Advent Works: Life in the Shadow of Death

“You want to go outside Mogadishu?” Yusuf gave me a guarded look, his fine-boned Somali face conveying no emotion, but his voice carried a whisper of disbelief.

“Yes,” I said, shielding my eyes from the blinding equatorial sun. It was September in the Horn of Africa, but the heat was unrelenting. “I want to go to Hawa Abdi’s place. Can you arrange it?”

Yusuf shook his head. “My men will not go outside the city. Even I will not take you.”

I raised an eyebrow. Yusuf was one of the best fixers in Mogadishu. Security was his business. He didn’t turn down a contract without good reason.

“What about AMISOM?” I persisted, referring to the multi-national military force deployed by the African Union to restore order to a country ravaged by twenty years of civil war. “Will they take me?”

Yusuf looked at me incredulously. “You can ask them. But you should know one thing. As soon as you show your face outside the city, word will get out. You will have forty minutes at best before they come for you.”

By “they” he meant Al-Shabaab—the Arab-Somali terrorist group responsible for bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations across East Africa. While their influence was limited inside the city, they were still a dominant force in the rural areas.

I wish I could say that I felt no fear in that moment. After all, I had spent my entire life in the American bubble, largely oblivious to the dangers faced by people no different from me in a thousand war-torn pockets of the world. It was only fair that I put a little skin in the game. But as I turned away from Yusuf and stared into the sun-bleached sky, I felt only dread.

The voices of dissent contested loudly inside my head. You’re a novelist, not a war reporter. Take a tour of Somalia on Google … You don’t need to meet Dr. Deqo. A phone call is good enough … You love your wife and kids? Then walk away from this.

On any other day in any other place, that might have been the conclusion of the matter. But that day in Mogadishu, there was something else at work in me—a sense of calling I could neither define nor deny. It was the reason I had traveled across continents and oceans to get there. It was the reason I had come.

A memory came to me then. I was in my office in Virginia, and I had just finished reading Dr. Hawa Abdi’s magnificent autobiography, Keeping Hope Alive. For over two decades, she and her daughter, Dr. Deqo, had operated an informal refugee camp on their family’s land outside Mogadishu. They had the means to flee the country, but they stayed on, braving drought and disease, warlords and radical Islamists. They stayed because they couldn’t leave their people to suffer alone. When I put down the book, I decided I had to meet them. The risk was grave, but if I was serious about writing a novel on Somalia—its disintegration, its global impact, and its slow, painful rebirth—I knew I had to see the place for myself.

That day in Mogadishu, it was the quiet voice of purpose that finally silenced the chorus of fear. I couldn’t leave the country without finishing what I had started.

The Choice to Come Near

The following morning, I put on a bulletproof vest and boarded an AMISOM convoy bound for Hawa Abdi Village. I kept my face away from the windows of the armored personnel carrier; I took a breath every time we slowed to avoid a crater left by an exploded IED; I struggled to steady my nerves when I saw men watching us from doorways, cell phones in hand. Had they seen me? Who were they calling? Were they Shabaab? But once I made the choice to go, I didn’t question it. Moment by moment, I walked through my fear.

And, oh, how it was worth it! For the children who showered smiles on me beneath the mango trees; for the doctors who showed me their hospital and told me of the lives they had saved; for the students who greeted me from the schoolhouse; for Dr. Deqo and her team who had given so much to care for tens of thousands of Somalis. At Hawa Abdi Village, I realized that the choice I had made to go was similar in kind to the choice Dr. Hawa’s family had made to stay. It was the choice to come near, to live in death’s shadow for the sake of love. This, in my mind, is the spirit of Advent, the divine magic behind Christmas.

Immanuel, God with Us

From the dawn of time, men and women had looked into the heavens and wondered who made the stars, pondered birth and death and tried to understand the mystery of life, watched seasons turn and kingdoms rise and fall, and speculated about the power behind it all. They had as many names for the dreamer of worlds as they had languages. They paid homage to him, invented stories about him, sacrificed to appease him. But most of the time he seemed distant from them, aloof to the plight of ordinary souls who lived and died and loved and grieved and struggled against the spirit of decay that lurked like a curse beneath every gift—the certitude that even the best things must end.

Then, on a quiet night in a nondescript town in the Roman province of Judea, all of that changed. In many ways it was a common birth. The child cradled against the breast of his exhausted mother looked like any other. But something was different this time. There were angels singing in the skies above, shepherds celebrating in the fields, wise men following a star to find him. In a dozen years, Israel’s sages would marvel at his wisdom. In thirty years, the sick would flock to him for healing. In fifty years, his followers would go to the lions instead of denying the wonders they had seen. In three centuries, the greatest empire in history would bow at his feet. In five, time itself would be divided between what came before him and what came after him.

All of this began with a baby in a manger. All of this began with Christmas.

After I left Hawa Abdi Village, Dr. Deqo called to confirm my safe arrival at the airport. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said earnestly. “Thank you for risking your life.”

“No,” I replied. “Thank you. Your work is the work of God.”

It’s been over a year since that day. I’m now back in my American bubble, having written the novel I set out to write, but she is still there, serving people the world has largely forgotten. She could leave any day, but she chooses to stay, to give her life away one sacrifice at a time. In this sense, hers is a genuine work of Advent. It reminds us that the God who came near unto us in Bethlehem is near to us still.

______________________________

Advent Works

If work is God’s gift to us and an invitation to participate with him in the work of redemption and restoration, it makes sense that we would experience grace and also be the conduits of grace in our work and workplaces. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ to do good work. So, in this season of gift giving and celebrating the gift of grace through Jesus, join us as we consider how to find grace in our work this Advent, in this series, Advent Works.

Featured image by Daniel Kulinski. Used with Permission. Source via Flickr.