Reflections and Residency

I've been back stateside for 4 days now and what a busy time it has been! I've nary had a minute to sit down and reflect on the trip. Family, Match Day and reconnecting with friends have taken up a big chuck of time, so I've decided to spend some time away from the hustle of the city to think, pray, reflect and, of course, take in some March Madness. 

- First things first, God put this desire in my heart, and He has made it possible through your generous gifts. I cannot say for sure what the long term impact of my visit to Kijabe will be, but God does and it will be exciting to see the fruit in heaven. 

- I was able to reconnect with some of the friends I had made four years ago on my last trip to Kenya. It was so refreshing to sit and talk and hear what God has been doing in their lives. Saturday I was visited by Chris Amulo, his wife, Dr. Anne, and their daughter Rebekah. What a pleasure it was to see how God had used them in Machakos, moved them to Nairobi and has now given them the task of overseeing all Navigator student ministry in Kenya. This man and his family have had such a positive impact on my life. Rare it is to meet a man as humble yet visionary as this Kenyan. God truly does put us where we can use the gifts He has given us to bring Him the greatest glory. Chris and Anne are marvelous examples of God's faithfulness. It was and is a blessing to count them as friends. 

Sunday night brought me face to face with Naftali Oswago and his wife, Mary, as well as Alex Kiamba and his fiancee, Monica. Naftali is ministering with the Navigators at Moi Medical School in Eldoret and Alex is  in Machakos continuing the ministry that Chris had there along with several other of our friends.  Naf and Mary are living in Nairobi, doing some further study and continuing to get adjusted to married life before heading back to Eldoret. We sat around a table at the Nairobi Java House enjoying whatever caffeinated beverage suited us and talked for hours about the past and about the future. I could feel my spirit stirring within me as we reminisced. Truly, to this continent my heart belongs.

- After two long flights and one puddle jump I was back in Omaha, exhausted. It's difficult to talk about your amazing experience when a) you're really, really tired and b) you haven't had the time to dedicate to process through all that you have seen, heard, tasted and learned. If I talked to you on Tuesday or Wednesday and was not as informative as you had hoped, my apologies.

My dad did make the trek to Omaha, along with my sister and brother-in-law to pick me up from the airport and welcome me. I don't think I realized how much I missed my family until I saw them. I cannot recount how blessed I am to have my family.  

- Thursday was the greatly anticipated match day. I am planning on doing a residency in General Surgery and where I train could have a big impact on my future ministry. The butterflies didn't start until I started to hear where everyone else was going and wondered about the infinite number of combinations of factors that went into making this choice. Too much thinking, perhaps. (Now, the Match is a two way street. I ranked the programs I liked and they rank the applicants they liked and everything is fed into some supercomputer that spits out some compatibility ranking determining where you end up. It seems akin to letting Match.com choose your career.) 

I was pleased to learn that I'll be spending the next 5 years in Dallas, Texas at Methodist Dallas Hospital, close to friends and family. It is a program that allows for broad experience and the chance to get into the operating room early on in my training. It is a great (God-ordained) fit for me and the direction I think my career will go. 

- There is so much more to say about Kenya, the people, the hospital, and what God has taught me, but I hope that you'll continue to be patient with me as I process through all that has happened. Thank you for your ongoing prayers, you are an enormous blessing to me. 

Bless God and be blessed.

Good News

There has been so much death on our service this week. I was really hoping to have a great sendoff with many miracles and jubilee, but, oddly enough, this seems more appropriate. I've had a really, really good run of things while I've been here. This week has just hit me like a ton of bricks. It's not just the death, it's who has died. I have watched two men, around my age pass away from complications of TB. I watched as a surgery went horribly wrong and we lost the patient on the table despite our best efforts. I heard about a fellow med student who fell ill and died thousands of miles from home. There have been numerous others: infants and children, women after childbirth. It has been tough.

So, naturally, I have been reflecting on the nature of my mission. Am I here to learn medicine and surgery where the "rules" for med students are less strict in order to have a great experience? Am I here to "save Africa?" Or, am I here to bring glory to God in such a way that it required a brief stay in Kenya to bring about?

To my shame, I would say that the former reason is why I came. To God's glory, I think the latter is the reason I am leaving. He has taken me by the hand and led me through many difficult nights, both on call and off, struggling with my own bias and prejudice, teaching trust and obedience. I have been pushed to the end of my rope more than once, but each time I have walked away with a profound sense of peace. I have had to wrestle with many of my tightly held convictions, some have been affirmed and some have been proven false. God has used many difficult situations to show me where my confidences lie, and has used many different people to teach me that He is not joking when He commands us to "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might. And love your neighbor as yourself." I know that I don't do that as much as I ought, but I was astounded how little I actually loved others, and how little I loved God.

Working at Kijabe Hospital illustrated to me just how compartmentalized my life has become. I have a medicine life, a home life, a school life, a church life, etc; and each of those lives have differing roles for my faith, my attitude, my work ethic. Again, I was shocked at how much I could love God at my house, at church, in fellowship with others and then completely forget everything as soon as I walked into the hospital (even a Christian one). I have put God into His box and I am content to take Him out when covenient and replace Him when it suits me. I am ashamed to admit that I could ever have felt this way, but it was so pervasive in my thinking that it took God's constant prompting and much scripture reading to tease it out. I was specifically convicted by 1 Thess. 5:16-18. I was not joyful, nor prayerful, and definitely not thankful at all times. This was made more evident by the segmentation of my experiences. God is God at home and church; Medicine or Money or Materials or Myself are gods elsewhere. Foolish. God is One, says Moses, meaning that He is the same God over every part of our lives, not many separate gods that we create to feel good about ourselves. He is holy, He is righteous, He is just. He does not just wink and nod at my sin, but demands a payment that I can never afford. How glorious that we have Jesus!

This brings me to the Good News. Jesus paid the debt we could never hope to pay and so has made us right with God. Jesus allows me to grow and experience the Love of the Father with abundant grace and mercy and not the eternal wrath of a Holy God. Jesus is the one who makes this experience, indeed, this whole life, worth all the pain and trials and wonder and awe. Jesus is the reason anyone cared enough to venture into an exceedingly dangerous part of the world to offer help, medicine, and hope to those in dire need of all three. Jesus is the reason, I pray, that I will venture into some exceedingly dangerous part of the world to offer help, medicine (and surgery), and hope.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragment and your faithful prayers. God is doing good work here, thank you for playing a part in my life and I pray that Africa may play a part in yours.

Bless God and be blessed.

Eat when you can, sleep when you can...

Or: Of Burr Holes, Bezhuovs and Bethany Kids

First off, my apologies for taking so long in posting again. The internet has not been kind. But, just another hurdle. This blog will be ala carte so those of you wanting some greater substance and insight into my time will need to be patient (or as my roommate Sean is fond of saying, "Patience, Bwana, patience")

- Burr holes are big holes you drill into peoples heads to release the pressure from bleeding, swelling, etc. I got to drill one two weeks ago. A very interesting experience. This poor fellow alighted from a matatu when he was struck by a lorrie traveling in the opposite direction. He was semilucid when he arrived and deteriorated quickly, and even though we released the pressure in his brain, his pupils were fixed and dilated, ie brain dead. He was kept alive so his family could say goodbye. It's hard to know that you've tried your best and it still isn't enough. I guess God wanted him more than we did.

- Pierre Bezhouv is one of the heros of "War and Peace" a novel that I have recently finished, in less than a year! Pierre does not accept things at face value and instead seeks to find the deeper meaning in all that he sees, does and thinks. His searching takes him through various faiths and cults until he finds "truth" in the simplicity of life. There is so much more to say about him, but this is not a literary critique. I found myself identifying with him a great deal while I was reading and would encourage you to pick up this expansive portrait of human existence, struggle through it and congratulate yourself on having read the greatest novel ever written (so far, still have yet to read Brothers Karmazov).

- Some of you may know that I was born in Kijabe, some of you may know that I was delived by a chap with the name of Richard Bransford. Dr. Bransford, besides being my first acquaintance, has been a sort of hero to me since I have had the opportunity to follow what he has been doing in Kijabe. He did his general surgery training in Omaha, at UNMC, before heading to Africa with his family. He did the broadest practice of general surgery that I've ever heard of before addressing the needs of Africa's most precious resource, it's children. He was frustrated by the lack of options for children born with neurosurgical and orthopaedic maladies and so dedicated himself to learning how to correct these surgically. He would pay special attention when visiting specialists would come to town and bought himself a large text of surgery to teach himself. He started a programme called Bethany Kids at Kijabe Hospital to deal specifically with these kids and has had enormous success. Now he's looking for additional sites to start Bethany Kids centers in East Africa and for surgeons to staff them. Pray for Dr. Bransford and Bethany Kids, as this is a programme that is no doubt near and dear to many of your hearts, if not in name then certainly in practice.

- You absolutely cannot put a price on the look on a parent's face when they see their bedridden child walking. Similarly, no picture can reproduce the look on a young man's face and his "thumbs-up" when his mobility that was robbed by polio is returned. Burn victims have unscarred faces again and people who haven't eaten solid food for years can again enjoy chapatis (think tortillas but thicker and more delicious!) and stew. The miraculous is commonplace around here, so much so that words will not suffice. There is no way to truly appreciate what is happening here unless you see it for yourself. That being said, Come! You, too, can be brought to tears by a mother's own seeing her childs cleft lip and palate repaired. You can weep along with the Somali's, who are outcasts in their own country and now in also Kenya, finally being treated as equals and having longstanding tumors removed by the skilled and gentle staff. You can be of use here even if you have no medical experience. Come to think of it, you can be of use anywhere with your willing spirit and faith in God. God will use you, He promises this in Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship (masterpiece), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." You've been created for good works and the path lays open for you to walk in them. God will make a way. Your family will understand and even if they don't the mosaic of faces that will greet you in Heaven shall be proof that this life is best lived when lived for others.

- I visited the Masaai Mara a couple weeks ago and was fortunate enough to catch many glimpses of God's might and glory manifested in the diverse animal and plant life, and especially in the sunrises and sunsets over the savanna. And as beautiful as the scenery was, it was matched by the ugliness of my heart toward the people who viewed me as an ATM to whom to hawk their wares and relieve of any assets I had on my person, even my watch. I understand that I'm white and can afford to give, but my heart was hardened against these merchants. Subsequently, I was severely rebuked by the Jesus in the "Sermon on the Mount." Expect presents and some great pictures, too.

- The title of the blog refers to a saying in sugery, "Eat when you can, sleep when you can, don't mess with the pancreas," which has pretty much been my MO while on call. Almost an hour of sleep is all I've gotten per call with two more this week. Pray for my attitude, please.

- There is so much more. The hotly anticipated rains have begun, an answer to prayer. My thoughts are with you often as my time draws near an end. My rank list has been submitted and residency is now in God's hands, wherever I end up it will be to His glory. Keep the emails, comments and prayers coming, I love to hear from you, in spite of the internet. Prayers for health and travel are always appreciated! I'll see you on St. Patrick's Day!

Bless God and be blessed.