Most of the time, people ask that question when they want to tell God they wish something had not happened to them. When a crisis arises, we quickly ask God to calm the waters, to make things right again. Last Thursday, we found ourselves asking this question, but from the perspective of "God, what is
Our doorbell rang at 5 a.m. Jen sprang from bed as I quickly dressed. She answered it to a young woman who was acting strange, with arms folded tightly to her body.
"Sie mussen mich nach Krankenhaus nehmen. Ich habe meine Pulsader geschnitten." She repeated it over and over.
Now, at 5 a.m., we're not very awake. We would have trouble with English at that time, not to mention German. I immediately thought she was having problems with her blood pressure, since the only thing I understood was "hospital" and "pulse". I asked Jen to get her blood pressure cuff. The young woman waved me off and repeated her plea. I told her I wasn't understanding. She kept walking away as if to motion to us that she needed to go now, repeating herself. Jen ran and got the German-English dictionary. We were all getting frustrated. I was not about to leave Jen and the kids behind and get into an uncontrollable situation.
Right as a switch went off in my head that she cut herself, she stepped into a shaft of light emanating from our doorway. Blood. Lots of it on her clothing. She opened her arms to show me large lacerations on each wrist. Then it hit me: she tried to kill herself.
"JEN! Come NOW!" I cried. We told her to come in and sit down. Jen ran into the bathroom to grab her first-aid equipment.
Ten years of serving as an Emergency Medical Technician in PA led Jen to know exactly what to do. She had kept a lot of her equipment and supplies. While Jen bandaged the woman, I ran and got a pen and paper. I thought "we don't even know who this woman is, I need information!" I asked her name, saying I need to call the ambulance. She started resisting, replying in German, "We don't have enough time. You need to take me to the hospital!" Then she got lightheaded and started passing out in Jen's arms. We grabbed her and laid her down, half in our living room and half in the hallway. We grabbed pillows to raise her legs to keep the blood where it needed to be. She immediately regained consciousness and calmed down. And then something amazing happened. She stopped protesting and started trusting us, as though a switch went off in her head.
As Jen stayed with her, holding her hand, we introduced ourselves. She replied "I'm Evelyn. It's nice to meet you."
That she need to go to the hospital was never in question. Our concern was getting her there. We have to walk around our apartment building up a flight of stairs to get to our car. We couldn't do that. I told her I needed to call the ambulance, and she said "ok."
I called and immediately said in German "My German isn't so good. Do you speak English?" "Nein" was the reply. All the sudden, without stumbling, I found myself telling the operator that we needed an ambulance, as we have a woman who has slit her wrists and has lost a lot of blood. He asked if she was awake and upon my positive reply asked to talk with her. I handed the phone over to Evelyn, and she stated her name and calmly said "I slit my wrists with a bread knife."
You might be laughing when I write "bread knife". The ones in Switzerland are used for slicing loaves of bread that have a tough outer shell. The blade alone is about 9" long and has a sharp, serrated edge.
The phone conversation ended fairly quickly after that. Help was on the way.
Jen had finished bandaging her up and was holding her hand.
"Evelyn, we believe firmly in the power of prayer to the living God. May we pray for you?" She responded positively, saying she believed in God, too." "May we pray with you?" I repeated. "Yes, please." "Ummm… do you mind if we pray in English?" She left out a little laugh. "Kein Problem." No problem.
I don't remember everything I prayed, but do know I pleaded directly to the Creator of this Universe, the Creator of Evelyn, and asked Him to intervene in her life. As I continued praying, tears welled in Jen's eyes and dripped from her face. Evelyn's sweet voice piped "Why do you cry? You don't need to be sad." Jen replied: "God loves you so very much."
I tried praying again, but nothing came out. I got up, grabbed the telephone and quickly stepped outside, calling a tenacious prayer warrior. "Marty, (a co-worker at Kilchzimmer) we need your prayers right now." Explaining the situation, she immediately went to intercession. With a covering of prayer, I waited for the ambulance to arrive, pleading with God to give us direction, strength and wisdom. After a minute or so and several trips to see how Jen and Evelyn were doing, I saw the blue lights coming down the road. I motioned to the emergency personnel and told them we have a ramp. The driver misunderstood me, and drove down the block and turned up the street behind our apartment block. They accidently pulled into the parking lot of the next-door apartment (which I didn't realize) and I started looking for them. They finally found me with a response like "Oops!" After showing them the ramp, I led them in to the house where Jen had a German-English Bible open. She had just opened it up and was looking for passages in the Gospel of John to comfort her with.
The emergency personnel got to work, asking questions, checking vitals and getting an IV ready. They were excellent. We wanted to give them space to work, but they ended up recruiting us to help. They got Evelyn ready to go and the driver went out to get the ambulance. I went outside to turn on the lights when a flashlight shined in my face. The police arrived. They introduced themselves and thanked us for our help, and quickly got to work, asking both Evenlyn and us questions. They were pretty shocked when they found out it wasn't her house and we didn't even know her.
Amy's door then creaked open and she came out, rubbing her eyes. I knelt down beside her and said "Amy, we have some visitors. One person is very sick, and there are ambulance people and police here to help her. Would you like to say hello to them?" She quickly nodded her head and I led her there. Amy immediately ran to Jen where she was scooped up.
The rest happened so fast, that I don't even remember Evelyn leaving with the ambulance crew. Jen noticed quickly and ran out, Bible in hand. "This is a gift for her." "Oh, ok" was the reply and they were gone. The police thanked us again and left.
The only thing left to do then was pray. We held each other and pleaded with God, uttering things that could not be understood in any language. God understood.
It's been a wild and crazy December, and there's still several more weeks to go! We said a sad farewell to the Van Eck family, who flew back to South Africa on December 3. Brent drove them to the airport and with tears in his eyes said goodbye. The Van Ecks became good friends over the past five years and we will sorely miss them.
And then furlough was over. We flew out of Montreal to Toronto, then had an overnight flight to Zürich. The children enjoyed the flight and slept pretty well.
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It's always exciting to pass on some of what we've learned. Laura, the daughter of Philippe and Joanne Mayhew, leaders of the work in France (and former Kilchzimmer co-workers) spent several days sitting with me and learning what a graphic designer does for a school project. She was supposed to just observe, but I let her take the reins a bit and she had a blast working in Photoshop and Illustrator. She's a quick learner and very productive, and she would like to use her talents for the Lord. Laura and Philippe came for lunch one day and we enjoyed our time together. We certainly miss the Mayhews at Kilchzimmer, but praise God for how he is working in their lives.
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