And what are the chances of success?
I brought the sore throat with me from Peru. And after the lecture in the Black Forest on Friday evening, I’m actually pretty much exhausted vocally. Saturday lunchtime. I call my wife Tina in Curahuasi. She can hardly talk because she’s just as sick as I am. I would love to impose an immediate curfew on her, but I’ve known her long enough to know that she wouldn’t listen to me. The car is packed and in a few moments she wants to drive over the mountains to Abancay with other volunteers to carry out a medical mission in the prison. Hm, if my wife is so tough, I can’t go to bed a wimp.
Two hours later, I reach a parish in Karlsruhe. Market Count Karl III was allowed to rest here in the 18th century, but unfortunately not me today. The laptop is wired up and I use a microphone to make myself halfway understood by the audience. Even the corvids caw and have a right to live. This realization gives me courage.
Lots of questions are asked and the engine of my car howls 15 minutes too late. The next stop in Lörrach is crucial for headhunter Klaus. I step on the gas and make it to the town at the foot of the Black Forest shortly after 6 pm. The phone rings. A young doctor – my interviewer – has arrived. After a three-hour train journey, she will receive the job offer of a lifetime from me. I want to say something into the receiver. In vain. It’s super embarrassing, strange sounds come out of my mouth. But she probably understands that I’ll turn up somehow. Anyone who can press a phone button isn’t dead yet.
The place is a parish in the city. The pastor makes us a cup of tea and I give him credit for that. And again I boot up my laptop. It’s a tentative attempt to make an exciting story in Peru appealing to the young doctor from the south. She has exactly the specialist we urgently need. But unfortunately I can’t offer her anything. No above-average salary, no generous vacation arrangements and not even a safe and luxurious environment. My offer consists of the position of a missionary doctor with such a huge loss of salary that it makes your head spin. She sat on the train for hours for this madness and will drive home across the Alps that night after our interview. Headhunter Klaus is indeed empty-handed and empty-pocketed.
But there is always a glimmer of hope. The medical specialist with international experience wondered for a long time whether God, and therefore the meaning of life, could really exist. Some miraculous events in her life prompted her to fully reckon with God. “I’ll think about it and pray!” The colleague tells me. “Imagine,” I reply, “when I left Karlsruhe, I asked the members of the church congregation to do the same. To pray for our meeting. And really hard. Because we need you in Peru more than you can imagine!”
Around 9 p.m., I take her to the station and head north. By half past twelve, I’m back at the starting point of my journey. The small attic apartment in Wiesbaden’s Westend is cold and uncomfortable. I immediately call my wife. But I can’t understand her. I can clearly hear that her neck hurts like a grater after the prison visit from over 10,000 kilometers away. She probably feels the same as me. Because at least when it comes to my sore throat, I can keep up with her today. “We have to go to bed straight away!” For once, my wife and I are in agreement.
I receive a message from the doctor via WhatsApp. She’s sitting on the train somewhere in the heart of the Alps. “Thank you for your stories despite angina and a lost voice!” She texts politely and nicely. But will this special assignment from talent scout Klaus be enough to lure her colleague to Peru? Only God knows. But prayer is always worthwhile and so is the principle of hope! /KDJ
