Pointing to Christ, Ethics, Theology of Medicine, Mental Health, Priorities, Significance vs. Success, Advice for Short-Term Visitors, Seeing as God Sees
David: So today I'm talking with a pastor Benjamin. What's your full name and what your role at Kijabe Hospital?
Benjamin: My full name is Pastor Benjamin Kioko Mutuku. My role in Kijabe Hospital is being the staff chaplain in the department of chaplaincy, dealing with the staff in the hospital - spiritual, psychosocial needs.
David: I don't think this role exists, very much, in America. I don't think it's normal. Usually when people think of hospital chaplains, they think of what your teammates do - visiting with patients and visiting with families in crisis. But, a lot of your work is with staff members.
Benjamin: Yes, yes.
David: I assume probably a lot of that work is in crisis, maybe some of it is during peacetime.
Benjamin: Yeah, one of the main things that I think the hospital had in mind when they advertised for the position, was the realization that the staff get so much fatigued. While we have chaplains who talk to patients and chaplains who are assuring in relatives and praying with them, no one does that with the staff. And so that's how the role came up.
Coming in, it was interesting, it was one of those difficult things, that you don't know that exactly where to start. It was a new office. I came in with my senior, Reverend Ndivo, who was coming in as a manager. For both of us, it was new.
What year was that?
Benjamin: It was 2014 and we were...
David: So, we came (to Kijabe) together. . .
Benjamin: Yes, we are growing old.
Yes, so the has been several years of a lot of the experience. I think I have learned a lot being in in this office
David: Maybe it's such an obvious question is that it’s silly to ask, because I know most people listening this are medical, but what are the challenge or challenges for being a staff, a medical person, in this environment?
Benjamin: One of the greatest challenges is trying to understand people in their context. A lot of times the things that people struggle with at work, they carry them from home. So, its. . .that people have baggage they're carrying, and that affects their productivity.
Secondly, us being a Christian institution there's always the question of how we integrate my faith and break the sacred/secular divide.
My faith and a profession. How integrate them? So that I'm a Christian throughout and not just one in a while
David: Yes, you're not here for eight hours being one thing and then home being another. I feel like this got me.
Something I had to do for friends of Kijabe, they wanted a donation to be used only for secular purposes, but there's not a delineation between secular and faith-based in Kijabe,
A CT scan is not a Christian CT scan or a non-Christian CT scan. It's a CT scan, and its part of the whole process of giving somebody healing. There's not such a clear delineation between somebody's body and their mind and their spirit.
Benjamin: Exactly.
David: And that's what you guys are trying to address.
Benjamin: Sure. A Christocentric approach life is ideally the mentality that we are looking at. That every staff who comes to Kijabe hospital realizes that everything we do, we want to do it to the glory of God.
Yet, they come with marital issues. They have the baggages of relationships, they have baggages of families breaking up and economic issues. A lot of times you meeting people here, and you're asking yourself, "So we exactly where do I start?”
I think one of the refreshing facts around my experience, I realize that I am not and end. I have the responsibility of pointing them to Christ.
That makes the difference, and I think that has helped my work be a bit easier. Someone comes with an issue that is affecting their productivity, affecting their delivery. I want to point them to Christ as a solution to their issues.
Another person who comes - the doctors, nurses have had a bad outcome and they need debriefing. I’ll need to come in and help with debriefing them and also supporting them, psycho-socially, psycho-spiritually. All that has been happening around on this office and it's quite an interesting. . . adventure, I’ll call it.
David: So, pretend I'm a doctor and I just made a mistake, or I have done something that led to a bad outcome. What would you say to me?
I would want you first to appreciate your limitation as a person, as, actually, a gift that points you to God. You realize that you are not one who owns all knowledge, it is owned by God. I think one of the most important things is when you give your best, at times it's not even the best there is, that can ever be given. Even sometimes, your best will not always be the best.
I want to help you come to that realization and I want to walk you through your mind. What exactly is going through your mind? What did you expect from yourself? And do you think that you had greater expectations of yourself than you can actually do, or did you rely on the knowledge of God. Are you getting to a place of self-blame? I just want to walk you out of that thought process to a place you can actually say that, it's okay, at times, to not know and be okay with it.
I think what I want to bring out of your mind is the fact that you are not the solution to people's lives. You are a vessel that God uses. Together as you are doing the work you are doing to help people, you are pointing to His sufficiency, not your own.
David: Wow. That’s really, really important. That was actually a huge part of Arianna’s journey before we even came here, was getting some advice that the control that somebody has, as a doctor, is limited. They can do their best they can do the extent of their knowledge, but this person does not actually hold the keys to life and death.
Benjamin: That's right, exactly.
David: Sometimes a person does their best and it doesn't work out, and sometimes they make mistakes and the patient is fine.
Benjamin. That’s the truth. Exactly. Yes. You make mistakes that you are really sure are actually mistakes you're wondering how this patient is surviving. And they’re doing very well. The sovereignty of God out of the whole situation stands out.
David: Alright, so imagine I’m. . . who should I be?
This time, I want to be a new College of Health Sciences clinical officer. Let’s say I just finished my clinical officer training and I’m hired on at Kijabe Hospital.
Who do you want me to be in five years? And then what steps? Or how do you guys get involved in moving somebody toward what you want them to be?
Benjamin: One of the great designs that I’ve realized works is that every person who comes in, we make the assumption that they are growing Christian, because they have professed their faith as Christians before they come here. And, so we want to build them, to see the theology of medicine and understand it.
Now, I call this ideally, practical theology, where you're trying to apply theory into daily issues. And so, even for journalism, for anything that you get to do, I believe there is a theology, there's God’s perspective of that. And so, there must be a theology for security. There must be a theory for all the disciplines, including clinical medicine. Ideally, we want to help people learn, “What are the basics of theology around suffering, and what is God’s perspective on suffering?” Right there we see it in Genesis all the way through Revelation. We want these people to see the world in the context of scripture rather than doing it the other way ‘round.
We want people to have that mindset, so we take people through discipleship that helps them learn their place before God and learn who they are and how to grow in their faith, but have very important conversations is all this goes on, conversations that include:
Why do people suffer?
Why do good people go through hard times?
Why is it theologically correct for people to actually expect bad times and hard times?
You want this person to be able to see the world in the eyes of God. You bring enough disciplines into it. You have ethics, you have Christian ethics, you have theology, you have medicine and you're trying to see all that in the face of “what does the Bible say about all these things?”
So that, at the end of the day, when the clinician sits back and they're watching and they're looking at a patient five years after, they have all this information amalgamated in their minds and they are able to process. This person, beyond the cure and everything, they need to hear about the love of Christ. That’s the big goal, the big goal we have.
David: It's interesting, the theology of medicine. I've been thinking about this week, this week, because I don't... I think, again, in the secular versus sacred, I think some of this is lost. A lot of the framework for medicine is based off of Christian theology of suffering, of compassion. The story of the Good Samaritan is pivotal in medicine. We definitely practice this in Kijabe, right? Anybody who walks through the door, we care for and treat, no matter their background, no matter where they came from. It’s the idea of loving our neighbor, whoever our neighbor is.
That's a fundamental, fundamental aspect of medicine, that you treat without judgement. You don't withhold mercy from anybody. I do think that's a concept that emerged out of Christian tradition.
Benjamin: Yeah, one of the main things that Christ talks about throughout. . . and it's interesting, when he's talking about what is going to be happening when he's separating the goats and the sheep. he's talking about, at the end of the day, he’s going to be saying, “I was sick, and you never cared for me. I was in jail, you never came. . .” The ministry of mercy and compassion. Out of that, he’s going to tell people, “depart from me ye workers of iniquities.” It’s very interesting that he gives that story to talk about how he's going to separate, which means that these things are very important. Not just to the world that we are in, but in the Christian faith, they are a manifestation of who we really are.
If Christ is in us, then we will desire mercy. If Christ is in us, if he’s the one working in us, we will give grace, even when it doesn’t seem logical. We will do more, and Christ will work in us to achieve this in us. That’s very, very, very important.
David: That's fascinating, and I think there's something so compelling about that. There’s such a divide between what people say they believe and then any kind of good action. There are so many examples of people talking and talking and talking, then doing bad things. But then I see these people come here and I think it's very refreshing for them to realize, "Oh wow, there are people who are actually just doing things motivated by faith.” Rather than. . .faith is used as a weapon, oftentimes. But here, it's used as, for lack of a better term, a bandage. It’s used to bring healing and its used to bring wholeness.
Benjamin: Two things, I’m thinking at the moment about the source of morality and absolute morality. One of the writers of African theology talks about Africans being notoriously religious. You know, even before the missionaries came these guys would just walk through the forest and find this very big tree and someone decides that, “if someone can make such a big tree, then there must be God, and this must be his home.” And so, they will start making shrines around such places. And so, they believe that there is a God who is the source of morality, right and good and all that. On the other side, I think we have a lot of relativism that has come out. What do you believe is a source of morality, why you do the good that you do? Are you're doing good because you believe in the right thing to do? Or you doing good so that good is done to you?
And so, a lot of the people who come here, including Mslims. . .there is actually a narrative among the S_mali, and most of the M_slims who come around, say that “God lives in Kijabe.” They believe that the Christians in Kijabe are actually Christians who manifest the living God.
We usually have, in the waiting areas, some preachings that are given, and the M_slim family members that have been keeping a relative here realize at the pastor is supposed to come to preach there around 12:30 has not come, so they go to look for him.
They will find him and say, “I did have not see you today. What happened? We are waiting for you. We're waiting for you to come and share.”
That just shows you there is a great expectation of the people who come here. There is something very fascinating about Kijabe. So how better would you do that then support the staff who are supposed to be the vessels that God is supposed to use.
David: It's interesting, I've had patients say that to me before. I’ll say, "Why are you here?” And they say, “Because you will pray for me. Doctors here will pray for me.”
That’s a big deal.
Benjamin: I have been involved in interviews and a lot of people keep talking about that. “I've had heard about Kijabe, even before you start a surgery, they pray for you, they encourage you.” I want to be part of such a team. Keeping and encouraging such culture is one of our greatest responsibilities.
David: You answered one of my questions - How do you endure? How do you personally walk through challenging situations? It sounds like your (approach) is just realizing this is not, “This is not my responsibility to fix it.”
“It’s my responsibility to, to listen and share and to...but to point. . .
Benjamin: to Christ. I like music though. Oftentimes in the evening, I go find my guitar and write. I write things that looked like abstract, but I know what they mean. Just trying take it out.
I think you'll come through difficult times and you get to a place, where you're totally alone in the world, and just to cry at just take it out when you feel like it's just too much.
One of the things that we need, a lot in the hospital is a clinical psychologist. We have faced a lot of our people or students who are in need of that.
We’ve tried to collaborate with guys who are able to manage such people. And I've gotten to the point where I think, I think I should just do it. I also need that to understand exactly, “How do I manage in all these things, and how do I also help the staff?” We are getting to places where people can get disorders. Mental health is something that nothing much has been done around. And so, one of my greatest goals this year is to heighten awareness around the mental health.
David: When you say nothing is done around (mental health), that’s in Kenya, not just in Kijabe,
Benjamin: I don't know the statistics right now, but we hardly have a Clinical Psychologist here.
So, you'd actually give advice you'd share with people, and you cannot manage you cannot prescribe, you can’t do anything.
So, we end up sending them to Kenyatta... Some of them are students, some are our staff. I wish I knew more.
I keep reading much about that. I've been reading much about theodicy, ethics and trying to use all that knowledge. I think I've got into that place where I just need to just go ahead and do it... Because I think it would add great value, not just for the staff, but we also get even patients we get patients who come having tried suicide and you can already tell that they are actually in disorders - borderline disorders and all kinds of disorders, potential and you feel you don't have the capacity to deal with this.
David: That’s an important framework that should not be a given here (in Kenya) because I think in a lot of churches, answers have always been spiritual to mental health problems. Maybe they are sometimes, but a lot of them are an actual medical condition that that I need a medical answer. That's not to the detriment of something spiritual but it's just a realization of "This is something happening in somebody's brain. . .”
Benjamin: And it's a process that needs to be worked on.
Yeah, so this actually the... What has happened to me, there is a feeling that is the belief that is attached to it, but there is actual pain that needs to be processed. At times that whole process is ignored. At the end of the day, the rates of suicide are going really high. At the end of the day, we see a lot of depression getting to people, and they don’t know that it is even depression. So, hopefully, if God gives us the grace, we would be able to heighten the dissemination around such issues. People should not keep to themselves, there is actually a way that we can deal with our issues.
David: It is something that will happen, just not soon enough, I'm sure. I've heard with the new interns the government is requiring them to do some psychiatry rotations. The problem is I think there's only three psychiatrists in the country. What do we have, 47 million people? It’s the chicken and the egg problem.
Benjamin: It’s a big problem. I know every theologian cannot be a medic, but we can do what we can with what is at our disposal. And I think the most important thing is for me every day to go home feeling that I gave my best.
David: Kabisa. You said a word, a minute ago I wanted to come back to a seminary word, theodicy. What is theodicy?
Benjamin: The concept behind theodicy is the theology of suffering.
In it carries a lot. It carries God’s justice, it carries God’s righteousness, it’s about how God has spoken around something through scripture. What light are we supposed to cast on it? Our worldview as Christians. I think that it's one of the most important things, I think should be every Christian institution.
David: I'm trying to think about my own perspective on suffering.
I’ll be curious what you think of this. Where I’ve personally come to is: I will never fully understand why, but the suffering is very real, but our call to action seems fairly clear. Our call to action as people of faith, is to step into it, is to go towards suffering with whatever gifts or talents or abilities, or resources to. . .
Benjamin: to make it bearable.
David: Yeah, that's a good way to phrase it - and try to carry somebody's burdens. Yes, because there are many things we can't eradicate, but presence is a big deal in suffering.
Benjamin: It is.
I have a friend of mine who is an atheist. We went to high school together, and those are actually some of the things that made him walk away from the faith. He believes that religion is the cause of all pain that is in the world.
Scripturally, we see a different cause of pain. We see sin entering into a magnificent world. At this point a lot is happening against humanity that was never supposed to be. But whose choice was it? Who is responsible for the pain and suffering? It's actually more of a wage that we’re getting, of course, because the wages of sin is death. And sin entered all the way since Adam. When we are looking at pain, our human minds teach us to look for someone to blame.
You meet a lot of patients who have found the person is they want to blame.
"You can’t say that God cares about me when I lost my ninth pregnancy."
"There’s no way you can say God cares about me when I have never owned a child that alive."
"I’ve undergone 30 surgeries, how do you say that God loves me? What is it that I did against him?"
So, there’s a lot of pain that we are going through. The greatest premise that we need to be around is the fact that we are in a fallen world.
Evil and pain happens because we are part of a fallen world. At times we think we are not responsible for it, but think about Adam and Eve. It’s very easy for us to throw the blame, but given the chance, I don’t think we would have done better.
David: There was a really good line in a new song that just came out recently. It's re-written as if Adam had said... “Eve, put the apple back on the tree, we have everything we need.”
I feel like the answer there is no answer. Yeah, the lady who lost a ninth pregnancy, that's a perfect example. What she needs in that moment is not a sermon, she needs somebody to love her and to say, this is to say You, you didn't cause this. It’s not a fault with you. It happened.
Benjamin: It happens and it could have happen to anyone. We are in a fallen world, we're in the presence of pain.
David: Yeah, and the opportunity to love somebody through that, is probably the only way for them to experience some kind presence of God, I feel like, in that in that bottom, lowest situation.
Benjamin: Exactly, just that presence, the ministry of presence, as they call it. And also trying to listen to them knowing that you are not called the answer to every question they have.
God knows how to answer his questions.
David: Ooh, that’s a good one
Benjamin: It may be today, maybe two years after, 20 years after. . .Eventually, he knows when and how to say it best.
David: I think that's the thing I'm struck by with this conversation, you're overwhelming trust. You have a huge level of trust. That’s a big deal.
Benjamin: I think the one who's been forgiven more, loves more. I have been this guy who's grown up through my teenage life - and I was a real teenager. I have seen God walk with me. In times God has taught me lessons that are really, really painful...the hard way. Talking about my life, the last 34 years, it tells you I am growing old. It's been a work that I have seen God involved in, throughout.
For instance, this past year, we have had a lot of issues around spirituality and mental health, just trying to walk with these people made me feel I need first to halt have been doing my Master’s degree in leadership and management, and see if I can do a clinical medicine so that it answers the questions are asking and helps people deal with their real issue. And so, at some point, I get to that part where if it's not adding value to the people I am serving, that I don't need it.
David: That’s actually a big deal to put a professional thing on hold for the people you're doing.
Actually, I had a similar experience this year, I was coming for an education program that I think would be really good. But I had to stop and think, “Is this actually helping me help the people I care about, is it helping me serve the people I here to serve?”
At the end of the day, it would be fun, it would be interesting, but as a distraction for my actual work. And I need to stop, and I need to focus. For me, actually, a lot of times, focus in just having time and energy to be available and be present. Too walk around the hospital and at the run into somebody, to have a conversation, and connect.
Benjamin: And that brightens people’s lives greatly. There’s nothing great as someone who doesn’t even know me or where I come from, but they actually care about me. I don't think there's a greater way to point people to Christ.
I remember a guy who went to seminary, ahead of me. After class, if he didn't have a class, and he was not in the library, he would be away evangelizing around the community. Throughout, that was his life. And so, we called him evangelist. Three months after his graduation, he passed on. It was a great testimony to everyone, because everyone felt that he has done his part.
I mean, he put his priorities right. Getting academic accolades is great and getting a lot of them, it gives a lot of titles and makes you feel important. But you have not realized your importance until you have lived a significant life. I think significance is about what value you add to people. That’s the most important bit, and I think God quickens our hearts towards this.
David: That would be a great billboard, significance is what value you add to people. Significance is not what you get, it's what you give.
Benjamin: It’s what you give. I heard John Maxwell once talk about significance. Significance is the place you leave legacy around. Success is when you add to yourself. But, significance is when you add value to others. You actually leave a legacy at significance, not at success. Success has all been about you. Significance has been about what you have been to others.
Christ, I think, looking throughout his life, if we choose to be Christocentric, it’s about what we give, not what we save for ourselves.
So, at the end of the day, the question is “How do I become more effective and efficient in what I give, so that it has a lasting influence in people's lives?”
David: Wow. That's really wise the way you just said that, “How do I become effective at that?”
Because it's not just to give until there's nothing left of you. That can be selfish, “I'm just giving, giving, giving, until I have nothing left and look at me.”
But giving in a way that actually helps the people you're trying to serve might be different from abjectly pouring yourself out in a not effective way. There's still logic and still a lot of purpose to it. Actually, I think giving a healthy ways. . .sometimes you're pouring yourself out completely, but I think if it's in line with your gifts and in line with what God has given you, it can be very fulfilling personally also.
Benjamin: That’s how you find that is a should at the end of the day, that's how you find the satisfaction in a calling. That’s how you find peace. You may actually not carry a lot home. At times, you may not even have enough for yourself and family. But the fact that you actually are living your purpose is great.
Christ was purposeful in everything that he did, including the last breath he gave out. He was purposeful. I think that's the calling.
David: How do you mean, the last breath he gave it out?
Benjamin: It was all to the glory of the Father. He first talked to the Father and said, into your hands I hand over my breath. He didn’t breathe last purposelessly. He breathed it out into the hands of God the Father, so that God would use it to bring redemption around here.
David: Okay, this goes back to seminary also. I didn’t go to seminary, I narrowly escaped.
But, the Hebrew word for breath and spirit or the same word, right? Sometimes it's translated as spirit, but it's the same thing. “I give you my life, I give you my spirit, I give you my breath,”
Benjamin: Yes, interesting. It all goes back to the fact that God created man and put in him. . .what breath? The life-giving breath. It came from God. Whatever comes from God has to go back to him in value. God is a good investor. He does his thing wisely. So, when Christ is giving back his life to the Father, he gives it back with a world saved. . .a whole redeemed world. Ideally, it is finished. Christ gives it back to God full of value.
I think everything that we give, even smiles, should be purposeful, should be right from the heart, should have the concept of bringing good fruit back to God.
David: Wow, that’s amazing.
One other question I have for you.
A lot of people who would listen to this are people who come out of short-term visitors, some people who come into the hospital. Is there anything that they should know just about what it's like to interact with hospital staff as somebody coming in from outside for a short time?
Benjamin: I think that that's a very important question. Because a lot of people come to Christian institutions thinking that it's next to heaven. They forget that these are normal people who have their own struggles. Each one of us are different places when it comes to sanctification. All of us are growing. And so, one of the most important bits is - they should always come with the question of “What value can I add to the lives of these dear ones. And what value can they add into my life?”
I think that's one of the greatest questions that they can keep asking throughout.
David: That's a great perspective. Actually, it’s making two assumptions. It’s both, I have something to offer, and I have something to learn. Having both of those attitudes simultaneously, I think that's a really good attitude toward life in general.
Benjamin: It builds trust amongst people, because people cannot work together unless there is trust. But with that openness to learn open heartedness.
As for someone who's coming here, you want to carry a very objective (view) that this people all made in the image of God as I am in the image of God. That means there is a lot for me to take from them, there is a lot for me to take from them in terms of learning. So, it’s mutual, and that calls for trust.
Trust has to be from a very objective kind of understanding.
Also, the people who are on the receiving end, need to realize that these people are not coming here because they have everything they need, they are also looking for opportunities to serve. These are a great foundation for them to carry the right perspective.
A great question to ask is, “Why has God opened this opportunity for me?”
Because probably it's a smile I need to share with someone, and that may be all. It may be “insignificant,” but it may mean everything to someone.
David: I feel like there's really, really great value in noticing people.
There are these universal principles, right? Somebody being noticed and feeling valued. It's just huge for somebody to think, “Wow, this person from, whether it's from Kimende or whether it's from Atlanta, this person is genuinely interested in who I am.”
Exactly, I think that is such, that's a powerful. . .
Benjamin: Yes, it’s quite an intentional approach to people, and I think that's how God wanted to be for us.
When I'm talking about death, a lot of times, I ask people what is death, according to them. I think death is a separation of the physical and non-physical. I’m dark right, and you are white, right? But, that person speaking in me, have you ever met him, leave alone this body? You have never seen him. Are you able to tell his complexion? Do you know his height? Let’s assume you’re a surgeon, where does he hang inside this body? I don’t think you will find his home, I don’t think you are able to see him. This is what we call a “tent,” and there’s a real person.
We have tribes, different ethnic groups, we have different citizenship and all that. But that person speaking in me is the human person that I am. The truth is, that person probably has no complexion, no gender, that is the real me. If we can learn to look for that person in every person we meet, then we would realize that people are dignified, and people are the same. At the end of the day that is the person who God breathed in this body and he lived. At the end of the day, that is the image of God in us.
We will learn to see beyond complexions, we’ll learn to see beyond tribes. We would learn to see as God sees, and that’s wisdom.
David: Wow, thanks Benja! That’s a good way to close.