28 February 2019 | Stockholm, Sweden [Siri Bjerkan Karlsson]
“Siri, you should be working in development.” It was my uncle speaking. Odd Jordal started ADRA in Scandinavia and I was working as his secretary for one year, taking an extended gap between finishing school and starting university. I had just returned from two years working as a volunteer in Ghana, West Africa. I was 22 years old, about to get married and not very sure about the future.
In a way, it felt like a compliment, but I had made up my mind to head in a different direction. When growing up as a missionary child I had become very good friends with a nurse. I had been fascinated by her work at the little clinic in Kuyera, Shashemane, Ethiopia. Thus it was clear, at six years of age I knew what I would become. So whatever my uncle said, however much I enjoyed the work, I was going to work in health care!
And I did! For over 20 years I worked in health care in Norway, Sweden, and Africa. I did everything from normal nursing duties, teaching and being in charge of health care on a bigger scale while continuing to study and caring for what would eventually become a family of six.
I enjoyed my work and loved being involved in people’s lives when they were vulnerable and sick, being able to bring them comfort and hope for their future. But my missionary background was still there, tucked away in my mind. What more could I do?
In 2005 I made a choice. With encouragement from the church leadership in Sweden, I started working full-time for ADRA Sweden. Since then ADRA has been my life both in Sweden and in Uganda.
Working with ADRA has brought me face to face with so many people! Their stories have touched me, shaped me and made me more determined to do all in my power to alleviate poverty, lessen suffering and vulnerability and empower people to work on their own development. I am always impressed by people’s resilience in sometimes extremely challenging situations.
I have just returned from Yemen, traveling together with Martin Sjölander, our Emergency Coordinator. The first thing that hit us as we landed was a totally bombed out airport! Planes, helicopters and other vehicles strewn around the airport like toys, smashed, exploded or burnt!
No other planes but United Nations flights land and take off from the airport. The first night we heard bombers overhead. We could hear the thud of the bombs dropping, we could hear the blasts. The ADRA staff told us to open our windows a bit so that the glass would not break in case the blasts were close by. “But don’t worry, the ADRA office is in a safe area,” we were told. “They have our coordinates!”
The enemy has our coordinates. I was not sure that this was a reassuring thought!
The next day we met the ADRA staff and they joked about how they had to welcome us with fireworks! One of the staff had his windows shattered during the airstrikes! Unbelievable Resilience!
During the time we were in Yemen we saw some of the work that the huge ADRA Yemen office is doing – WASH (Water and Sanitation & Hygiene) projects, food and hygiene kit disbursements, psychosocial support, legal support, health care, agricultural training, and cash for work.
We see that there is food in Yemen, fresh bread in plenty! The problem is that people have not been given salaries for several years and of course there are areas in the country where help is not allowed in due to warring groups.
After four years of war, Cholera epidemics and starvation – people are tired! They don’t know what this war is about, they don’t care who wins. They just wish that someone, anyone, would win so that they can get back to peaceful living!
We interviewed several women who fled with their children to Sanaa from Hodeidah. They don’t want to go back and their children are already traumatized by the war. There is no food, no work and there are about four different groups that are fighting each other in the area. As aresult, we saw ADRA Yemen’s psychosocial counselors working around the clock!
I look at the people living through this war. Then I look at the people who are working to alleviate the pain. I am filled with admiration at the compassion shown, the energy involved in working for others, the quest for justice in legal issues that ADRA workers also are helping the IDPs with, and the love for humanity that I see in the work being done. I am humbled!
Why do I work with ADRA? Because of people! Those who are vulnerable and suffering and those who pour out their hearts to them in service. This is a true inspiration! This gives rich meaning to life!
But also because I have the opportunity to make a decision. I am not stuck in a warring country. With my passport, I can leave and travel to safer areas. Yet even in those “safer countries” I feel compelled to do what I can to support people who do not have that choice.
I feel very grateful that I have the privilege to be a part of this unbelievably important work!
This article first appeared in ADRA Europe News.
tedNEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Deana Stojković, associate editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ted.adventist.org
tedNEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division. Readers are free to republish or share this article with appropriate credit including an active hyperlink to the original article.
