Building a medical clinic from scratch

When we got to the Wycliffe meeting, someone handed us a binder that, among other things, included a list of our fellow attendees. I read through the list, saw the names of no one I knew, but saw one last name that caused me to wonder: "Are these people relatives of someone I know?"

The man's name was Adrian Visbeen. I knew a Visbeen once. His name was Al--Al Visbeen. Back in New Jersey.

A couple of days later, I was in a meeting and realized Adrian Visbeen was sitting next to me.

"Hi," I said. "By any chance, do you have relatives in New Jersey?"

"Yes."

"Do you know a guy named Al Visbeen?"

"Yes. . . . He's my brother!"

Al Visbeen, I knew, was a successful building contractor. Very successful. Turns out, Adrian and Al had been partners. They have now both retired. But Adrian pulled out of the business first--16 years ago, about the time when Sarita and I left New Jersey and would have last seen Al.

"I was 52 when I told Al I wanted to retire in two years so my wife and I could do mission work," Adrian told me. "I wanted to sell my half of the business and move on.

"Al was incredulous: 'You're going to give up the company car and all the benefits?!?'"

But Adrian and his wife were determined. Before they had gotten married--he had only discovered this a short time before he made his announcement to Al-- . . . Before they had gotten married, Adrian's wife had thought she was going to be a missionary. "I was sure I was supposed to be a missionary," she said.

But then she got married and forgot the whole idea. Until their kids had graduated and left the house.

"Now what am I going to do? Sit around?"

So she and Adrian decided that they would make themselves available for wherever God led them. They would use their skills to help advance His Kingdom.

And so, at 54, about 16 years ago, Adrian sold his half of Visbeen Construction to his brother and launched off into a new field of service--with Wycliffe Associates, YWAM (Youth With a Mission), and several other agencies. Adrian gave me a letter he had written earlier this year that showed where all they have served: 56 different projects in almost as many different places . . . around the world.

But there is one story of one project I would like to share with you here. It's the story from which I titled this post:

Building a medical clinic from scratch

Adrian and his wife were asked to build a medical clinic on one of the islands in Lake Victoria (Africa).

Not sure why, but for some reason, they brought a wheel for a wheelbarrow, but, apparently, not much else.

When they got to the island, they asked if there was any concrete available.

"'Concrete'?" --No one knew what it was.

"Where can I get some sand?" Adrian asked.

No one had any sand on the island. There was no sand.

"How about cement?"

No one had any cement.

Someone did own a sailboat, however.

So Adrian, said, they sent the sailboat out one day to pick up bags of cement from a town on the shore of the lake. Out and back to pick up the cement: one day.

The next day, they sent the sailboat in another direction to pick up sand from a beach. They tied up the boat and filled it with sand--one shovelful at a time.

Out and back for sand: another day.

Then they mixed the sand, cement and water--local men did it with their bare feet. ("Their skin was tough, like leather!" Adrian said. --I expect so. Indeed, I hope so. Because concrete is quite caustic.)

So they poured the slab on which the clinic was to be built.

Now for bricks.

No one had any bricks.

"Okay," said Adrian. "Let's make them!"

So they smashed a termite mound, ground the clay, mixed it with water, poured it into a six-inch tall brick mold, mashed the clay so it was exactly the height of the mold, then turned the raw brick out onto a black plastic sheet where it would bake in the sun for three days. . . .

Talk about building from scratch!

Oh. The wheelbarrow wheel.

No one owned a wheelbarrow. So they made one.

"We dug a pit, rolled a log over the top, had one guy stand down in the pit and another on top, and then they sawed the log in half. . . ."

I just realized I never got a clear idea of how the wheelbarrow finally worked, but, somehow, the sawed log became the structural basis for the wheelbarrow, and the wheel . . . --Well, the wheel became the wheel for the wheelbarrow! (Of course!)

******

Why all this labor to build a building whose structural components were like nothing the local population had ever seen? (Isn't that called inappropriate technology--in contrast to (what development agencies normally refer to as) appropriate technology: i.e., technology that is readily supported by the local culture and economy?)

The reason for using this--what seems to be--"outlandish" structural technology: it is durable and it is clean. This clinic should remain useful for decades. The more "traditional" structures last only years. . . .

Purpose in life

Something struck me at the Wycliffe Associates meeting. Before I get to the specific item, let me talk demographics. Because what I want to mention is surprising as a result of the demographics.

In the room of about 150 people, Sarita and I weren't quite the youngest. Quite. We had to hunt around a bit. Ignoring the Wycliffe Associates staff, there were a few younger people. Maybe five. (???) One woman was significantly younger than anyone else; it appeared she was there as the guest of her mother. I think she said she was 23. The few others who were younger than us appeared to be in their 40s. Then there was us, in our low 50s. And then everyone else. There were a smattering of people in their mid- to upper-50s and low-60s (maybe 10 or 20 (???)), and then the majority: upper 60s, 70s, 80s . . . and even one man who celebrated his birthday while we were there: 96!

The Mission India supporters we met the weekend before were, on average, significantly younger. It was a similar-sized group, but there were easily 10 younger women [mostly] and men in their 30s and 40s, then, I'd guess, another 30 or 40 of us in our 50s--just at the "empty nester" point in our lives--and the majority in their 60s and 70s. I know there were a few who were older than that. But--appearances only--I'd say the average age of the people who were present at Mission India's meeting was a good 10 years lower than the average age of those at Wycliffe Associates.

But it wasn't the age-range alone that hit me. It was the people's countenances. Especially the faces of the people at the Wycliffe Associates' meeting. They glowed. They beamed. These were (are, I'm sure!) happy people.

And I had no trouble figuring out why!

They were purposeful. Most of them--I'm sure it was a majority; maybe only a bit over 50%, but it was definitely over half of them-- . . . Most of them had been somewhere and done something in the last couple of years as members of Wycliffe Associates. They had built some buildings, taught some children, helped in the mailroom somewhere, offered assistance where it was necessary in order to aid in the bigger task of translating the Bible for the 380 million-some people around the world who do not have a shred of Scripture in their own language, and the much larger number (approximately a billion) who don't have a complete New Testament.

So they were purposeful. They were outward looking. They had more for which to live than meeting their own needs--or desires--and filling their own bellies.

And that outward look, that purposefulness, that reason for living gave a real, noticeable spring in their steps and joy in their faces.

Unmistakable. And what a pleasure to be around!

Wasting one's life . . .

When Sarita and I were at the Wycliffe Associates' President's Summit meeting last weekend, Bruce Smith, president of Wycliffe Associates, told of meeting with a Wycliffe translator whose book our company carries.

It was a strange and pleasant experience to hear of this "old friend" whom we have never met.

But then we were saddened to hear Bruce's report. I will not pretend to quote Bruce exactly. I will only report what I remember Bruce saying.

[Translator] and I walked to his house, the house that he built with his own hands. It looks like a Robinson Crusoe dwelling. As darkness fell, we sat on the porch and talked.

[Translator] and [his wife] have been working on the translation of the [language group] New Testament for 34 years. They are supposed to celebrate its publication this coming January. We sat and talked into the night. Somewhere around 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, [Translator] asked me, with real anguish in his voice: "Bruce, have I wasted my life?!?"

I don't know what, specifically, spurred [Translator] to think that thought or feel that desperation. I get the sense it was a momentary, fleeting impression, not a heavy, on-going meditation on [Translator]'s part. (I know, sometimes, my mind will find itself in the blind alley of an emotional rat's maze. No real reason for it to be there; it just is.)

Yet in the context of what Bruce was saying, I got the impression some of the anguish, some of the question came about because [Translator] and his wife (who was not present for this particular conversation) have been working pretty much alone--apart from (m)any others of their own cultural group--for so many years; and the sense, I'm sure, that few people (if any) "back home" appreciate at all what they are doing, what they have been going through, the sacrifices they have made; and--considering the comment about their house--the thought that, maybe, "Should we have 'made it' in this world?"

Bruce didn't say anything about any of these topics directly. He only mentioned what I have conveyed here in the "quoted" text. It is I who have attempted to psychologize the feeling.

This question brings tears to my eyes even as I write it. . . . Sometimes we think people like [Translator] are such spiritual giants. Nothing should hurt or discourage them. . . . And why now? His task is done, really, isn't it?

But then the questions come, and the wonderment: "Have I wasted my life?"

Is there someone you know who is struggling on the backside of nowhere, trying to do an "impossible"--yet highly valuable--task, who is foregoing most of the creature comforts of this world, who has been laboring "forever" without respite? Think he or she may be becoming weary in well-doing?

Perhaps you should be praying . . . and offering support?