10. Forgiving a Murderer (The Power of Forgiveness) - Rupelin Pichot

This is a fantastic episode about forgiveness. Rupelin Pichot had a horrific experience when her family was attacked in Ethiopia in the 90s. Her husband and her maid were killed and she was left with 3 kids and a small medical clinic to care for. This is an episode that won’t disappoint.

One Friday, we decided to go camping and there was a bandit there that stopped us on the road and shot us with a full load of bullets. Just like hail. I thought all of us would die. My husband had nowhere to hide, and he just ducked a little bit sideways and he was hit just below his neck where the carotid artery is. I couldn't do anything. Just goshing like a stream of blood. So it died in the spot. And my Ethiopian maid also died. She was hit in her heart. Hey, what's going on, everybody? It's Erin with the Simply Overcoming Podcast. This is episode ten of the podcast. Today's episode is an incredible conversation that I had the privilege of having with Ruplin PSHow. Ruplin is a primary care nurse practitioner, and she spent 25 years working as a missionary with a lot of that time spent in a little clinic in a remote area of Ethiopia. This episode is a story of loss of heartache, but it's also a story of forgiveness and how powerful forgiveness can be in your life. If someone that you loved was murdered in cold blood and you had the opportunity to meet the murderer, what would you say to them? I trust you will really enjoy this episode just as much as I did. So without further Ado, let's jump right into the episode with Ruby Peach show you're a nurse? Yes. And you work in Quarterlane, Idaho. I'm a primary care nurse practitioner. Is it a good place to work? Yeah. This is the place I really want to be, because we're not after numbers or money. We just take care of patients and address their problems. Holistically. And that's what I like, because I did my doctorate in nursing and lifestyle medicine. So I'm quite interested in practicing what I've learned in school, and it works. And people's lives have been changed, chronic diseases reversed or in the process of reversing? Wow. And people are just the patients are amazed. And they say, how come my doctor never told me about these things? So teaching a lot of people about healthy, natural remedies. Wonderful. Wow. That's great. So you're originally from the Philippines? Yes. So talk to me about where you're from and then also how you became a missionary. I know you were a missionary for 25 years. Yeah. So what got you to that point in life? So I came from the South, Philippines, and I graduated from Mountain View College, and it's an Avenue College. And I took nursing there. And I graduated in 1080. I work in a local hospital, small hospital nearby. But my fiance, who was also my classmate in College, was working as a health and temperance director for the conference office in North Philippines because he's from the north. And after a year of working there, he got a job opportunity as a missionary to Ethiopia. And he accepted it right away because he wanted to be a missionary. My husband was told that they needed nurse in a clinic to be the director there and also as primary care provider. So he said he was interested and he was asked, oh, he was told, you know what? We need a male nurse, but he has to have a nurse wife, too. And he said, I'm not getting married. But my fiance is also a nurse, and we're planning to get married soon. So that sort of worked out. And the Union in Manila started processing the papers and we got married anyway. So we were engaged at that point when you were asked to go to. But that place is so remote that those who were called in the past refused because it's very far from the highway. And you had to walk, like, 3 hours to get there. And there's no running water and electricity. It's like in the bundles anyway. But we love challenges. And just to be out there, nobody wanted to go. So we went, I don't really know a lot about Ethiopia, but you're saying that the area that you were in was so remote that a lot of people had turned down offers to go and work there. What was the major challenges that you faced working there? Were you working in a hospital setting there, like a clinic, or were you it's a clinic. Okay. So you were working in a clinic there. What were some of the challenges that you faced in such a remote area? What caused it to be so remote? Okay. So we had a little baby three months old. When we went to Ethiopia, there was no health care facility nearby. The nearest hospital, Darmon hospital, was like 30 miles away. But in order to get there, you'll need about a day of traveling, like three hour walk. And we had to wait for the bus, which seldom comes. Health care was very poor. And then there's no running water or electricity. So we had no refrigerator. For six years, we were there. And the name of the place is Saki, which means disease or sickness. And it's really very true, because when we were there, we witnessed a lot of legs and pestilences that happened all around outside the campus, and we never got sick. Wow. You never got sick. There was an epidemic of cholera and also typhoid fever and malaria is just all over the place. Outside the gate, outside the fence, people were dying from cerebral malaria. I believe it's God's protection. Yeah. Because what can the fence do is mosquitoes. They're all over the place. And if this mosquito bit somebody who had Malaya and bites you too, then you can get it. Yeah. So how long were you there in Ethiopia? 15 years altogether. But in that remote place, we stayed for six years because it's not because we didn't like to stay longer. But our children needed to be home schooled and to home school them. We need to have a good mailing system. But in that remote place, the fastest mail we could receive was three months after three months and sometimes most of the time, six months and sometimes one year. So that doesn't work with home study, you have to be up to date in sending the papers and receiving the lesson. So you're in Ethiopia for 15 years in total. But at a certain point, you had some children. Yeah. How many kids do you have? We got three. You have three. Okay. And two of them were born in Ethiopia. Home delivery. It's more dangerous to be in the hospital. It's terrible. You don't want to get into the hospital. So the hospital might be a bit of a death sentence for somebody who's not used to it. Yeah. That's why when we moved to Ethiopian College clinic, we had a lot of patients because the patients didn't want to go to the hospital. Some of them had to camp there for, like, seven days to be seen by a doctor. Oh, my. And they had nothing. You had to buy your own syringes and your own medicines. Would you buy them and bring them to the hospital, or would you purchase them from the hospital? You had to go to town to buy them from the pharmacy and then take to the hospital. Now, were you in a city or was it more of a village? It's a village. And there's a town, like, about 10 miles away. But it's a little town. It's like, actually a village, but a little bit better than the rural village. I would assume that because of the great need there and the clinic that you had there, people traveled from all over to visit the clinic. Oh, yes. After my husband, my first husband died, I took over the clinic, and I had, like, 80 to 100 patients a day. Just patients. But 20 others came for injections and dressings and all that well. And they told us they preferred to come to the clinic because we had the medicines. And when they see foreigners, they think foreigners know better than the local person, whether you do or not. That's why I was only a nurse. I had no experience. I would imagine that you were able to do things there that you would not do anywhere else. Of course. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's scary what I did there I couldn't do here. But my experience in, like, suturing and simple minor surgeries, I was able to sort of carry out here and with ease, a little bit ease, because I had done a lot of them in Africa. So much knowledge there in Ethiopia. Wow. So your first husband passed away. Was that while you were in Ethiopia? Yes. What happened there? And you took over the clinic after he passed away, we applied to move somewhere else where we could home study our children. And we were offered a place in Ethiopia at the Scholars Clinic, so we moved there. That was in towards the end of 88 and in 1091 in May, Ethiopia fell during the war against Eritrea. Eritrea was once a province of Ethiopia, in the north, touching the Red Sea, and they had been fighting. Eritrea had been fighting for independence for 30 years until they won in May 9091. So the Ethiopian President, at the time when they were defeated, he fled to Zimbabwe, and the soldiers just left their post. They carried their gun to them. They had no salaries. They were looting homes and rubbing passengers also rubbing private cars. And this was all happening while you were there? Yes. So one day, one Friday, we decided to go camping and there was a bandit there that stopped us on the road and shot us with a full load of bullets, just like rain, like hail. I thought all of us would die. My husband had nowhere to hide. The steering wheel was in front of him, and he just ducked a little bit sideways and he was hit at the base of his just below his neck where the caroted artery is. I couldn't do anything. They were just goshing like a stream of blood. It's very strong. They died in the spot and in the back where my two boys and my Ethiopian maid also died. She was hit in her heart, in her chest. So they came. They shot at you. And then they left and they spared your life. Obviously, the Gunner came to the car and searched for my husband's wallet, but he couldn't get it because it was on the side where he fell. And he was, of course, in a hurry to leave. And he grabbed my watch and my husband's watch and whatever he could get from the car, tape recorder, cameras, my bag, and he ran away. What was life like after that? Well, at the time, I really thought that. I don't know. I was just lost a numb and could not even think what tomorrow might bring. But I remembered God's promise that I'll be with you. I'll never forsake you. I'll never leave you or forsake you. It was tough. It was hard. I couldn't see beyond tomorrow, beyond the next day. If I were alone, it could have been better. But with three small kids, they were nine, eight and five. And we were in a place where I didn't have any relatives around. What do they do there except to go back to the Philippines. But my children didn't want to go back to the Philippines because two of them were born there. And the first one was three months old. When we came to Ethiopia, they speak Ethiopian language, but not the Philippine language. And of course, they have friends over there, and they preferred for us to stay there, dealing with such a tragic loss in such a major way. Did you ever struggle with your religious experience and wondered why God allowed that to happen in your life. Oh, yes. There were times when I told God, I said, God, why did you allow my husband to die? It would have been better if I were the one who died because I'm quite almost useless. God can use me, but not as much as he could use my husband, my husband. He was everything he knew, almost whatever that needed to be done in the mission field. He could build. He could fix cars, he could fix electrical stuff, plumbing and all that. And he could preach. If you ask him to preach like, five to ten minutes before he was to speak, he'll do it. And he was a good teacher, top school teacher and whatever health teacher. And of course, I didn't drive at that time. So it was to take over. The job was very hard. Sometimes I tend to blame God. But then the verse reminded me that all things work together for good. I couldn't see the good. It's hard to see the good with three small kids who will be growing up without the Father. Sometimes as life goes on and you distance yourself from things that have happened in your life, you can look back and you can see why those things happened. We aren't always able to see why certain things have happened in life. But have you noticed in life that when tragedy has struck in your life or when something bad has happened? Can you look back now and see why some things may have happened to you? Oh, yeah. Lots of things happened. That really turned out to be a great blessing. One of them was that after my husband died, his whole family became Adventist. He was the only Adventist in the family, and they were all baptized. And the murderer was baptized, too. We had an American missionary. His name is Chris, who would go to the prison house and gave Bible studies, too. This man, his name is Cabato and his soulmate. And after a few months, both of them are baptized. Okay. The man who murdered your husband was baptized. How many years later was this? That was maybe after three years. Wow. Have you ever met him since then? Oh, yeah. At the time when he was baptized because the whole Church went to the baptism and the Church pastor baptized him and his cellmate. And we lined up and shook hands with them and I shook hands with him. Wow. And according to Chris, the American friend of ours, he said that I hugged him and I brought a towel and dried his face. I didn't remember. But anyway, was it difficult to forgive in the beginning? Oh, yeah, it was difficult. I got stuck with three children. And how could I manage the care of three children? And I had to work six days a week, 12 hours a day in the clinic. It is good if my maid was still there, but she's gone too. And it's very hard to find an honest maid. So I did home studying in the morning and in the evening. When I came home from work, I prepared food. I did laundry at night and got up early and gave assignments to the kids, did two classes of home study, gave them an assignment for the day. And my kids were all over the place. They were not there. They ate by themselves. I ate like for 1015 minutes for lunch and even the patients will let me go home. I need to eat or else I cannot take care of you. There's a lot of people out there who have been holding bitterness in their heart for a very long time. And forgiveness. Being able to forgive is such a powerful thing and it can change your life. Amen. It can change your life and it can change the life of the person you are forgiving. It can help heal that wound. Talk to us briefly about forgiveness. The importance of forgiveness from your perspective. I know for a fact that the one who forgives is the one who gets more benefit than the one forgiven. And I don't like to carry all this bitterness all through my life because when I started to be a nurse practitioner, I realized that or I learned that stress hormones could just give you a lot of diseases. Even cancer can increase your blood pressure. You can develop diabetes from being stressed because blood sugar will just constantly flood in your system. Even if you don't eat food, you can get diabetes because the liver produces glucose. The glycogen that is stored there is being released in the bloodstream. Yeah. Anyway, by the way, in 2015, my son Bruce, he's the second one. He was eight years old when his dad died. Bruce went to Ethiopia. He said, mom, this is the most expensive trip I'm going to have. He finished all his savings just to go there with his wife and to find this man. It was very hard because people won't tell you where the family lives, where this man is, because they are afraid for their lives. They thought Bruce went there to revenge. So he stayed there for two weeks and he hired some an investigator of some kind to find him. But still, it was still very hard to find the family anyway. But after maybe one week, he got the link to where to trace the family. And somebody from the College agreed to be his interpreter, although he speaks the language but not the local dialogue anyway. So he was told that the murderer had died a few years back and the brother was contacted and he said, okay, I like to meet with his brother. And Bruce invited him to a restaurant and they had lunch together and they talked and Bruce told him, he said, I'm not here to take revenge on you. I'm here to reconcile with you just to tell you that I have forgiven you and your family. I have forgiven your brother and all of you, members of the family. It's because in that culture there, when one commits a crime, the whole tribe is responsible. So then the brother, of course, was very happy. And in the end, he said, oh, thank you so much. Now we are family. Every time you want to come to come visit us and you're part of our family anyway. So that was really a good meeting. Not only you have forgiven, but your son has been able to forgive. Yeah, because he told me over the years he had this heavy heart, like resentful spirit and hatred for this man who killed his dad. Because it's different without a dad. It's somebody who's your hero and somebody who's there to support you and to guide you as you grow older. And there's nobody there. So forgiveness is powerful. Oh, yeah, it's powerful because there's a verse in Psalm four to 16. It says, Be still and know that I am God. I'll be exalted among the heathen, I'll be salted in the Earth. I was not really very silent or still, but I did not make a lot of complaints. I just complained to God a little bit, but not every day because I knew about God's promises of something. When he said, all things work together for good. Still, I haven't understood everything at that time. But now, when I look back, God is faithful to what he promised and everything he promised. He delivers anyway. So a few years ago, an Ethiopian went to he had visited Washington Adventist University in Washington, D. C. And he was passing by the professor's office that he was just going around in the building. And he read this sign on the door. Doctor Kenpisho, and he knocked on the door and talked to the lady. He said, Excuse me, I'm from Ethiopia, but do you know Rupellyn Bishop? And she said, oh, yeah, she's my stepmother in law because I married her husband's dad. And he said, this Ethiopian said, if you meet her one day, please tell her that her story of forgiveness is being used as a theme for the children's Sabbath school lesson in Ethiopia. You see, Ethiopians, the tribes fight among each other for something that they don't even know the cause. It's just handed down from one generation to another that they hate this tribe and they have to fight with each other. And so Ruble and Story is teaching the children to forgive, not to fight each other. No part of it may be the cold room that we're sitting in right now, but your story gives me the chills. Rublen, realizing how a tragic situation that you've been through has changed. Your story has possibly changed hundreds of lives, thousands of lives. In 94 February 14, I was called to go to the court for a court hearing. Anyway, I was given the notice, maybe two weeks before that, I showed up there with my son because I was told I had to bring a witness. And my son, he was nine years old at the time, and he was eligible for being a witness. Was this in Ethiopia? Yeah, we were still there, okay, because the accident happened was the hearing. But all the time I was still wondering what the Ethiopian government would do about my case. I did not complain. I did not file a case to them, but I was just wondering if they would address it. So I was called and I went it's about a two hour trip, and we went there in the afternoon. We stayed in the hotel, and then we went to the courthouse. This man was interrogated. He said, Did you kill So? And so the foreigner, Tanya Crosby. He said, yes. And there were other questions that he had admitted. And I was also asked to speak. And one of the things I said was that I forgive him. It's up to you what you want to do according to your law. But in my heart, I forgive him. And my son was also asked. God said, do you know this man? And my son said, yes, who is he? He said he was the one who killed my dad anyway. So that's about it. And he stayed in prison for many, many years, of course. But we were not there anymore because we went to Madagascar. But during the time I worked in the clinic, particularly there was this person who's a little bit, maybe elite. And he came from a fireplace from that same place where we went for the court hearing. It's a city, actually. And considering the city with lots of modern facilities, like hospitals and clinics, he came to the clinic. He traveled far 2 hours to come to see me. And when I asked him, I said, Where are you from? He said, from Nazareth. I said, but you have a lot of clinics there. Why did you come here? He said, I've heard a lot about you. I said, what did you hear about me? He said, I know that your husband died and you came back to help us. In spite of what happened, you're still here to help us. And my family and my friends told me that they came to your clinic and you treated them. And they got well, although there had been so many doctors and they did not get well. But they got well after they saw you. And that's why I'm here because I've been suffering from this disease and whatever. Anyway. So I came here just for you to see me because I need to be healed. And he said that I believe you have a supernatural power. I said, no, that's God's power that's working. It's not me that is just using me. I said, Why did you say that? I have supernatural power? Because when the bandits stopped, you on the road and shot you. You were not hit. So we believe that a supernatural powers protected you and you have it. And how far did he travel? Multiple days to come and see? Oh, no. It's just a two hour drive. A two hour drive? Yeah. But he didn't have to come and see you. He could have gone somewhere else. Closer. Oh, yeah. There are lots of other clinics. They're more modern than ours. Wow. Your story has spread within the country or within the area there in Ethiopia. Yeah. It's far and wide through your choice to let go and to forgive this man. You have been a witness to so many people in that country and probably other places, too, around the world, here in the US, people who have heard your story. Yeah. And they have families here in the States, too. A lot of Ethiopians migrated to the States, especially in Minnesota, Oregon. At a certain point, you left Ethiopia because you felt like you needed to have a better education for your children. Yeah. I thought I'd go back to the Philippines because that's my only option. I had no way of coming to America. It's impossible, as I told you before or a while ago, that this American came to Ethiopia, who had lost his wife, too. He was a pastor, and that's where we met. So two years later, we went to Madagascar. And at that time, my children were going to school in the Academy in Kenya. And then when they graduated from there, they were able to come to the States because of my husband, my first son, who was a witness in the courtroom. He became a doctor and he wanted to go back to Ethiopia. Wow. Yeah. Has he gone back to Ethiopia since then? Not yet. Not yet. But that's a goal. That's something that he would like to do. He said, mom, the devil thought his son and Daddy. But I'll be going there to continue the work. Wow. For people out there who are listening to this podcast, what are you holding on to in your life? What anger are you holding on to in your life? Hatred towards somebody? Are you holding onto that? You need to let go. Similar to Rupland story, letting go can change your life. It can change a lot of other people's lives. And so learning to let go and to forgive could change your life. And let us know what you think of Rupland story. We're now on Facebook. Simply overcoming. And also, you can find us the Simply Overcoming podcast on Instagram private Message us. I would love to hear directly from you. Tell me your experience. Tell me your story. Let me know what you think of Rupland story, looking forward to hearing from you. So you're now here in the US. So what happened? What was the situation? All right. So in 2007, my husband retired and we came back to the US permanently. And we settled in Tennessee. Okay. And so when he retired and we were back there, just five minute drive away from Southern. He told me. He said, you need to go to school. You need to go to school. I said, no, I don't want to go to school. It's been 30 years since I finished nursing, and I'm too old to go to school. And anyway, with a lot of some sort of hard discussion, let's say argument. He won. I said, okay, I'll try it. But if I fail in one class, I'm going to quit anyway. So I finished my nurse practitioner degree in 2012. And then I started a doctorate program in 2015 while working as a nurse practitioner. And I finished in 2018, majoring in lifestyle medicine. Wow. Congratulations. Wonderful. That's great. And I was 60 at the time anyway. But then Dr. Choato, the doctor I'm working with now or I'm working for, sent an ad to Southern Athens University School of Nursing for a nurse practitioner who would be willing to come to Idaho to work in his clinic. And he said, It's also a lifestyle clinic. And I received it and said, oh, I think it would be nice to go there so I could practice what I've learned in school. And I said, oh, maybe it's a good transition to go there. My husband just died. Your second husband had just passed away. I said, Maybe I'll just go there for a year. I just see what's, like, over there. I know it's far away from my children and it's cold. I don't know how to drive in the snow. And I don't know anybody there except the doctor who's going to hire me. But I haven't really seen him face to face anyway. So I said, okay, one year is not bad. I'll go and see. Oh, one year, really? But I'm in my third year now you're on your third year. Has it been much of a transition for you? With the cold weather and all the snow that we get? Yeah. I hated snow or winter, but when I came here, I learned to love it. It's really, like, peaceful and clean. And I enjoyed sledding downhill here driveway with the kids out here. Sledding on the Hill. Yeah. So age is not an excuse, right? Yeah. This is what my husband said. You know what? One day I'm going to die. I have nothing to leave you. But if you go to school, I can help you pay for your school fees. And you see, when you have a better education, you'll have a better job. And when you have a better job, you'll have a better income. And when you have a better income, you'll have a better life. I realized God could use me better with the knowledge I get, because now I could help patients better, because I know what to do. Yeah. Because I thought I couldn't work here in the States because I did not work here as a nurse. I had no experience. I didn't know much about nursing here in the States. I worked in the Bush doctoring in Africa, which is no problem. If the patient died, nobody will sue you. But here you could do a lot more there and get away with it, right? Oh, that's right. Yes. You have such a phenomenal story, Rupland, and I'm learning about this in real time. I didn't know about you and it's been a privilege to get to know you more. Do you have any a final thought for the listeners? I don't know in what direction you want to go with. That, whether you want to talk about forgiveness or something else. But do you have a final thought to share with our listeners before we let you go? I am going to share with you. It's about faith and about the trials. When you go through trials, it could be a death of a loved one or loss of relationships or jobs or property or any form of trials. Faith is very important. There's a song that says, thank you, Lord, for the trials that come my way in that way I can grow each day as I learn to care. Thank you for the trials because they give me patience. So it's not really because we lost somebody that we have to be thankful for. It's what this trial do for us, because now I could relate to my patients who have lost their loved ones. I could empathize with them because I have lost two times. And I know not exactly because everybody experiences different something in their lives. But at least I can relate a little bit. And also during those times I experienced anxiety and depression. It's easy to be anxious, even if subconsciously, you don't even think about it. It just comes and you don't even know why it's happening. At the time. It was hard for me to see the future. But now, as I look back, wow. God really is so good. I've never dreamed of coming here. Coming to America is like coming to heaven here on Earth. Really, Aaron, there are people who are very unhappy with their lives. But a lot of people out there in Africa or in the Philippines would love to come here to give everything, to sell everything they have to be here. A lot of people dream of coming here. Of course, according to my husband, because he's from France. He said Europe is good, but America is the best. He wanted to retire in France because retirement is good health care and whatever. But he said, for your sake, let's go back to America because if you go back to France, you have to learn French. You have to be a citizen. You have to. And there are not a lot of job opportunities there for you to grow, to go to school and work. Thank you, Ruplin, for being willing to be on the podcast. And again, if you want to reach out. If you want to talk to us about how this episode, this interview, this talk with Rupland has affected your life. Please do so reach out to us. Let us know your thoughts and we'd like to hear your story as well. Your struggles, your successes. We would just be honored to hear from you. So thank you for joining us here on the Simply Overcoming Podcast. Rupland, thank you for giving us the time today and until next time. We will see you back here on the Simply Overcoming podcast.