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Pakistan
It’s hard to look back nearly four years and in a sense drag up thoughts and feelings that have finally been processed and mostly laid to rest. But in writing this article it is good to realise that as a family we have all come out the other side of a terrorist experience and still have no doubt that serving the Lord in a difficult place, even with a difficult ending, was the right thing to do.
What is the impact of terrorism on a mission family? It tears you from your friends, your home, your job, and your identified calling by God. It leaves you questioning, hurt and angry. It leaves you with a deep sense of loss and it takes a long time to recover.
Terrorism had two bites at our work and lives in Pakistan.
The first bite came after September 11th, 2001 when all expatriates were evacuated in two days. Packing and leaving in a hurry certainly sorts out your priorities – family, photos and a few treasures are all that are important. Back in New Zealand, we worked through the impact of that event on us and came to the point where we felt it was right to go back to Pakistan and continue with our work and lives there. It was not an easy decision but it was one that we felt at peace with.
The reality was that life had changed from that of pre-September 11th. People were more cautious, security was increased at home and work, large gatherings of expatriates were restricted especially after grenade attacks on a Christian hospital and church, and this affected our corporate worship. Much later, after we had left Pakistan a second time, I realised that in the background of our lives, fear had been a constant companion for me, often felt as a churning in my stomach when I awoke each morning. However, in saying this, I also acknowledge that our return was an encouragement to the people we worked with and our local friends and God certainly encouraged and sustained us as we handed our fears over to Him.
The second bite that terrorism took at our lives came on 5th August 2002. On that day our three children aged 17, 15 and 12, along with 140 other children and staff of Murree Christian School, huddled in classrooms and offices while terrorists attacked. The sound of the firing of automatic weapons and the fear and concern about the safety of their siblings and friends elsewhere in the school is something our children will probably never forget. As parents we are thankful that some of the safety precautions put in place after September 11th prevented the terrorists finding the children, but six people died that day, one a good Pakistani friend of our son.
Despite the terrorists’ careful plans, we know that God intervened in miraculous ways. He prevented the terrorists from arriving five minutes earlier during break-time when children would have been swarming outside. He protected the lives of children and staff by not allowing the men to see any of the 140 people hidden in classrooms. He allowed inclement weather so the classes were not outside. He confounded the men into not carrying out further plans of destruction with their grenades and He enabled children to hear His angels singing in the rafters of the High School building during the shooting. These things we all treasure and store in our memories as wonderful examples of God’s miraculous intervention.
One of the impacts of terrorism is that it can undermine one’s sense of personal safety. We never thought that anyone would attack a place where innocent children live and study and yet the terrorists crossed that psychological barrier. We thought our children’s school was a safer place than our place of work elsewhere in the country and yet the school was attacked first and on the following day, a Christian hospital which served both Christians and Muslims was attacked with grenades. The following day we also had to shift out of our summer home of 11 years as it was being “watched” and was considered a vulnerable target. We were reminded afresh and made acutely aware of our vulnerability and dependence on God – not a bad thing, but still difficult to adjust to when brought about in such a sudden and brutal manner.
Following the attack, the school closed and later relocated to Thailand for two years until its reopening in 2005. We, however, made the decision to return permanently to our home country of New Zealand. Our place of work in Pakistan was in an already volatile area and we didn’t want to put the lives of our Pakistani colleagues and students further at risk with our “Western” presence. We had already hurriedly packed up our Murree home and said tearful farewells to neighbours, school staff and friends of 11 years and then had two days under high security to do the same in our place of work.
Back in New Zealand in the months following our return, some debriefing and trauma counselling continued on from that provided in the school immediately after the attack. However, nightmares, poor sleeping patterns, heightened awareness of danger, jumpiness with sudden sounds, tearfulness, anger, difficulty with concentration and other symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder were evident to varying degrees in our children.
As parents, we needed to work through and overcome a sense of guilt that our children were suffering in this way, as well as deal with the grief of our own losses. This was not always easy, as the need to settle into a new life in NZ often meant we put on hold some of our own processing of everything. Prayer, loving and supportive family members, friends and home church all helped, but it is very difficult for others to truly empathise and understand the impact of such an event.
As we look back over the three years since that unplanned, hurried departure, it was probably the grief of leaving homes, school, a wonderfully satisfying job, friends and a country we loved, that had a greater effect on us than the terror of the attack itself. It was our home for 11 years and our children had grown up there for the majority of their lives. I don’t believe “time heals all”, but time is needed to heal. Our experiences haven’t dampened our enthusiasm for mission. Pakistan is still close to our hearts. Soon all three children will have had reunions with their class fellows. Two of them want to eventually return to the Two-Thirds world to work. All three say despite the difficult finish to our time in Pakistan, they wouldn’t change their growing up there for anything. We continue to pray for our friends in Pakistan and God’s work there.
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