Carolyn Kimmel.First a Friend: The Life & Legacy of Alvan & Ardys Thuma. Printed by CreateSpace, 2015. Pp. 212. ISBN 978-1-5114-7150-3.
“He saved my life,” (33), says (now former) Zambian Brethren In Christ (BIC) Bishop Thuma Hamukang’andu. “My father told me when I was a child, after a week, I became sick. My parents tried all ways of treating me and they were losing hope” (33). Dr. Alvan Thuma, however, a Brethren In Christ missionary and doctor, was able to treat this little child successfully. “My father was so excited I recovered that he requested if he can name me after him [Dr. Thuma] and he said yes” (33).
Thuma Hamukang’andu, who continues to serve the Brethren in Christ Church in Zambia to this day, stands as witness to the work and ministry of Dr. Alvan and Ardys Thuma who lived and served for many years in Zambia. Carolyn Kimmel’s First a Friend: The Life & Legacy of Alvan & Ardys Thumarecounts, as the title indicates, the life and legacy of both Alvan and Ardys, from their formative early years to their service in Zambia and thereafter.
Moving to and living in another land and culture is not easy. Kimmel tells the story of the Thuma family both in admiration and honesty. She highlights the many gifts and challenges they experienced as they sought to live a Christ-centered life, both in word and—perhaps more importantly for the Thumas—deed. What’s more, Kimmel provides interesting insight into the character and practices of mission from an Anabaptist orientation in the mid-twentieth century; an incarnational approach that focused on presence and service more than preaching and conversion.
Kimmel begins by highlighting the sense of call that served as the foundation for both Alvan and Ardys and the life they would lead. Alvan, Kimmel highlights, possessed a desire to live with purpose. He was not interested in a career in medicine as such, but in living for a cause: “to make Christ known to those who have never had the privilege of accepting Christ” (9). A career in medicine, rather than an end in itself, served as one way in which he could live into and participate in this greater cause. Living according to—and into—this greater cause became even more apparent when he and his wife Ardys and, at that point, their two children, moved to Africa. Rather than assuming a mentality of superiority because Alvan was a doctor, because they were white people in Zambia, or as bearers of a message that others did not yet possess (i.e., the message of Christ), the Thumas’ lives, as Kimmel portrays it, were ones of humble service to and for others. Indeed, even while serving as one of the first medically trained doctors in Macha, Alvan also helped to build—brick by brick—the hospital in which he would serve.
This spirit of humility and service provided, according to Kimmel’s account, a different witness than other missionaries during this time. Although some of the attitudes and language throughout the book are consistent with paternalistic attitudes of many missionaries during the mid-twentieth century, the actions of the Thumas offered a different example, one that broke down barriers both cultural and racial. For example, one of the people with whom Alvan worked noted how different he was. “He was so kind to us. He had the heart of a sheep. The difference between Dr. Thuma and the others was that he was so kind to people. The other missionaries used to spend time in their houses and they were not approachable. You could go up to Dr. Thuma’s door anytime and be answered. It was harder to talk to the other missionaries” (16-17). Another man, Jacob Muchimba, recalls how villagers generally regarded white missionaries as unapproachable. Dr. Thuma was different. “Missionaries were missionaries; we didn’t ask questions . . . they were white people. But Dr. Thuma was a good man; he accommodated people” (23).
This willingness to be incarnational and relate more intimately with the people whom they served was also seen in the way Alvan treated his patients. In contrast to the ways of a traditional healer, for example, Alvan would touch his patients. Kimmel writes that “[t]o be touched by a trained medical doctor was a huge paradigm shift” (26). It demonstrated a willingness and a certain vulnerability, which further demonstrated the way he viewed and related to people—first as friends, then as patients. And yet Dr. Thuma still recognized the wisdom within the local context and the value of some of the traditional medicines (24). He did not simply assume that Western knowledge and medicine was the only and final answer. Alvan did, however, bring—or at least it was perceived as such—a healing power through his touch.
Kimmel also honestly shares some of the challenges that come with serving internationally. Ardys, for example, although also feeling “called” to a life of Christ- centered service, had a much deeper understanding as to the ramifications of serving as a missionary. Ardys came from a family with a long history in mission. Although born in California in 1924, her parents would serve as missionaries in India where she would spend her early years. While in India she also gained two more sisters. At the age of 15, during a furlough in North America, Ardys learned that while the rest of her family would return to India, she would be left behind in California to finish her schooling. Kimmel notes how this left significant emotional marks with which Ardys would struggle for the rest of her life. For better or worse, Ardys experienced the effects of a family and faith tradition that sought to embody a spirit of gelassenheit, yielding to God’s calling despite what it would do to self or family. At worst, Ardys understandably felt abandoned and neglected; at best, she witnessed a sense of deep self-sacrifice that comes from serving God. Either way, Kimmel notes how these experiences caused Ardys to grow up much more quickly and become a strong leader at an early age.
One of the significant aspects that Kimmel highlights throughout her book is the challenge of depression that both Ardys and Alvan would encounter. Given her own experience as a child, which would then be compounded with moving to the unknown, being forced to live a life in the shadow of a doctor, not always having a clear sense of function or belonging, and then sending her own very young children to boarding school, Ardys would understandably struggle with ongoing bouts of depression. These bouts, it seems, would decrease with an increased sense of belonging and purpose. When she would teach, for example, either in Lusaka or upon their return to Ohio, the bouts of depression would subside. Alvan, on the other hand, would also come to experience depression, eventually becoming more reclusive and withdrawn, once he retired from medical practice. Kimmel honestly recounts how neither of them really knew how to deal with the realities of depression that affected them when they lost their sense of vocation.
Kimmel does a good job of weaving Alvan and Ardys’ early years with what was most obviously their transformative experience of living and serving in Rhodesia for three years and then Zambia for ten. She demonstrates how these pivotal years provided the opportunity and the possibility to learn about and be transformed by their African neighbors whom they befriended, with whom they worshipped with, and for whom they extended themselves (25). Their presence and the friendship they cultivated during this time proved to be significant as Zambians saw the Thumas as supportive of their struggle for independence from the British. Although other missionaries thought they were becoming too political, Kimmel shares the reflections of Kathy Steubing, a missionary in Zambia several years after the Thumas:
During the build up to independence, a group of freedom fighters came to Macha and Ardys served them tea and even let them use her indoor bathroom that the family used. “Apparently this was not customary,” she said. Ardys being so ready to offer the use of her family’s personal toilet, and even offering a clean hand towel, was a clear signal to the visitors that Thumas were not racist and were supportive of Zambian independence. Ardys understood the warm thanks from a Macha native on the delegation as communicating that he was proud of “our missionaries” who showed such acceptance of the visitors. I think the Thumas were making a political statement about what they thought was biblical ( (113).
Daniel Muchimba, a friend of the Thumas who was involved in Zambia’s struggle for independence observed that “Dr. Thuma was a different person altogether. Although he was white, he was on our side” (109). The Thumas, suggests Kimmel, were willing to “buck the system” if they thought the system was unjust and needed to be changed (111). In 2003, the Zambian government itself presented Alvan the Distinguished Service Order medal in recognition for his work (167-168).
Kimmel conveys the story and legacy of the Thuma family well—a legacy that continues today. Indeed, Alvan and Ardys’ son, Phil, who is also a doctor, has continued this legacy by helping the country deal with—and almost eliminate–malaria.
Although there are a few minor copyediting inconsistencies throughout the book, and the chronology regarding the Thumas’ time in Africa could be more clear, this book is welcome in its recounting the legacy of Alvan and Ardys Thuma as well as an Anabaptist incarnational approach to mission. It also highlights the challenges of international, cross-cultural engagement and the way it affects families, both positively and negatively.
Perhaps the weakest part of the book is the author’s own lack of international experience. There are times when the author’s writing seems to divulge a lack of cultural awareness and/or larger worldview in the way she refers to Africa and its people (e.g., reference to an “African baby” rather than just “baby” [ix]) as well as with the realities of poverty. And yet, just as Alvan and Ardys’ story is compelling in that it is not a story about a perfect, “holier than thou” couple “who gladly followed a call to Africa and loved every minute of it” but were, rather, an ordinary couple who “obeyed God’s call despite their human frailties and accomplished great things” (xi), Kimmel’s book does well in sharing this meaningful and worthwhile story despite its minor imperfections.