Swarens: Kent and Amber Brantly — when servants are called to suffer

It has been the whirlwind for Kent and Amber Brantly.

It has been a year of great service and suffering. Of giving all and risking all to help people in desperate need in their adopted home of Liberia. Of standing firm when the wildfire of Ebola burned through West Africa. Of fighting for survival when those flames touched Kent and left him desperately ill.

Then, after the sickness and with the healing, came a new burden — fame.

I watched on Tuesday afternoon as a middle-aged admirer at Downtown’s Central Library waxed on before the young missionaries with a reverence usually reserved for powerful politicians and rock stars.

That was nothing, of course, compared to their larger, more powerful audiences. At the White House with President Obama. On Capitol Hill to testify about the deadly plague, one that still has not been fully vanquished in West Africa. On the cover of Time magazine, as an “Ebola fighter,’’ one of the publication’s Persons of the Year for 2014.

In the early days of Kent’s recovery, the fame mixed with fear -- that their privacy would be compromised, that they would be shunned by frightened strangers. For a time they even adopted aliases to address each other while in public so as not to have their identities revealed.

Yet the celebrity status also has brought opportunity.

“Our lifestyle is very different, but our mission hasn’t changed,” Amber said as we huddled in a quiet corner of the library. “We still aspire to bring attention to the plight of West Africa. Besides Ebola, the health system is just ravaged. We feel a responsibility to be advocates for the people we love so much in Liberia.”

It is all but impossible to have a conversation with Kent and Amber without touching on matters of faith. It was, after all, their call to service, their work as Christian missionaries, that placed them in the path of the Ebola inferno. I asked what they’d learned about their faith as this journey has unfolded.

“People have asked me if my faith saved me from Ebola, as in a physical healing,’’ Kent said. “In a very real way, it was my faith that got me Ebola. It was the living out of our faith that put us in a place that we were at very real risk of getting Ebola. And that changes my perspective on faith. It is not something that makes you safe. So, yes my faith put me at risk of Ebola, but it also is what I clung to at the most difficult times of my illness. Not faith that because I follow Jesus, I’m going to get well, I’m going to recover, but faith that says I got this disease by following Jesus, so whether I live or die, I’m OK with that. And that brought a tremendous amount of peace. It didn’t take away the fear or anxiety from the illness. But it brought tremendous peace during it.’’

Amber has been on her own journey of faith through a frightening, exhausting year. “I’ve learned that it’s OK to ask hard questions of God and of each other,” she said. “It’s been a year of survival and grief. It’s OK not to be strong and to not have all the answers. I’m not a Christian because I’m strong. It’s because I am weak.’’

These days, the Brantlys are very public, positive faces for missionaries serving around the world, often in obscure and even dangerous places. They are honored representatives of Samaritan’s Purse, the mission organization with which they serve. And they’re touring the nation to promote their new book, “Called for Life.”

The Indy stop on the book tour was a special one for the young family. Kent grew up here, graduated from Heritage Christian and later Indiana University’s Medical School. His parents -- who were watching over the grandchildren that evening as Amber and Kent addressed a crowd at the library -- still call the city home.

So, for now, life is busy and full at home in the United States. Yet the desire, and the call, to one day return to the mission field remains strong.

I asked, given the hardships they endured in Liberia, if they had considered serving in a part of the world a little less dangerous, a little more comfortable, than West Africa.

Kent answered that query with his favorite quote from his favorite book — C.S. Lewis’ classic, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

“A character asks about the lion, Aslan, who represents Jesus, ‘Is he safe?’” Kent said. “And the answer is, ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn’t safe. But he is good’.’’

Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter@indystar.com.