A story
Mary: “What’s that smell? It smells like burning...”
Bryan: “It’s 4 in the morning, what could be burning?”
Mary: “Come stand here… do you smell that?”
Bryan: “Isn’t it supposed to still be dark outside? Why is there orange light coming through that door-frame…”
As the door swung open, the light unveiled itself as flickering orange, yellow, and white flames emerging from the back-side of our house. “The house is on fire! What do we do!?” Fire extinguisher? Not available. A bucket of water? It’s dry season in NW Cameroon and water often flows at a trickle. Over the next 60 seconds, Bryan somehow managed to move the cardboard box containing most of the fire away from the house and beat the remaining fire out with a towel while Mary called for help. We live in a wooden-framed tin-roofed duplex near Banso Baptist Hospital. Our side (“1B”) has its own electrical box that apparently had some loose connections and spontaneously burst into flame on the morning after our arrival on Dec 9. From there the flames spread down to a cardboard box containing some clothes belonging to the groundskeeper. If we hadn’t been jet-lagged and awake at 3am, we could’ve easily slept-through the beginning stages of the fire which would’ve almost assuredly spread to the roof and the rest of the structure. There is no fire department to speak-of; houses that catch fire often burn-down completely.
“Phew! That was close…”
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Electrical box that spontaneously caught on fire..
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Getting philosophical:
It’s common after “close-calls” or “near-misses” to look for a cause-and-effect explanation. “Coincidences” are, after-all, very interesting phenomena. Mathematicians and statisticians have written books about how many so-called “coincidences” may be more probable than we immediately suppose. Buddhist ideology may speculate about “good and bad karma.” Western culture often invokes ideas of “luck” and “providence.” Psychology may encourage people to practice “gratitude” for its proven health benefits. But does gratitude need an object? To what or whom are we grateful?
It’s common after “close-calls” or “near-misses” to look for a cause-and-effect explanation. “Coincidences” are, after-all, very interesting phenomena. Mathematicians and statisticians have written books about how many so-called “coincidences” may be more probable than we immediately suppose. Buddhist ideology may speculate about “good and bad karma.” Western culture often invokes ideas of “luck” and “providence.” Psychology may encourage people to practice “gratitude” for its proven health benefits. But does gratitude need an object? To what or whom are we grateful?
Those of a Judeo-Christian culture or persuasion will here chime in, as if on cue: “God! We are grateful to God!” Yet was it God who put out the fire? Technically, wasn’t it Bryan? Or was it God who allowed the fire to start just at the right time for us to extinguish it? Technically, one could argue it was the cheaply made and likely poorly maintained electrical box combined with the increasingly dry air and nearby flammable materials. Just how active and involved IS this God, anyhow? Doesn’t our autonomy, agency, free-will, and self-efficacy disprove our need for or even the existence of the God of the Bible?
Or how about this angle? During the 60 seconds it took us to put out the fire, somewhere in the world 30 adults and 20 children died from starvation, four people contracted HIV, two children died from diarrhea caused by dirty water, one newborn died from infection, one person died from suicide, one person was murdered, and one person died in armed conflict. How could a supposedly good God allow all these tragedies and suffering? If one exists, mustn’t He be as distanced, impersonal, and dehumanizing as these tragic statistics?
We can’t presume to address adequately in an already verbose Christmas letter the theology behind pain, suffering, death, tragedy, poverty, or a host of other injustices. There are plenty of books, dissertations, treatises, testimonies, debates, podcasts, and blogs out there for those who are interested. Instead, I want to make the point that the God Bryan and I follow wants us to ask Him these questions and seek answers, wants to engage with us personally, wants to work sadness, pain, and tragedy for good –but He just as strongly doesn’t want to force it on us. For some reason, He values our autonomy, agency, and free will. Perhaps that’s why Jesus came before the age of social media or twitter but in time for historical evidence to support the Biblical record of his birth and life. Perhaps that’s why He was born in a small nondescript town without modern prenatal care, clean water, or newborn resuscitation methods. Perhaps that’s why the religious leaders of His day were allowed to mock, dismiss, threaten, and murder Him. Because who could be forced or manipulated into being grateful to a stinky baby, born to poor parents in a barn? Who could be coerced or coopted into believing in a man who was despised, mocked, and murdered by His own people? Who could be tricked into being grateful to a God who values humility so much so that He humbled himself to become human and even die?
As C.S. Lewis’ fictional devil in Screwtape Letters says, “Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them.”
To summarize:
Bryan and I are grateful toward the God we follow: the One Who has reasons for not preventing all tragedies, suffering, or pain; the One whom we ask to guide our steps and show us how to serve Him, whether in Cameroon or the U.S.; the One who allows an enormously overwhelming amount of autonomy and free will; the One who somehow simultaneously with our autonomy “prepared in advance for us to do good works” and Himself has an “unchanging nature of His purpose” (paraphrases of Eph 2:10 and Heb 6:17). Whatever your belief system or faith journey, we hope this Christmas season you utilize your autonomy to consider seriously the claims of Christ.
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- If you would like to receive our quarterly prayer/update emails (and don’t already), please contact marybuckler139@gmail.com.
- If you are interested in financially supporting some of our Cameroonian health system’s specific projects (Malnutrition, HIV, Tuberculosis, Women’s Health, etc.) with an end-of-year or recurring donation, visit CHEF (www.CameroonHealthAndEducatio
nFund.com). - If you are interested in financially supporting Bryan and Mary Cairns, visit www.samaritanspurse.org/medica
l/wmm-doctors/
Personal Updates:
-We completed our first year in Cameroon 9/2016-8/2017, spent 4 months back home in Columbus, Ohio, working at Ohio State University Medical Center, and just returned to Cameroon Dec 2017. We plan to continue this pattern each year of spending 9-10 months in Cameroon and 2-3 months in the U.S.
-We’re grateful to Kabwe and now Dave who are taking care of our condo and cats in Columbus for us while we’re overseas. We’re also grateful to OSU for employing us so sporadically-for-them but conveniently-for-us.
-Political unrest continues between our Anglophone region and the Francophone seat of government. Censorship of media continues, so it remains difficult to know what is truly happening as rumors abound but reliable news is hard to come by. We do not feel in any danger and no one is being evacuated from our organization, though some physicians from other organizations and Peace Corps workers have been evacuated.
-Long term goal of more long-term faculty physicians with interest in establishing a Family Medicine Residency program in Cameroon. Please pass this along to any who may be interested!
Merry Christmas from Cameroon!
Mary & Bryan Cairns
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| Hospital's "Christmas tree" |
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