversations in the context of everyday Somali life, we had cast our seeds far and wide. For six long, hard, dry years we had watched and we had waited. My relationship with Omar Aziz was a reminder that a few individuals might have taken note, that we might have successfully planted a seed here or there. But how and when could those seeds ever grow? Who would be there to water and tend the field? Who would be there to reap the harvest—if there ever was a harvest?

As I looked down from the plane, I saw a hostile land consisting mostly of dry, lifeless desert and hard, rocky terrain. Where is the fertile ground that Jesus’ talked about in His story? I am so tired of the rocks, the hard ground, the weeds and thistles. Where in Somalia is the good soil? Is there any good soil? Could a seed ever grow here?

Our souls were weary. It was clear that we were coming to an ending of some kind. There had been so much loss and pain. As we returned to America, the questions would not let me rest.

Was it worth it or not? Aren’t those fifty thousand people we fed every day eventually going to die anyway? What could we have done differently? What should we have done differently? Can faith in Jesus survive, let alone thrive, in such a hostile place? And where do we go now and what do we do next?

Tim’s death had changed us. After all that we had been through, we wondered if we were still willing to risk ourselves and our family to do what God had called us to do. Honestly, I thought that question had already been settled—but, now, I wasn’t sure.

I finally understood how Jesus’ disciples must have felt on that dark, despairing Saturday between the cross and the empty tomb. Even in my own dark time, I did not doubt the depth of Jesus’ love in His willingness to die for me on the cross. And, even in my dark time, I did not doubt Jesus’ resurrection.

But here was my struggle: I couldn’t see the relevance or the power of Jesus’ resurrection in Somalia. I couldn’t point to any evidence of good overcoming evil. I couldn’t see where love was overcoming hate.