Friends called one evening to tell us
their daughter was joining the Peace Corps. “Did you know,” they added, “that
they are also recruiting older people like ourselves? Maybe we should all go.”
And so it was that Pam and I were prompted to begin a process that would take us
to Lesotho, Africa.
At the time of the call I was the pastor of a church and Pam a nurse at a hospital. Our children had graduated from college and started careers. Our parents were elderly but not dependent on us for care. Our thirty plus years of marriage had been wonderfully satisfying and our lifestyle comfortable. It had been a good life and the road ahead promised more of the same.
The Peace Corps on the other hand offered an intriguing challenge and as we began to talk and pray about this possibility we discovered that it wasn’t long before we were asking of each other, “If not us, then who should go”? And so we submitted an application to the Peace Corps and informed the church of our decision.
Tough
The Peace Corps is a government program that has been recruiting and training “volunteers” since the 1960’s for humanitarian work around the world. The assignments are for two years, plus an additional three months of language and technical training in the assigned country. The opportunities for service are numerous and varied, from being a teacher in a remote village, an agriculture advisor in a government ministry, or “community health advisors” as Pam and I were at a hospital. In other words, the Peace Corps takes, rather ordinary people and gives them the opportunity to take on an assignment often described as the “the toughest job you will ever love”. We certainly found that to be true.
Tested
It was a year and a half between the times we submitted the application and were leaving for Africa. It was a long process made longer by the fact that “older” applicants tend to have more medical issues to be screened and couples require more time to be matched to an appropriate assignment. The length of the process tested our patience and challenged our resolve but also had the effect of making us more dependent upon prayer and the support of the church.
The question has been asked of us on numerous occasions, both before going and since returning, as to why we didn’t “go out” with a mission program, implying that a church sponsored program would be better suited for a Christian. Pam and I were convinced however that the Peace Corps offered a wonderful opportunity to give expression to our faith in service to others. Furthermore, we learned through this experience the simple fact that the Peace Corps often provides an opportunity to be on the “front line” in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a place where the church is by-and-large failing to go.
A couple of weeks before Pam and I left for Lesotho we were packing our household belonging for storage and came across a “coffee table book” about Africa. It was a book Pam had given me before our marriage and I flipped open the cover and discovered words that we had both long forgotten. “To Dick. Wishing and Hoping! Love, Pam”. We were both a bit dumbstruck as we read these words in light of where we were going. Could it be, we wondered, that some thirty years earlier God planted a seed in our hearts so that one day when friends raised the possibility of the Peace Corps we would be prepared to go to Africa, to a place where we would experience the Lord’s sure presence in the midst of heartbreaking needs?
Pam and I were married in 1972 and started a family in 1976. Since that time Pam has been a registered nurse whereas I began as a social worker but later returned to seminary. I am ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and have served churches in Omaha, NE, Stockholm, Sweden, Madison, WI, and now Bowie MD.