Dealing with Our Fears When Letting Go Seems Impossible

By Dannie Hawley

Life in the twenty-first century is fast-paced, loaded with busy schedules and looming deadlines, making it nearly impossible to keep up, let alone get ahead. With pressures and stresses injected into each day, we find ourselves riddled with insecurities. As Christians, we know full well that we are to fret not, but how in this world? Falling economies and soaring oil prices, wars popping up like flowers after the winter snows, and we are to fret not? Exactly!

Three and a half years into their service at this medical post, Dannie became totally blind and there was nothing that could be done. Dannie and Anne-Lise stayed to continue caring for the patients, trusting God to take care of them in this wild jungle environment.

Dealing with Our Fears when Letting Go Seems Impossible is liberally sprinkled with true stories from jungle life, serving to illustrate the lessons of the Lord in the area of fretting.

Do you find yourself fretting over:
having enough faith?
knowing Gods plan?
waiting on God for an answer?
trusting God?
letting go of worries?

Contained within these pages are these lessons and a model applicable for any Christian who needs to find a way to cope in this stress-filled, high-tech world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449719098

Dannie Hawley

Dannie Hawley (AKA Darlene, Dar), a pediatric nurse practitioner, has served full time in the African mission field for more than twenty-six years. Since 2007, her work has included overall basic care of five dozen children as Project Director of the Samaritan House Children’s Center. Dannie lives in West Africa.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One

Let Go!

Chapter Two

What Is Fear?

Chapter Three

Faith That…

Chapter Four

Make An EFFORT

Chapter Five

Attitude Check

Chapter Six

Remember, Relinquish/Release, Rejoice

Chapter Seven

Surrender

Conclusion

About The Author

Endnotes

Bibliography

To our mothers, Marjorie Hawley (USA) and Marianne Debrot (Switzerland), who have done all that they could to see that we have always had all that we needed wherever in the world we served!

To Earl Hawley, who is Dannie’s earthly father who art now in Heaven, for all he did to see that others knew all about what we were going through in this missionary journey from 1984 until his homegoing in 2003, beginning with hours spent watching a dot matrix printer spit out those newsletters!

To Shirley M. Olson, Dannie’s Sophomore English teacher at Laurel Senior High School for believing in me and encouraging me to write. Here it is, at last, a book!

Preface

For nine years we served as missionary nurses in a remote jungle village in Africa, treating patients from our own village, as well as the sick that walked (or were carried) as much as ten or twelve hours to reach us from seventy to eighty other villages. When we had been at this very busy post for three and a half years, life and work as we had known it changed drastically, without warning, especially for Dannie. Sudden and unexplainable atrophy of the optic nerve, they called it. Okay, now what? Since nothing at all could be done and we sensed the Lord encouraging us to stay, we continued our work in the jungle clinic for the next six years. Then we moved across Guinea to live and work in a very under-developed city of 250,000, where we continue to serve the Lord.

During the last six years in the jungle village the Lord had plenty in mind to teach us through this trial; that’s for sure! Even though Dannie is the one selected to walk through the darkened world, Anne-Lise was every bit as much under the trial as she was. Both of us grieved the loss of Dannie’s eyesight and both of us had drastic changes to our daily lives as a result.

The experiences you will read about in this volume are true and we hope that they will encourage you in your own walk with the Lord in whatever situation you find yourself just now.

The lessons we are sharing in these pages were things that the Lord taught us and are not meant to be any statement of doctrine. We decided that it would facilitate the writing if Dannie told the story in the first person. As we shared these chapters in a seminar years ago, we found that others were very encouraged by what we had been learning and that is our heartfelt desire for those who will read this book.

The drawings that begin each chapter were prepared by Anne-Lise, except for Chapter One and the Cover. These two beautifully etched drawings were done by a very talented artist and friend in Montana, Sue Hummel, and we offer our sincere appreciation.

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Anne-Lise Debrot (Switzerland)

Dannie Hawley (USA)

Introduction

Rounding the corner of our L-shaped front porch, my senses were aware of two opposite emotions: 1. Relief that the men had actually come to finish the work on the short, wooden anti-goat fence that now framed our village yard, hoping this year our young fruit trees and garden produce would be protected from the roaming goat population; and, 2. Anxious Anticipation over the tropical storm which was soon to come, based on the days of unbearable heat and humidity we had been having.

My thoughts were concentrated on the patients with RTC (Return to Clinic) appointments for that afternoon… what changes I would make in their treatment plans if…, etc, until I reached my destination. As soon as my hand touched the doorknob of our jungle latrine (now a deluxe model with the addition of a few rows of stacked bricks, topped with a wooden toilet seat brought from America!), all medical contemplations came to an abrupt halt. My brain switched into preservation mode, all senses alert to possible danger as the knob was turned and the door carefully opened. Next, I gingerly slipped my head into the room to check the periphery of the little six-ft. X eight-ft. room before putting the rest of my body in. On occasion Mama Mamba liked to lay her baby snake eggs under the shipping container perched on cement pylons near the latrine. Often the newly hatched black mambas began their life of exploration by checking out our latrine! Before actually entering the room, one needed to listen for the rustle of leaves on either side, as well as for a thud that could signify that some frightened critter of any number of varieties was attempting to hide from whatever was about to enter the room.

Neither I nor the critter was prepared for what happened next. As I slowly leaned my head through the space made by the open door, I felt something drop down millimeters in front of my face. I jerked my head back and found I was looking straight into the eyes of a startled and rapidly rising green mamba! The speed with which three of his eight feet of beautiful green body had shot up vertically was matched by my reflex to slam the door. His thump at the door indicated I had won this first round of the battle by only a fraction of a second. But, the deadly snake was now trapped in the little building. (August 1993)

One year later, hand gripping the metal doorknob, I prayed for the courage to turn it, and open the latrine door. Last August one of the African workers had finished off my deadly, lightning fast opponent with a shovel and then had used it to bury the green mamba behind the little outhouse building. My right hand seemed almost glued in place on the knob. I was frozen with fear as the above scene played over and over in my mind. I was acutely aware that the odds had now shifted drastically in favor of any creature/opponent on the other side of that door. What had changed? Just two weeks prior to this, the fear of the darkness I had run from as a child had enveloped me like a cloud I could not shake off. My greatest defensive weapon had been veiled by a bazillion layers of black curtains, through which not even the brilliant light of an African sun could penetrate. Though folks in the western world often think that the snakes and critters of the jungle are just roaming around in search of some poor unsuspecting foreigner to bite, sting, or just be stunned into a terrified paralysis, such is not the case. The poisonous snakes, scorpions, and other natural inhabitants of the African jungle we called home were only aggressive in response to their own sense of being threatened or challenged. I had never really been in danger from our co-inhabitants because I was always very careful never to give them cause to fear me. They always had the right-of-way on any path and I never stood under the branch of a tree until each branch of the tree within striking distance had been surveyed and found clear of snakes. I rarely left the worn path but, when necessary, I made noise at all times so that they would be aware of my presence and reverse direction under the blanket of leaves and foliage that carpet the jungle floor. At any sudden movement of the ground cover, we all came to an immediate halt. But, now I was blind. The snake would not know I had no intention of setting my foot down near his head, that I was not challenging him for the right-of-way, because I could no longer see him before he saw or felt me. Fear threatened to laminate itself over my darkness. God has not given me a spirit of fear, I told myself, endlessly, these first few months, But a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. (II. Tim.1:7 KJV) That sound mind was smart enough to know that God had a plan to get me through this trial and the provision of grace sufficient for each day’s challenges. He would teach me not to fear.

Could I live the truth I believed about God in this primitive wilderness as a totally blind person? "With God nothing is impossible! (Jeremiah 32:17; Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37) I know that to grow one must always be challenged passed one’s own ability; otherwise, God’s help would not be needed… but this challenge seemed like such a quantum leap that I wondered if God had chosen the wrong jungle bunny to walkthrough this one with Him! God was demonstrating a whole lot more confidence in my reaching out for His hand to help me learn to walk this path than I ever had in myself. When my little hand squirmed to get free of his grasp, His loving grip tightened and my heart heard him say, You can do it!" At times the road seems never-ending, but my anxiety is calmed by the sound of His voice and the feel of His grip—both of which are everlasting!

Many years before this extreme trial in my life, a beautiful and lively Irish lass taught us a chorus which was always a favorite. Now I found great comfort in its words as I lived it:

"I love the way my Beloved speaks to me and chases away my fears.

He leads me by the paths of truth and keeps me ever near.

He comforts me, He sets me free, He makes me to understand

That every time I say ‘I can’t!’, he tells me that I can!"

And, dear Reader, you can, too! You may not have black panthers sunning themselves next to your shower room or green mambas dropping into your latrine. You may not have the physical challenges of blindness; but, fear is such a powerful weapon to shatter our hopes and dreams, turning the positive to negative with lightning speed, and even seeking to destroy our very belief in a God Who loves us.

In these pages we will endeavor to share with you our experiences and the wonderful model God has taught us in "dealing with our FEARS when letting go seems impossible!"

(NOTE: I do realize that it is politically correct to say that I am visually challenged rather than blind but I do not feel such a term adequately describes such a devastating change in one’s physical abilities. I mean, Honey, I was visually challenged the first day I put on bifocals! Since I now have no vision at all with which to be challenged, I am simply blind. I do, however, warm to the thought of being vertically challenged rather than short.)

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Chapter One

Let Go!

Let’s try to get by as normally as we can. This may be a short-term trial, I encouraged our little staff of four. If we work it right, we will only need to make a few slight changes and the people who are coming from outside Kalexe may never notice I am now blind.

(Of course, we had told the population of our home village so as not to offend anyone when I did not respond to their waving hand of greeting.) One such change came in the area of examination for patients who were young enough to need the comfort of Mama’s lap during the examination procedure. Normally, I would push my chair over to touch my knees to Mom’s and we would go from there. No need to change this. I could hang on to the examination table to my right and roll myself right over until I felt the knees of the one holding the patient. Once there, slight assistance was needed to actually find the patient! About six months old, sitting, facing you, came Anne-Lise’s directional clues, and then would come my stethoscope, up to the approximate level of the little chest of the patient who sat on the knees touching mine. This worked beautifully. As long as I never took my hands off the infant, I could complete all parts of the physical examination that used auscultation (listening), palpation (poking and prodding), and percussion (tapping)—which makes up most of the parts of the normal physical exam, really. If he let out a scream, Anne-Lise would slip in for a quick peek at the throat, but, otherwise, she could do the visual part of the exam when I had finished and was scooting myself back to the counter. As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and this clever deception was no exception.

Rolling toward the toddler, my brain was registering the positional clues being given: Sixteen-month-old, standing on Mom’s lap, back facing you.

Great! I thought, The back is a good target on a standing child and he won’t squirm until I touch him. My knees gently bumped Mom’s and up went my hand. With my fingers gripping the bell of my dual-head stethoscope, only the diaphragm of the stethoscope would actually touch the child’s skin. I always kept the head of the stethoscope inside my dress when it hung around my neck so that the flat portion of the head, known as the diaphragm, would always be warm for the little ones. I had no way at all of knowing that Mom had sat the child down in her lap in an attempt to assist me. I listened intently through the ear pieces of my stethoscope, but heard only the unbridled laughter of my associate. Her nose, she managed to choke out. Your stethoscope is on the end of the mother’s nose!

It was time for a change! The biggest change of all came in simply admitting that, as a totally blind person, I could not just go on like I could see. The image of the cartoon drawing depicting three little rodent characters wearing black glasses, struggling to find their way as they tapped their little white canes, popped into my mind at the very thought that I was really blind. I am not sure why this was so repulsive to me because I have never before been repulsed at the sight of a blind person making his or her way down the street. Quite the opposite, actually, as I admired his or her ability to maneuver with apparent ease. I have always had the utmost respect for the blind people I have seen and always admired their courage.

It was soon obvious that I needed a cane to get myself to the latrine and shower room, both of which were located in small buildings outside of the house. The shower house was located in the back of the house and there were no pillars from which to string a cord for use as a guide. I wrote to a close friend in Sacramento and, though I knew she would go immediately to search for the cane, I was surprised at just how fast the folding cane traversed all those thousands of miles! I opened the padded envelope and out sprang the white metal cane, fairly snapping to attention as it instantly assumed its position of service. My, how this little white cane improved my ambulation! I had not a clue just how a real blind person actually used the white cane, but I put it to use the best way I could. I hooked it along the edge of the porch and let it lead me from one pillar to the other. Unfortunately, I misjudged the location of the cane in relation to the corner pillar and the edge of the porch. I took a step and off I went! My arms were scratched as I tried to prevent my fall by grabbing on to the edges of the rough texture of the square cement pillars, but I was not really hurt…well, except for my pride, of course. Another adjustment/measure of assistance was definitely needed. Within moments of the fall, our short-term colleague, (and mother of the friend who had sent the cane) strung a length of cord from one cement pillar to another on the porch so, if I could just get myself out to the cord from the house and then from the last pillar to the door of the outhouse by counting the steps needed to close that cord-free gap, I could do it. However, my rubber shoes did not make any noise so, while this method was fine to locate the specific door I was searching for, it did not provide any protection from the wild creatures that tended to cross the porch or sun themselves on its warm surface. I would simply have to tap the cane as I walked along holding lightly to the cord.

The change to the dark glasses did not come until sometime later. The last vestige of my attempts to appear sighted came in two stages. The wonderful freedom of no longer wearing glasses (which is a super hassle in this humid semi-tropical climate!) came to an end abruptly one day as I left the latrine building. I heard that familiar sound and, reflexively, turned my head to see if it was a spitting cobra making that sound. (Their deadly venom is very skillfully spit into the eyes of their victim, rather than actually biting them.) The sudden realization of what I had just done sent my adrenaline rushing, big time! I had turned my totally unprotected blind eyes into the direction of the sound of a spitting cobra! Squeezing my eyes tightly shut, I made a hasty retreat into the relative safety of the house.

If the cobra had been pointed in my direction, it would have been too late. My regular glasses were back in their former position before the guys could kill the cobra.

The intensity of the dry-season sun finished off the feeble attempt to hide my unwanted trial. Dark glasses protecting eyes from sun and serpent, left hand tapping the white cane on the cement porch to warn the potential attackers of my coming, and my right hand resolutely accepting the guidance of the taut, suspended cord, I realized (at last!) that this was more comfortable than trying to fool myself into thinking that these normal aids were not necessary for me! I can now laugh as I picture myself numbered among the three blind mice in the cartoon drawing that so repulsed me in the early weeks. Humble acceptance can, itself, be freeing and bring back the peace that had been lost in the struggle.

As one might imagine, that first year was wrought with changes and adjustments. We both came up with alternative ways to keep the work in the clinic and our home going. I continued a full clinic schedule, though now my hand holding the stethoscope was put in place by someone else. Once I had one hand actually on the child, I was fine; it was just that initial moment of finding him!

I kept my agreement with my French-speaking colleague to continue handling all of the English correspondence and reports, but someone else would have to read the thousands of pages over the next seven years to see that all of the t’s were crossed and i’s were dotted. Then, there were those frustrating times when the page was returned to me because I had written right over the previous page! My introduction to software for the blind, in 2001, put an end to the need to handwrite the papers/letters. I only wrote those things that could not be done on a word processor.

Simple household duties could be done, but much slower and with much more deliberate motions, preserving fingers from the cutting edge of a knife or dishes from crashing into each other as I returned them to the cupboard after drying. Then there was the challenge of finding the right shelf so that there actually was a place empty, just waiting for that pile of plates, bowls, or whatever.

In all cases, my motto became, "It can be done!" (Albeit much more slowly than my nerves could stand sometimes!)

And outside our compound?

Though travel on our undeveloped roads was, for me, like being tossed around in a totally black box, we tried to fulfill our commitments that put us on the road at least once each month. It was a struggle to be with groups of people because I never knew if the speaker was directing his or her question or comment to me or someone near me. Often, I would be speaking to someone and in a pause in the conversation, they would move to another place in the room to speak with someone else. I would be unaware of their move and start talking with them again. Okay, so I spoke to a lot of air during those early years! I also took on the look of someone totally disinterested in a conversation that was directed toward me because I was not aware that it was for me, or because the noise from the others in the room prevented me from hearing the speaker a few feet in front of me. (Missionaries have kids, the room for meetings has only cement block walls with the thin tin roof, so the noise of multiple conversations and playing children is incredible, especially when one is not able to see what and from where the noise is coming.) I had to learn to focus hard on the voice and shut out the sounds unrelated to any conversation I may be having.

Shopping in the open market was an experience in torture for both of us. The ground was so uneven and full of hazards. The vendors’ tables, heavily laden with goods of all kinds, were very close together. The dense crowd was so aggressive and just plain pushy that to keep me safe became more of a hassle than it was worth so I just stayed in the car while Anne-Lise went to shop for whatever we might need for the month. In the hot African afternoons, I am not sure that it was the lesser torture; but, at least, it made it a lot easier for Anne-Lise to complete the task. When a vendor came up to the window, I just told them that the driver had the purse and I was just there to guard the car from thieves! Every white person wore sunglasses so most did not know I was blind and unable to guard anything. The mining company allowed us to shop in their little air conditioned commissary, which was also enjoyable since they carried goods from both Europe and America. It was a small store so not as many items and not always the same things. Having been in this commissary quite a number of times as a sighted person, I had an idea of what should probably be on the shelves if told which aisle we were in. How I missed the excitement of discovering new American foods on sale in this store. This, too, became just another chore to try to get through so that we had food for another few months.

Then, there was that survey trip planned for the month of fasting, Ramadan. It would take us eight hundred miles or so away, into a wilderness no expatriates had ever explored and we would be camping out…both on the road to the specific spot and for seven nights once we arrived there. The purpose of this camping trip was to pray on a piece of land that would, one day, become the Good Samaritan Village, for which our mission was founded in 1987. We put a lot of time in on praying whether or not to make this trip now that I was blind. In the end we did make the trip. Understandably, it was a difficult trip but one of great blessing, too. We were truly glad that we had made the Herculean effort to fulfill this plan.

And how about those unexpected surprises that follow any mountaintop experience?

Returning from the trip up North, spiritually flying high, but physically exhausted, we discovered our house had been burglarized and the window of the end bedroom destroyed. (Picture a window without glass here. It has a hard mahogany frame that has a grid of black rebar inside and an anti-mosquito screen outside. It also has a hard wood set of shutters to close against the elements of inclimate weather or critters.)

Since this was the second time the pastor’s twenty-something-year-old son had broken into our house, we decided to notify the authorities. The judicial hearing that followed the next morning was a nightmare. The young man accused us of being white oppressors of the black people and the room erupted with cries supporting him! (Somehow the many times their own children and wives…as well as themselves…had been treated at our clinic with gentleness/kindness and medication that was not only very affordable but efficient over the past three years we had operated the clinic in the area had been totally forgotten.) It was incredibly frightening for even the sighted member of this white lady duo.

By the end of that first year of darkness, I felt like a worn out old hag. I knew that God knew where I was, what was happening to me, but, somehow, I felt a need to tell him how I was feeling about it all. I didn’t have any idea that part of his all-knowing nature would include my own emotions!

Vision of Hope

Struggling through the daily rugged jungle life and work at the clinic as a blind person, I woke up one day and was just about as discouraged as I could ever remember being. I sat in an old, but comfortable, blue chair where I usually do my morning Quiet Time. It is also the place where I pray and meditate throughout other parts of the day, while I wait for Anne Lise to finish what she is doing to help me progress with whatever task I am attempting or to help me begin something new. As I sat in the chair this particular morning, I was reflecting on the fact that, though in the pit of discouragement, we still had two years before the present term would end and we could return to civilization again. We had both earnestly sought the Lord and had received abundant confirmation that we were to Stand firm and Wait until the end of our term to return. God had things under control and we needed to learn to trust Him right where we were at that moment. We had made the commitment to continue at our post; but, this particular day, I felt that my resolve was being shaken by the subterranean depth of my discouragement!

I knew that God understood well where I was and I knew that He understood what was happening; but, somehow that day, I had the sense that I needed to share with Him my feelings about it all. I was struggling to find the right words as I was talking to God and trying to get Him to understand how I was feeling. As I was doing this, I was reminded of the posters I had seen in America years back that declared, When you’ve come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on! Seizing on this theme, I said to the Lord, "You know, Lord, I have come to the end of my rope, tied a knot, and hung on. I have been hanging on for so long that the rope is really looking pretty bad. It looks like it is just not going to make it many more seasons. It’s gone through all kinds of weather. It started out new and now looks old. It’s weather beaten and frayed to the max. I was just trying to tell the Lord how terrible life was on the end of that rope. As I was searching for words to describe things, a picture" just dropped into my mind of a person on the end of a rope. The rope was frayed, tattered and looked as though it had weathered many seasons of storms. There was a kind of ledge or cliff seen at the top of the picture, over which the rope had been tossed. Clods of dirt and grass were falling away as the taut rope dug into the dirt. At the end of the rope was a knot, whose threads seemed to be unraveling. On top of the knot was a man. He had now slipped down to where his knees were gripping the knot on each side. His fingers tightly clenched the rope above the knot. His exhausted face looked up at the rope grinding away at the cliff edge with every move of the rope. The angle of the rope where it strained over the edge was also thinning as threads continued to wear with the friction and break. As this picture suddenly appeared before my mind’s eye, I was overwhelmed with the sense that God truly understood my feelings. He didn’t just understand where I was and what I was going through, but He did understand how I was feeling about all that. Yes, Lord! That’s exactly it!

As I focused on the picture, something began to happen. The black line that had, at first glance, appeared to be the bottom of the picture, began to move down. It stopped just under the image of an enormous hand. The hand was placed just under the man, clinging to the rope. It was a left hand and held palm up. It was so close to the body of the frightened, weary man that it was actually lightly touching the bottom of the man. However, the man was so tense that he did not feel the touch. His gaze was fixed upward at the swaying rope and falling dirt so he did not see the hand below him. He never knew that if he would just relax his grip,