By: Ma. Brenda Villarin, DC

 In those days I was at the peak of my practice as a member of the Cardio-vascular team at home in the Philippines. I truly loved my work. To be away even just for half a day was too much. The Sisters and my Superior teased me saying “We can hardly remember what you look like. We hardly see you.” Then a letter came from Paris informing me of the decision of the General Council to send me to Ethiopia (1976). I could not believe my eyes. I know I did offer some years back (perhaps 1967 or ‘68) but “not now Lord. I’m far too happy to let go of my community, my work and friends and to be far away from home.” It was a difficult decision to make but I made it and left for Ethiopia.

Left Me Broken
After many different works I was asked to help in famine relief work in Makele, Tigray. We started with about 8,000 people and it escalated to 30,000 on our site. Death rates ranged from 12 to 60 a day. This was a profound experience that really left me broken in my utter helplessness. I was angry with God. “How can you abandon your people – letting them die like flies? Are they not yours as well? How can you leave me to cope with it all?”

Stark Sufferings
I worked in the camp for three months but that seemed eternity to me. When I was taken out I got sick. It was in fact a time of grief and mourning for me for the people who had died in my arms and I had not had time to grieve and mourn for them at that time. It took me two months to recover my physical strength but my psychological strength has taken a lot longer to recover. I made a private resolution never to work on relief again. Shortly after that, I was asked to work in Conchi, Nekemte, Wollega area. I was only to show the local personal how to run the programme of food distribution. In this experience I saw suffering once again. Once again, I told myself that never again would I expose myself to such stark suffering which rendered me so vulnerable.

Resettlement Village
After many works I moved to Dembidollo and was appointed to work in the re-settlement villages. We were given 35 villages at once. There were three sisters working in the villages. I was the last to join the team. Our main work was seeing the sick people in the camp, giving vaccinations, giving basic goods and feeding the children under five. We had two other lay staff helping in preparing the things we needed for going out and in filling in the registration cards for vaccinations, the resettlement  villages were very new in the sense that the people were less than a year in residence. They were all in need of shelter, clothing, medicine, food. As soon they as they saw any distribution going on, they mobbed us. It was a most frustrating experience. The volunteer sister -- with all her goodwill, got so frustrated that one day she made the announcement that she would return to her country. There I was left, high and dry.  I could not get a staff that would suit the work I envisioned so I got a part-time worker who was a student, and a driver to help me. After a couple of weeks we cut down our villages and that made the load more reasonable.

Community Based Health
I was still in great muddle. There was a lot of work to be done but I was stuck with medical work and vaccinations. I knew I wouldn’t get any extra help so I decided to teach the Community Health Workers and the Traditional Birth Attendants how to fill the vaccination programme would have a bit more order and system. It took me half a year teaching them about vaccination and how to fill in the cards. It was a very exhausting job but gratifying in the end. We used to finish late vaccinating people we only got home at 7:30 or 8:00 pm. In Alem Tefari we mostly had to stay overnight to do the second village next day. But when we got the Community Health Agencies and Traditional Birth Attendants to do the registration the day before and got the women holding their cards when we got there, we were finished in half to one hour’s time depending on the numbers of mothers and children. It was great!

Health Education
The next thing I wanted to intensify was “Heath Education”. I continued my monthly session giving heath lessons, demonstrating teaching methods and skills, asking the health workers to do a return demonstration in teaching. It was an exhausting job to do again, the results in the villages were great. It created and enthusiasm in health leaders, in country teachers and in the people.

I have touched on a few of the things that God has called me to. At times its been rough but He has been with me all the time even when I was unaware.