{"id":258,"date":"2011-02-24T10:27:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T10:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=258"},"modified":"2012-03-02T14:20:58","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:20:58","slug":"he-gave-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2011\/02\/24\/he-gave-his-life\/","title":{"rendered":"He Gave His Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Glen Lapp '91 and EMU professor Lisa Schirch in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December, 2009. Schirch was in Afghanistan (and has returned there) for the 3D Security Initiative (3dsecurity.org). Photograph courtesy of lisa schirch<\/p><\/div>\n

By Valerie Neff Newitt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glen Lapp, BSN, RN, gave his life to the service of others
\n\u2014 literally. Lapp packed his nursing skills and his Mennonite-inspired commitment to a peaceful world and journeyed to Afghanistan in October 2008. Working for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Akron, Pennsylvania, he helped to provide eye care and other medical support in the rugged, war-torn country.<\/p>\n

Just two months before his anticipated October [2010] return to the U.S., Lapp participated in a two-week mobile eye clinic to test and treat people with eye diseases in Nuristan province at the invitation of the locals. But on an ill-fated return trip to his base in Kabul, Lapp, 40, and nine other team members perished. They were ambushed, robbed and riddled with bullets in a remote wooded area of Badakhshan province. The Taliban has claimed responsibility, and so have lesser insurgents. Yet the identity of the assailants is still unconfirmed. Authorities have said it might have been a band of rogue thieves who committed the heinous act.<\/p>\n

Despite the tragic details of Lapp\u2019s untimely death, it is his brief but purposeful life that will be his legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a dedicated nurse \u2014 both here and abroad. The loss of Glen and his colleagues is not only a loss for the people of Afghanistan, but for all of us in the global health community,\u201d said Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, where Lapp received a BS in 1995 in the school\u2019s second degree accelerated program.<\/p>\n

Lapp had earlier earned a degree from Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), in Harrisonburg, Virginia. [He was a \u201991 math major at EMU.]<\/p>\n

Ruth Zimmerman, LPN [\u201994 and MA \u201902], was Lapp\u2019s direct supervisor for MCC in Asia. She said Lapp\u2019s interest in Afghanistan emerged after he visited a friend there in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlen loved the adventure of it. I\u2019m sure this last trip to the outer reaches of Afghanistan \u2014 places where hardly any other people on earth have ever gone \u2014 was the dream of a lifetime for him. The team travelled by Jeep for hours and hours, then they walked, then they rode on horseback over mountain passes just to get there. They had to carry all their equipment with them. It was terribly hard to reach, and in the end, it was also dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimmerman added wistfully, \u201cGlen was the ideal nurse, very self contained and capable, as well as extremely compassionate – and above all, humble about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Schirch, on faculty of EMU\u2019s graduate program in justice and peacebuilding, is also a teacher at the University of Kabul. She\u2019s been to that distant capital city three times since December, staying in the same guest house as Lapp, where they shared meals, conversations and hours exploring Kabul together.<\/p>\n

Just before his death, Lapp was preparing an exit report to be filed with Mennonite Central Committee upon his return to the U.S. And while the report was never completed, it did speak to Lapp\u2019s ongoing commitment to service. He said in part: \u201cThe main thing expats can do is to be a presence in the country [Afghanistan]. Treating people with respect and with love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schirch said [that] \u201cGlen was very proud to be a nurse; he chose this profession to serve others. And what\u2019s more, he chose to do it in a war zone. He was aware of the danger, but he was willing to take the risk. I don\u2019t think his life was wasted, I feel it\u2019s a testament to his character, his beliefs and his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glen Lapp was a member of Community Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where his parents Mary and Marvin \u201972 Lapp live. This article was excerpted with permission from Advance for Nurses at nursing.advanceweb.com, where the full version was posted on August 11, 2010. Valerie Newitt is the magazine\u2019s senior associate editor.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Valerie Neff Newitt Glen Lapp, BSN, RN, gave his life to the service of others \u2014 literally. Lapp packed his nursing skills and his Mennonite-inspired commitment to a peaceful world and journeyed to Afghanistan in October 2008. Working for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Akron, Pennsylvania, he helped to provide eye care and other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[12,66,140,148],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fallwinter-2010-11","category-magazine","tag-afghanistan","tag-glenn-lapp","tag-mennonite-central-committee","tag-music","issues-fallwinter-2010-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":963,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}