Dangerous Love

by Ray Norman

  We learned that the day after the assault, in spite of all I had said to the authorities before being evacuated from Mauritania, the government’s official report stated that the director of the leading NGO in the country and his daughter had been hurt during a robbery attempt. This same story appeared the following day in the Washington Post. This was disappointing but certainly understandable, coming from a relatively unknown country that was struggling to enhance its image in the international arena, especially in the wake of all the negative press Islamic states were receiving after 9/11. During long-distance conversations we also learned that on the day following the assault, the US embassy had received an anonymous call claiming that, although the attempt on the World Vision director had not been successful, the next one would be. But we also heard that the assailant, who had been identified through the book he dropped in the dunes, had been captured a few days later as he was trying to slip across the Senegal River that formed the border between Mauritania and the neighboring Senegal.

  One of the first things we did after arriving in Calais was seek advice and counsel with friends, leaders, and pastors in both France and the United States who had provided us spiritual support over the years and to whom, at least in some measure, we felt accountable. While all reached out to us lovingly and compassionately, we found that for most of them, what we had gone through was so far out of their realm of experience that it was difficult for them to fully identify and effectively engage with us.

  An elderly couple, dear friends who had encouraged us faithfully throughout the years, traveled from their home in a neighboring European country simply to be present with us in Calais for a day or two. We were touched by this act of kindness, but in the end, try as they might, it was hard for them to find the right words for us. Instead, they spent much of their time either encouraging us to trust God or updating us on other common friends, colleagues, and related church activities back in their hometown—the latter of which was of little interest to us at the moment.

  Part of the challenge was that Hélène and I were each wrestling with distinctly different issues at that time. I was overwhelmed with concern for those under my care: my wife and children (one of whom we had left thousands of kilometers away in Senegal), my World Vision staff, and our community partners in Mauritania. I well remember the elderly couple encouraging us to steadfastly “follow God’s will” in all of this.

  Hélène seemed to know, perhaps better than I did at the time, that God’s will for us was to return to Mauritania. But on an emotional level, it was simply too early for her to get her head and heart around this—and she recoiled at the open and frank admonition from her dear friends. In their heartfelt zeal to help guide us, they did not seem to realize how severely traumatized we were. Hélène and I just needed people who could listen to us, hold us, and weep with us. To expect these kind people to fully understand all of our muddled emotions and feelings was simply asking too much.

  Others, especially those we talked with in the United States, told us what faith-filled and courageous people we were, figuratively patted us on the back for being such amazing people, and then basically sent us on our way. But these were not words we would have used to describe ourselves in those days; far from it. In our hearts we felt confused, fearful, and very uncertain.

  It seemed that even our own pastor in France, a man who, along with his spouse, had been a source of support and encouragement to us over the years, seemed to struggle with how to respond to us. He had been informed of what had happened, and once we arrived in Calais we expected to hear from him or his wife but never did. I eventually called him on our third or fourth day there. He told me that he had heard our news, and he listened quietly as I chatted. But it seemed our situation was beyond him. He never came to see us in the hotel, so the next week Hélène and I made the long drive to the small church in a neighboring village for the midweek prayer service.

  Even then our pastor and his wife, as well as our other friends at church, listened politely and prayed for us, but it was evident that they just did not know how to connect with our situation. While we loved these people dearly, all of this was deeply distressing and only added to our sense of loneliness. Perhaps the most distressing of all, at least for me, was the discreet message from many of our closest associates that since we had given more than fifteen years of our lives abroad in largely hardship posts, it was perhaps time for us to finally “come home, have a season of rest, and get restored.” But caring and well-intentioned as those words were, they did not resonate in my heart.

  As those long days dragged on in Calais, Hélène and I continued to feel confused, fearful, and uncertain—but what relentlessly pulled at my heart late in the quiet night hours as I lay awake was the love that God had put in my heart for the people he had called me to serve. And I knew with certainty that this was not of my own making; it was entirely his.

  Many years before, Hélène and I had purchased a small, rather run-down hunter’s cottage just outside a small village about a half hour from Calais. Although it had no electricity, over the years this small accommodation with its half acre overlooking the hills of Boulogne had become the place for our annual summer retreats and was a home base of sorts as we went about our globe-trotting lives. There was not much to it, but every year we would find a week or two to add to it and make it a little more habitable, and our children became attached to this quiet, beautiful spot in the hills of northern France.

  With all that we had gone through in recent days and with the uncertainty of where we would turn next, it was understandable that one of Hélène’s natural responses was to heed her nesting instincts. After a few days of climbing the walls of our hotel room, she began making almost daily forays to the cottage, throwing herself wholeheartedly into a renovation project on that small structure. I remember my dismay when she took me to a used furniture warehouse and proudly showed me a plethora of cabinets, tables, and chairs that she wanted to buy and intended to have hauled out to our five-hundred-square-foot cottage! I was in a near state of panic when I saw the furniture, but panic was not the reaction Hélène needed. I tried to control my breathing and heart rate, and slowly began putting the pieces together while pacing the sidewalk in front of the store. My dear wife was just trying to find “home” in the midst of her recently shattered world.

  At that moment my cell phone rang, and I found myself answering another urgent, long-distance call from a government official. Since the incident, I had already answered numerous questions from various security and government officials (Mauritanian, American and French), and now I had yet another pressing call on my hands. It was not good timing, as I was still trying to get my heart rate to slow, and Hélène was about to put down more money than we had to spend on furniture that we had no place for! The official on the other end of the line explained that he needed to ask me a long string of questions concerning the shooting incident, and I tried to explain that my wife was about to make a terrible mistake that I needed to tend to immediately. He said it was important we talk now, so I tucked my head into the doorway of the furniture warehouse and hoarsely whispered to Hélène that I had a pressing, long-distance phone call to deal with and to please not write a check until I was done!

  It was clear that the official was concerned that the actions of our assailant could be part of a larger plot. He expressed his concern about the probability of additional attacks from radical elements in the near future. I was convinced that this was not the case and explained why I thought it was only a lone act by a confused gunman. For a half hour on the side of the street, I negotiated the delicate terrain of the official’s questions regarding aspects of the political climate in Mauritania and the attitudes of the general public. I tried to convince him that, for the most part, the people of Mauritania are kind, gracious, and welcoming of most foreigners. He finally closed the conversation by stating he would probably need to call again in a few days.

  I ran back into the warehouse, apologized
to Hélène for the long delay, and quickly pulled her behind a large cabinet, where I said, “Hélène, I fully understand what you are trying to do—and why. But we cannot stay here in France beyond another week or two, and we certainly cannot move into our small cottage indefinitely.”

  Hélène did not miss a beat. She turned, gazed straight into my eyes, and said, “Well, we cannot go back to a remote corner of the Sahara Desert where they tried to kill my husband and child, can we?”

  As the days rolled by, Hélène and I began to find common ground. We both wanted to follow God’s will for our lives, that was certain, and our choice to spend our lives together had been rooted in this principle; and we wanted what was best for our children. Hélène was also keenly aware that separating me from the work and call that I loved would only serve to make matters more difficult for all of us. She knew that a fulfilled and happy spouse would only make for a better husband and father to our children. And, to my great comfort, she began to interject this often in these conversations in the days that followed.

  During those days as Hannah’s wounds healed, we spoke on the phone with our son, Nathaniel, in Dakar every other day or so. Hélène, probably more than I, thought often about his needs during this tumultuous time. With each passing day she grew more concerned that Nathaniel did not have us nearby at this critical time and that Hannah did not have her brother close by as support. Our regional office in Dakar had already suggested to me that they would be happy to arrange an apartment for us in the city until we could sort out what our next steps would be. Hélène was clearly not at a place where she could face the prospect of taking her daughter back to Mauritania. But as we talked it became clear, especially for Hélène, that moving to Dakar, even if temporarily, would be one step closer to getting our family back together. For me it was also one step closer to what I saw as my unfinished work in Mauritania, and I quietly hoped against hope that we could soon return.

  After nearly three weeks in Europe, Hannah’s and my wounds were healing well, although we still had some weeks to go before healing would be complete. Hannah had finally been given the green light to travel abroad. So we boarded an Air France plane for Dakar early one morning after tearful and uncertain goodbyes with Hélène’s parents, and late that evening we were taken to a sparse but clean third-floor, two-bedroom apartment in the Medina district of downtown. After school the next day we were finally reunited with Nathaniel.

  We had some evening meals with him at his dorm, and he spent weekends at our apartment or in town with us, shopping or having a meal. We were delighted to be together again, and I could tell that Hannah was especially glad to have her brother close. The warm African sunshine and the familiar, vibrant, happy disposition of the Senegalese people were welcome refreshment after our gray weeks in Europe.

  But it did not take me long to realize that loneliness and the feeling of being adrift would soon set in once again, as they had in our hotel room in Calais. Within a few days it became clear to us that Nathaniel was settled and secure in his school and dorm setting and that prolonged sojourns with us in our temporary accommodations would only serve to disrupt his routine.

  Finding herself back in Africa and among familiar surroundings, Hannah began to talk almost daily about Nouakchott, and she clearly longed for her friends, school, and teachers back “home.” Seeing how happy Nathaniel was at Dakar Academy with his friends only served to make her long for her own familiar environment she had left behind.

  I spent many hours on the phone with our office in Nouakchott, assessing the state of our programs and trying to accurately determine the long-term security outlook. Many of our partners and volunteers in the poor communities where we worked were uncertain and waiting for a signal of World Vision’s intentions for the future. It was clear that the situation was still tense and uncertain for some of our expatriate staff as well, and the continued absence of their director did little to alleviate their angst. I worried deeply about my family. But I was also painfully aware of the traumatized staff as well as the communities we had left behind us in Mauritania.

  During those days in the apartment, I would often look up from the table or my bed and gaze at the bare walls devoid of any familiar pictures of family or bright paintings by Hélène. Knowing I did not belong there, I would be seized with a deep longing to be settled and for a sense of belonging; the gnawing sensation of being adrift would come crashing in once again. While languishing in the sparse bedroom with little to do one afternoon, I perused a tattered Newsweek magazine and came across a full-page insurance advertisement. Covering that page was a beautiful autumn picture of a modest, suburban home somewhere in the United States, and father and children were romping around among freshly raked leaves under the oak trees of the front lawn. I immediately burst into tears at this typical American scene and found myself crying out, Lord, why can’t I have this? Why can’t I live a simple, settled life in my home country? Was this all madness—this life of dragging my poor family from one destitute and dangerous corner of the world to the next? As I gazed at that picture with tears streaming down my face, my heart longed for normalcy, for an uncomplicated sense of belonging. At that point I truly felt like a foolish, wandering, wounded, global vagrant with no home and a suffering family in tow.

  But slowly things began to happen in our lives and hearts that brought fresh and needed perspective. We had noticed that some of the other apartment dwellers were Mauritanian. One morning after breakfast Hélène, Hannah, and I stopped at a table where three Mauritanian men sat and exchanged greetings. We told them, “We live and work in Mauritania too.” They immediately asked what agency I worked with, and no sooner had I replied than they asked if I had heard the news about the World Vision director and his daughter being shot. I mumbled that I had and eventually asked them what they thought about the situation.

  One of the men mentioned that the assailant had been caught, and when I asked what he thought would become of him, he silently drew his finger across his throat—a somber indication of the way in which he hoped the assailant would die. Hélène, Hannah, and I tried to politely hide our all-too-obvious revulsion at the notion of throat slitting. The senior man then spoke, “I do hope the World Vision director and his family will return to Mauritania. It was a terrible thing that happened, and the assailant’s actions do not represent the sentiments of most Mauritanians. We would welcome him back, and I am sure all Mauritanians would do everything in their power to assure his safety and that of his family.”

  I still had no intention of revealing my identity, but Hélène could not contain herself and blurted out, “Well, Messieurs, this is the director himself and this is our daughter Hannah!” The three men sat in stunned silence for a brief moment, mouths agape. Then suddenly they inundated us with questions and further assurances that all would be well should we decide to return. Finally the eldest man rose, warmly offered his good-bye, and said he had to be on his way for an appointment. As he walked away, one of the others asked, “Do you know who that man is?” When we replied that we did not, he said, “That is the Mauritanian president’s brother. Be assured, you will be in good hands if you return.”

  A few nights later I took Hannah on a father-daughter date to one of my favorite African restaurants in Dakar. A minstrel came to our table and asked Hannah her name. He then picked up his traditional harp (a West African kora) and began singing a ballad to Hannah. He was being spontaneous and obviously put the words together as he went along, but it was beautifully (if not prophetically) sung by this Muslim man and told the story of little Hannah returning to the Africa she loved. I sat there stunned, with tears in my eyes, as this man who knew nothing about us sang right into Hannah’s heart.

  As I tried to connect with my own mind and heart in those days in Dakar, I came to realize that nothing had changed for me with regard to Mauritania. I knew God had called us to serve this land and its people for an undetermined season of our lives. And I knew that he had asked us to love its people
. As we had done with every country in which we had lived and served, when Hélène and I were called to this place, we intentionally laid down our lives at the outset for God to do as he wished. We had counted the cost, and as far as our lives were concerned, they were his—a simple principle, but one that ran deep. We had grappled many times in years past with the reality that there is risk in a life of service. We knew that under his wings we could always find refuge in our times of need, wherever God led us. But as followers of Jesus we also knew that, as was said of Aslan the Lion in the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, “He isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you”—and in this truth I knew that I could find my rest, even in the most tumultuous of times.

  Hélène and I talked, prayed, and wept together often. Gradually it became increasingly clear to us that we both needed and wanted to go back to Mauritania. With all its challenges, risks, dust, and dirt, Mauritania was our home in this season of our lives.

  We also began to realize the potential impact on Hannah should we not return but choose rather to retreat back to the relative comfort and safety of the United States or Europe. She might spend her life fearful of ever returning to the places and peoples of the world she had come to love and trust. And we soon began to see that, rather than brusquely yanking Hannah out of all that was familiar, we needed to accompany her on her journey to recovery in the place where it had all started. We gradually came to the conclusion that as long as we could be relatively certain that we would not be stepping directly and foolishly back into harm’s way, we needed to go back and rebuild our lives and the lives of those we had left behind.