recommended listening: Yahweh, by u2
After breakfast, I go to work for a few hours and return for lunch because Jamie wants to talk with us about something she can’t discuss at the school. She starts talking before she sits down.
“I just can’t believe the changes in my husband,” she says. “I haven’t even really said anything. It’s just like everything he sees, and everything he reads, and everyone he talks to makes him want to know about God. I’m so thankful. He heard my prayer.”
Lauren reads the passage: You won’t have to say a word…
“It’s like this book tells everything about me. It’s amazing. Oh, and Paul wants to start using his money for God. Would buying Bibles to give to house churches be OK even though he might not always believe yet? Oh, and would you tell all of those people who are praying for me that their prayers are being answered, and that it might be good if they prayed for Paul, too?”
A few days later, Mary’s lingering in the courtyard after the study. She’s saying something important, but this thing under my foot is distracting. It rolls when I move my foot, like a garden hose, but it’s not that.
She pauses, sensing she’s lost my attention. I make eye contact and she repeats: “You go to mental hospitals so that you won’t bother society. You don’t go there to get better. Besides, she was fine after we talked. She promised she wouldn’t try anything like it again.”
The topic is Rhoda, but I can’t concentrate with this thing under my foot.
Focus: Rhoda. She applied three times before we agreed to hire her at the English school. Women here put on heels and coif before buying carrots, but Rhoda’s the one who wears baggy sweaters, owlish glasses, and curtain-like bangs. If she were in America, she’d be the only member of the high-school science fiction and knitting club, and she wouldn’t hold office.
Yesterday, she’d reapplied for her position. Part one of the application is an interview with a committee of local staff. Part two is an interview with the Americans. The process works well, usually. But there’s no contingency for an applicant running out of the first interview, getting a rope, and trying to hang herself in the staff office.
Mary and Rachel were able to talk her out of it. They sent her home thinking the trouble had passed and the question was whether or not she could continue working with us.
I shift my feet and glance down. The thing: eight-inch long, light-brown, elliptical, pointed at one end, smooth. “It’s a bigger question that whether she can keep a part-time job.”
Understanding the truth is not always comfortable.
The truth is, someone who tries something like this will probably not be cured by a half-hour pep talk. The truth is that if we don’t rehire her, we’re cutting off all social relationships and livelihood from a friendless, suicidal young woman and throwing her into a system in which, according to Mary, “People who want to die, do.” The truth is that if we rehire her, we are incorporating a time bomb. If she had succeeded, the school would have been closed indefinitely and all foreign staff would have faced months of interrogations and possible liability. The truth is that we probably can’t help her. The truth is that there is no real distinction here between marketing and gossip, so even if Rhoda’s fine, we’ve probably lost all of our students; after all, she did it during registration!
The truth is that the thing under my foot, in my own back yard, is a severed horse’s ear.
That quote, “To know is to love”? Don’t buy it.
I start walking. “Mary, maybe this is what you were made for. You’ve been there. How would you have wanted your boss to care for you?”
So we talk about how Mary’s wrestled with depression for years, and how Mary’s introverted character in this extremely social culture makes her always feel like she’s failing. We talk about how God could bring something beautiful out of her pain. And as we talk, Rachel says she will join Mary in meeting with Rhoda. Jamie offers to cover different duties at the school so that Mary can have more time. Monica, and Woody, and even Jerry share ideas of how they can help Mary help Rhoda.
A week later, and everyone’s talking about it—not attempted suicide, but even more unexpected gossip. Have you seen Rhoda? She seems happy! She’s becoming a mentor to new staff! Students love her!
And that old feud between Rachel and Mary? Rachel asked if they could team-teach!
And Monica’s husband, Chandler, the fundamentalist who wouldn’t let her out of the house more than twenty hours a week? He finally accepted our invitation for dinner, and said Monica can be involved with us as much as she wants! And he said he wants to meet with me to talk more personally!
And Jamie’s husband, Paul? He asked to meet, and said he’d get a group of men together so that we could teach them about God like we taught his wife and her friends!
And Ross keeps coming by the school to talk, and asks if he can spend more time with our family because he wants to learn how to really care for Rachel and become a good father.
And Chris stopped by and said he’s been thinking about our talk on the bus, and wants to know how to study the Bible on his own.
And, have you heard? We have 50% more students this summer than last summer!
So the uprising has begun.
