Surgery!

Monday provided quite the introduction to surgery in Africa. Dr. Stephen spends every Monday and Friday at the Rio de Huila clinic, located in a village about 35 km away from the city. The clinic is operated by the Alliance of Evangelicals of Angola, and has several Angolan nurses plus two Canadian medical missionary: Dr. Karen who is a GP and Dr. Collins who does cataract surgeries. We started the morning by seeing some consults, including an extremely advanced breast cancer in a 35 year old lady and a neck lymphoma on a 10 year old child which had grown to the size of his head. We then proceeded to our surgical cases. In 8 hours, we did 15 cases, including a skin graft of a sacral ulcer on a paraplegic, dilations of urethral strictures secondary to schistosomiasis, hernia repairs, debulking of tumors, and tooth extraction secondary to a mandibular abscess (there are no dentists in this city of 400,000). I was absolutely exhausted by the time we were finished and it was time to go home for supper. However, we were called back after supper to evaluate a patient who had a complication after the surgery. I don’t think I got to bed until quite late that evening.

I’ve been following the tsunami tragedy through CNN world (we have satellite TV at our home). Not only is there overwhelming rebuilding needs, it is so hard to see all that suffering going on, among all those who have lost family. It pains me to see so many people who died without knowledge of Jesus – which I believe is the only way to heaven. I pray that the UN will operate efficiently to help those in need, and that Christians will love their Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist neighbors.

I have recently been forwarded a petition to write politicians regarding opposition against this gay-marriage bill to be passed through the House of Commons. My thoughts on this issue aside, why haven’t evangelicals been at the forefront in organizing letter writing campaigns for intervention of the genocide in Darfur, or aid for the current famine in the Central African Republic, or the much-needed psychiatric services in Vancouver, or for funding of research into third-world diseases, or against allowing corporations to rape our rainforest?

Alas, I am among the guilty in this ignorance.