A Wingawack a Wingawack

Today is the celebration of life for a good friend, Rob Trumbull. Once again, being on the other side of the world means I am missing an important event. So instead I will celebrate him here, on my blog. I will also set out the details of  his last days as so many have asked me about it.

I first met Rob in 2011 when he came on a mission trip with my home church to serve at the orphan program I was working at in Mansa, Zambia.  With suitcase space at a premium, this is what he chose to pack:

Red rubber clown noses for 85 children

 red rubber clown noses for 85 children!
Yep, that’s the type of man he was.
He also packed plastic animal masks so that we could teach the kids an old song called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. We put on the masks and prowled around the orphan center singing the song. The kids loved it, especially the wingawack a wingawack part!  A $3 version of the 20 million dollar Broadway production of The Lion King.

Over the next five years our friendship grew with a shared love for the children of Africa. He returned to Africa several more times, with the last time being just a few weeks ago. He spent a glorious two weeks with the orphans he was devoted to at the center in Zambia and then contacted me as he was passing through Pretoria. They had returned from Zambia early so he had time in South Africa before his return flight to USA, “Could I come visit PLAY?”

I didn’t hesitate, “Of course!” He was a long-time friend, a member of my home church, a PLAY supporter, and I knew the kids would love him, they always do! Plus it seemed the timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. We both commented that God must have wanted Rob to come to PLAY camp. He was available the exact dates that a mission team was coming and leaving so he could be a part of the team training to serve at camp, come to camp, and then do the post camp sightseeing with the team and still catch his flight the next day! He contacted me the day before I was picking up the team so I picked him up the next day too.

We had a fantastic week at camp, Monday through Friday. There were 54 children who came – invited from a school in the township and from a school in Pretoria. This brought black and white together, a first for many of the children. The kids get put onto 5 teams and they do everything together – so that by day 5, they no longer see skin color and have become fast friends. But it is a process, one that Rob was happy to be a part of.

He was assigned a team of 11 kids, sharing his testimony with them during small group sessions each night. At the end, 9 of the 11 chose to be baptized! 43 of the 54 kids at camp made the decision and were proud to show that they had become members of the family of God by being baptized on the last full day of camp. We saw silent children gain the confidence to speak up. We saw bullies turn into servants. We experienced a powerful session on rape with people sharing their stories for the first time.

For that week at camp, Rob seemed to be in fine health – he was his usual jovial full of life self! He didn’t do the adventure activities, as those were beyond his physical abilities, so he knew his limits. When his team went off to do those, he would usually hang with Enya, a girl on his team who had hurt her foot so also couldn’t go off with their team. She was very grateful to have him there.

On the last day, he was dragging, but we all were! In case you have never heard, 7th graders are exhausting! Camp ended at 12:30 on Friday. The bus pulled away with children yelling and waving one last time at the PLAY team they had come to love. The last thing I remember is one small boy leaning out the window yelling, “I will miss you Papa Rob!”

We packed up all the camp supplies and headed to Ukutula Lion Lodge – our base for the next few days so we could go on a game drive on Saturday. Mission teams come a long way (20 hours on a plane!), work hard for many months to raise the money to come, work hard for 3 days prepping for camp, then work 5 looong days at camp from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night – so after camp they need time to debrief and enjoy the beauty of this country. It is just wrong to come so far and not see the animals! 

Friday night we had a good dinner at the African craft market. Rob had gone nuts buying gifts for his family, friends, and people that had supported him in his trips to Africa. He was such a generous man. Over dinner the team shared their favorite stories from camp, things they had learned about the kids on their teams, how the week had impacted them personally.  Although we said were already missing the kids and the team didn’t want to leave South Africa, there was still a lot of laughter as we were high from the success of the week.

The team settled into Ukutula Lion Lodge and went to bed early as we were getting up at 4:30 a.m. to go on safari – wanting to catch all the animal action at sunrise. Rob was rooming with a young man from Freedom Christian University, Jeremy. Rob had told me he was a huge Jeremy fan! Jeremy said that Rob had told him that he was dizzy so was going to bed. Jeremy asked him if he had taken his blood sugar levels because he knew Rob had diabetes. Rob said yes his numbers were good, he just needed to sleep. 

At 4:30 Jeremy went to wake him up and Rob would not wake up. Jeremy came to get me. The hotel manager called an ambulance and he and I did CPR while we waited for the paramedics to arrive. We could not feel a pulse but we were not going to give up.  The hotel manager was a black man named Sparkly - his efforts were heroic. We had left the hotel room door open so the paramedics could get in. As I said above, we were staying at Ukutula Lion Lodge, a lion research center with a good dozen or so lions living near our rooms.  So the groaning, moaning, growling and roaring of the lions was so loud in my ears as Sparkly and I counted “one and two and three and four and five and…” over and over for the next 25 minutes. It was surreal and like a bizarre nightmare – this couldn’t really be happening.

After a while, my arms became tired and another FCU team member subbed in. While she did compressions, I prayed. While I did compressions, she prayed. We prayed for a miracle, for what seemed like forever.

The paramedics arrived, hooked him up to the machines and declared him deceased. They would fill out their report and then call the mortuary for us.  They left the room so we could take some time to pray over Rob. I pulled the blanket off of his face so I could say goodbye to my dear friend. The three of us who had been so calm and determined to save him were now weeping and handing him over to his Father. It was an honor to be there in that moment for that special man.

He died peacefully in his sleep – there was no sign of pain or struggle. He didn’t wake up and call out. Jeremy was sleeping 3 feet away.  He was in a very happy place when he died – after having two weeks with the orphans of Mansa and one week at PLAY and 54 more kids falling in love with him. He died knowing he was doing what God called him to do and what he loved doing! I hope I go the same way.

I think hearing the roar of a lion will always pull me back to that morning. But after last Sunday, I think the feelings that flood will be joy instead of sadness.  I was in church last Sunday and we were singing “Yours is the kingdom, Yours is the power, Yours is the glory, forever Amen.” As we were singing that over and over again, suddenly the music cut out except for the pounding of the drums. It felt very primal and for some reason it took me back to that moment in time.  As we sang louder and louder, the singing of the two-thousand-voice-strong crowd rose to a mighty roar, and it reminded me of the Lion of Judah. And I thought that just maybe the roaring of the lions on that early morning was the sound of the Lion of Judah announcing the arrival of one of His favored sons. Welcome home my good and faithful servant. And the heavenly choir joined in the celebration…

So long my friend, can't wait to hear your stories when I get to heaven!