Brenden Teal and I were having a bit of a hard time fixing the hydroelectric plant that powers the clinic when Hadassah came up to us. “Hey guys, someone just told us he has a sick relative in his village who cannot walk. Can one of you guys go with him to his house to pick him up and bring him to the clinic?”
One of us needed to finish the hydroelectric repairs, so Brenden volunteered to go to the village. When I saw him again a few hours later, he looked very tired, and his clothes were soaked with sweat. “How did it go?” I asked, already knowing part of the answer just by looking at him.
Sitting down wearily on the clinic porch, Brenden replied, “It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.”
In the rugged mountains of Palawan, when someone needs an ambulance ride, there are no roads on which to drive a vehicle. Instead, the “ambulance” is a sort of basket seat built into a backpack. It’s a lot of work to carry a grown adult in a backpack over the steep trails, but there is no other way through the mountains.
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Brenden continued. “It was way further than I had thought, and even though the patient was skinny, he was so heavy to carry up and down the hills. There was a point when it seemed impossible, and I thought I just couldn’t go on. I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t keep putting one foot in front of the other. When your muscles quit responding, ego and determination aren’t enough to push you to keep going. I desperately wanted to help the patient, but that didn’t change the fact that my muscles couldn’t move anymore. In that moment I realized the real reason why I was there—the only reason strong enough to keep me going. I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed. Then I started repeating out loud with every step I took, ‘For the glory of the Most High. For the glory of the Most High.’ It was a miracle. He gave me the strength to go on, little by little, step by step, remembering that we are here to help people, but in the end, it’s all for the glory of the Most High.”
It’s been almost a year since this story took place. It’s been almost a year since the accident that made me have to leave Palawan after being there only five short weeks. But this story remains with me, helping me see what is really important. Wherever I am and whatever I do, I need to keep this perspective in mind—that everything I do should be for the glory of the Most High. And I pray that more and more people will realize this as we enter earth’s final stage, that it’s not about my strength, my ego, or being right and having it altogether. It’s all about Him. So we can all be humble and serve one another in love, giving glory to the Most High so that we all can see Him soon, along with those we have introduced to Him.
