Praying for the Sick

We had walked a mile or so, first on a main dirt road, almost dry after the rainy season, then winding past house after house through the unplanned compound. I still wasn’t quite sure whose house we were going. The older sister to a young woman in our CYF had collapsed outside the church the previous day and we had come to pray for her. The house was cramped, its walls lined with shelves and cupboards filled with the staple tin and ceramic dishes that every Zambian owns. The only light came from the sun shining through the door. In the darkness, I didn’t know where to sit. Luckily my friend gave up his seat, telling me to sit there; otherwise I had spied what looked to me to be an open spot, which invariably turned out to be the invalid laying down! Thank God I didn’t sit on her!

Our leader asked the mother what was wrong with our sister. I sat and listened to her speak in a local language, wondering what she could be saying. Then we sang some praise songs. Even eight months in, I’m surprised with songs I don’t know. After a few verses I can usually join in. Energy was rising. Voices were louder. Those sitting rocked back and forth a bit. Those standing marked time by stepping along with the music.

As far as I know, there’s no correct time to transition from song to intercessory prayer, but at some point people start talking to God while others continue the song. I still get surprised to find myself in a room where each person is speaking aloud, but not to each other. Their eyes are closed, bodies moving and gesturing.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I finally saw the motionless body lying opposite me. I didn’t know her condition, but there was something eerie and ominous about her stagnancy and I had visions of the worst.

As the voices lulled to quiet murmurs, a man got up and stood over the sick person and started shouting over her body.

“IN THE NAME OF JESUS RESTORE THIS VESSEL, OH JEHOVAH JIRAH. WE KNOW THIS IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL, MIGHTY GOD. OH GOD OF HEALING, WE RENOUNCE ALL EVIL SPIRITS. WE RENOUNCE THE WORK OF SATAN. IN THE NAME OF JEEEESSSSSUS RESTORE THIS WOMAN, OUR SISTER, OH HOLY GOD, IN THE NAME OF JEESSSSUSS…”

The prayers finished, and she slowly sat up.

“Our prayers have been answered,” our leader said as he made his concluding and parting remarks.

On the walk home, I asked what the mother had said about the young woman’s condition. A man explained to me that the sickness had to do with the young woman being recently disowned by her uncle. She had been living with her uncle, but needed school fees for a post secondary school program. The uncle refused and didn’t even give the girl transport money to return to Chawama and her own mother.

“Counseling,” the man told me. “She needs counseling so she can understand that there are other ways to make money to get her degree. She could do piecework for a year to raise funds for school.”

To an American, a sickness and family or money problems are very separate entities. In an African context, they are related. Events, challenges, and disputes can result in physical ailments. The devil and witchcraft take hold of people’s physical bodies.

The next day, I finally went to visit a teacher that has been sick since January and recently lost her mother. She has been in the hospital for weeks, but no test showed anything wrong with her. And yet she remains weak, unable to walk or take much food and her chest remains congested.

I went with four other teachers. We found Teacher Mekelina’s kids, including her five-month-old daughter, playing outside the house. Her oldest daughter, probably around eighteen, was inside watching TV. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I was in this house, two months ago or so. Then I found Teacher Mekelina in that very room, sobbing and wailing at the loss of her mother. This time Teacher Mekelina was in the back room. She lay on a reed matt and a few blankets. Her chitenge couldn’t hide her skinny legs. I noticed she had lost a lot of weight.

But she still had a smile for us, with that beautiful gap in her front teeth. Her breathing was labored and you could hear the rasp in her voice.

Teacher Violet offered her words of comfort, “Whatever you do, don’t lose faith in God. God has a plan for everything and is in total control. Trust in him and he will make you well. Your sickness is the work of the devil, but you are not destined for sickness. Just wait in faith and God’s time will come. God’s time is the best.”

Then I told Teacher Mekelina that I remembered the first time I met her. I remembered her warm smile and laugh and cheerfulness. I remembered thinking—this woman is a woman of life.

And I’m still meditating on those thoughts. Teacher Mekelina is a gift of joy to this world. I am worried that an illness and the loss of her mother are keeping her from seeing how much she has to live for. I miss her presence at school and I ask for prayers from all over the world for the recovery of this mother and teacher and friend. She is a woman of life and her spirit spreads that life to those around her.

The family doesn’t plan to take her back to the hospital or clinic. They didn’t receive help there before, so they are convinced her ailment is simply the work of the devil. I am scared and worried for her and her family. But as we all ask her to have faith, I must have faith in her spirit to bring forth resilience and fight to live. I have faith in Teacher Mekelina.

As we finished our prayers and left the room, bugs scurried across the walls and around the cups on the end table. We passed her four daughters and nieces watching TV in the next room. Emma, in grade one, had finally stopped crying. She too has been sick lately.

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Yesterday, I finally visited UTH (University Teaching Hospital), the biggest and best hospital in all of Zambia. We were there to see Reverend Tembo’s Momma (Aunt) who has been sick for some time and in the hospital for a few weeks. She is seventy-seven years old and is suffering from heart failure and anemia. In the part of the hospital I visited there were no rooms, just wards—with six to ten people in each interconnected section. I noticed some people on mattresses on the floor. Reverend Tembo explained to me that there is so much congestion they have to put some patients on the floor. The disparities between American hospitals I’ve visited and this one hit me in the gut, taking the wind out of me, and silencing my mind in confusion about how inequality exists. If this isn’t fair, why hasn’t it changed?

I immediately got the sense that the section where Momma lay was full of seriously ill people. Some of the patients around her never opened their eyes. They were motionless and skinny. One woman to the left of Momma had bloodshot eyes that barely blinked and a tube down her throat. She was young and yet had a near-death look of fear and surprise on her face. Her breathing was fast and labored.

I couldn’t help but think of the one in ten Zambians living with HIV. I have no idea what was ailing this young woman, but I know AIDS can slowly take life from young people, making them look like the seventy-seven year old Momma in the bed next to her, but years too early for that young life.

Momma was quiet but alert in her bed, covered up with a fleece blanket decorated with dog prints. I greeted her for the first time, trying to convey as much compassion with my eyes, hoping that a random white person she never met before wasn’t going to be more distressing to her at this time. Her nieces and nephews surrounded her, but it seemed just breathing and lying there was all she could muster at the moment.

Then the sound of metal chains closing a curtain around the bed behind us reached my ears. The wailing started as I turned and saw some nurses dressed in blue, with white hats pinned to their heads, start covering a body with a brown fuzzy blanket I’ve seen in other people’s homes and at the market.

“They’ve passed on,” Reverend Tembo explained.

Someone just died behind me, I thought.

High-pitched sobs followed the bed as the nurses wheeled it out of the ward. It was actually a relief when I saw others staring at the scene like me. Showing deep emotion at death is expected in Zambian culture, but even to those around me this was tragic and startling. Someone just died behind me.

How quickly can life slip away? And yet life goes on. Patients fought on, despite seeing their comrade’s shell whisked away. A choir sang in the ward across the way. The grass was marvelously green outside, a rare sight in a dusty country. I was meeting Reverend Tembo’s younger sisters for the first time.