DAVID MORRISON
gaunt, with red splotches on his neck and arms. He admitted to being a bit embarrassed that his close-cropped brown hair had fallen out in places during his late summer ordeal in steamy Liberia and later, an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga. He was wearing new clothes, his old wardrobe burned to avoid further contamination. He was not a picture of health. But he was alive, and for a Friday afternoon in West Texas, that was enough. The 2003 ACU graduate and his wife, Amber (Carroll ’06), had just driven with their two children halfway across the country from a respite hideaway in the northern Midwest, and he was understandably tired. It was a whirlwind trip symbolic of the Brantlys’ new normal: two public speaking appearances and two panel discussions with students and faculty on Friday, quality time with Amber’s large extended family in Abilene, breakfast early Saturday morning with his Pi Kappa buddies, a slow spin with Amber and the kids in a convertible as grand marshals of the Homecoming parade, a quick trip to North Carolina that evening to speak at a banquet, then back to Abilene on Sunday. Kent’s return trip – unknown to most people other than Amber, a few physicians and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – included a stop in Dallas to donate plasma to help save the life of a young nurse unfortunate as he to come down with Ebola. On his long initial drive to Abilene, Kent also stopped in Kansas City, Mo., to donate plasma to NBC freelance photojournalist Ashoka Mukpo and the Brantlys’ dear friend, Rick Sacra, M.D., two other Ebola-sticken Americans. “So how are you feeling?” someone inquired, not sure what else to ask an otherwise intensely private person whose bodily fluids had become a perceived national security risk and dinner-table talk from Sweetwater to Shanghai. He stopped to reflect, then spoke deliberately with a smile: “I’m doing OK for someone who didn’t sign up for Ebola.” Kent and Amber Brantly did sign up to be medical missionaries, a career calling with as many soaring personal victories as occupational hazards. The career choice required turning their lives over to God and their futures to a journey unlike any they ever imagined. It was – and still is – consuming considerable amounts of personal faith, a spiritual commodity the Brantlys seem to have far beyond most.
PRAY, DON’T PANIC Kent celebrated his release from Emory University Hospital on Aug. 21, 2014, what he called “a miraculous day,” in comments during a news conference broadcast live around the world.
“We are thrilled to be here,” a deeply moved Kent said that Friday morning, Oct. 10, in Chapel. “I am particularly thrilled to be alive, to return to Abilene, to my ACU community, to my family.” He rubbed his clasped hands together, smiled and spoke with measured words of the joy he felt for having been spared for a higher purpose he had yet to fully understand. For someone not used to the public spotlight, he did not shrink from the glare. Some 4,000 CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 ACU TODAY
Spring-Summer 2015
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