Route to Survival

By Sue Faris Raatjes

What happens when your support scaffolding suddenly disappears? In Route to Survival, Kate Mitchell makes courageous choices without sacrificing her feminine nature or the roles she must play in life. After losing her husband of thirty years, Kate gives up her upper middle-class lifestyle to spend nearly a year in a secluded African village where she experiences unspeakable sadness and violence. She returns to her home in the United States, but she is not alone.

In spite of her fears, she proactively tackles loneliness, loss, change, and criticism from those she loves best. Her inner resources and faith in God demonstrate survival is possible. Kate openly shares her joys, fears, and sorrows as she navigates the issues of life. You will smile with her and weep with her.

How do you respond when life hits you in the face? Where do you go for strength and encouragement? Who is watching?

Through Kate Mitchell you will learn that survival is possible and that your legacy is important.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490866154

Sue Faris Raatjes

Sue Faris Raatjes is a former high school English teacher and free-lance writer with credits in various Christian magazines. She taught Bible studies and Sunday school classes at a large church for many years. Sue lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband, Bob. Visit her website at www.sueraatjes.weebly.com and follow her blog at www.sueraatjes.blogspot.com.

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Copyright © 2015 SUE FARIS RAATJES.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Author photo by Frankie Wheeler© 2014. All rights reserved.

Route to Survival is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6616-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6617-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6615-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900475

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/26/2015

CONTENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

Author’s Note to the Reader

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To Bob,

the love of my youth and the love of my maturity.

God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the reliable ones.

Oswald Chambers

My Utmost for His Highest

You’ll live through it, but you won’t look the same.

Marjorie McDaniel Faris

1

Mother, you’ve gone out of your mind! You’ve really gone over the edge, and I forbid you to waste everything you and Dad worked for all your lives.

Ah, Stacey, you do have your father’s grit, Kate said, smiling patiently. You know, Honey, I’m not moving to the end of the…. Well, maybe I am. I guess it is the other side of the world. But it’s not forever.

Kate Mitchell recalled the heated discussion several months before with her opinionated adult daughter. Kate leaned her forehead against the tiny window of the plane zipping her off to Africa, which now really did appear to be the end of the world. Zipping was a poor choice of words for the grueling twenty-eight-hour flight from Michigan to London to Nairobi and on to Entebbe, followed by a harrowing two-hour drive in a ramshackle bus to the tiny village of Namuzi, Uganda.

What have I done? I already miss my family and friends.

What prompted Kate to leave the comfort and security of a privileged American lifestyle for the terrifying adventure of living an entire year in a third world country? Her insides churned. She didn’t know which was worse—the panic or the loneliness she felt as she wondered if this was the right choice.

Fifty-one years old and leaving everything safe and familiar. What am I thinking?

Her daughter’s reaction didn’t help much, but Kate could see why Stacey, her twenty-six-year-old daughter, thought she’d gone loopy. The week after Kate revealed her startling plans, she sold her large upscale home of thirty years to a young couple with several children. Then she held the largest garage sale in the county and sold almost every stitch of her household belongings—things that had sustained her practically and aesthetically over the past several decades. She gave the few sentimental artifacts that held the most meaning to this young, do-it-all, career woman/wife/mother—her frenzied daughter—who still ranted about her mother’s mental health.

Mo-o-o-m, this is my home, Stacey wailed. I spent my entire childhood in that house, in my room. How can you just toss it all away like it has no meaning?

If she only knew. The reason Kate was doing this was because the house held too much meaning. She needed to rid herself of the memories and try to create new ones—alone ones.

It was nearly two years since her husband, Martin, died leaving Kate lonelier than she ever could have imagined. Surely she should be done grieving by now, but moving on just wasn’t happening. Even her therapist was losing patience and bluntly advised her to get on with life.

You know, Kate, the best antidote for depression is to reach out and do something for someone else, she advised during one of their weekly counseling sessions. Kate thought, Things are really bad when your psychologist talks to you in worn-out clichés.

That’s when the idea for the trip to Africa came up. A team of speakers visited her church in Chelsea, a small town just west of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with an impassioned plea for help in Uganda, Africa. It was 1988, and after two decades of killing and human rights violations by ruthless dictators, the country was beginning to experience relative stability and economic growth. It had a long way to go, but Uganda was at the start of an upswing. The speakers were part of a faith-based organization that endeavored to help small villages in this country in eastern Africa.

The team didn’t have much success arousing the stodgy, old parishioners into social action, but something clicked in Kate’s brain. She couldn’t shake the images of poverty, illness, and in some cases, starvation shown in the video. The children’s beautiful dark faces imprinted themselves on her mind. Though missing very basic needs, many of them were smiling. Some played soccer with a ball made up of bundled-up trash. The video showed the kids stopping their play to rewrap their soccer ball, so they could resume the game. The children appeared happy, even though most would not reach adulthood, according to the narrator.

That was just six months ago. Several churches across the United States saw the value of pooling resources to meet the incredible needs of a country screaming for relief from disease, drought, and poverty. They joined several faith-based groups, both national and international, to sponsor the trip. Government corruption was being addressed but was not eradicated, adding to the devastating situation. Many news reports surfaced, bringing their needs to the attention of the Western world, and so they would be working with similar teams from other countries. This chance to serve and help others seemed like a venture that would help pull Kate out of her grief-stricken state of self-centeredness.

Now here she was, alone, flying to some unknown place to work and share her life with strangers for an entire year. The program directors had openly communicated to Kate their vision for the project in a series of interviews designed to test her sincerity and let her know what she was signing up for. Other than that, it was a solitary undertaking. She was the only one from her area and would meet up with others from the United States, as well as teams from other countries, in Entebbe, Uganda. Some signed up for several weeks or a month, but Kate committed to the full year. Was it to show her therapist she could do it? Whatever the reason, she now was second-guessing herself.

Kate knew she could do the work. After all, she had a background in nursing and this was basically a medical project. She was to work with a team establishing a free clinic in Namuzi. Health care in that region was abominable, and the population, like in much of Africa, was declining due to AIDS and preventable diseases unheard of in the States. Malaria from a rampant mosquito population and hookworm from going barefoot were just two of the maladies targeted. This clinic would be run mostly by volunteers from developed countries throughout the world, with just one or two locals on the payroll. Plans were to teach basic medical skills to local, bright, young adults, so the volunteers could leave behind a team of technicians to diagnose and treat the more common diseases. It was something Kate felt she could do. She also hoped it would fulfill the unrest she felt and remove the ever-present sadness.

She leaned her head back on the headrest of the cramped airline seat, trying for a bit of comfort on the agonizing trip through eight time zones. Air travel was always difficult for Kate as there never was enough room to stretch out her long legs. At least she sat by the window.

I need to relax, she thought as she adjusted the volume on her headphones. The easy-listening music helped a little. She smiled as she thought about the different responses to this, her exercise in insanity. Of course, there was Stacey’s rampage, powerhouse woman that she was. But then there was Brian, her twenty-four-year-old son.

On decision day, Brian was passing through town on business, and they met at a local restaurant for lunch. He was an easier sell. Typical male, he didn’t have the emotional investment in Kate that her daughter did.

Is it a gender thing or did I raise them differently? she often wondered. She and Brian had an easy, detached sort of relationship. Brian cared for his mom but was pretty focused on establishing his career, and enjoying a very active single lifestyle. He didn’t connect with her life like Stacey.

He lived in Chicago, nearly 250 miles from her home in Chelsea, and seemed to have more tolerance for out-of-the-box-type decisions. Kate thought that came from attending the University of Michigan, which had a large, diverse student population as well as professors from around the world. She used to worry that the liberal, free-spirited instructors who exposed him to all sorts of strange teachings would corrupt his Midwestern values. In spite of her worries, Brian seemed fairly grounded and could handle the enticements of downtown Chicago, even as a young bachelor living in a high-rise condo overlooking Lake Michigan. Since he both lived and worked downtown he interacted with people from all layers of society, and so it took a lot to shock him. Just as she thought, his reaction was rather unremarkable.

Hey Mom, if it makes you happy, go for it.

That was it. A relatively short lunch with Kate sharing her gut-wrenching decision, coupled with his sister’s angry response, and then him giving her his blessing in an offhand sort of way. It was kind of refreshing and just what she needed.

"After all, I’m not doing anything that drastic, just obliterating one fifty-year lifestyle in exchange for another that threatens disease, danger, and discomfort," she told herself many times.

Disease. That was another conversation she had with Stacey. Her anxious daughter’s concerns were numerous.

What if you come back with hepatitis or a parasite? You could endanger not only yourself but us or the children, Stacey argued.

I’m getting a series of shots, and hepatitis is one of them. I’m taking all the necessary precautions, Stacey.

Kate didn’t tell Stacey but health concerns bothered her, also. From her research she discovered all sorts of ugly diseases that could be picked up just by walking barefoot through the dusty streets of remote towns in Africa. There were shots and malaria pills for the biggies, but the water issue, dysentery, strange foods, and questionable sanitation facilities were things that plagued her nighttime thoughts. She would sooner die than bring home something dangerous to her children and her two grandchildren, Casey and Jennifer.

Kate stared out the plane’s window at the puffy white clouds and once again tried to come to grips with her fears about health issues. It was one of her greatest struggles in this whole adventure. She was physically fit from her exercise routine at the local gym, she possessed the stamina to work hard, and she hadn’t been sick in years. Still, she was flying into the unknown and it plagued her.

I must trust, she prayed.

Another concern, according to Stacey—when did she get so bossy?—was her upper middle class mother living without the accoutrements of modern life. Kate liked luxury and always longed for plush hotel vacations instead of the camping trips they took as a family when the kids were young. This would be culture shock as she adjusted to life without electricity, indoor plumbing, malls, and well-stocked grocery stores. She was not particularly crazy about bugs and snakes, either, so that was going to prove interesting.

Kate shared her daughter’s fears but suspected she could do anything for a year. Besides, she’d never done anything adventurous in her entire half century of existence and envied others who were risk-takers. She felt if she didn’t try something out of her comfort zone, she’d explode, mentally for sure. Fifty-one seemed like a good milestone to test her moxie.

2

Becoming a widow at age forty-nine rocked Kate’s whole existence. Martin, her husband of over thirty years, died suddenly, leaving her devastated and lonely beyond belief. She couldn’t begin to think of life without this man who was so vital to her. She spent almost two-thirds of her life with him and grew to depend on him for most everything, particularly her emotional well-being.

Much to their parents’ dismay, Kate and Marty married right after she graduated from high school while he was a senior at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She often remembered her yearbook prediction: Kate and Martin. Most likely to stay together forever.

In spite of their youth, they built a strong marriage that endured the stresses of Marty’s finishing school and starting his career. Kate held nominal jobs at local retail shops in Chelsea, the small town they grew up in, but soon felt the need to stretch a bit and see what training would spark her interest.

The field of medicine always intrigued her, so she attended the local community college part time before transferring to nearby U of M. She drove the sixteen miles from Chelsea to Ann Arbor for Saturday and evening classes. After ten years and two babies, she finally earned her bachelor’s degree and became a registered nurse. It was a stressful time, but they both were committed to her finishing, if for no other reason than to show their parents the too young couple could achieve adult goals. After thirty years, they were approaching their fifties and anticipated spending quality time together. Both looked forward to the final stretch of satisfying careers.

Her nursing experience ran the gamut from hospital work and in-home health care to medical office management. The previous eight years saw her supervising a plastic surgeon’s lucrative practice on the outskirts of town, where newer, wealthy developments were popping up. She first went to work for Dr. Thomas Stevenson out of frustration with hospital care. The mountains of paperwork and lack of funding for adequate staffing ate into the actual time a nurse could spend doing quality patient care. Her back and legs were beginning to balk at the physical requirements of the job, and so she jumped at the chance to help this surgeon, new to the area, establish his practice. His zeal and idealism for helping people won her over, and she quit the hospital that had been her professional home for several years.

Plastic Surgery, though seemingly narcissistic, has its place in the broader scope of helping mankind. Tom Stevenson spent his early years improving lives through his skills and idealism, but something happened along the way to success. More and more patients were of the cosmetic, enhancement, reduction, altering-type than those with the need for improved health and vitality.

His early patients seemed to be accident victims needing restoration or victims of birth defects looking for help and self-esteem. The line between improving humanity and perfecting it is very subtle and the money lured him. Still, for Kate the pay was good, benefits exceptional (tummy-tuck included), and the hours of four days a week were enviable. The job wasn’t necessarily feeding her soul but it did a lot for their bank account.

Martin was an executive with an automotive firm in nearby Ypsilanti and was working on a productive retirement plan. In just a few more years they both could retire with nice pensions and enough energy to travel and kick up their heels. The kids were grown and didn’t need them anymore so the outlook was good. Then he died. It was an aneurysm, a rupture in an artery leading to his brain. It was totally undetected and unpreventable.

Also unpreventable was the roller coaster ride Kate took after his death. Shock, despair, depression, anger—all those stages that define grief. They don’t begin to describe the loneliness she suffered from losing him. They had come to live in sync, enjoying each other as good friends, as well as romantic lovers. They connected and had fun together as they navigated the various stages of married life and parenthood.

They shared the same values, faith, needs, goals—the important stuff. Their personalities differed greatly, causing some real stress and aggravation in those early years, but they learned to work through all that in the midst of adjusting to married life, developing careers, and raising two kids. Where it mattered, however, they were on the same page. And now he was gone.

Kate and Martin, together forever. Guess not, she mused. I’ll never forgive him for leaving me.

Sometimes his memory came up at the oddest times, triggered by the smallest detail. When she drove by a certain Farmers’ Market, she remembered the August Saturdays when they would meander through the various stalls of fresh produce. There were the times they traipsed the fields and picked vegetables at a reduced price. She never forgot the day a snake slithered across the row she was harvesting and scared her silly. Martin thought it just added to the day’s entertainment.

Certain songs, of course, sent her into a tailspin more than once—so much so that she stopped listening altogether to their favorite radio station in the car. There were pieces of his clothing she couldn’t toss out, especially the tattered green corduroy jacket he wore on their dates thirty-five years before.

Since Martin’s death, Kate and the kids saw one another frequently and shared many activities together. That was another worry that plagued Kate’s thoughts when deciding on this Africa trip—leaving Stacey and her family and Brian. It seems Kate unknowingly transferred her dependence on Martin to her kids after his death, and they were sensitive to that.

Even Brian came around and called more frequently, knowing how lonely she was. When he came to visit he always worked diligently on yard and house projects, knowing Kate could never physically keep up the many chores her husband tended to. She thought it sort of connected him with his dad, whom he missed greatly. Saying goodbye to these two dear children, her son-in-law Jonathon, and the grandchildren would be difficult. What would it be like not to see them for a whole year?

In spite of the anxiety, Kate felt this opportunity compelling her. She didn’t understand the draw but knew her present state of mind and emotions needed to focus on a cause greater than herself.

Yes, she told her therapist. I really do need to do something before I disintegrate.

Kate’s job at the physician’s office was becoming mundane, and she didn’t have the zeal to slog through the task of job hunting and interviewing. Besides, any hospital or doctor’s office would have hired her for considerably lower pay than she was receiving in her current position.

"If I’m going to work for nothing, I might as well really