The Black Medic
The vision of the black medic came to me after a trip to China in 1998.
In the end of summer, I was a care-giver, my patient died and I had no job even though I had been searching diligently I could not seem to find one.
One Sunday evening I was in the service at the Christian Retreat and I went up at the altar call seeking prayer at the end of the service. I told Pastor Luke that I couldn’t find a job and couldn’t understand it.
He took my hands and prayed over me and then with me in a prayer of agreement for God’s will for my life. After the prayer he said, “Linda, I feel that the Lord wants you to go to ministry school and that is why you haven’t found a job. It begins tomorrow. You can still enroll.”
“Really? Well how much does it cost?” He answered that it was around a thousand dollars, if I remember correctly, and when I heard it my face fell.
“I have no money so He would have to supply the money for me if that is what I am supposed to do.”
The man behind me in line suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and told Pastor Luke, “Pastor, I got that.”
I jumped, a bit startled and must have looked like a deer caught in the head-lights.
Then he said, “As soon as I get prayer I’ll write out the check. Just wait for me.”
Pastor Luke embraced the man and said that he knew that was God!
In the middle of the school year I received a strange phone call. The unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line asked me, “Is this Linda Bell who attends Christian Retreat?”
“Yes.”
“Well the Lord told me to bring you to China with me. I’ll be making the trip in four weeks and you will accompany me.”
“Who are you?”
She informed me of her name and then proceeded to explain that she already prayed with Pastor Phil and he also heard from the Lord that I was the one the Lord wanted to accompany her.
My response was probably not what she expected, “Well, if He spoke to the two of you then He’ll speak to me. I will go wherever He asks me to go but I am sure that He will ask me.”
She replied that she was certain that He would and said she already got the ticket for me.
The whole thing was a bit annoying really, since I felt controlled and trapped into the trip.
I countered, “No you didn’t. That would be ludicrous. I must hear the call to go in order to go, but I will if and or when I do. How may I reach you?”
I learned her full name then and phone number. The next day was Monday and she and her husband showed up at my Bible Study! Pastor Phil must have given her the information.
The Lord did indeed reveal to me His desire for me to travel with this woman to China. After I felt certain that I did hear from Him I went to Pastor Phil for his approval of me to miss two weeks of ministry school.
I as officially released as long as I bought all the tapes of the sessions I would miss and would write a short dissertation on each one to show that I had listened to them.
From the moment that the taxi picked us up to drive us to the airport, like when the car door slammed, this woman was relentless in her cruelty towards me. It was bazaar, truly.
She introduced herself to the cabbie and then said of me; “This woman here is studying to be a minister even though she spent most of her life as a whore.”
The man looked into the rear-view mirror at me with incredulity in his eyes.
Very excitedly she motioned to me roughly and said to tell him my sordid life story.
I laughed and said, “Yes Jesus Christ did a tremendous work in me…”
“Oh, come on now! Tell him how many times you were married. Do you even know how many men you’ve had?” Then turning to the driver continued, “She probably doesn’t. I have heard so many stories about this woman it would curl your hair!”
In my heart I was forgiving her for her rudeness. I said, “Oh since you didn’t hear those stories from me how do you know that they are true?”
“Oh they’re true all right. Go on, don’t pretend to be shy, we know that’s not true!” She demanded and gave a knowing wink to the cabbie.
The ride to the airport was horrible. I was treated so very badly. And if I thought that it was going to end with the arrival of our cab to the airport, I was sadly mistaken. She did the same thing at the ticket counter, then again when we were in the boarding area and again every where and to everyone that we came into contact with.
I was walking in constant forgiveness, sometimes finding myself in intercession for myself, praying in tongues and begging God to convict her and make her stop her mocking and cruel taunts. This was the most wicked woman I ever had to deal with, and she said she was a Christian. I was amazed.
What was more amazing was that the more I would forgive and pray for her, the more cruel she got. Sometimes I felt like the little slave girl in the “Gone With the Wind” movie, other times it was like I was a trophy of hers. I was someone she could put in the face of people, like I was a Martian or alien or something. Horrible.
I had put up with it for almost two solid weeks. The missionaries we joined over there were appalled at her treatment of me and said so. She poo-pood their remarks and said that I would put up with it, after all, I was lucky God even bothered to save me.
The night before we left China, she went too far, in my opinion. Someone at the meeting asked me if I had a picture of my children and afterwards I got out the small picture I always keep of my family which is safely tucked away in my miniature Bible.
She must have seen me showing it to the woman and so when we got up to our rooms she asked to see it also. I showed it to her and she said some nasty things about my children. (I won’t repeat them because they were regarding how they should have turned out with a mother like me.) She made remarks about them that showed that she was simply operating in an unclean spirit.
At that moment I lost it. I backed her into the wall with the forcefulness of my angry words and threatening stance. (Yes, I was up in her face! I was much taller and very much younger than she and I had a look of utter hatred, I’m sure because that is what I felt at that moment for this foolish woman.)
I leaned into her face and very matter of factly told her that I had enough of her stinking mouth. Through clenched teeth I explained that if she ever said anything again about my children, I would *%$#@ kill her right where she stood. I said she would become a grease spot in the carpet. Sadly I truly meant it.
(Moments later when she went into the shower the scripture came to me, found in Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.)
The next day I must have eaten something at breakfast and I got food poisoning. I became very ill—releasing life’s valuable fluids from every possible direction…
This made her gloat. I was having a hard time forgiving and gave her a brief warning:
I announced, “Due to the circumstances, right now much less than speaking against my children could very well send me into a killing frenzy…
She got the point and when we joined up with the rest of our traveling companions she asked for protection and cried to them and said I was dangerous.
The husband turned to me and winked. The wife asked me to walk with her so she could have a word with me. “We just want you to know that we are all amazed and appalled at the way she has treated you for the past two weeks!” she said once we were out of earshot.
“No one can quite get over it actually. It has been the talk of the hour! And I must say, we all wondered how long you’d manage to continue to take all the stuff she dished out! My goodness! We have all agreed that she will never be welcome to return to ‘minister’ with us! Most heathen people don’t act the way she has been acting. Really, good for you, finally sticking up for yourself. It was long over-due.”
God was merciful to me even in my sin. When we got on the plane I had the aisle seat but when I got to it the old woman was sitting in it. I showed her my boarding pass and she nastily told me that she was not moving.
I called for the stewardess because the flight was 26 hours and I could not be by the window in my condition.
The stewardess agreed. She apologized for the lady’s behavior toward me and brought me up to the front of the coach section. There were five empty seats which had armrests that folded up so that I had a nice place to lie down and rest. This stewardess treated me like a queen, constantly bringing me drinks and changing my vomit bag…yeah it was a tough situation, but God eased the situation for me while I endured it.
When I returned home I was lying on my bed and talking to the Lord about the trip and I asked Him why I was even chosen to go on it with that woman. I explained to Him that I wasn’t complaining because it was an amazing trip except for the woman. No sooner had I asked Him than I was caught up in an open vision. It was like a movie on my bedroom ceiling:
THE BLACK MEDIC…
In the heat of the Vietnam War-In grueling conditions-In the horror and atrocity…
Focus the camera lens of your mind to picture this story as it unfolds to you.
The black Medic gets up once the ability to do so comes to his body. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but the smoke still hadn’t cleared from the fierce attack his platoon had just suffered.
Looking around at the field of slaughtered men, his gut twisted with emotional pain. He quickly began to check each man to see if any were still alive. Dead. All dead. He had hoped to find a two-way radio to contact headquarters, but the only one around was irreparable.
He went around among the men and took all their dog tags, some canteens, and as many rations as he could stuff in his pack. Then he headed in the direction he thought would take him back to base.
Almost dark. He came upon another field of slaughtered men. That now familiar twisting returned to his insides as he quickly began to search for the living among them.
He found one man who was still alive; although he needed serious medical attention the Medic felt he could save him. He silently prayed as he worked feverishly over the injured man. When he’d done all he could, he knew he had to trust God to do the rest.
He dug a foxhole, put the man in it and went out to the field to search for the radio of this platoon. He found it! He rushed back to the foxhole and identified the injured man. Then he radioed base. He explained what had happened to his platoon, and that he’d found one man, a Lt. Charles Troy, and he felt certain that he would make it.
The Sgt. on the other end of the two-way radio was very pleased to hear that the Lt. was going to be all right. He told the Medic that the Lt. was important to the cause of the war. He must get him into base as soon as possible.
The Medic then got his directions leading him back to base. For the next two days the black Medic carried the Lt. on a makeshift stretcher he had fashioned from branches and shirts from the dead. The heat was unbelievable and the Lt. was very heavy to carry for such a long way. But the Sarge said this guy was important. And anyway, the Medic had dedicated his life to saving lives. This was an honor really. He kept on telling himself that. “It’s an honor.”
The morning of the third day of the journey the Lt. woke up and the Medic was still asleep.
“Oh my God!!!” (The Medic jerks wide awake.) “You’re a Negra!!!”
“Now take it easy Lt. You’ve just been through a really rough time. Here, take some water and …
“I don’t want anything from you! Don’t touch me! Get away from me!! I HATE NEGRAS!!! HATE!!! Do you get it? Do you get that you stupid Negra?”
“Yeah, I get it, here’s the canteen, I never drank from it. Take it. It’s yours and I won’t touch you.”
“Are you the one that patched me up?” The black Medic nodded.
“Oh my God! I can hardly imagine anything worse. To think of your disgusting black Negra hands touching me while I was unconscious!” (He leaned to the side and vomited the water he had just drunk. He continued to wretch, sweating profusely and trying to catch his breath.)
“Please Lt. calm yourself down I’ve done my best to patch you up, don’t go ripping out your stitches. Try to sip the water slowly and relax. You’re going to need all your strength for the rest of the trip. I got some rations here. You should eat something.”
“Why don’t you just shut up? Why did you save me? Why didn’t you just leave me alone? I didn’t want to live anyway! Stupid Negra. Your whole race is to blame for every problem my country has. You stupid Negras think it’s your country too, but it ain’t! I’m one of those guys that believes the best thing for our country is to put you all on a fleet of ships and send you back to the Dark Continent where you came from and where you belong!”
“Well, on that note I’m going to go and relieve myself Lt. Excuse me.”
He climbed out of the foxhole and realized he was shaking. He determined that no matter WHAT-he was going to do what was required of him from headquarters. This is an honor, he said to himself. (He wished he felt that this was a truth.)
He got the radio and brought it out to call into base. He didn’t want to let the Lt. hear him. Suddenly shots were fired from the brush to his left and the radio was immediately turned into junk. He dove and took cover away from where the shot had come from.
More shots came, and he fired back obviously hitting the interloper. This was unbelievable! “A lone enemy soldier just had to come along and shoot up my radio,” he thought angrily. “Well, all I was going to do was complain anyway. I’d better get the Lt. and start off. I must remember that this is an honor.”
For two more days he carried the Lt. and listened to hate filled epithets regarding his color while trying to maintain civility in his responses. But, what happened on the morning of the fifth day…
He awoke first and went out of the new foxhole to check out the area and relieve himself. When he returned the Lt. had eaten, and was just finishing relieving himself. The Lt. was in no mood to talk to the Negra so he was planning on ignoring him.
The Medic mistakenly took this as a sign of more acceptance than usual so he tried to start a conversation. He said, “Good morning Lt. Troy!”
The Lt. spit in the dirt.
“You know it really is baffling to me Lt. how you can hate me when you don’t know anything about me.” The silence the Lt. maintained urged him on. “You know, I’m a good citizen, I’m a husband and the father of one beautiful little girl. I work hard and support them…”
“Shut up Negra!!! You must be the dumbest Negra on the face of the planet! You think I have to have a reason to hate you!?? You’re a Negra! That’s enough for me!! There’s nothing better than killing a Negra man ‘ceptin’ maybe killing a Negra female and what do you know, you got two of ‘em, eh. Why they can be downright enjoyable to kill.”
Suddenly, without thought, only reaction, the Medic had a knife to the Lt.’s throat in a flash. He took the very instrument of healing that he lives by and was about to take this man’s life.
“Go ahead you cowardly Negra! Go on!! Slit my throat! I want to die anyway!”
“No, I can’t kill you. But I will leave your hate filled soul right here to lie in your own stink. I’m done with you.”
The black Medic arrived at base that very morning. He didn’t realize just how close he’d come to completing his assignment. He reported in.
“Where’s the Lt., Medic?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“What do you mean that he didn’t make it? You said he’d pull through. Did he die, were you ambushed or what?”
“No. Ugh, I didn’t kill him.”
“You didn’t kill him? What are you talking about Medic? Oh! I get it! You two guys didn’t get along. Huh? You had a personality conflict. Is that it? (The Medic tried to interrupt and say how hateful the Lt. was, but the Sarge didn’t allow room.)
He boomed, “Well get this straight Medic. This is a war! You two numbskulls are on the same side of the war! You are accountable for that man Medic! Do you get that? You had orders to bring him in. Period.”
VISIONS DOODLES & LOVE SONGS
FOR & FROM THE KING
Vessel:
Linda Sack
Vision: 1998 in the fall of the year
