Paola Busch: “I always felt that something higher existed”

A young woman finds her way through life

When the Iron Curtain fell the repercussions could be felt in the far east of the former Soviet Union.  In the little village of Kant in northern Kyrgyzstan Jakob and Margarita Busch packed their bags.  Their ancestors had left Germany when Czar Katharina the Great invited avid settlers to settle in her huge empire.  Back then many Germans could not resist following the call from distant horizons.  Now, a good 200 years later Family Busch are getting ready to return to their unknown old home.

They could not take much with them.  Margarita carried her 6-month old daughter, Irene on her arm.  Her second child was growing inside her during those fateful weeks.  The three of them survived the stress of the long flight from Asia to Western Europe well.  Their hope for a better future was fulfilled in the Gütersloh area where the family found a new home.  The suitcases were hardly unpacked when Paola Busch saw the light of the world in Halle, Westphalia.  The date on her birth certificate reads 11th February 1990.

It goes without saying that Paola cannot remember any of the insecurities that the relocation of her family brought with it.  She grew up as a sandwich child in the security of an intact family, since her younger sister Cornelia soon completed the family.  As devout Christians the Buschs regularly visited the Sunday services of a Mennonite Church.  It is to be noted that a strong pacifist attitude is one of the characteristics of this Protestant Free-Church that refuses military service for reasons of conscience.

Close family and religious socialising have absolutely nothing to do with blinkers.  As a fourteen-year-old Paola asked fundamental questions that one normally does not hear from those in her age group.  Does an absolute truth exist?  Why should Christianity be the only way?  For the next three years the teenager delves into the writings of other doctrines of salvation.  She works through the Koran, reads Hindu texts and holds atheist books in her hands.  (S)He who suspects that this girl has depth, is spot on in her/his estimation.  Her laborious search of finding the truth finally takes a good ending in the summer of 2007.  On a retreat of her church Paola takes a decision that she has never since regretted: to follow Jesus Christ with everything that she is and has.

Now another question pushed itself into the foreground:  What should I do with my life?  Or, put a different way, does God have a special task for my life?  The 12th year of her schooling lies before the junior high school student.  Paola asks for God’s leading.  Her sisters Irene and Cornelia and her parents join her in praying for direction.  Many who call themselves Christians would not in a month of Sundays even dream of asking God to give them a clear leading in the way they plan and live out their lives.  But the Buschs are made of sterner stuff: in their lives God does not play a subordinate role, but is the director.

The calling came one morning out of nothing.

One morning Paola wakes up and as she opens her eyes, she knows what she wants to become: a physiotherapist.  She had so far never even considered this job as an option for her.  Neither in her family nor in her circle of friends was it ever a topic of conversation.  But as the sun rose over the village of Steinhagen the brainwave had already become a firm conviction.

She heads downstairs to the kitchen and beaming at her mother says: “Mama, I know what I want to become!”  Oddly enough her mother smiles back, nods and says: “I know it too: you will be a physiotherapist!”  Two women, one thought, given by God.

Paola is over the moon.  Overwhelmed by her feelings Paola skips school for the first time ever.   She is not sitting at her desk at school, but at her desk at home looking for physiotherapist training possibilities.  Wow, that must be it:  there is one space free in nearby Bad Rotenfelde.  One phone call and everything is wrapped up.

As soon as she completed her training in 2010 she immediately found a permanent job in a practice in Steinhaben, i.e. in the village where she lives.  Everything fits spot on: the work atmosphere, the challenges and the pay.  She spends the next 8 years following her calling as a physiotherapist and in theory she could continue working here until retirement.  Nothing lures Paola away from here since her family, her job and her circle of friends form a harmonious whole.

But without her knowing other courses are being set for her.   On 18th October 2016 at the Düsseldorf Fliedner Highschool her sister Irene listens to a presentation given by a doctor from Peru on the subject of Diospi Suyana, the hospital of faith.  Irene is deeply moved by this story full of coincidences and miracles.  Before she leaves the auditorium she takes a flyer and a CD thinking: perhaps Paola could use the material some time in her voluntary work for the church.

Paola deposits what Irene has brought on a pile on her desk where they remain until she starts a spring clean in 2017: clearing out and letting air get back to places where it has been pushed out from for a while.  Suddenly Paola is holding the CD in her hands and muses what to do with it.  CD-drive or rubbish bin?  She chooses the former and an hour late the physiotherapist is absolutely thrilled.  “Unbelievable, I must make a financial contribution to this work in the Andes”, shoots through her mind.  Giving money is a noble deed, but at times people make financial donations in order to alleviate or even ransom their consciences.  Motives for financial support are as vast as the sand on the seashore.

During the next few weeks Paola feels an inner unrest.  Could it be that God has prepared a stint abroad for her?  Once again her prayer-team is activated, one could say in a proven way.  Paola, Irene, Cornelia, Mummy and Daddy.  After three months the penny drops: “God does not want my money, he wants me!”

On 16th July 2017 Paola writes the following email to Diospi Suyana’s home office:

“Dear ladies and gentlemen!  For a while now your information brochure about the hospital in Peru has been lying on my desk and I have been considering the option of giving my professional skills even more into God’s service.  At the moment I have no final answer from God, but when I do have it, I want to be prepared to go the way He shows me.  But as long as I am not sure, I would be pleased to receive information of what it entails of being a missionary at Diospi Suyana.  What is required of me and what do I need to bring?

The next day the phone rings.  A certain Dr Klaus John is at the other end and the two of them get talking immediately.  “Have you read the books about Diospi Suyana?” asks the German-Peruvian suddenly.  “No, I have not,” answers Paola.  “If you order them on Amazon today you can start reading them tomorrow afternoon.  Call me once you have read them!”

Paola loves receiving good advice.  Within days she has read “I have seen God” and “God has seen us”.  Inwardly she leaps into the air.  The books make it crystal cear that the God of biblical times is still the same today.  She prays: “God, I also want to experience you like that!”  On 14th February 2018 Paola sends her official application to Diospi Suyana.

If she were honest, Paola would much prefer to stay in Germany.  Her pronounced sense of family, her perfect job situation and her wonderful circle of friends are by no means conducive to her going far away into the wide, wide world.  And so she makes the following deal with God:  “If I should really go to Peru then you must fulfil these three things: 1st: I do not want to travel to Peru on my own; 2nd: I never want to ask people for money and 3rd: I never want to suffer from homesickness.

Paola Busch: in her element as a physiotherapist and horsewoman.

Is such a prayer brazen or an expression of someone who firmly reckons that God exists?  Him up there does not seem to mind this young woman’s direct manner.  Within two months without much ado Paola has a circle of friends who will support her for the next 36 months with a monthly five-digit sum.  It came about so easily: she only gave five short PowerPoint presentations of what she is planning.

When on 3rd January 2019 she boards the plane, she is not alone.  The xray-assistant Melanie Friesen is sitting next to her.  Together the intercontinental journey and the immigration formalities are no problem whatsoever.

“Paola,” I ask our physiotherapist who has now been working at the Hospital Diospi Suyana with verve and expertise, “Have you ever felt homesick?” “No, never, this is where God wants to have me!”

From the end of 2021 Paola wants to be trained in riding education.  “I have already bought two mares,” she comments in passing.  After a pause she cautiously asks: “Could one use riding education at Diospi Suyana?”  “But of course,” I answer and try to conceal my joy at such a question. /KDJ.

Riding into the mountains.  Paola Busch sits second on the right.
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