To Love Something you have to Know it First

I recently finished reading Tracy Kidder´s book of a few years ago called ¨Mountains Beyond Mountains.¨ Kidder follows the work of Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer is a world renowned Infectious Diseases expert and medical anthropologist, especially in preventing and treating TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, and is the founder of PIH or Partners in Health. Kidder´s book, is the story of Farmer and his sometimes unconventional journey and work in the impoverished central plateau of Haiti (Cange) in addition to the world health system as he similtaneously, and I believe unintentionally ¨Changed the discourse about what is possible¨in medicine. Dr. Farmer is unconventional because he treats the whole person and their situation in hopes of preventing the enfermity from reoccuring. It is a combination of medicine, sociology, and social outreach. Farmer, in addition to medical school and residency, claims to have done an internship in house building and a practicum in ¨blah, blah, blah,¨(I think I might have done the same practicum!) along with countless hours of inflicting his hortitorture and reeducation of blan or non-Haitians (mainly white people) on what the real situation is. I have been thinking about some of the things that both Kidder, and Farmer via Kidder said in the book. Farmer makes no bones about it...there is an inherent link between poverty and the contraction and spread of illness and disease like TB and HIV/AIDS. He refers not just to circumstances in Haiti, but Farmer´s work also takes him to the northern slums of Lima, Peru (Carabayllo) and Tomsk, Russia and the Russian national prision system, rought with TB and multi-drug resistent TB.

So what sticks out for me is something that Dr. Farmer said to Kidder on one of their many ¨hikes¨in Haiti. He said (I think referring to his work and style of doing it) ¨In order to love something, you have to know it first.¨ In addition to his countless credentials and certifications, Farmer can add accompaniament and partnership to his resume. He may never get a plaque for the wall, but the patients he touches physically and emotionally just by taking the time to sit, sometimes in conditions that most people wouldn´t touch with a ten foot pole, and listen to the stories, hopes, and dreams often unrealized of those who seek medical treatment.
Farmer loves his work, and his work is anthropology, education, medicine, but most of all it is people. I think Farmer loves his work because he takes the time to get to know it...the it is the people...the patient that lays in the bed, the patient that sits in a hut on mat, and the patient who is brought by ¨donkey ambulance¨to his clinic in Cange clinging to life. Farmer takes the time to know their illnesses in order to treat them, but that is surface details. In treating the whole individual Farmer gets curious. He asks the questions that get to heart of the individual and communal causes of illness and injury.

In reflecting, I of course have to ask myself how or what does the work and vision of Dr. Paul Farmer have to do with me, my calling, and ministry. Farmer says ¨In order to love something you have to know it.¨ While I am nowhere near an expert in my field and passions like Dr. Farmer, I can say that I love and am more passionate about 3 things (among others) in ministry, mainly because of my experiences that have allowed me to get to know them. Those three things are mission, worship, and pastoral care. The beauty, atleast I think, is that even with all that I know and my experience in these areas there is always more to learn and to experience so that I can love them (mission, pastoral care, and worship) even more.

While sitting in here in Peru, I reflect on my current work with Paz Y Esperanza, and it leads me to also think about having lived and walked alongside campesinoes in Guatemala, as well as the men who came to lunch at the Wayside Christian Mission. Then there was serving as a chaplain in trauma centers in Louisville, KY and Winston-Salem, NC where I sat with individuals and families in the silence of death, and then there is working alongside of the neighbors of the church I interned at in Kentucky after the week long blackout of ´08. In most of these situations I have not been required to DO anything except BE there, and for some of the people that I accompanied that was all they needed.
I am reminded of how critical it is to sometimes carefully swim upstream like Dr. Farmer as situations require you took adapt norms to location and population. He did not ignore precedence and procedure he put it to the test in a variety of situations, and sometimes created his own, that others soon followed. Dr. Farmer took the time and extra minutes to better serve his patients, by ¨Being¨ with them inorder to determine what they really wanted and needed, before he tried to ¨DO¨anything for them. He did this in the technogically advanced Brigham Hospital in Boston, MA and in the Central Plain of Haiti, as well as the slums of Lima, Peru. The unconventional part was that when Farmer´s patient´s life was on the line he learned that he might have to ¨DO¨ something first and then he would go out into the far reaches of the Central Plain (on foot) to ¨BE¨with them and ¨KNOW¨their situation, becasue he loved his work and what he did. I look forward to the years ahead, God willing as they say here in Peru and in Guatemala, to drawing connections and building bridges between congragations and their ministries to my experiences in mission, work as a chaplain, and student minister in KY. I look forward to building on what I already know, love, and am passionate about; by getting curious, engaging in study, having new experiences, and being present.