A Simple Prayer
Like hundreds of others who came to our makeshift clinic, she complained of abdominal pain. Since intestinal parasitic infections were endemic in the area, she could have easily been just one more suffering from such an infection. Or she could have had any of the conditions on the long list of differential diagnosis, for a female with abdominal pain. Given that literally hundreds of people were waiting to be seen and that I only had a few minutes to spend with each patient, it would convenient to hone in on a simple diagnosis. But something in her eyes made me want to probe further in a different direction—away from the belly. Perhaps it was her flat affect. Perhaps it was clinical intuition. Or perhaps it was the Holy Spirit.
Through my Kinyarwanda translator, I asked her if she was sleeping ok. She seemed taken aback by the question. After a small pause, she answered that she was not sleeping well.
How was her appetite? Not so good.
Did she enjoy doing the things she normally enjoys doing? No…
How is your energy level? Not good…I don’t feel like doing anything.
There was no need to ask the next question, “How is your mood?” She was suffering from depression. I asked more questions and unearthed her troubled past. She was raped in her teens, which resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder. Given that depression is the number one cause of loss in quality-adjusted life-years (a way of measuring disease burdens that takes into account both quality and quantity of life in years, affected by a disease), it was not surprising that a woman in a remote mountain village of Rwanda was suffering from it.
Our make-shift pharmacy did not have any antidepressant. Nor would it have been appropriate even if we had the medication since she would have needed long-term medical follow-up while on it. The best solution for the situation was prayer. Only the Great Physician could heal her heart, soul and body. I asked her if I could pray with her, and she timidly nodded. Over the next few minutes, I poured out my heart and soul into the prayer, asking for our heavenly Father to be with her and to lift her out of the abysmal darkness. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12, KJV).
When the prayer ended, tears were streaming down her face. And despite the tears, her eyes were brighter than before. Perhaps it was because her eyes now had a glimmer of hope—hope that comes from the knowledge that God loves her and will take care of her. As the Psalmist points out, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4, KJV). For continuity of care, I asked if she was open to meeting with the local church pastor for counseling in the future. She readily agreed.
Of the hundreds of patients I saw during my mission trip to Rwanda this past June, only people like this woman with whom I prayed for, stand out in my memory as the ones who truly walked away from the clinic with a positively-changed look on their faces.
In the end, it was not the boxes and boxes of medications that we handed out to the villagers that made a difference in their lives; it was the simple act of prayer that moved them, lifting them up from the drudgeries of this sin-soaked world to the arms of the loving Father. I look forward to the day when we can all celebrate the end of the battle against the darkness here on this Earth.
Dr. Wonha (Iris) Kim is a pediatrician in Baltimore, MD. She recently completed her pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and is currently doing a fellowship in General Preventive Medicine along with MPH studies at Johns Hopkins. Her lifelong goal is to become a medical missionary--to walk in the footsteps of the Great Physician.