Iowa Ethiopia: A Missionary Nurse's Journey Continues

By Barker and Jeff

Following Sioux Center Sudan comes another historical account of Arlene Schuiteman’s missionary work. Iowa Ethiopia brings us to one of the world’s ancient cultures and the revolution that changed one woman’s spiritual journey . . . and nearly cost her everything.

Now in her nineties, retired nurse and missionary Arlene Schuiteman is quiet, seemingly timid. She does not desire attention or fame. However, she has years of stories to tell about rambling across the fields of her Iowa family farm, settling on a Sudanese riverbank, climbing through the rugged hollers of Kentucky, and being swept away to the western mountains of Ethiopia. Iowa Ethiopia looks back at Arlene’s work as a missionary nurse in Ethiopia between 1966 and 1977, where she trained young men in the practice of modern medicine. Like in Sioux Center Sudan, Arlene’s inspiring stories have the power to transfix, pierce, and heal. Captivating and honest, they declare the power of God to us today in our ongoing efforts to be strong witnesses to Christ’s kingdom. The stories in this book have been collected from her journals and letters, and retold by award-winning dramatist Jeff Barker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781683073055

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Iowa Ethiopia: A Missionary Nurse’s Journey Continues (eBook edition)

© 2019 Jeff Barker

Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC

P. O. Box 3473

Peabody, Massachusetts 01961-3473

www.hendrickson.com

eBook ISBN 978-1-68307-305-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture quoted in this book, unless otherwise noted, are the author’s own translations. On a few occasions, Scriptures are recorded as they were paraphrased within historical documents.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are taken from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Portions of the stories in this book were previously disseminated by the author in the plays Sioux Center Sudan, Iowa Ethiopia, Zambia Home, and Arlene: An African Trilogy.

The chapter The Long Christmas Journey is indebted to a letter sent by Dr. Wallace Greig to his supporting churches.

Quotations from Arlene Schuiteman’s unpublished diaries and collections of letters (her letters and others sent to her) have occasionally been edited for clarity, brevity, and fluidity. The originals will eventually be available to researchers at the Joint Archives of Holland, Holland, Michigan.

The cover photo was taken by Wilmer Ver Meer when he and his wife Joyce (Arlene’s sister) were the first family members to visit Arlene during her Africa years.

The poem They Fasted by Arthur Wallis is reproduced by permission from CLC Publications.

Due to technical issues, this eBook may not contain all of the images or diagrams in the original print edition of the work. In addition, adapting the print edition to the eBook format may require some other layout and feature changes to be made.

First eBook edition — February 2020

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

Theme Scripture

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1. The Doctor and the Blind Man

2. A Gun in One Hand and a Bible in the Other

3. Do You Know How Old I Am?

4. Home

5. A Winter’s Tale

6. The Long Christmas Journey

7. A Tale of Two Letters

8. Gadi

9. A Desire Fulfilled

10. So Sit Down

11. First, Do No Harm

12. Hattie Crosses the River

13. Baptism and Schism

14. Be Careful Who You Tell

15. The Devil Speaks

16. Food

17. The Last Emperor

18. All Manner of Evil

19. I Sent the Hornet

20. Thou God of Love, Be Not Sleepy

21. The Matchmaker

22. Foot Washing in the Mountains

23. Out of Africa

24. Of Ceremonies and Testimonies

Selected Bibliography

Photographs

For Hannah,

who is in cahoots with

the Holy Spirit

"Then he breathed on them and said,

‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ "

John 20:22 (NLT)

Acknowledgments

The sharing of these stories has taken an astonishing number of helpers. This book extends from the first book, Sioux Center Sudan, which is a collection of stories about Arlene Schuiteman in the South Sudan. That book and this one, Iowa Ethiopia, are based on a collection of plays about Arlene’s faith journey as documented in her journals and letters—all of which are portions of the larger story of God at work in the world.

Arlene has put countless hours into this years–long project. Her patience, courage, intelligence, wit, and wisdom have been nothing short of a joy to me, enriching my own life beyond measure. Even though I am this book’s writer, some of the best phrases come from Arlene’s own words—words crafted in faithfulness at the end of many exhausting days. I do not know how she kept up her practice of journaling, but she did.

Arlene has been a diarist throughout her entire adult life. If she had not kept these records, the details of her experiences would have been lost by the time I met her. Her journals include written prayers, in which she talked to her Maker as a friend to a friend. In addition, Arlene has been a disciplined letter writer and a filer of old letters, both sent and received. These journals, letters, and other papers are a remarkable collection, a glimpse into a unique landscape of the soul, a long journey of faithfulness. Arlene’s trust in sharing so many of these materials with me is a gift I will forever cherish.

Arlene’s lifelong friend was Eleanor Vandevort, who I came to know as Vandy or Nyarial (the name the Nuer tribe in the South Sudan gave her). Others know her as Van. Vandy’s book A Leopard Tamed is a treasure. I recommend that you read it for an intelligent and gripping view into the Nuer culture of the South Sudan. By the time I met Vandy, her book was out of print; but thankfully, Hendrickson Publishers reproduced A Leopard Tamed for its fiftieth anniversary in 2018. Besides now-historical photos, this volume includes a new introduction from Elisabeth Elliot’s daughter, Valerie Elliot Shepard. Although Vandy has gone to be with the Lord, surely she would throw up her hands in delight to know that her dear friend Arlene’s stories continue to be shared. Vandy was an excellent editor and encourager to me during all of the plays I wrote about Arlene. I created three plays that were presented in the United States, Japan, and Ethiopia: Sioux Center Sudan, Iowa Ethiopia, and Zambia Home. Next, I collected those plays into a longer (and slightly different) play called Arlene: An African Trilogy, which was presented at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, as a celebratory culmination of a decade-long theatrical project. While the plays are a mere foundation to what you now read, all those early helpers in that longer project should be remembered here.

The theatre artists who were part of the earliest Drama Ministries Ensemble productions of the plays walked patiently with Arlene and me through the difficult and sometimes scary journeys of those three world-premiere productions. They are Kristen Olson-Jones Brind, Kristi Woodyard Christenson, Stephen Stonebraker, Margareta DeBoer Maxon, Lois Estell, Tessa Drijfhout-Rosier, Rachel Foulks, Megan Hodgin, Brady Greer Huffman, Matt Hulstein, Tracey Pronk Hulstein, Micah Trapp, Brett Vander Berg, Lindsay Westerkamp Bauer, Dan Laird, Hannah Barker Nickolay, Jackson Nickolay, Dan Sikkema, Aleah Stenberg, Kristin Trease, Shelby Vander Molen, Amalia Vasquez, Huiyu Lin, Tesla McGillivray Kasten, Brianne Hassman Christiansen, Jacob Christiansen, Marisol Seys, Ali Sondreal Fernandez, Eric Van Der Linden, and Megan Weidner. As I was writing this current volume, my current touring company listened and responded to some of the chapters. What an encouragement they have been to me! They are Natalie Blackman, Rachel Koertner, Karisa Meier, Jeremiah Mitchell, Jackson Paganini, Maverick Risley, Shonna Ritz, Rebekah Stoscher, and Camila Wede.

Actors in the original production of Arlene: An Africa Trilogy were John Amodeo, Christa Curl Baker, Brianne Hassman Christiansen, Jacob Christiansen, Megan Cole, Amanda Hays Duncan, Abby McCubbin, and Megan Vipond. The wonderful design team included Amber Beyer, Amber Huizenga, Theresa Larrabee, Jana Latchaw Milbourn, Jackson Nickolay, Jonathan Sabo, Drew Schmidt, Rachel Hanson Starkenburg, and Rowan Sullivan. Alex Wendel, Tiffany White-Hach, and Logan Wright supported Karen Bohm Barker at the director’s table.

I must mention the fine December 2007 Smithsonian article by Paul Raffaele, Keepers of the Lost Ark? The brief dialogue I present in chapter 3 between the Chapel of the Tablet priest and a hypothetical visitor is closely adapted from a conversation Raffaele had with the Guardian of the Ark (Ethiopians claim the Ark of the Covenant is safely stowed in Aksum).

During a trip to Addis Ababa and Mettu, I was greatly assisted by Iteffa Gobena, Yigrem Retta, Seyoum Teffera, Berhanu Ofgaa, Yonas Yigezu, and Matthew Gichile. The story of the current generation of American missionaries to Ethiopia was told to me by Caleb and Joanna Swart, who spent a wonderful evening at our home in Orange City (although I am still sorry that our dog Charley got cranky and snapped at their Elsa when she was a little girl!).

Northwestern College Theatre office managers Kelly Van Marel and Jen Sabo, along with student assistants Kristin Trease, Dan Sikkema, and Warren Duncan have been crucial to this project. Dan’s paternal grandparents, Verne and Lorraine, along with Dan’s father Milt, were kind enough to spend hours sharing some of their experiences in the South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Joonna Trapp, expert teacher of creative nonfiction, provided inspiring and supportive counsel early in the book portion of this project. I think I could not have a better friend and cheerleader than Joonna.

Charlotte Weaver-Gelzer was kind enough to read and respond to chapter 6, The Long Christmas Journey, which tells a story from Charlotte’s childhood (even though she is not mentioned by name within the chapter). Charlotte was a friend of Markie Greig’s and one of the eight high school girls who went on the trip to Bahir Dar that ended so unexpectedly. Although Arlene Schuiteman and Markie’s father, Wallace, remember the story quite differently from Charlotte, I found Charlotte’s version interesting and helpful as I imagined the way things could have happened. My hope with each story in this book is that the reader values the significance of the events and people, even if some factual details are not perfectly communicated.

I offer special thanks to other early readers of this book: Grada Kiel, Amy Keahi, Nancy Franken, Steve Carpenter, and Joanne Barker. My sisters, Chris Jackson and Jane Carpenter, have cheered their brother on in remarkable ways.

Doug Calsbeek, editor of Sioux County Capital Democrat, facilitated a prepublication serialization of portions of the book and gave valuable editing advice throughout the journey of serialization.

I am grateful to Katherine Lempares who created the artistic renderings of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Cameroon, and the African continent. Vaughn Donahue, a very fine graphic artist in his own right and a true friend in a time of need, was so helpful in quickly helping Katey and me transfer her map to Phil Frank, my expert typesetter at Hendrickson.

Carrie Martin and Patricia Anders of Hendrickson Publishers have been amazing encouragers. Patricia’s attention to editing detail has been nothing short of remarkable. Meg Rusick, Hendrickson’s marketing director, Lynnette Pennings of Rose Publishing, and Don Otis have been champions for helping a little known story attract the attention that it needs.

Kim Van Es is the gracious, good-humored, and wise copy editor of early drafts, whose creative and razor-sharp way with words is present in every paragraph. I consider her friendship to the project a true godsend.

Other immediate family members have made huge contributions to this project, beyond their general encouragements lavished upon me. My wife and colleague Karen has been the project’s detailed and faithful literary coach. She is the one who heard every first Listen to this! and Here’s another chapter. She is a fine writer, teacher, artist, and critic, and I trust her feedback more than anyone else in my life. My son Daniel is a fine writer and podcaster, and I have always appreciated his thoughtful and honest feedback. My other son Joseph is a composer and wrote a new Ethiopian-style melody as we created Iowa Ethiopia. My daughter-in-law Kay could be counted on to quickly read pages and provide insightful feedback throughout the process. My son-in-law Jackson is a creative and patient theatre artist, and it was a joy to watch him fall in love with my daughter Hannah as they worked on two of the Arlene plays.

Speaking of Hannah, she poured her heart into enacting Arlene. Eventually, Hannah became the archivist of Arlene’s slide collection, working with Arlene along with my colleague, Drew Schmidt, to create descriptions and post the collection online. That collection may be found at http://portfolios.nwciowa.edu/arlene

/default2.aspx. Hannah loves language and always nudges her father to be a better writer. She is amazing to me. I wish I were half the poet she is.

There have been many more friends of this storytelling journey. They know who they are, and I hope they will forgive me for not mentioning each and every one of them.

Jeff Barker

Orange City, Iowa

Prologue

Arlene is ninety-five and living alone. She has moved from the house her parents built to a one-bedroom independent living apartment. She still drives, but not when it’s icy. She rises early and spends two hours in prayer and Bible reading. She does her exercises at home and then walks with her sister, Grada, at the local recreation center six days a week. She eats healthily, but her routine allows biscuits and gravy at a local restaurant on Saturday mornings. And every day she does what she has done since her nineteenth birthday: She writes in her journal.

In actuality, she scribbles little notes throughout the day. She depends on lists and a calendar to keep her on track since her memory is not as trustworthy as it once was. She keeps a pencil and little pads of paper at the ready, transferring important items onto her calendar. Before bedtime, with a black fine-point pen, she records the events of the day in her journal using tiny printing, hardly ever cursive.

Her journaling began when she received a small diary as a birthday gift from Grandma Schuiteman. She did not journal every day when she was studying nursing in Sioux City, midwifery in Kentucky, and public health in Iowa City. However, during her long years of practicing nursing, teaching, and administrating, she wrote in her journal nearly every day early in the morning or late at night.

Arlene loaned some of her journals to me while I was writing the four plays about her missionary career. After I agreed to write down the stories of her life in book form, she began to hand over all her papers to me. I now have seventy-four years of her journals. No one else has seen them yet, and she has asked me to present her journals and letters to an archive when I am finished writing the books. I have arranged with the Joint Archives of Holland to receive her papers.

It took me a long time of reading her journals to discover that they fulfilled the same function as her little lists and calendars: The journals jogged her memory. Throughout her missionary career, she used her journals to help write letters home; they are the outlines on which her letters elaborate. Her extended family developed a careful system of circulating her letters so Arlene would not have to write the same details repeatedly. Her letters helped her family help her; her mission was their mission. In a sense, her family and her church all became missionaries.

I guess I was afraid I would forget the times the Lord was speaking to me, she said recently, sitting across from me at the brown, drop-leaf table in her kitchenette. I didn’t want to forget. She paused and reached for her pencil. I was reminded how large were her hands and how long her fingers. She continued, I thought that God had given me a special task. It was important that I share that. She became quiet for a moment. Then she smiled and said, I knew I could die while I was away from home. I thought that my mother might like to read what was happening the day before I died—some small comfort. She changed the subject and asked me if I could remember what I said to her when we first met.

Why I wanted to write that first play?

Yes.

I’ve forgotten exactly what I said. Part of it was to tell the true story of a woman in ministry.

Arlene said, It was to glorify God . . .

I added, And to edify the church.

That’s what it was, she said.

Were Arlene’s journals the real reason she was called to be a missionary? Was her mission what happened every day on the mission field, or was it in her bearing witness of those events? Did God take Arlene to the South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Zambia so he could work through her in those places, or was God equally as interested in the stories she would tell? Arlene sensed early on that the life she was living was not only for her to experience. She was living inside a story that would find greater value when that story was told to others. As she was making journal notes and writing letters, she knew that she was unlikely to be the eventual storyteller; but she was an obedient scribe for an unknown writing partner who would later come alongside her.

After the first preview of Sioux Center Sudan, the play that later expanded into the book by the same title, Arlene gathered my actors and said, I wouldn’t have trusted my story to anyone else but Jeff. Until that moment, I had not comprehended the seriousness of this enterprise. Sometimes it is good to glimpse a grand purpose, but sometimes it might be better not to know! Such knowledge could paralyze a person.

A couple of days later, I received a thank-you card via the United States Postal Service. On the card, Arlene had written this phrase from Psalm 71: Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come. Arlene believes that she is responsible to pass these stories along to the next generation. I believe I am responsible to help her do this. The stories are, after all, not Arlene’s stories but God’s.

Arlene often misses her friend Vandy, who went to her eternal reward in the autumn of 2015. On some days, Arlene would like to be with her friend. She knows, however, that she has been given a continuing task and the strength to pursue it. Here, then, is the saga of her experiences with one of the world’s oldest continuing cultures, where she encountered a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit, survived a revolution, and was once again thrown out of a country, losing nearly everything.

1. The Doctor and the Blind Man

Was it indeed time to think about myself and lay up something for a rainy day? [Or] should I forget my own future, forget the question of money and making a name in my profession, and go back to the obscurity of Nasir?

Tom Lambie, A Doctor Without a Country (considering an offer to join a practice in Pittsburgh in 1917)

World War I spread more than gunfire and bombs across the globe: it spread the Spanish influenza. The Wollega Province in western Ethiopia was hit hard. Immediately following the war, the governor of Wollega sent a plea to the American missionary doctor living at Nasir, just across the border in southern Sudan (which would eventually become South Sudan): Would the doctor come and help Ethiopians cope with this evil disease?

The doctor was willing, but first he and his family had to request permission in person from the Sudanese government. The family climbed aboard one of the paddle wheelers on the Sobat River and steamed out of Nasir, following the Sobat into the White Nile, five hundred miles northward to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. They procured the required immigration papers and caught an outbound steamer, fighting the strong current for seventeen days, riding the Sobat past their home at Nasir, joining the Baro River at the corner of Ethiopia, and finally disembarking at the coffee-market port of Gambela.

First, the doctor and a scouting party went up into the mountains; and then two weeks later, he returned to prepare his wife and two young children for the long, rigorous hike. Their forty-mile trek was uphill most of the way. They followed a rugged path that was narrow enough to force them to step aside for donkeys lugging coffee beans out of the highlands.

The mountainous landscape was quite different from the flat swampland of the Sudan where the doctor had cared for the Nuer. The unforgiving trail climbed higher and higher, switching back and forth with occasional openings in the dense brush, revealing smooth hilltops in the distance, and urging the travelers onward. Here and there rose tall, spindly, flat-topped acacia trees—classic African beauties. Colobus monkeys, with their long white tails and ancient-looking faces, stared down from high in the branches. Wild red roses bloomed throughout the brush, filling the misty mountain air with sweet fragrance. Finally, the doctor and his family caught their first glimpses through the trees of the village of Sayo, now known as Dembi Dollo. The year was 1919.

On the outskirts of that village lived a young blind man with his mother, stepfather, and younger siblings. That young blind man made his living as a beggar. Every day he would go to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and call out for Malo (alms) to those who came for confession, worship, or prayers. Dressed in the dirty work clothes of a beggar, he shuffled and stooped, looking much older than his eighteen years. He had been sightless since he was five years old, blinded by the smallpox that took the lives of all six of his siblings. Now, even though he could get around without help, he brought his little cousin along so he would seem more the helpless beggar. He shared his income with his helper, whose family could use the money. The blind beggar gave his own share to his mother, who spent it all on traditional medicine men who kept promising to make her son see again. Although the blind man and his mother sensed that traditional medicine was more