World-Wide Crisis
The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You
hear a little blurb about a little village in India where some villagers
have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before.
It's not influenza, but three or four fellows are dead, and it's kind
of interesting, and they're sending some doctors over there to
investigate it.
You don't think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church,
you hear another radio spot. Only they say it's not three villagers,
it's 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of
India, and it's on TV that night. CNN runs a little blurb; people are
heading there from the CDC in Atlanta because this disease strain has
never been seen before.
By Monday morning when you get up, it's the lead story. For it's not
just India; it's Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it,
you're hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as "the
mystery flu."
The President has made some comment that he and everyone are praying and
hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering,
"How are we going to contain it?" That's when the President of France
makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders.
No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this
thing has been seen. And that's why that night you are watching a
little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when a
weeping woman is translated from a French news program into English:
"There's a young man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery
flu." It has come to Europe.
Panic strikes. As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for
a week and you don't know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable
symptoms. And then you die.
Britain closes its borders, but it's too late. South Hampton,
Liverpool, North Hampton, and its Tuesday morning when the President of
the United States makes the following announcement: "Due to a national
security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been
canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I'm sorry. They cannot come
back until we find a cure for this thing."
Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear.
People are selling little masks for your face. People are talking about
what if it comes to this country, and preachers on Tuesday are saying,
"It's the scourge of God."
It's Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when
somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, "Turn on a radio, turn
on a radio." And while the church listens to a little transistor radio
with a microphonestuck up to it, the announcement is made. "Two women
are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu."
Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.
People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing
is working. California. Oregon. Arizona. Florida. Massachusetts.
It's as though it's just sweeping in from the borders.
And then, all of a sudden the news comes out. The code has been broken.
A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It's going to take the
blood of somebody who hasn't been infected, and so, sure enough, all
through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency
broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: "Go to your
downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That's all we ask of
you.
And when you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make
your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals." Sure enough,
when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there
is a long line, and they've got nurses and doctors coming out and
pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it.
Your wife and kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they
say, "Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be
dismissed and go home." You stand around scared with your neighbors,
wondering what in the world is going on, and that this is the end of the
world.
Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He's
yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And
your son tugs on your jacket and says, "Daddy, that's me."
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. "Wait a minute, hold
it!" And they say, "It's okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure.
We want to make sure he doesn't have the disease. We think he has got
the right type." Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and
nurses, crying and hugging one another -- some are even laughing. It's
the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor
walks up to you and says, "Thank you, sir. Your son's blood type is
perfect. It's clean, itis pure, and we can make the vaccine."
As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks,
people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying. But then the
gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, "May we see
you for a moment? We didn't realize that the donor would be a minor and
we need...we need you to sign a consent form."
You begin to sign and then you see that the number of pints of blood to
be taken is empty. "H-h-h-how many pints?" And that is when the old
doctor's smile fades and he says, "We had no idea it would be a small
child. We weren't prepared. We need it all." "But - but..." "You
don't understand. We are talking about the world here. Please sign. We
- we need it all -
we need it all!" "But can't you give him a transfusion?" "If we had
clean blood we would. Can you sign? Would you sign?" In numb silence
you do.
Then they say, "Would you like to have a moment with him before we
begin?" Can you walk back? Can you walk back to that room where he sits
on a table saying, "Daddy? Mommy? What's going on?" Can you take his
hands and say, "Son, your Mommy and I love you, and we would never ever
let anything happen to you that didn't just have to be. Do you
understand that?"
And when that old doctor comes back in and says, "I'm sorry, we've
-we've got to get started. People all over the world are dying." Can
you leave? Can you walk out while he is saying, "Dad? Mom? Dad? Why -
why have
you forsaken me?"
And then next week, when they have the ceremony to honor your son, and
some folks sleep through it, and some folks don't even come because they
go to the lake, and some folks come with a pretentious smile and just
pretend to care.
Would you want to jump up and say, "MY SON DIED! DON'T YOU CARE?"
Is that what He wants to say? "MY SON DIED. DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I
CARE?"
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