A letter from Sharyn Babe in Haiti
April 23, 2010
ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT
“Hi… Just wanted to share some really great news. Yesterday, as scheduled, I went to see the back doctor. He gave me the words I’ve been hoping for — for a very, very long time. The back bone is ‘cooked’ as he called it, meaning the bones have mended. … ‘you can take the brace off and you’re done with it!!’“He said it might feel funny for a bit as a bunch of unused muscles start to remember what they are there for. He also said, for the next couple weeks, I could use the back brace as needed when I got tired or as necessary. He has no idea how long I’ve been waiting to shed this thing.
“I was a bit sore last night but slept the best I have for a long time. This morning Rodney and I walked around the block and being able to move normally was great.
“Just wanted to share some of the greatest news I’ve had in a long while.”
I wrote this note a week ago and am just now finally sharing it. Indeed, the back brace is off and movement improves by the day. But one of the unexpected results of removing the chin to lower cheek brace was vulnerability. Not only did the brace hold me in, it kept the world out. Now there is no shield. Now there is no protection, just vulnerability.
Two weeks ago I read the attached poem. It was written by a friend, a long ago former Sunday School student of mine. Dr. Stephen Lewis recently returned from a medical trip to Haiti. People ask me what Haiti was like, what’s happening now. They are surprised at my progress, my amazing recovery, my ability to move about. But I reel between memories of absolute destruction and being totally absorbed and assimilated into this new world of normalcy. I’ve been trying to explain what it’s like to be ‘on the inside looking out.’ I finally realized Stephen has already done it; he just used a different title.
Even as I write, a machine has kicked me into “long term disability.” That simply means I’ve been off the job unable to work 90 days. Like removing my back brace it seems simple enough; except it also means this may be the last letter I ever write as a missionary. I write wondering about Haiti. Will I ever go back? And what about the churches here in the states? Much of my identity, my history, my ability to help or even contact others is gone. It’s enough not to be there during this period of crisis and confusion, but the thought of not being there for the recreating of hopes and dreams is crushing. Inside looking out, or outside looking in; there is only a thin sliver of glass that separates.
Sometimes I think the earthquake’s final toll was a quarter million … plus one.
Sharyn
On the Outside Looking In
You see the nightmares on the news.
But I never had a clue!
To what these poor people had to experience!
Homes and businesses Lost
And that’s not the only cost.
Loved ones buried alive in the rubble
Oh how they must have struggled
No one should have to die that way.
Life exists now under tarp and tent
I never knew what it meant.
Til I saw 6 or 7 huddled close together
In the worst kind of weather.
Babies cry; People die
Women give birth, what a cruel earth!
On the outside looking in
You just can’t understand
How pain and suffering
Can change a man.
No one can know
What happens to a man’s soul
When all seems lost and there’s no longer any plan
By Stephen Lewis 3/2010
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 287
