From “Reviving the Golden Rule: How the Ancient Ethic of Neighbor Love Can Heal the World” by Andrew DeCort
Eyob (Amharic for “Job”) was born in southern Ethiopia. As a small child, he had fallen into an open cooking fire in his parent’s dwelling, and his head was badly burned. Sadly, his wound was never properly treated. Over the years, Eyob’s wound worsened, and his parents removed him from school because the bleeding crater on the back of his head became so putrid. Eyob was seen as shameful to his community – as an other. As such, he was forced to hide his suffering in the shadows and didn’t receive the medical care he so desperately needed.
Eventually, Eyob’s suffering became so severe that his parents put him on a pickup truck and sent him to Addis. They told him to beg for help or die. And that’s exactly how I met him: wandering the streets alone with an oozing head wound in excruciating pain.
When Eyob approached our table, I was wrestling with the meaning of my faith and the practice of neighbor love. Being expelled from my church and commuting through Mexico Square had acutely expanded my awareness of othering. After hearing the voice of Jesus like never before in my life, I felt responsible to take him to a local hospital and advocate for him to receive the care he urgently needed.
My friends and I fought for Eyob’s life over the next several months with the help of international and local doctors. Those countless days with Eyob in the hospital were some of the most meaningful and joyful of my life. I discovered that he was full of love and brilliantly gifted. Whenever we brought him food and gifts, he would immediately start sharing them with the other children beside him. Laughter filled the burn ward.
Eyob’s dream was to become a pastor and professor who could teach hope and love for people in pain. This too was my dream. I learned that this “other” was anything but unrelated or less than myself. He was a precious diamond, full of complex pain and precious worth. In my countless hours with Eyob, I experienced what bell hooks observed: “I know no one who has embraced a love ethic whose life has not become joyous and more fulfilling. The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false.”
Still, after several grueling surgeries, skin grafts, and months of rehab, Eyob was diagnosed with brain cancer. Despite the doctor’s best efforts, his cancer could not be treated. We helped Eyob return to his family in the countryside, and he died in early 2011 at age fourteen.
I will never understand why Eyob, so gentle and full of love, had to endure such horrific suffering throughout his short life. But what drills into me is that Eyob’s suffering and death were preventable. For more than cancer, othering killed Eyob. He was born into one of the most Christianized areas in his country, abounding with churches and evangelism. And yet, othered as he was, no one stopped and helped him for over a decade.