Katie Waterbrook, RN, MPH
The Light Shines in the Darkness
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…
This well known children’s song is a favorite in my family. We love to turn out all the lights and let the kids run around with battery-operated candles singing their hearts out. It’s a catchy and fun song to sing, but how often have we sung this song mindlessly, without stopping to really consider the promise in these words?
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!
Hide it under a bushel, no! I’m gonna let it shine!
Won’t let Satan blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine!
Let it shine ’til Jesus comes, I’m gonna let it shine!
Within the last year, the words to this song have hit very close to home for our family. Stephen and I never put much thought into long-term missions. We had done plenty of short-term mission trips in our lifetime and felt that missionaries at home were equally as important and needed as abroad.
But the year 2023 was a huge turning point in our lives. That was the year God laid on our hearts to stop living our conventional American lives and go serve the people of Chad. That was the year God sold our house for us, He made my husband willing to walk away from a successful private practice at the peak of his earning potential, and that was the year He had us practice what we preached . . . to follow Him wherever and whenever He leads.
So, in the summer of 2023, we signed a contract with the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to go be medical missionaries at Béré Adventist Hospital in Chad, Africa. Stephen would be serving as a general surgeon, I would homeschool our children and help with the nursing school.
From the first moments we stepped foot in Chad, we were hit with the realization that our lights truly were quite little.
Several months after our arrival I babysat a tiny premie baby boy for an afternoon. His mother had a 13-year-old daughter, but every baby she had after that first daughter died. Then her only child, the 13-year-old daughter, got sick and died. The mother was so distraught that she collapsed, became ill herself, and went into premature labor. And now here was this little baby on my futon. No incubator like my own premie baby had five and a half years ago, just a tiny baby, a CPAP machine on its last leg, and me. I was watching him because his normal caretaker was meeting with a village girl who had been tormented by demons.
When the baby’s caretaker came to pick him up I listened to her recounting what she learned in the meeting. As I listened to the girl’s descriptions of the demons tormenting her, I shuddered. It was then that I realized how powerful Satan is here. He has a grip on these people. Just hearing their stories confirms he’s in charge here. So much sickness, death, theft, lies, brokenness, sadness.
That sweet little premie boy died two days later. The grandmother came to pick up his tiny body because they were too afraid for the mother’s mental health to tell her quite yet. What a heartbreak. A blow from Satan.
At lunch several days later Stephen told me about a man who came in with an acute abdomen, anasarca, and bleeding out of most orifices. He had gone to the marabout (witch doctor) for a headache three weeks prior. He was told to drink a tree root and now he was at our hospital dying. Because he had a headache! Because he went to the witch doctor! His life didn’t have to end this way. It seemed so wrong and so unfair. Another blow from Satan.
The next day Stephen showed me a picture of a terrible burn on a man’s hand from falling into the fire. The skin had burned literally down to the bone, and his ulna was clearly visible. When taken to the operating room, he coded on the table and couldn’t be resuscitated. So many deaths. Satan continues to blow.
Stephen is attempting cases he hasn’t been trained to do. He is stretched to capacity, maybe even beyond it. And he’s not the only one. Every missionary here is teetering on the edge of burnout. They work through strange viruses and parasites that are constantly on the attack. They diagnose and treat diseases they’ve never seen before. They struggle to decide how best to handle the advanced pathology—attempt surgery, or advise for comfort care. The sad stories, the hurting people, the helplessness, the need, it just keeps coming. Discouragement and exhaustion threaten to creep in and take over. Satan tries so hard to extinguish our little lights.
We often find ourselves asking, “What can our little lights accomplish in the face of such dire need?” The problems here seem so much deeper than our little lights can handle. This dark place needs light. It needs bright flashing lightning, a total illumination of the sky. But the lights here seem so small, and so few. And Satan blows on them and tries so hard to extinguish these little lights.
The need is so great, the laborers are so few.
I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy about Moses and God preparing the Israelites to enter Canaan. Three times, in three different chapters, God mentions that there are seven nations “greater and mightier than you that you will utterly defeat.” One of the king’s bed measurements was even recorded at nine cubits which, I looked up, is 13.5 feet long! That seems overwhelming to say the least. But God promised total victory over these giants that were too big and too strong to otherwise conquer. And I feel this is a reminder from God that He will conquer this darkness. With our hand in His, victory will be ours.
So, we keep letting our lights shine. Even though they often feel too small, too inadequate, and quite undeserving of this work.
But this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Won’t let Satan blow it out, I am going to let it shine!
Are you letting your light shine? Is your light shining in a dark place? Will you consider praying about God using your little light to shine for Him in a place of His choosing? It’s never too late to change course and follow Him wherever He leads!
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