Community Service Through EMS — Merle Weaver — Ep. 114

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Merle Weaver. We're in Five Pointville, Pennsylvania, at your local fire company here, and you've been involved in various emergency response services for a number of years. Tell us a little bit about that. What's your involvement been? And then also, some people have raised concerns that maybe this could be a negative influence on our Anabaptist people if they get involved in these kinds of things because of the secular influence. Just talk through some of that and tell some of your story. I got involved in emergency services as a young man. I believe I was 17 years old when I first got involved. Been involved off and on for most of my life: EMS, fire, search and rescue, various things like that.

The reason I got involved was, in fact, to serve my community. The way I like to say it is, "Show Jesus in shoe leather." Naturally, over the years, I've related very much to that concern about the world influencing us and changing us versus vice versa, us changing the world. I think if you study the New Testament, you'll see time and again, "Year the light of the world, yeah the salt of the earth. A city set on hill can't be hid. You don't put it under a candlestick," or I might say, "Back a long lane sometimes." I'm not against living back long lanes, but you got to get out there where the world sees you. So another place that says, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

That's a mandate. It's not an option. It's not an elective. It's not, "If we do this, it's how we do it." And so certainly, this is not the only way to do it. There's lots of ways to do it, but this is the way that I've chosen that has worked really good for me.

One of the things I would recommend in communities that have a lot less of a Christian presence and Anabaptist presence is to actually have a buddy, a buddy system. In the fire service, when we go into a burning building, something like that, we train much on a physical buddy system. But I would recommend a cultural, a spiritual buddy system because two are better than one. And you can hold each other accountable. You can encourage each other, things like that, especially for somebody that's weak in the faith, that's struggling to sort out life. There is, depending on the community, depending on the fire department or emergency service, there are a lot of influences. And as a father, I would not just indiscriminately throw my youngsters to that without some sort of support mechanism in place.

Having a privilege of serving in a community with a lot of conservative cultural values, a good number of the volunteers here on our local fire department are actually horse and buggy Mennonites. In fact, sometimes I'll roll the truck and I'll be the driver. And between my sons and the rest of the crew, it's either them and the horse and buggy Mennonites, and that's all getting the equipment out. So it's a unique scenario. Not every community has that privilege, but it is a blessing. And it's a place to also meet people on their worst days. And so that's the best time to showcase faith because nice sunny days in June on a Sunday school picnic are great, but they don't really demonstrate what faith is.

And sometimes the greatest light being left shined is actually what you do with your company when the chips are down, like they say, when things are all against you. And then they get to see what's really inside. And so I really recommend it and enjoy it, actually. Enjoy both the service part and also the part of getting a chance to share from my heart what's important to me.

And so you're already touching on this, but practically, how is this a service to your community? I mean, it seems pretty obvious that houses on fire say, and you go, "Fix the problem." But dive into that a little. Actually, is this a real legitimate way of serving our community? Because maybe there's other ways too. So the other ways I'm not going to comment on a lot. Maybe we could touch base, but there's plenty of other ways. One of the messages I would want to say is this is not the only way.

We all know that, but this is a way. And I think a good way because back to what I said a moment ago, the pressure's on. You're meeting people on their worst days. And so I'm going to give two points there. The first one is I was approached here by the fire department to help because daytime calls, they were really having a problem getting their equipment out. Again, everybody's busy. Today, people go here and there and everywhere. And so daytime, people aren't around. It's not like yesteryear when everybody worked on the farm. And again, we had horse and buggy people that were very good firefighters but couldn't drive the equipment. So they had to have somebody in that classification.

It really does feel like you're needed when if you don't show up, potentially the truck doesn't get out, the engine, the tanker, whatever the equipment is. That really makes you feel like you're counted and needed. It's not like, "Well, somebody else would have done it." The other Sunday morning is a case in point. I was in the local area that we got dispatched for a house fire and no other driver showed up. And that was for two pieces. So I at least got one out. So just say that again. So you had two engines going, right? An engine and a tanker. An engine and a tanker. And you showed up and you were the only driver.

That's right. So you only rolled one. That's right. But at least we got one piece out. Wow. And that could make a difference. Another episode comes to mind. Another story was a cardiac arrest, actually, call. And middle of the night, of course, you wake up out of a dead sleep, run, run, run, get there as fast as you can. Sometimes you're running kind of like a machine because it's like really tough to go from dead still to doing CPR.

But that particular night, the lady passed away. I believe she was in her late 60s, early 70s. And this was this man's wife. It was his life companion. And to be there, and I just felt this little nudge in my heart, "Why don't you go offer to pray with him?" And yeah, it was a little test to do that in my gear professionally and all that. But I did do that. And it really developed a connection with that fella. He felt like he wasn't worthy. He hadn't been going to church, all these things. But on his worst day, somebody was there to say, "God is good. He loves you. He has a plan for you.

Maybe this would be a good time to turn back to him." And so you don't get an opportunity like that every day of the week. You have to be there on their worst days to do that. And you must have really internalized why this is important because you have been so deeply involved with this for quite a number of years. When did you first join the service? So like I said, I was 17. I first joined the local ambulance corps and have been involved off and on over the years. For about 10 years, I was out. Even though my heart was still there, raising a family, I wanted to be there for them. And as soon as my boys, my oldest son turned 14 and we could do it together, then we joined back in.

That's really neat. Yeah. Because I wanted to do it with them and lead by example. And so when you invest that kind of investment, because it really is a significant investment, when you sacrifice that kind of sacrifice, it's impossible not to think about it. There's times when you want to throw the pager through the wall and you wouldn't have to go, but you know you have to go.

You can't just say, "Well, you know what? I'm going to eat supper tonight. I'm going to have my holiday meal because their barn can just burn." You can't do that because you would have to live with the results. And it's your own community you live in. In a way, you're just actively, continuously having to lay down your own life. It is. It really is that way. Wow. And more so for a family man. I noticed the difference between me and my sons. They tend to enjoy it more. They don't have the pressure as a family. So it's not as much a sacrifice for them. But after you've done it 10, 15 plus years, the novelty wears off.

The weight of doing your job well and not messing up, the responsibility of making sure everybody comes back, it weighs on you. And the thrill comes way down and the service and sacrifice and responsibility goes up. Talking about family and then the next generation, your son's coming on. How do you take the values you've developed with this and then pass it on to the next generation and show them, "Okay, we're sitting in a fire hall with all this neat equipment and the cool trucks and we're putting out fires," right? And the adrenaline. And you can get a little bit of that, quote, "cowboy feel" almost and approach it with, I would say, the wrong motives.

How do you teach to approach it with the right mindset of service? So two things come to mind. The first is the age-old saying, "More is caught than taught." And so being there together, they see and they learn. The other one is from the Old Testament, it says, "Where you sit down, when you rise up by the way," and you really get opportunities that are amazing. We usually, as a family, debrief our calls, debrief meetings, debrief activities. If I'm not there, I try to be there as much as I can, but let's say I miss an event, always sit down with my boys. How did it go? What happened? Let's work through this. Case in point, there was a member of our company here that was struggling with some things.

And I took my boys aside and I said, "Boys, I don't want you to mock this guy. I don't want you to make light or make a joke because," I said, "how would you feel if down the road that guy was depressed and took his life? And you could have been part of the solution instead of the problem." And they really took that to serious. Today, they're friends. They took it to heart. And he, in this case, seems to be doing well. Those are important. And there's so many teachable moments like that to be the solution. We see things. Fire companies are made up of real people with real issues, politics, agendas. You know how Jesus talks about the princes of Gentiles struggling for one optsmanship.

And this thing happens with real people. There are wonderful teachable moments to say, "This is not how we do it." You learn about, you come, you take that mind that was in Jesus. You take the low way, you serve. And then if there's advancement, you give God the glory. It sounds like what you're laying out, the motive being very important. Very important. Approaching this as not gung ho and the adrenaline rush. And I'm sure those elements are just naturally a response of some of these things, but that's not what it's about. And honestly, if that's all it's about, you will wear out. And a couple of years will go by and it'll be all over because you'll get offended somewhere.

Something will burn you out. So you have to have something more sustaining to keep you engaged. What would you say to someone watching or listening to this that's interested in getting involved in their community in this way? What should be the next steps? And what's some ways they can walk it that's glorifying to God, respectful to their church and their culture and their values and their families as well? As you said, you have a family. Actually, all those things fit together really nice. Before I answer that question, I want to say one thing that I didn't mention previously. Another reason I really like being involved in emergency services is you have your finger, as it were, on the pulse of the community.

You actually know what's going on. You know in and out because you're there. And it does allow relationships and even connecting privately, personally, off the clock. I mean, it's volunteers, not a clock, but in what personal ways. People recognize your face. They know, "Oh, they've seen you here. They've seen you there." Even though you got your gear on, your helmet and stuff, you're still a real person. And sometimes while you're waiting for the electric company to come, you have conversations. So having said that, you used the word earlier, cowboy.

Actually, freelancing cowboying is actually, believe it or not, very detrimental in the fire service. If somebody just goes out and does their own thing, the whole team can have to make up for it. That's on the fire department side. Well, the same thing is true of our churches and communities. Do it together. Find a buddy if you can. If you're a younger person, talk to your leadership. Don't just forge out there. Have your back covered because you might need it. Right now, you might think, "I don't need it." Well, one day you're going to need that, whether it's a spiritual accountability, whether it's to be there for you on a very bad day, which could happen.

If you're married, absolutely. Absolutely make sure you and your wife are on the same page because she is going to have to sacrifice. Done deal, period, full sentence. It's going to be, "You got to be together. It's going to strain your home." Yeah, buddy system together. I really like it when churches can have at least a handful of men. I know on a Sunday morning, if you're in the local community, that is a real bother to a Sunday morning church service if you get a call. But usually, Sunday mornings are quiet. You don't get that many. Maybe not everybody, but hey, even everybody.

There's here and there. I've heard of churches where most of the church takes off. And that's okay. It shows the community we're here to serve. But at least a handful is really nice. I don't like as much to see just one guy out there, especially if you have a culture of some not here. We don't have it so much, but some fire departments kind of have this hanging out culture. I feel like it's very dangerous. One guy out by himself, that's kind of the enemy's way. Separate a sheep and get him off. So I like to see a together. I definitely connect. Make sure you have a blessing to go forward. Pull together. If you don't have it, keep working until you get it.

On the other hand, do it well. Do it very well. Commit. Take the training. Set a standard for excellence. It is a bad testimony to Christ. And you almost can't really realize this till you get inside the fire service. When Christians are the low level, they don't do stuff good and allow everybody else to do the job well. They should set the standard for excellence. They should do it well with all their might. They should adorn the doctrine of Jesus. And by the way, it decorates the gospel of Christ when you do it well. I really like how you're packaging that as not individualistic. It's community, family, churches working together. Yeah. That's really powerful. And a little confession or admission.

I do have some leadership responsibility in our local assembly. And yes, I do exert that influence. I love to get people involved. On the other hand, I don't put it into pressure. It's a free will choice. And there's many other ways to serve God, serve the community. And in our assembly, we don't all go on a Sunday morning. Quite a number of us do.

That's wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to share and also for your service here in this local community. Welcome. Yeah. Thank you. It's a privilege.