Hop on a bike, and five minutes of downhill coasting brings you out of Yangqu and into Shanxi countryside. Everything is dry, yet somehow they coax crops from this chalky soil. It is also hilly, so the fields inhabit quaint terraces rising like amphitheaters above the road. I feel like I'm riding through a topographical map.
Last week I went on a house call with Dr. Kurt Elliot past the farms and up into the mountains. Kurt is about my Dad's age and looks identical to John Piper. We met downtown, and after stowing some medical supplies in a black and turquoise fanny-pack that a middle-schooler wouldn't be caught dead in, we set off. Did I mention we were biking up a mountain? Soon Kurt was out of sight. Luckily for me we planned to rendezvous at a Catholic church near the top, a big one. You couldn't miss it. So I pedaled on, glad for the stiff wind blowing in the right direction. Gusts would lift dust into eerie curtains and let them play in the air before dashing them to the ground. The snow (yes, it is still below freezing... I don't want to talk about it) glided silently by. Eventually I arrived. Be still my beating heart.
Kurt let me peek into the church, then we rode to visit his patient. He lived in a traditional Chinese home -- courtyard with raised garden, pig pit and outhouse next to a modest brick structure with cement flooring. There were three rooms arranged like a row of jumbo-sized mailboxes. Inside, a TV squawked in the corner. Above this hung two pictures, one of Jesus and one of Mary. There was a naked light bulb strung from the ceiling.
Kurt broke out his stethoscope and blood-pressure cuff -- merely a routine checkup. Things looked good. The patient laughed and talked nonstop, not hiding his sole upper tooth. Every smile swallowed his face in wrinkles and exposed a youth at odds with his real age. Only his shuffled step revealed the truth (or maybe it simply reflected the slow pace of life). But he was not afraid to die. "When God says it's time, it's time." We finished the house-call with a prayer. Then it was back down the mountain. Going downhill is glorious. I highly recommend it.
