The MAF Blog: Worldwide Pulse

Posts Tagged ‘medical’

God in Action: Horn of Africa Famine

Posted on: August 3rd, 2011 by MAF |

Reflections from John Woodberry
MAF Disaster Response/Security Manager

At 8:30 this morning the MAF PC-12 arrived at Dadaab for a medevac flight. A teacher in one of the refugee camps had an extreme reaction to a tetanus shot. He was in quite a bit of pain and had a severe rash as the medical staff laid him down in the aircraft. Soon after landing, the aircraft was off to Nairobi and a hospital that could help stabilize him.

John Woodberry making friends

A half an hour later, MAF’s Caravan was landing with a delegation from Lutheran World Federation (LWF) to oversee some of the work in which they are involved. LWF is in charge of managing and coordinating much of the activity at the three refugee camps that dwarf the area view around Dadaab when you fly in. They are also involved in schools. Over 13,000 kids attend small schools in the camps.

As we drove home from a trip to the camps, my mind is still etched with images of people waiting in long lines to register so that they can have a small tent in the camp and food. Once processed, a ration card allows them to get food for their family twice a month. People arrive with mostly nothing, but they still have dignity; the dignity that God has given all of us made in His image. God is calling us to love our neighbors. There are still 1,300 arriving each day, but the camps only have capacity to register about 800 per day. Some 70,000 refugees have arrived since June 6th. They come hoping for food and security from the drought, famine, and evil facing so many in Somalia. Many people make small huts out of sticks, bushes, and pieces of tarp and live outside of the camp until they can be processed in.

God what are you asking me, one so blessed, to do? Miles and miles of huts and tents. The original camps started in 1991 and are rapidly increasing. A new camp extension has just been opened with new, shining white tents that look so different from the older camps. Saving life, physically and spiritually, is truly God’s work. By doing this work we are showing the love of God in action.

Blessings,
John

Photos

Refugee Camp

Long, hot wait space and tent in the camp

Constructing a Beautiful Tent

MAF Employee Thomas with Refugees

Flying the Koop : Former U.S. Surgeon General recalls adventure with MAF in Africa 50 years ago

Posted on: June 23rd, 2011 by Jason Chatraw | 1 Comment

While researching for our special coverage this summer celebrating MAF’s 50 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the words from Dietrich G. Buss and Arthur F. Glass in their book Giving Wings to the Gospel jumped off the page at me.

Dr. C. Everett Koop … was one of the young American doctors who gave his time and talents in service.” (p. 255)

Dr. Koop flew with MAF? I suddenly had a crazy idea about interviewing him for this story. After all, Dr. Koop was one of my scientific heroes while growing up.

When I was in high school, my friends Andy and Shane and I all had this unusual hero worship for Dr. Koop. We thought his bow tie was cool, along with the fact that he was adamantly against smoking – and people still respected him. There was hope for us yet.

So when this idea came up a few weeks ago, I contacted his office and sought out an interview with the spry 94-year-old man. Dr. Koop admitted his body might be falling apart but his mind is intact. I also found his mind to be incredibly lucid and oozing with wit. It was fascinating.

Here is a story he shared about his time in Africa in 1961 as part of “Operation Doctor” with MAF to combat a critical shortage of doctors in the DRC. …

In January 1961 when Dr. Koop arrived in Kinshasa (known as Léopoldville at that time), the Congo rebellion to overthrow the Belgian rule had forced a transition of the government. While waiting for a new government to be established, a United Nations peace-keeping force was in charge of security. This presented some unique challenges for Dr. Koop and the Operation Doctor program.

Instead of local government officials who understood the ebb and flow of medical aid, wary U.N. officials were in charge – and not very compliant.

“I always believe in going to the top, and there was a very bemedaled general (from the U.N. peace-keeping force) with big balloon white pants who was in charge. I told him, ‘My problem is very simple – it just means unlocking the door of the hangar so we can get two cargo planes already loaded with the only medicine that is available for the people of the Congo since all the missionary doctors had been ordered home.’

“I didn’t touch his heart at all. He told me it would take a lot of red tape and so forth and to come back and see him at some other time.”

Frustrated, yet undaunted, Dr. Koop met another man while roaming the halls of the U.S. Embassy, a Mennonite conscientious objector who came to serve in Congo during the war in the 1940s but never left.

“I told this young guy what my problem was,” Dr. Koop said. “So, he told me, ‘In other words, your major problem is to get somebody to recognize that the Congo Protestant Relief Agency has property destined for people out in the bush but nobody here is available to receive it because all the missionaries have gone home – and all you need is someone to open the door to the hangar and pilots for the planes?’ I told him that Mission Aviation Fellowship pilots are ready to fly the planes and all I need is a key to the hangar.

“Then, he looked at me and said, ‘You won’t believe this – I have the key.’ That was about two o’clock in the afternoon and the next morning right after dawn, the planes were headed for pre-arranged parachute drops.”

An Unlikely Gift Exchange

Posted on: June 21st, 2011 by Natalie Holsten |

Today, in the name of ministry and relationship building, I got a massage.

Me with Lina and her daughter

My neighbor, “Lina,” has been asking me for weeks if she could give me a massage. She and her husband and their young kids live in a rambling shack beside our house. Over the years, the MAF families in our neighborhood have befriended them, given them work, and helped them with medical bills.

“Please, Ibu, let me do this for you,” she begged. “You’ve done so much for me, and we’re so poor, and this is the only way I can repay you.”

Years ago when I envisioned myself doing missions, I pictured myself in Africa somewhere with a group of half-naked children gathered around me as I told Bible stories with a flannel graph, or maybe teaching English somewhere to a group of college students. But lying on a mattress on the floor with an Indonesian woman vigorously rubbing lotion into my tired arms and legs? Never would have imagined it.

There was something about being on the receiving end that didn’t set right. I felt like I needed to be the one helping her. But I knew that by allowing her to do this for me, I was helping her feel she had something to give to me.

And it truly was a help to me. After months of recurring stomach issues, I have been feeling worn down to a nub, wasted, exhausted. During the hour and a half she spent kneading my weary body we talked––about her relationship with her husband, about the house they’re hoping to build, about her kids, about my upcoming move. Silently I prayed for her.

Lord, bless this woman. Bless her and her family––especially her frail little boy––with good health. May this woman find You as she searches for the truth.

Bad Attitudes Can’t Stop God

Posted on: May 31st, 2011 by Chris Konop |

Way back in November, I was having a really bad day. Things weren’t going at all as planned. I threw the schedule out the window half way through the day, and I had a terrible attitude about serving in eastern DRC. One of the many changes to the day was an emergency medical evacuation that came up at the last minute, and I happened to be in the area. The weather was terrible, I was tired, and I really didn’t want one more thing added to an already very long and tiring day.

I transported a mother and her 9-month-old baby boy from Nebobongo to the mission hospital in Nyankunde a little over an hour away; he needed emergency brain surgery. I mumbled and grumbled while I dodged thunderstorms, but as I landed, the gravity of the situation hit me when the hospital team came running to meet the plane. The mother was crying and pleading with God as they whisked her little boy away for immediate surgery. His head was the size of a basketball, nothing registered in his eyes, his body was limp . . . that was almost six months ago.

Today, I made an extra stop in Nyankunde for a mother and her baby to be transported to Nebobongo, but I didn’t think much of it until I landed and saw the little boy. My heart was rejoicing as he laughed and clapped his hands, and even cried as the airplane roared and bounced down the airstrip. We were met in Nebobongo with cheers, hugs, and singing—a true testimony to the Great Physician’s healing hands. What else can you do but praise God?

No Time

Posted on: May 19th, 2011 by Jim Manley | 8 Comments

I can’t push the airplane. And neither wish, nor will, speed it faster than physic’s laws allow. But I can extract all they contain. I lower the nose, add power and settle on a high-speed, 200-foot-per-minute descent. My front seat passenger raises an eyebrow at the plan change.

“Emergency in Mashient,” I shout over engine noise. “Snake bite.”

He nods understanding.

I recalculate: 12 minutes away, I need to dump 4,000 feet of suddenly extra altitude without shocking the engine or popping eardrums. Easy to do normally, but not when moments steal life. I increase descent rate to 350 fpm and add more power. “Lord,” I pray, “Get me there now!” But no airstrip appears and the jungle slides below at the same predictable pace.

On the ground, the radio’s first reports prove true. The 12-year-old granddaughter of Andrés, the village chief, writhes on a blanket next to the plane. Swollen green and black well beyond the vine tourniquet squeezing above her right elbow, venom rampages unchecked. Conscious cry alternates with unconscious convulsion as I strap her into the seat behind me. No time to move cargo. No time to make a patient’s pad on the floor. No time left for her. Only half those treated within four hours of a bite survive. They carried her six hours to the airstrip, then waited 20 minutes for me. Now we’re looking at 35 minutes to Shell and another 10 to get her into doctors’ hands.

In the air again, max continuous power and a flat climb still yields only what creation’s constraints permit. No supernatural performance surge, no divine tailwind. She flails behind me, then wails. Flail, then wail. Flail, then wail – but weaker now.

At Shell, a car pulls up as the propeller stops. I jump out, unbuckle and lift her silent body, then turn and place her onto the back seat. Is she still breathing? The car moves off the ramp and onto the road to the hospital. In the quiet I sigh, “Lord, I did all I could, but she really needed a miracle,” then repent for the implied rebuke.

Two days later, I greet the morning’s passengers. In the normal crowd of dads, moms, babies, baskets and bags a familiar face catches my eye. A bright, smiling girl sits, swinging dangled legs, waiting to return home to Mashient. Miracle indeed.