I guess this is really gonna happen.
To some extent, of course, I feel like this is now becoming routine. This will be the seventh overseas mission trip I have taken since 2000. The anxiety of list-making, packing and organizing is now fairly easy. Moreover, the professional concerns of whether I will be able to function in a "alternative tech" are no longer uppermost in my mind. I am sure I will meet kids with terrible problems and insufficient resources... that is a given. I am also sure that grace will be sufficient for the task. We will muddle through somehow and the end result will be in His will.
I am also sure I will meet wonderful people.
I look forward to meeting "Archieppes" whoever that may be this time. It seems that I meet and am able to mentor one local health care worker on each trip. In Rwanda last time, it was Archieppes; an intern with whom I communicated in bad English, worse French, broken Swahili and fragmentary Kinyarwandan. We had a ball. Archieppes, married less than a week when I met him, was well organized, loved by his patients, knowlegable about local customs (although Congolese) and in need of good basic Pediatrics teaching. We carved out a couple of hours a day t
o review medicine and Peds. ( He has subsequently gotten a wonderful residency in Senegal)As much as I grew to love and respect him as a brother and a professional, I was not, however, above remarking that he seemed to yawn MORE OFTEN after nights he spent at home compared to nights on-call. His embarrassed smile: priceless.
At any rate, the ball has started to roll. God willing, I leave 14 January and I expect to return 13 or 14 February.
