Beyond what I could ever imagined God blessed this trip. While there, there are blessing they don’t always appear so sometimes time is needed to process and understand those blessings. In a country of 95% Buddhist and Hindu followers with Idol worship marking every corner, temples, palaces, shrines, whether in the city or countryside. Spiritual darkness was evident, and the longer we were there you began to just understand the surface of it all. Each day was grueling as well as rewarding the days were long and the amount of cases were unrelenting.  An eighteen year old American named Anna Carter came with me.  This was her first surgical trip ever and it would prove to be one she will not soon forget. Anna is a friend of my sister’s, having only talked to her twice, while I was in Florida over a year ago she  agreed to come serve with MMI and myself. During the first day there were General and OBGYN cases and several minors. With so many different people groups, backgrounds and training it is truly one of my favorite things to watch everyone come together and become a well oiled machine. As one of the nurses said this is a God thing, Amen ever so true! In Post Operation room at the mission hospital there was no AC, our recovery room nurses were sweating the concrete block kept the heat turning the room into a sauna. The first day late in the day we had an emergency gall bladder surgery come in two of our best surgeons said they would take the case. Anna and I scrubbed in with them. The surgery took some time, meanwhile the patient was doing incredibly well throughout, as soon as we were finished his heart rate began to fall and soon it was clear we were in peril, the fight for his life was on. Now remember, I have seen a whole lot in the last four years of mission work, yet we have never lost a patient yet, I have seen gall bladders that have become fistula with other organs near and have even assisted while a surgeon scraped gang green from the inside of a patient for hours in order to save their life and they were saved. In previous blogs you have read how we have had close calls and how the Lord has interceded so many times. This first day that was not to happen the patient was septic and the best we could do was not going to be enough, his time was up, after his time of death was pronounced I cleaned and prepared his body. I cannot express how this effected me for the first week we were there. I kept seeing his face in my mind and in the beginning you realize just how helpless we are as human being when the heart beat is gone we are finished, God’s timing not our own. There were tears and lots of prayers for the family, late that night off duty Anna and I didn’t talk till the morning we went to bed with heavy hearts. In the morning we were able to release somewhat after face timing her parents. When I take students with me I can’t promise  them that this won’t happen instead what I can say it that this is a real world filled with people that do not have medical care or access to it for that matter. On these trips this is something we always face, people who live too far from a clinic or hospital giving us difficult cases that could very well not wake up on our tables. If we had other options we would have taken them, yet his case we had little choice but to act immediately to try to save him, had we not the family would have blamed us and so would the provincial hospital. This is why I feel so strongly about medical trips and missions, there are countless people suffering from so many things that can be taken care of in less than 45 mins depending on the case, yet they live years of their life in torment and sick, truly heart wrenching. If only we could reach them in time with the Gospel and medical treatment what a world of difference it would make. There is no turning back no regrets only hope and prayer to walk faithfully with where the Lord puts us. Please pray for this man’s family and that the time we spent sharing and loving on them would encourage their hurting hearts, they were very appreciative of all the doctors did in trying to save their father. I know this may well not be the last patient I see past on and so I am thankful to know just how to take it to the Lord and rest in Him. Being stretched is painful yet wonderful to see the inner workings of our hearts and minds clearly. Many people like to think that missions is glamorous and paint such a beautiful picture of the work, it is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Yes there are smiles and joyous moments yet the call is one that requires hard work and a heart that refuses to ever give up the work for the glory of God for in the end of all things God doesn’t need us to carry on the work yet He chooses to call us and use these humble hands. I can only agree with one of my favorite missionaries:

“Some want to live within the sound
Of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop,
Within a yard of hell.”
― C.T. Study

From that experience Anna went on to surprise me with her willingness and desire to learn. She worked hard, I remember saying to her I don’t know why God allowed your very first case to go the way it did, yet it can only get better from here onwards and upwards and God must have an incredible plan for your life! To conclude there is so much on this trip that was a blessing, hugely though was watching the Lord transform Anna’s heart. I loved her zest and joy for life, and the doctors saw that as well and loved her more for it. She came a friendly stranger to me, yet left a dear friend. What I can say is if your a student and you are reading this, come with me, come learn, come be challenged, come discover your potential way of serving, come asking the Lord to change you and be ready to learn about yourself like you have never before. There is a vast mission field before us and there is much to be done all in the Lord’s timing. Are you listening to God’s Heart Beat?