Lessons from Ecclesiastes on Teamwork

Very few people desire to work completely by themselves.   As doctors we often take pride in our individual skills.   Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 4:8, “there is a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother.”  Why do I work so hard if I cannot take the fruit of my efforts with me or leave my material possessions to someone I love.  “There was no end to his toil yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.”   The more I accumulate the more I want and the harder I must work.   “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”   If I work too hard or long there is no time to enjoy what I have earned.   All of this results in “a miserable business.” 

The remaining verses in Ecc 4 describe the benefits for man when he works together with a like minded brother.   God designed us to work in relationship to others reflecting the work of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Often as a missionary, I think of how much more God good accomplish through me being part of an effective team.   There are at least 13 lessons on the value of teamwork that I could find.  Can you find more?

1)  A good return, which usually means a profit

2) Good verses not so good or bad, a return without trouble as with  something illegal.

3) A good return provides what is needed not necessarily what is wanted.

4) A good return means our work will be meaningful.

5) When you work as a team there is someone who can offer encouragement.

6) It takes two to be able to support one another.

7) There are some tasks that you cannot do by yourself. 

Two are better for defending.

9) You yourself alone cannot see all of your own weaknesses.

10) There is safety in numbers.

11) A team has more strength.

12) There is a synergistic effect.  when two work together there effort does more than double.

13) Emotional stability increases because when one is down the other is up.

14) You become more aware of forgiveness and grace.

15) You discover different approaches from an additional set of eyes and thoughts.

16) You have someone to share your experience.

As I typed these lessons out I came up with three more, with my final thought being when you know Jesus you are never alone.  I am thankful that God has chosen me to be part of His team, although He doesn’t need me to accomplish His purposes.  What a privilege it is to serve on our LORD’s team!  May we not only be a good member of God’s team but our earthly teams as well bringing unity in Christ to all we do.

Willingness AND Looking

Are you willing to do whatever God has prepared for you to do on any given day?  Better yet are you looking for what He has planned for your life moment by moment to glorify Him?

 Yesterday, I accompanied by wife to the hospital she has been faithfully serving the past several years (to get view of the day click on her blog, The Heart of the Matter, on the right).  She ministers to the children who have been diagnosed or waiting to receive the diagnosis of HIV infection usually through no fault of their own.  Their mothers, whose hearts have been deadened by drugs, abandoned them at birth.  She visits them, holding, hugging, tickling, mothering them.

I must admit my “to do” list contained more items than I could accomplish in a day.  In fact, I have things on my list towards the bottom that are important but have been on the list for at least six months.  They keep their lowly position not because they unimportant but because they are suppressed by the urgencies and sometimes mundane things of life.

Two days ago I was alerted via my assistant, Maya, that I might be asked to be a fill in puppeteer for my wife’s evangelistic puppet show.  Her plan was to recruit students from Kyiv Christian Academy as puppeteers.  They are required to perform twenty hours of community service each year.  The day of the performance was a day off from school and many families were making the most of this  opportunity to do something together.  After checking earlier in the week with the head nurse at this hospital for 400 children we were advised there would be as many as 150 children parents and staff in attendance.  Too late to back out now even if we did not have any assistants.  The show must go on.  We did have one faithful recruit, Nat, who we have known since we first moved to Ukraine.

We all gathered on the morning of the “Really Big Show” at our flat, two hours before, for our one and only rehearsal.  We could not find a copy of the script after a frantic search and for a moment thought the tape might be erased.  I am still amazed that we were able to pull this adventure off, but then again I was relying upon my own strength and desires.

We certainly were not professional.  But hearing the giggles coming form our audience and their spontaneous clapping with the music encouraged the puppeteers greatly.  Simply, the audience and the team were having fun together sharing God’s love and enjoying His presence together!

After the show two older patients from the audience who assisted in holding our curtain announced they were Christians and were very excited to see us.  We invited them to church and they promised they would come.  Another woman approached me with her son Valdic who has a kidney problem and needs an operation.  She is also a believer and wanted some reassurance that this surgery was really needed.  She was hoping and praying God would heal her son without this procedure.  Somewhat disappointed in God’s response, I asked her to think and pray more about God’s attributes and His purposes than the immediate problem she was facing.  Our God is so much greater than we can imagine.  He does not let anything go to waste even our illnesses.  We prayed.  She cried.  We hugged.

Was I a willing participant yesterday?  Was I looking for God’s purpose and plan for me when the day began?  Somewhat reluctantly, I followed God’s lead and He graciously allowed me to be His instrument to share His love and faithfulness.  What are your plans for today?   

House Calls

It is often difficult for young mothers in Ukraine whether they are nationals or foreigners.  Often I receive a call for medical advise to just help people through the medical system in Ukraine.  A young missionary family e-mailed me two days ago to ask for help.  Their nine month old was ill with respiratory distress, they had already seen five different doctors and still were not certain what was wrong with their child and if he was receiving the correct treatment.  Now they would like me to come to their apartment to examine their child.

The story started at the beginning of the week when the child developed a cough and a fever.  The child’s condition became progressively worse through out the day.  They called for a doctor who administered an injection and said she would return later in the day to check on the little boy.  If he was no better he would have to be admitted to the hospital.  The doctor did not say what was wrong with the child but left just after writing six precriptions.

As the day progressed the child became worse.  The parents were now faced with the decision of where to have their son admitted.  They took him to a private clinic called Boris.  They agreed the child needed to be admitted but would not admit him to the private hospital because he had diarrhea.

Well the child eventually was admitted to a government hospital for one night, but the parents took him home the next day because they thought their child was being treated no differently than what they were doing at home.

The child seemed to have a combination of acute asthma and croup.  Fortunately, by the time I examined the child he had significantly improved.  Thank you God for designing our bodies to be able to cope with many illnesses despite our attempts to practice medicine.  In Ukraine, nebulizers are not routinely available.  Albuterol and racemic epinephrine are not available at all. 

What pediatric visit would be complete without a plethora of questions from the mom.  This visit was no different.  The questions however concerned information regarding drafts, wearing slippers, and not going outside.  Apparently, one of the doctors who came to the apartment from the polyclinic would holler at the mom for not taking care of her child properly blaming her for why the child was ill.

After seeing the first child the parents asked if I would not mind examining there other two children.  This is not uncommon for pediatricians in America as well.  The twist came when they asked if I would also see two other children belonging to couple who were friends of the parents from two buildings down the street.

What initially began as a 45 minute visit turned into a marathon.  What we are trying to model to health care workers is how to build trust in their patients by providing consistent accurate information based on fact instead of superstition or tradition and to abandon their blind authoritative approach to delivering care.

Serving in Russian

There are somethings we just take for granted.  This morning millions of people will go to church and make their first stop the nursery.  Each parent then gives detailed instructions about what little Johnny or Susie likes or dislikes to the caretaker and heads to church.  This past Friday we were privileged to serve the Church of Calvary Chapel  during the memorial service of their missionary pastor, George Markey.  We knew the impact this man had in the lives of many in this church, but did not have a close relationship with him ourselves.  So, we volunteered for nursery duty, after all we volunteered for this ministry in our home church when our kids were little.  Marianna loves children.  And, of course, I am a pediatrician.  Besides, we were told there would probably be only two kids.  After five years living in Ukraine, we can do this for a couple of hours.

 We arrived early along with Olenka, a young mother, and her two year old.  So we had a chance to meet him.  More importantly he had a chance to warm up to us.  His mother speaks great English and is teaching her son English words as well as Russian and Ukrainian.  Fantastic!  I study Russian.  Marianna studies Ukrainian.  He knows some English.

Another parent soon showed up with her child.  She spoke briefly in Russian to Olenka and went on her way.  OK, the two kids are here.  We can do this it will be fun.  Soon a third, a fourth, a tenth were actively playing together.  A few more parents arrived, opened the door, made a comment, looked puzzled and left without leaving their children.

Olenka said the service was about to begin.  She told us her son usually cried a bit when he discovered her absence, but would calm down after 2 or 3 minutes.  Well this sounds rather typical.  True to form, little Danielko began to cry.  His big eyes with big tears revealed not only his desire to see his mom, but his frustration in not being understood.  We tried to comfort him in Russian, then Ukrainian and in last resort English.  Finally, a good 20 minutes later after he managed to get his coat and hat on did he stop crying and began to play. 

But, where ever two or more are gathered and one begins to cry, a chain reaction begins.  Now little Eva began.  The time certainly was flying by, but seemed like an eternity.  I can only imagine what it was like for these kids.

Like every good nursery, there was a TV.  This was a special TV which was very temperamental.  Fortunately, one of the fathers returned and explained in Russian the idiosyncrasies of this particular set up.  I just watched and nodded as if I completely understood.  After all, I knew how to operate a video player in English.

There was a small bag of toys, a couple of cars for the kids to ride on in addition to the TV to watch.  Then it happened a little boy who befriended me came up to me and said “peeset” which sounds quite similar to another word which means to write.  So I asked him if he wanted to draw.  I told him we did not have any crayons.  He repeated it again with the tell tale hand motion over his private parts.  Ohhhhh, you want to go to the bathroom.  Off we went to the men’s room.  Mission accomplished.  What a sense of accomplishment.  Unfortunately, several other little guys were not so lucky and they were not able to communicate nor did we think to ask them if them needed to go to the bathroom.  People train their children earlier here because the diapers are expensive.

The time really did fly by and soon it was 10:30 PM.  The memorial service had ended and the parents were picking up there kids.  As we attempted to communicate with the parents they were clearly appreciative, but I wonder what they were really thinking.  Would you leave your child in a nursery with someone you never met before who could not communicate with you completely even if he said he was a pediatrician?  If there is a silver lining in this story, it is the fact we would not even have offered to do this service when we first arrived in Ukraine and here we were actually doing it.  I guess we have learned some language skills and we thank God we are able to serve and be used for His glory.