Miracles
Thank you for your prayers for Melissa and her family. Melissa's uncle, Mark, went to be with the Lord about two weeks ago. Because of how my schedule worked out Melissa was able to fly out to Des Moines to be with her aunt and the rest of the extended family as they grieved their latest loss. We are grateful that Melissa was able to spend time with her family and have an opportunity to grieve with them. Please continue to lift up Melissa's aunt, Diane, and the rest of her family as they struggle with Mark's loss. We are also grateful that the kids did well with Melissa traveling and that I survived the first time in our marriage when I was at home with the kids without Melissa's ever-present help!
Praises:
- Opportunity for Melissa to travel to Iowa for Mark's funeral and to be with the rest of her family as they grieved.
- A second meeting with Denton Bible Church last week as we take steps forward to be sent by Serve International.
- New students and residents that have joined the Dallas medical missions group which we have been a part of for two years. They have been an encouragement to us and continue to spur us on to fulfilling God's calling on our lives.
Prayer Requests:
- Melissa's extended family as they grieve the loss of their grandmother and her uncle Mark.
- Clarity about where we want to go for language school once we return to India so that we can become fluent in Hindi.
During the course of the past few months God has been showing me more and more of His hand at work to bring about healing when I care for patients in the emergency department. Growing up in America, I was taught to view most things through the lens of science. The spiritual dimension was something that was pushed to the periphery and rarely acknowledged in the course of everyday events. However, as I've allowed myself to look for God's hand at work He has begun to show me how He provides healing in ways that I just cannot explain scientifically. As a Christian, I have to acknowledge that sometimes God works in mysterious ways - sometimes to provide healing, sometimes to just build my faith that He is ultimately in control. Over the course of the past year, I've had several experiences where things have gone much differently that I would have ever imagined and I can find no other explanation than God's hand at work. As Ambroise Paré the French surgeon once said, "I treat, God heals." What a burden off my shoulders when I realized that great truth - yes God expects me to provide the best care possible to my patients but ultimately He is the one that brings about healing!
Caring for the Mentally Ill
The months seem to go by quicker. Perhaps its the change of seasons, perhaps its the realization that life is fragile, perhaps it is feeling as though our time left here is short and thus we need to get as much done as possible in a short amount of time. This past month has been a month of sorrows as several of our dear friends experienced the loss of a newborn, Melissa's grandmother passed away and we received some unexpected news that one of her uncles has brain cancer. We have felt anew how short our lives on earth are and how we are as Moses said in Psalm 90, "In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; Toward evening it fades and withers away." Or consider the words of James 4:14, "How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone." How can we live our lives with purpose so that the few days we have on earth and spent in a meaningful manner: investing in things of eternal value!
Praises:
- A good initial meeting with Denton Bible Church and the elder board as both of us prayerfully consider whether a long term partnership would be viable. They were encouraged by our desire to serve in North India and we pray that God would give us further leading as to next steps we need to take so that they can potentially serve as our sending agency.
- Staying on task. We had felt that this spring would be a busy season of life as we both took the Perspectives course and started a group that meets at our home every other week. We have been thankful God has allowed us to carve out time each week to get the required reading done and make preparations for different groups we are a part of.
- Rejoicing with Melissa as she celebrates her 34th birthday and with her brother David and sister-in-law Lacy who were blessed with a son just a few days ago.
Prayer Requests:
- Melissa's family as they deal with the loss of Melissa's grandmother and the unexpected news of her uncle who was diagnosed with cancer.
- Patience to wait on God as we walk through this season of preparation. Sometimes we wonder if we could just skip this phase and move on but we trust that God is teaching us important lessons on waiting on Him to give us further direction before we leave for India in fall of 2013.
I wanted to write some this month about caring for the mentally ill. It seems like almost every shift I have one if not more patients that come in with a primary psychiatric complaint - whether that be attempted suicide, severe depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, or undifferentiated psychosis. Caring for the mentally ill has not always been easy - they can often times be some of the most challenging patients I encounter but one thing I've been grateful for are the unique opportunities God has given me to bring a word of comfort into several of these lives as they grapple with hopelessness and sometimes just staying in touch with reality.
Best Saves…
It's feels like spring in Texas which means wonderful weather and plenty of time outdoors with the kids! We have been blessed these past few months with lots of time together and further leading from God with regard to several decisions that needed to be made before we leave for India in hopefully 18 more months.
Praises:
- Christo found out that he passed the written portion of his emergency medicine board exams. One of our big goals for the time after residency before we returned to India was to have the board certification process completed before our departure. Christo will be taking his oral board exams on October 27th of this year. Keep that in your prayers so that the last step can be done before we return to India.
- Halfway done with paying off student loans! Our goal was to have student loans paid off before we left for India because that would leave one less burden we need to raise support for and free us up with regard to which missions organization we will join to go to India. We thank God for a wonderful place for Christo to work that has provided for our needs and allowed us to work on these goals!
- A great trip to Key West, Florida with our family and Kris (Melissa's sister). Christo gave a talk on High Risk EKGs for the EMC annual conference which was well received and we enjoyed getting to explore the Florida Keys and Everglades National Park
Prayer Requests:
- Wisdom with regard to choosing a mission organization to go with back to India. We are meeting with one prospective organization this week to help us with that decision.
- Our home group. We are co-leading a home group with some friends from church. Pray for God to draw the right people to come to the group and that we would be mutually encouraged through this group.
- Time management. We are taking the Perspectives course (which we highly recommend to those of you that have never taken it - its a semester long course offered at multiple churches around the country on the world Christian missions movement) which requires an intense amount of reading along with trying to keep up with home schooling and work. Please pray for us to get much out of the course but at the same time not feel too overwhelmed with all the other things that need to get done.
For the longer version...at the end of January we made a 3800 mile road trip from Dallas to Key West, FL and back. We enjoyed stops in New Orleans, Miami, Key West, the Everglades, and Tampa on this trip. Once I finish putting up all the pictures from our East Coast Trip (look at the end of the post for pictures from Boston and New York) I'll try to get the ones from Key West done. We especially enjoyed trying out wonderful seafood from the Gulf Coast and even got to be at Cafe Du Monde when they were filming a new movie called, "Now You See Me" with Woody Harelson and Morgan Freeman! We enjoyed Key West but really loved Everglades National Park. Since it was winter at Everglades National Park the weather was wonderful (in the 60s-70s) and because it is the dry season there all the watering holes were concentrated and so we would often see 10-15 species of birds hunting near each watering holes along with plenty of alligators - including an 8 foot alligator which was about 2 feet from us. Yikes!
Worst Losses…
We've clearly not been doing the greatest job on frequent updates, however we do have new pictures, some exciting developments and stories to share in this update! We have enjoyed a few months at home after finishing our tour of the 13 original colonies (you can find some pictures from our trip at the bottom of this post). We had an enjoyable time traveling from Dallas to Maine and enjoyed seeing dear friends and family members and some amazing historical sites. We enjoyed some amazing ethnic food at several hole in the wall places in New York, Boston and Washington D.C. and had fun hanging out with Kris, Melissa's sister, who joined us for about half our trip.
We spent Thanksgiving with my family where we had almost 70 people come to my parent's home for the annual flag football game, Thanksgiving meal and post-meal Cowboy game watching - accompanied by plenty of cheering courtesy of my aunts! The kiddos took their annual break during the time we were traveling up the East Coast but have since resumed their homeschooling. Karuna continues to amaze us with the vigor with which she devours books - often requiring multiple trips to the library each week to keep up with reading material for her! Luke has started working on learning to read which has been exciting for him since he desperately wants to read now that Karuna is always reading. Vivek of course tries to destroy the house as Melissa works with the older two in their schooling. We have also enjoyed this past month because Melissa's sister, Kris, moved down to stay with us at the end of November as she is searching for a new nursing job in Dallas - the kids have definitely enjoyed having their aunt here and enjoyed her two dogs and cat.
After much prayer and discussion we decided in the last few months to commit to serving at Duncan Hospital in Bihar, India with the plan to return to India in the latter half of 2013 after my board certification process is done along with student loans being paid off. We are excited to have committed to Duncan Hospital because it gives us a greater sense of direction as we prepare for our return to India. We felt that strategically Duncan is located in a part of India where we can be part of a team to help train young physicians while at the same time use the hospital as a platform for sharing the great news of Christ by providing compassionate and loving care to the poor in northern Bihar and southern Nepal.
Life as an Attending & Humorous Stories from the ER
It's been nearly two months since I started my new job working at Hunt Regional and Presbyterian Kaufman. It has been a great couple of months so far with wonderful staff, sick patients and much more time off to spend with family. Melissa and the kids have kept on homeschooling through most of the summer so that we can take some time off in late September/early October to take a three week road trip from Dallas to Maine to explore the East Coast in the fall. I've enjoyed being able to have a lot more time with the kids since I'm working only about 14 shifts a month although I'm not sure if Melissa knows what to do with me when I'm pacing around the house looking for another project to keep me busy!
We had shared with some of you the difficulty Vivek had been having with his speech especially after he turned two. He had barely 10 words he could speak around that time and so we had started to meet with a speech therapist to help him with his language acquisition. Thankfully God had worked amazingly in his life and the switch seems to have flipped - in the past two months he has amassed a several hundred word vocabulary and started to put sentences together. In fact in early August he graduated out of speech therapy and I think he has been a much happier kid since he can communicate with us. Thank you to all those of you who had been praying for him! Luke is so excited about finishing his Pre-K workbooks and starting his kindergarden school work which includes teaching him how to read - something he has been desperately wanting to do since Karuna learned to read. Karuna has continued to do well in school and seems to show quite an aptitude for math and reading. Often times we'll find her reading chapter books in her room if she wakes up before everyone else to pass the time. We also know for sure we've produced nerds as her one request when we had our last daddy-daughter date was, "Daddy, can we do some of the X problems? (referring to some basic algebra I was teaching her)." So we pulled out a napkin and worked on 2x +2 = 10, (solve for x) while we ate dessert and in the end her love bank was full - she is a funny kid!
I've loved my new job so far! Perhaps the best part of my job when compared to residency is that I now have a scribe who follows me around whenever I work. For those of you who have never had a scribe, it is usually a student who is finishing undergrad and is interested in medicine who works with us to help us with our documentation.
Pictures from Mussoorie & Herbertpur
The dog days of June...the heat and lack of rain in Texas since we returned back to Texas have been intense. The kids seem to have recovered from jet lag fairly well although our whole family seems to still be suffering from GI problems. I think similar to what happened the last time we were in Assam, we might have all picked up Giardia again and so it might be about time for us all to get a course of tinidazole in our system.
Work has been going well - working a month of nights after coming back from India has been easier due to not having to worry about jet lag. However, there has been a lot of paperwork that needs to get done to finish my residency and so I've spent several days these past few weeks working all night and then spending most of the day getting things done for the residency which has led to several 3-4 hour sleep days. On top of that, I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed yesterday which was actually a much more pleasant experience than I thought it would be. I was quite amazed by the effect of nitrous oxide, midazolam, fentanyl and propofol in my system! I don't remember much of the surgery and for most of the day yesterday was in a narcotics-induced stupor. Today has been a little more painful but quite bearable and if it was not for the side effect of dizziness from the narcotics I would feel like I was back to 100%. Here's to praying for no dry sockets in the next few days and being able to go back to work on Monday night!
I also had my orientation with the organization I'll be working with for the next few years - Emergency Medicine Consultants. I was so impressed with them during my orientation and feel they really have both the physicians and patients's needs at heart much more than the survival of the company. They have put together a wonderful group of support staff that I think will make my life as an ER doctor as manageable as possible so that I can focus on the most important part of my job which is caring for patients well. EMC helps to coordinate my scheduling, keeps track of my credentialing at different hospitals and contracts with another company to get all my billing done. I'm excited to be part of this group (about 120 physicians all together serving at 12 hospitals in the area). They have several contracts which they have held for over 35 years! They seem very family centered and we were excited to see so many staff members who have stayed with this group for several decades which I think speaks to the quality support they provide. I'll find out soon for myself as I work my first shift on July 5th. Right now I'm planning on working primarily at Hunt Regional Medical Center in Greenville and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Kaufman with about two shifts a month as an attending at Parkland Hospital. We chose these two hospitals because they are rural enough that I'm often on my own without much in the way of subspecialty support and thus we thought it would help prepare us well for long term work in India when we'll be in a similar situation.
Finally, we wanted to share some final sets of pictures from India. The following are pictures from our visit to Mussoorie to see Landour Hospital where we met Joe and Sima Weaver and from our last weeks at Herbertpur Hospital. I wanted to try a different way to show a slideshow and so have created a video with music on animoto which I've posted below. Let us know if you like the slideshows better this way as opposed to previous versions. Also at the bottom of the post are individual pictures you can click on in case you just want to look at a few pictures. Have a wonderful week!
Adjusting to Life in America
So it has been four days since we returned back to America and life is moving fast. I was back at work doing my first overnight shift at Parkland within 24 hours of returning - greeted by a a list of 12 patients to see when I walked into work at 10 PM! We are also gearing up graduation on June 25th followed by Karuna's birthday party. The kids were so excited to see grandparents along with uncles and aunts when they returned and they have enjoyed being able to get back to their rooms, toys and pets. I think Melissa and I are still kind of stuck in between. Our hearts in many ways are still in India but we feel that these next two years are important in getting us ready to go back permanently.
Tomorrow I do a talk to the residency about our experiences abroad. I hope it will capture some of the immense medical and spiritual needs that are present in India and how medical providers can be part of helping to meet that need. We have been so grateful for all your prayers and support of us these past two months and have been so thankful to know that we had a big family of friends to return home to. We are glad about all the opportunities to serve in India and the many lessons God taught us over the trip. We ask for your prayers with regard to making a final decision about which hospital to join. We'll try to put up periodic updates on the blog over the next few months but wanted to share some more pictures from our first two weeks at Herbertpur and our visit to Nandyal in Andra Pradesh.
I was also excited to see the following excerpt in the "Parkland Now" newsletter from a few weeks ago that my dad forwarded to me. I'm so glad to know that the one time I've been mentioned in this newsletter to Parkland employees, it was about what is most important to me - being able to meet the spiritual needs of patients as I care for their physical needs.
Final Two Weeks at Herbertpur
The following is a delayed entry from a day ago...we could not find a way to update the blog prior to us arriving in America this afternoon. We have safely arrived back in Dallas this afternoon with all our luggage and children! Will write more about the trip once we get over jet lag.
So it is our final morning in India. We arrived in Delhi two days ago from Herbertpur Christian Hospital and have been exploring the city a bit before we head back to the US this afternoon. The day feels bittersweet – we are excited about being back in the US to see our families and getting back to home but also sad to leave India and the tremendous needs it has – both spiritually and physically. Thankfully this is not a final goodbye but instead it is the beginning of a process whereby we will, God willing, be back in India in late 2013 to work here long-term. In this post you will hear about some of the patients at Herbertpur and our time in Mussorie. There are also some pictures from Hyderabad and a village church we attended in Bihar at the bottom of the post (I’m still several weeks behind with regard to getting picture edited so hopefully by early next week you will be able to see the pictures from Herbertpur). Here are the highlights:
Praises:
- Safe journey from Dehradun to Delhi.
- Thankful for relatively being healthy – most of the serious diarrhea is gone and we seem to be improving.
- A very good clinical experience at Herbertpur with lots of sick patients and procedures
- An amazing opportunity to teach several great residents and share with them about our life and call to missions
- A wonderful weekend to rest in Mussorie and get to know Joe and Sima Weaver
Prayer Requests:
- Prayer with regard to making a decision about where to join staff in two years
- Wisdom with regard to where to do intensive Hindi study when we return to India
- Pray for us adjusting to life back in America after being away for several months
- Endurance to finish a month of nights and lots of paperwork when we return with regard to Christo’s residency before he graduates at the end of June
Our last two weeks at Herbertpur were better than the first two weeks in terms of our health and all of us seem to have recovered from whatever bug was causing us to feel so bad. I’ll start off with a story I shared with the residents prior to us leaving. The last few weeks have been difficult for the kids especially because they have been missing our families, pets and just the normalcy of their life back in Dallas. For two weeks in a row we have had several nights where both Karuna and Luke have gone to bed bawling their eyes out for 20 minutes with nothing being able to comfort them because they missed family so much. We tried multiple things to calm them but nothing seemed to work – by the end I had tears in my eyes as I heard them cry. Then a few days ago I was working in casualty when I heard the sound of women wailing.
Hyderabad & First Week at Herbertpur Christian Hospital
We are about half way through our time at Herbertpur Christian Hospital. Hopefully we can give you a little perspective about our time here so far and about our week in Hyderabad in this blog post. For those of you who like the bulleted version here we go: (Some final pictures of Duncan Hospital are at the bottom of the post)
Praises:
- Lots of opportunities to teach residents and interns at Herbertpur.
- Wider exposure to trauma care in India since there are a lot more motor vehicle accidents that present to Herbertpur when compared to Duncan hospital.
- The kids seem to be adjusting well to the routine at Herbertpur.
- A fun drive with Dr. Daniel and his family to the mountains outside Herbertpur for a few hours to get a better sense of where we were and for us to see the Yamuna river.
Prayer Requests:
- Pray for endurance. It has been difficult being away from home and a normal routine for over 6 weeks. I think we have all become fairly weary of living out of a suitcase.
- Pray for more laborers for Herbertpur. They are short staffed especially with regard to OB-GYN and surgical care – Dr. Daniel is taking his first vacation with his family in four years later this summer.
- Pray for discernment regarding a decision about where we should join staff long term – there are multiple pluses and minuses to each hospital and we need to approach this decision very prayerfully.
- Healing from sickness – Melissa, Luke, Vivek and I have all gotten a horrible case of dysentery and are not feeling well. I took off a day from work for the first time in the last 7 years of medical school and residency because I felt so poorly.
We’ll begin with our time in Hyderabad and then move on to some highlights from our time so far in Herbertpur. We had a much-needed week of rest in Hyderabad and got to spend time with Elvin, my cousin, who works for the US consulate in Hyderabad. We were excited to be able to eat more than dal, rice and chapati for a couple of days while we were there and the kids thoroughly enjoyed being able to eat at McDonald’s again! We were quite amazed by Hyderabad and how developed the city is. Its roads are amazingly well designed and you can find almost everything we find in the West in the city. We made a trip our first weekend to Inorbit mall – the first mall we had gone to in India. We are not the typical mall people and rarely during our time in Dallas have we gone to malls but it was nice to be able to do our shopping in one location rather than visiting 10 different stores in various parts of the city.
Early that week, we met with Dr. Varghese Philip (VP), the managing director for 4B Healthcare, an organization that seeks to make failing mission hospitals viable again by infusing capital and management expertise.
The Villages of Bihar
We are now at Herbertpur Christian Hospital in the state of Uttarakhand. We arrived here on Sunday night and will be here for a month before returning to Delhi and then on to Dallas. We had a wonderful week of rest in Hyderabad with my cousin Elvin and the kids got to heal up from all their mosquito bites. We enjoyed visiting several sites in Hyderabad along with some great food. We spent two days visiting a 4B hospital in Nandyal and then spent another day with 4B Serve to see how different ministries are partnering together to care for communities all across India. We’ll write more about our time in Hyderabad and the exciting things happening through 4B but wanted to share some final thoughts about our time in Bihar courtesy of Melissa (a guest post requested by many). But first some highlights (some amazing pictures we were able to capture about life in the villages are at the bottom of the post):
Praises:
- Safe travel from Hyderabad to Herbertpur with no lost luggage.
- A wonderful week to rest in Hyderabad before starting the second part of our trip.
- 4B Serve – a wonderful partnership between multiple ministries all across India that helps facilitate greater cooperation between organizations.
- Getting to meet and spend time with Dr. Varghese Philip – a man with a great heart and vision for meeting India’s healthcare needs.
- Elvin (my cousin) and the work that God is doing through him at the US consulate in Hyderabad to impact India and the US Foreign Service for Christ.
- A good start to life at Herbertpur with meeting new friends.
- Vivek is finally speaking – we were quite concerned about his speech (we had met a couple of times with a speech therapist before we left for India) but God has worked marvelously during the past month and he has probably tripled his vocabulary in the last month.
Prayer Requests:
- Quick integration into the team at Herbertpur.
- Provision of much needed staff for this mission hospital.
- Continued prayer for discerning God’s leading and direction regarding where to serve in India.
- Opportunities to challenge the junior doctors here to consider serving long-term in missions.
- Pray for Vivek’s sleep – he has been quite disturbed now by thoughts of lizards (or li-li’s as he calls them).
- Karuna and Luke’s understanding of life in India and the need for people to serve in hard places to that they can have access to good healthcare and opportunities to hear the Gospel.
Finally what many of you have been waiting for…a post from Melissa. Here are some thoughts that she penned together about some of the village work being done in Bihar.
One of our final days at Duncan Hospital was spent with the Chetna project which is the arm of Duncan that works in the surrounding villages. Altogether they serve in 152 villages in the East Champaran district and we got to visit seven of them as we caught a glimpse of how they are serving and transforming the area.
