Comments from Albania

In my previous post, I wrote about the conference that took place last month in Albania. It is always interesting to learn what the students actually thought about the event.

Some of their comments:

“You don’t have to do everything but you must do something.”

“We need to pray a lot more.  I like the idea of connecting to one another to pray via SMS on cell phones.” (The impact of social media…)

“We should prepare faith flags ahead of time and lots of them.”

“I learned new ways of thinking about how to apply Christianity in the workplace.”

It’s encouraging to read of their desire to implement what they learned.

May God receive all the glory.

 

Continuing Medical Education

Do your best to present yourselves to God as one approved … who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

To keep up to date and to maintain good standards, our basic studies need to be built on throughout our professional careers.  Many doctors engage in Continuing Medical Education (CME) and  most would agree that this is a “must do” activity.  Should continuing spiritual education (CSE) be any less of a priority?  Sadly, the way we order our lives suggests that many of us think not.  There are not the same obvious incentives as for CME, which can improve our income as well as helping us to avoid malpractice.

But to present yourself to God, as in our text, is soul-searching.  He sees our secret choices and our hidden motives.  Just as it is no easy task to keep abreast in medicine, so it is no light thing to keep in tune with God’s purposes for my life.  Our textbook is the Bible, but study requires effort and effort requires time.  Paul’s word for how we are to handle Scripture is “orthotomeo”, which has the same Greek root as orthopedics and osteotomy.  We are to “cut a straight path”, becoming Bible explorers.  This means more than merely reading the Scriptures.  It means giving time to comparing scripture with scripture, and applying what we find to our lives.  In the words of English Pastor, John Stott, such a person “handles the Word with such scrupulous care that he both stays on the path himself … and makes it easy for others to follow.”  We cannot afford to be slack.  We must be as diligent about CSE as we are about CME.

Read and meditate: 2 Timothy 2:1-21; Hebrews 4:12-16

Originally published in The Doctor’s Life Support by the International Christian Medical Dental Association

 

The Joy of Being a Christian Physician

Occasionally God allows us to see our role in the process of building His kingdom.  As health-care workers we are privileged to offer advice regarding the diseases that afflict our patients, bringing both comfort and healing to their bodies.  But treating the physical is only part of our calling.  God calls us to integrate our faith in the process as well as giving Him all the credit for the result.

In the International Saline course we learn about the importance of integrating faith and medicine to bring about healing of the body and healing of the soul.  We use faith flags to identify ourselves as people who believe in God and project the hope we have in Christ.

Recently, I received a call from a mother with a 10-year-old son who developed an abscess on his knee from a small wound.  She was very concerned because despite lancing the lesion and trying to remove the purulent material, the infection was getting worse.  This was quite painful for her son.  The next step would be to go to the hospital which neither the mother nor the child was eager to do.  What else could be done?

Normally, I do not recommend treating patients over the phone.   But on those occasions when I do, I tell the patient what to expect and when to call back so they don’t develop a false sense of security and delay more appropriate treatment, creating a worse situation.  I prescribed an antibiotic, warm compresses three times a day and gave specific directions about what to expect.  I told her I would be praying for her son.

After several days I called to learn what happened and this is what she told me.

“After the first day of antibiotics we were not really seeing any improvements.  I am so glad you told me to wait for the second day or I would have been very nervous.  We had two groups of people praying.  My son was really afraid to have to go to the doctor to be “cut up” so to speak.  On the evening of the second day of antibiotics, the inflammation was less and the circle of redness for the first time had started to become smaller.  Praise God!  In the morning of the third day we saw a miracle.  It was completely healed.  No redness and the opening where the pus was coming out had closed.  It was as if it had been healed a week before.  We nevertheless continued with the antibiotics.

“One of the sweet things I got to see from my son was that after each cleaning, still with tears in his eyes, he would come and hug me and give me thanks for cleaning his wound.  What an amazing opportunity the Lord gave me to see that my son understands: that we who try to heal sometimes produce pain for the benefit of our patients, as does God.  I was so proud of his courage in this ordeal.  At the end, he became stronger, he understood very clearly the power of prayer, he experienced first hand the power of medicine and he gave Glory to God for it all!

“We have been blessed!  Thank you again for direction and for the “peace” you gave me over the phone!  You have blessed me, my son and my family!  Indeed, it is by His grace and it is for His glory!”

God used my words to offer hope to this family and revealed His eternal purpose in the process to this mother and her son.

Thank you God for your encouragement and for teaching us how we can be your instruments of both temporal and spiritual healing.  May we always remember to give you the credit for our success.

 

Travel to Western Ukraine

Part of being of a missionary is being willing to serve and to go whenever and wherever.  Some missionaries are not required to travel much in the countries where they serve while others are continually leaving family and familiar environs to meet, teach, and share with those God has given them the opportunity to serve.

So, when I had the opportunity to travel to western Ukraine this past month and take Marianna along with me, it was a real blessing.  We boarded our train on a Wednesday night in Kyiv and arrived in Ivano-Frankovsk the next morning.  At the train station we were met by Andrei Mikitin who is the director of a rehabilitation center for families dealing with HIV/AIDS.  It is always exciting to learn about what God is doing through other ministries.

Andrei is a man who used to work in the government, but since becoming a Christian in 2004, he has begun an organization/charitable fund called Solidarity (www.solidarity.if.ua).  They publish a small newspaper, paid for by  selling advertisements.  They provide support for programs related to alcoholism and drug use as well as families affected by HIV/AIDS.  Western Ukraine is not as affected by the HIV crisis, but often find themselves underfunded because the  money goes to areas more severely affected.

After we met Andrei’s staff, we were invited to meet with several children who are HIV+.  When one 10-year-old boy arrived, his jaw dropped when he saw me.  “I know you  You are one of the doctors at Okmadet where I was a patient recently.”  I was just as surprised.  This was a good reminder of how God directs our paths providing divine appointments according to His purpose.

Also present was a woman who was gaunt and obviously ill.  During the conversation Jim was able to plant the seeds of the gospel and offer true hope through Christ.  Pray for this woman that she might be one step closer to salvation,  eternal life and healing for her body and soul.

During our brief visit, we discovered several areas of overlapping interest besides the care of HIV+ patients.  These included Biblical counseling, adoption, publishing of Christian books and networking with other Christian organizations in Ukraine.

Our time in Ivano-Frankovsk was short, but very profitable.  In the afternoon we left by bus and headed for Mukatchava to visit Dr. Pavel Orossi and learn about the Christian Clinic he started with the help of the Luke Society.  On the map it looks like a short three-hour trip, but I forgot we were crossing the Carpathian Mountains.  As we crossed the mountains it began to snow.  At one rest stop there appeared to be about six inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing hard.  Seven hours later we arrived and were taken to the Christian Hotel connected to the Reformed Church of which Pavel is a member.

After a very comfortable night’s sleep and a delicious breakfast we began our time with Dr. Orossi.  We first met him at the UMO conference for young Christian physicians in August 2008 and deepened our relationship with him at the International Christian Medical Dental Association  meetings in Austria.  He is very much interested in encouraging his colleagues, sharing his faith with his patients and developing the International Saline program in Ukraine.

The medical clinic he started in 2000 with the support of the Luke Society is now self-sufficient except for the restoring or the purchasing of major equipment.  By the grace of God they have the most modern clinic I have visited in Ukraine.  They started from the beginning to be committed to excellence in whatever they did because they serve a most excellent God.  Until recently they owned the only CT scanner in the region.  Their mammography equipment is the only functioning unit for a population of 1.2 million people.  They provide in addition a laboratory, several ultrasound machines, endoscopy, culposcopy, EKG and soon EEG examinations.  The most amazing aspect is the whole clinic is paperless.  All medical records, lab results and results of examinations are available on site via computer to all clinic physicians.  This computer program was developed completely by their in-house IT technician.  Truly amazing, since my office in Maryland was not totally paperless.

Next we visited their satellite clinic which serves 8,000 people from 13 villages.  At the clinic we found the same warm atmosphere.  The staff at both locations seemed happy to be at work and showed genuine concern for the patients they were serving.  These clinics were truly being salt and light to the patients and the surrounding communities.  While only the leadership are Christians, they are raising the standard of care in the community and attracting qualified professionals to work at the clinic.

Before we boarded the train to return to Kyiv we were privileged to share a meal with Dr. Pavel, his wife and Dr. Vasyl, his partner.  The food was delicious and the fellowship even sweeter.  At the end of the evening we paused to pray for God to work in the hearts of healthcare professionals and patients throughout Ukraine and his blessing upon the work of the Christian Clinic, UMO and the work we can accomplish together for his kingdom.

 

Saying “Good-Bye”

Every missionary arrives at that day when he and his family find themselves standing before their home church for the last time before heading to the field God has called them to till.  That day was filled with so many emotions, excitement, sadness, joy and uncertain expectation.  I remember clearly our Pastor’s charge from Romans 12:9-21, the elders gathering around and praying and those last hugs and goodbyes from dear friends.

So off we went to Ukraine with our eighteen year old daughters and sixteen your old son.  Few mission boards would risk sending this couple in mid-life to the field.  How would our teenagers cope?  Would they even adapt to life in a foreign country?

Now we fast forward seven years.  Today we again find ourselves in our home church but in Ukraine, however only our son and his wife stand before the congregation to receive blessings and prayer before they leave for America.   Our son, who was reluctant to move to Ukraine, has mastered the Russian language, graduated from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music, became skillful at playing the vibrofone, married a beautiful Ukrainian young woman at age 20, worked for the National Philarmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and has led praise music at our church.  Now in just two weeks, at age 23, he will begin study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Once again my heart is filled with so many emotions.  As a father the emotion I feel the most is joy in the blessing of a son who has become a man who knows and fears God.  Our desire with all our children was to teach them to be independent, to think, to make decisions based on the Word of God and be caring others oriented adults.  We wanted them to understand God created them for a purpose and gave them gifts and  talents to use in His service and the service of others.  As Jamie played and Dasha sang for the last time in Kiev for awhile and listening to our pastor speak for the congregation about their service to our church, we know God enabled us to succeed and answered our prayers.

So now we stand in the congregation of our Ukrainian church, praying for God to continue to be at the center of their lives.  As our American church sent us, our Ukrainian church sends them back to America.  We remain continuing to till the field God has prepared for us and we eagerly look forward to learn what God has prepared for them.  We say “goodbye” knowing God has been and will be faithful.

 

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?   

 

A Great Missionary Day

Today was a great day.  After almost six years of living in Ukraine, I conducted my first meeting totally in Russian.  I have been praying a long time for God to enable me to speak more comfortably to those which He has placed a burden on my heart.  

Last night at 10 PM, my assistant and translator, Nika called to say she was ill and probably not be able to work the next day.  We had scheduled a meeting with the directors of two Ukrainian schools for disabled children to prepare for a conference coming up in May featuring Bob Buckendorf, a speech pathologist from Portland, Oregon.

Only Nika and I were holding down the fort at the office, since the rest of our team was on break.  It was too late to try to find another translator.  The phone numbers for the people I was meeting were at the office and there was no time to get to the office before the meeting.

I can’t say I was perfect linguistically or that I understood all that was said to me but their smiles and head nods indicated I was understood by them.  We have a basic plan of action, made decisions about what will happen, when it will happen and where it will happen.  I know who is going to be responsible for each phase of preparation.  We closed in prayer giving God the glory for the great things He has done.  Indeed, it was a great missionary day.   

 

Just a week

Sometimes life seems to move so slowly and then at other times at the speed of light.  When I was in private practice, Wednesdays were always the benchmark for the week and the 15th for the month.  It always seemed when these points of time were realized the rest of the week or month was almost over in my mind.

Life seems to be in the fast lane right now.  We have lots of projects simmering if not already approaching a boil.  In the past week, we have began teaching medical terminology in English to the doctors and nurses at Okmadet, which is the #1 Children’s Hospital in Ukraine.  We met with our missionary neighbors, Jim and Liz Baker to assist them in planning an AIDS forum in Ukraine with the purpose of mobilizing the church to action.  We spent a day with our future UMO ministry partner Donna Crane, visiting with her son Austin to make decisions about future housing for their family.  We paid the bills.  Between Marianna and I, we had nine hours of  language instruction in Ukrainian and Russian.  I prepared and led our two hour Bible study for physicians.  I figured out after five hours of dogged determinism how to improve the security for our computer.  Met with Maria from Kremenchuk about how to bring humanitarian aid into the country and how our two organizations might cooperate.  Participated in discussions with ministry partners for future medical conferences in Ukraine.  Planned a surprise birthday dinner for our friend and colleague Ron Harris.  And somewhere in the thick of things found time for sleep, Bible study, and reading with my wife.

Yes, it was just a week which God filled with many blessings.  

 

Doctor and Dad

Serving as a physician in a foreign country does present some interesting challenges in the doctor patient relationship.  In Ukraine where people openly don’t trust the system or in situations where someone wants to double check or just hear an explanation in their native tongue, I often get calls for assistance.

 I received one such call today from our daughter, Jeanne.  She was visiting friends about an hour and a half outside of Kyiv.  It was 5 AM and she woke up with excruciating back pain.  She initially dialed the wrong number and later told me she just started crying and said to the person, who happened to be a friend, ” Your not my Dad.  I need my Dad!” 

When we finally connected, I first switched into doctor mode, asking all the pertinent questions.  Then as the Dad, I said, “Do you want to come home?”  I knew her friends where taking good care of her but I also knew there was very limited medical care available in Rezhechyev, pop. 10,000.  I know how helpless I felt being able to offer advise only by phone, but I wonder how Ukrainians feel about the same problem living here all of their lives, I am sure no different.

Jeanne’s pain did not subside and she could not keep even ibuprofen in her stomach.  Her friends called back and said they were on their way.  To get the rest of the story you can read Marianna’s blog http://ukrainiac.wordpress.com and Jeanne’s too at http://jeannepeipon.blogspot.com.

Being a licensed physician in any country requires mastery of the language of the country in which you practice.  I am much better in speaking Russian, but far from fluent.  It is quite frustrating when you cannot communicate what used to be simple orders.  The names of the tests are never exactly the same.  Then there is the problem of accent.  Imagine someone having difficultly understanding me because of my thick American accent.

The thought process as doctor and dad is different.  I am thinking how can I help my daughter.  What happens if she needs to be admitted?  How do I get the medicines I need realizing some are the same,  some are similar but with different names, some are not available at all, and some are ones I have never heard of before.  Then there is the issue of being sure Jeanne’s mother and my wife know all the possibilities but being confident enough so as not to make her overly anxious.

 Well a good place to start is practice what you preach and begin with prayer.  As the day unfolded, God was certainly there guiding my thoughts, plans and steps.  I thank Him for His assistance today in helping me be both doctor and dad.