Build and Restore International (BRI) invites you to join us in Mexico. This will be an unforgettable experience. We will participate in a lifestyle center building project, evangelism, community outreach, and health seminars. This mission trip will have multiple opportunities to serve and minister to others. As always, mission trips require a desire to glorify God, teamwork, hard work, and safety. We ask that these values be considered as you make a decision to join us.

The metal doors slid open and I stepped aside as a nurse and security officer rolled the gurney off the elevator. On it lay a lifeless form, encapsulated in a white body bag. The only identifying mark was the small yellow tag with the deceased’s name on it. They passed by, and I boarded the elevator, its doors closing behind me. I felt the vibrations of the hydraulics as I ascended. It took only a moment before the blue number lit up, indicating I had reached my floor. As I stepped off, I noticed a nurse pushing her patient’s bed onto the neighboring elevator, chatting with them as the doors sealed shut. It’s hard to articulate in words the striking contrast of the last few moments. In less than a minute, life and death had rolled past me in a vivid reality check that one’s life can change in an instant. As I walked back to the emergency room to care for my patients, the significance of that moment began to sink in.

Six hours later, Trauma Room 3 was a buzz of activity. Like bees in a hive, nurses and doctors swarmed in as a 28-year-old’s life hung in the balance. She had already gone into cardiac arrest once, only a couple minutes prior, but had spontaneously come around before we had a chance to intervene. However, the danger was far from over. I slapped on the defibrillator pads as the incessant beeping of the alarms reminded us of the gravity of the situation. Her heart was reverting back to a lethal rhythm once again.

“She has a shockable rhythm!” the charge nurse called out. “Everyone clear!”

“Clear,” we echoed back as we moved away from the stretcher.

The monitor showed pulseless ventricular tachycardia, a rhythm incapable of life. She was, in all technicality, dead.

“Shocking!” In a split second 300 joules of electricity slammed her body.

“Begin CPR…” the command came. Immediately starting compressions, I could feel her small frame buckle under the pressure. 1,2,3… I pressed hard and fast. At that moment in time, her life was in my hands. “She is too young to die,” I thought, as I continued to manually pump blood through her body. Yet, despite my opinion, there she lay — lifeless. 

Then, all at once, her eyes flickered and her heart began to beat again. A strong radial pulse indicated that her heart was doing its job on its own. I dismounted from the bed and took a moment to catch my breath. Just like that, it was over. We had done our job, and she lay there talking to another nurse. The entire ordeal from shocking her to the return of spontaneous circulation was less than two minutes. Twice that day I was faced with both death and life. Standing by the elevators early that evening, I saw the world’s mortality data in real time, and in Trauma Room 3, at a moment of precision, I witnessed statistics, science, and medicine converge to a common point, despite the odds. What took place in Room 3 that night was a textbook story, but rarely does theory and reality meet and create a perfectly structured event.

I stepped away from bed to give the other medical personnel room to work, my body still recovering from the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins. The human tendency in that moment was to claim this woman’s life as a victory of our highly skilled team. We had worked hard to give her a second chance at life, and now she had it. Yet, despite the experience and knowledge this room represented, I knew in my heart that her life had never been in our hands, but God’s alone. Mercifully, He had granted her a second chance and had used us to accomplish His plan.

Driving home that morning, I contemplated the last 12 hours of work, and a theme began to emerge from the ricocheting thoughts of my mind. It echoed the blunt fact that no one is immune to death and it can happen at any age and any time. While we may think we can hide under the cloak of youth, the only guarantee we have is the here and now. The ER has a way of shaking you out of your naiveté and giving you a hard dose of reality. You learn that one’s life can be gone in an instant — ending as quickly as it began. Thus, every rhythmic heartbeat, the gentle thump of a palpable pulse, and the silent rise and fall of your chest is a precious gift from God.

Despite my sinfulness, God still grants me life. Every breath I take is proof there is a God. Had my life circumstances been different, who is to say it couldn’t have been me on the stretcher that night? Death doesn’t choose favorites and life throws us curve balls we never predict. However, even in my most destitute form, I am a living testimony to who God is. Look past me and you will see God’s mercy, long-suffering, grace, abundant love, patience, protection, and guidance — a list of attributes dwarfed by the feebleness of our earthly languages. King David put it beautifully, “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD” (Psalm 150:6, NKJV). As Christians, may our motto be, “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8, NKJV).