Hard knocks

Every once in a while things in life hit you that just make you say, “Wow, that hurts.” They seem to come flying out of nowhere and, even if they’re things that don’t touch you, your family, or even your close friends directly, you can still feel the knock on your soul and empathize in bleeding heart with those who are going through the unimaginable pain. Within the past week, Colegio Privado Adonai and the AC Church here have both been hit with news that wrenches at the heart; news that makes us question the basic justice of the world and leads us out wondering and wandering around in a mess of pain and unanswered questions.

The first hard knock came about a week ago. I found out in my first class last Friday that one of my second-grade students, Josué, was nearly burned to death in a dreadful accident that ravaged his tiny body. What makes the situation even more tough to comprehend is that even before the accident Josué’s story was so sad to begin with. Abandoned by his mother and having a father who works so much that none of the teachers at Colegio Privado Adonai had ever seen him before, Josué was basically being raised by his ten year-old brother who cooked and looked out for him. In the classroom, although a kind and quiet student, he was unable to concentrate and learn in any significant way because of the problems at home.

Then, a week ago Wednesday, seven-year-old Josué tried to finish up the job of burning a trash pile in his back yard. In the process he was doused in a large quantity of gas that, quite naturally, was quickly absorbed by his warm winter clothing. When the fire jumped up to meet him, Josué’s clothing burst into flames like the ignited tip of a sulphur match. His brother made a good effort to save him by taking off Josué’s burning fleece sweatshirt, but in the process he also took off half the skin from his little brother’s face. He then put Josué in the shower to douse the flames, but the burning continued to the point of charring one of Josué’s entire legs beyond much good future use.

I went with the second-grade teacher Liliana to visit Josué in the hospital on Saturday. He’s in the I.P.S., a massive communist-looking government-run run-down complex offering sub-standard medical care to the thousands of poor Paraguayans who can’t afford anything else. It’s a hospital comprised mostly of medical-student doctors because all the good professional ones work in private practice. It’s a place with broken windows and leaky roofs, where cleaning ladies mop the floor without putting up signs warning against the slippery surface and where surgeries are delayed because the surgical instruments haven’t been sterilized well enough.

There we found out more details about Josué’s condition. He’s in the burn unit all alone, without anything to occupy his mind except for pain and where he is able to be visited only by closest family members infrequently. If infection from his wounds doesn’t kill him soon, he will be having reconstructive surgery sometime next week to transplant the skin from his hindquarters to the charred portions of his leg. They say he’ll need six units of blood for the operation: six units of blood that, with one look at Josué’s small size, you’d imagine could probably fill him up two or three times with a little extra to share. Needless to say, he won’t be returning to school any time soon.

Just knowing that an innocent child, who perhaps has never hurt anyone in any significant way, is in such a state of agony seems to entirely protest the idea that any Good could exist at all in the world when there is such clear evil.

The second hard knock to the church community came with the unexpected death of a dear sister from the congregation. Doña Irene, 59, had been a member of the church for no few years, a founding member of the prayer ministry, the church cook on retreats, and a faithful visitor to and prayer warrior for those who were sick themselves. They say that she prayed several family members to salvation; indeed, today both her husband and son are recently-established although not unimportant pillars of the church and the church’s ministry.

About four or five months ago Doña Irene was re-diagnosed with a form of cancer from which she claimed to have been miraculously healed about ten years ago. She stopped coming to church for her sickness and underwent aggressive chemotherapy treatments—the best and most expensive in the country, we were told—that left her weak, tired, and discouraged. Her last treatment, a milestone for her and the completion of a long, painful process, took place last Friday. I almost took her flowers to celebrate, because I thought it would be a big relief for her to have finally triumphed over the treatment.

Little did I know, however, that those same flowers would have still been fresh enough to send to her funeral. Early Monday morning, perhaps the coldest of the winter, Doña Irene was taken to an urgent-care facility where she passed away after a night of agony. After such a long fight against cancer and the completion of such a dreadful treatment, how could she have passed away so easily? The news took us all aback, as we expected her improvement and a new strength after the ravages of the treatment.

I could probably think of a thousand good theological and very Christian explanations for the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Yes, we are fallen sinners and we suffer the consequences of death. Certainly, the world is broken by our choice and every one of us is culpable. And sure, we even serve a God who, in His grace and mercy, knows our pain and has experienced death for us. There’s no doubt He entered it and redeemed it by His own blood, and then triumphed over all the suffering of the world through His resurrection. Absolutely, as Christians we participate in that reality and we have a hope that we, too, do not suffer in vain and that one day we will be bodily resurrected to an eternal relationship of peace and complete joy with our creator.

Having all of these explanations, though, doesn’t necessarily ease the pain. No, life can be really hard sometimes. There is real agony to be felt, no matter what theologians or pastors or anyone else can say to try to ease it. Little innocent children get burned alive, and godly women who have passed through rigorous chemotherapy treatments die of their cancer anyways. And these hard knocks sting.

An American in Asuncion

As an American in another country, sometimes you just need an all-around American day: a day, that is, to indulge yourself in your own culture and get reacquainted with your own way of life; a day full of familiar luxuries and simple wonders taken for granted at home; a day, perhaps, even to wallow around and get dirtied in the mud of what many too-good-for-you-types would consider baser parts of American society.

After eight months in Paraguay, I was long overdue for such an all-around gratifying American day. I was ready, and even hungry for, the shopping and the movie theater and the cheap fast food (which isn’t so cheap, after all, here in Paraguay). And so, last Thursday on a day off from school, I headed out to the “choochy” part of Asuncion on the other side of town. Here one can find many of the luxuries of life patterned after finer American living: nice little bakeries, expensive car dealerships, modern furniture establishments, movie theaters, a mall, and even a McDonalds and Burger King. This little piece of America in Asuncion lies in the rich part of town, about an hour bus ride away from Lambaré, amongst guarded mansions and beautiful embassies and high-fenced English-speaking schools for the children of diplomats and missionaries.

The first thing I did when I arrived to the rich part of tow was to mill around Shopping Del Sol, the nicest mall in Paraguay but comparable in the States with old Rolling Acres in Akron. There I hit up the bookstore where I pretended to be interested in reading books, but, after finding that they were all in Spanish, left in a huffy for an antiquities dealership where I had a great conversation about antique dealing with an Argentinian woman whose ex-husband lives in the U.S. After I told her that I had spent time in the Middle East and had taken a course on archaeology, she thought I was an expert archaeologist and asked me my opinion of a hand-cut rock she had. She thought it was from the era of the cavemen, but I didn’t want to tell her it looked like a common broken barn stone. “One has to be careful of you buy from these days. There’s a lot of counterfits,” she said. “Yes, you have to be very careful,” I replied with my best put-on expert voice.

After doing some window shopping of stores and styles that I’m pretty sure were dumped on Paraguay as the unsold leftovers from other shops in countries up North, I went to the movie theater where a selection of movies that opened up in the States two or three months ago were playing as new releases. The only movie that wasn’t dubbed over in Spanish (I was, after all, spending an American day, so I could hardly tolerate an American movie not in American-speak) was the one with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman about two fellows—one a rich but sad white white-collar executive and the other a poor but content black blue-collar mechanic—who find themselves spending their last few months of life adventuring together after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. I won’t give away the ending, but the movie was too long and pretty predictable. I will say, though, that while I’ve only been away from the States for eight months, Jack Nicholson looks like death in the movie and seems to have aged a few decades since I’ve come here.

After slipping out of the mediocre movie I headed down the street for McDonalds, where I ate my first Big Mac in years. Even when I’m at home I usually get something more healthy from McDonalds, but this was a special occasion: a celebration of my American heritage and the Big Sandwich that is undoubtedly a bigmac part of that legacy. The fries I got on the side tasted just like those in the States. I wonder if they ship Idaho potatoes and McDonalds ketchup all the way to Paraguay.

After all was said and done, I left the mall, the movie theater, and MceeDees very satisfied and content with myself as an American. Although many might see the elements of American culture that I experienced as ugly things—that is, the materialism represented by the mall, the ever-new need for entertainment and pleasure represented by the movie theater, and the corporatism and gluttony represented by McDonalds—the day was just what I needed to remind me of my country, bring a smile to my face, and help me appreciate the things that America does and that America is. Even if it’s only for sending name brand clothes all around the world, making bad predictable movies, and being responsible for the manufacture of big cholesterol-filled BigMacs in South America, I will always love and appreciate my country, her culture, and her people wherever I may find myself.