Hope in the Midst of Suffering

Nestor Hugo, our staff pastor in Bolivia, just returned from a training conference. This translation is from the update he sent us on his return to the hospital.

Tuesday, July 6, at 7:35 in the morning, the first thing I did was visit the inpatients. Of the 30 that had arrived as a result of the tragic bus accident, there were still a few, among them a man named Jorge* from the village of Sacaba who had had his arm amputated. After presenting the Plan of Salvation, I prayed for him and blessed his food. A little before I left, he asked me in Quechua to cut his bread for him because his right arm was in a cast and had an IV.

Preaching a little later in the waiting room to nearly 20 people, I began to cry because of seeing the suffering of our fellow human beings, and nearly all who heard the message of the Plan of Salvation prayed the prayer inviting Jesus Christ to enter their hearts.

The first day back in my pastoral ministry, I had another blessing because two brothers in Christ, members of the Gideons, came with me to the prayer room and asked me how many inpatients and medical personnel we had, to give them New Testaments with Psalms and Proverbs. After praying with me, they personally gave the New Testaments to the inpatients, doctors, and paramedics, as well as to the patients waiting for appointments.

May the immense love of our Eternal Heavenly Father, the infinite grace of our redeemer, and the real intervention of the Holy Spirit be with all of us today and forever. Amen.

* Name changed.

What's the Matter with Missionaries?

In Sunday school one day, I was surprised to hear someone comment about how much they disliked “missionaries.” I never got the chance to hear exactly where they were coming from, but I have a few ideas. Missionaries are often dismissed as culturally insensitive, patronizing, and imperialist. (Check out the recent post on the God’s Politics Blog about this topic.)

Sometimes, unfortunately, that’s true.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those who glorify missionaries. A missionary, many believe, is someone who has given up everything to follow Christ, sacrificing their chances at a normal life in order to win souls.

That’s also sometimes true.

I fall somewhere in the middle between these two positions. I don’t really think missionaries are in a special category, either for honor or for criticism. We’re all called to love our neighbors as ourselves, be sensitive to their cultures and experiences, and take up our cross daily. We are all going to face challenges, discouragements, and disillusionment. But we all also have the same opportunity to take part in the unfolding of God’s plan.

My perspective on this is undoubtedly shaped by my background. I’ve never really thought of myself as a “missionary,” although that’s sort of what I am, I guess. I work full-time for a “missions” organization, and I have spent significant amounts of time abroad, doing “missions.” But I’ve never really thought of myself as a missionary, and I’ve never seen myself as making any significant sacrifices.

I don’t by any means want to downplay the sacrifices made by some, but, at the same time, I think we run into a problem when we start counting up our sacrifices or overly exalting the sacrifices made by others. I think that that is often where we start running into problems with cultural insensitivity—acting like we have all the answers, and, since we’re making such sacrifices to tell them, they’d better listen.

I like the attitude of David Livingstone, the famous missionary to Africa, much better. He once said, “For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa…. I never made a sacrifice.”

I don’t really know a whole lot about David Livingstone’s methods, and I’m sure he made a few errors. (Don’t we all?) But I do think he got this right: Following God’s call is never a sacrifice. God loves us, and where he leads is the path to joy.

A Whirlwind Trip in an Ambulance

A bucket of chicken, a Tom-Tom and two ambulances- that's just about all we took with us on a recent trip to the port at Houston. Four of us drove the new ambulances through the night from Wichita, KS to Houston, TX in order to get them on a ship headed to Bolivia. We encountered torrential downpours, sleep deprivation and problems with the port authority, but in the end everything went fine. Now the ambulances are headed down to serve at our hospital in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

We currently have two ambulances serving the hospital in Bolivia, but they are old (1990 & 1993) and have a lot of wear on them from driving in the mountains. Yost Auto Service, here in Wichita, has done a great job of helping us get the necessary parts to maintain those ambulances, but they are in continual need of repairs. There continues to be a huge need for ambulances in Cochabamba because of the large number of accidents that occur in the mountains, but there are very few actual ambulances operating in the city (most are vans or trucks that have been crudely converted). To make matters worse, the Bolivian government recently passed an ordinance outlawing the importation of any vehicle older than four years into the country, making it very difficult to send any affordable ambulances.

However, a few months ago Hospitals of Hope found three nice 2006 diesel ambulances at auction. Each one costs $125,000 new, but they were selling for much less, so we jumped at the chance to get them for pennies on the dollar. Who would have thought that we could find new ambulances that met the criteria set by the Bolivian government for such a great price? I am reminded of Matthew 6:25-34, where Jesus says that we have no need to worry because our Father knows our needs. Here at HOH, we continually see God's faithfulness in all that we do.

The two ambulances that we sent are in fantastic shape and will be able to dramatically improve emergency response around Cochabamba. The third ambulance does not have an engine, so we are in the process of getting a new one put in. If you would be interested in helping to contribute to a new engine, please contact me at daniel@hospitalsofhope.org.

~Daniel

Praying Big

A friend of mine told me a couple of months ago that she was going to give God a chance to say no.

You see, she’d been praying vague, unspecific prayers—the kind that it’s impossible to tell if God is answering. After talking with her, I realized that I do the same thing all the time. I bring up a situation to God and then say, basically, “Well, I don’t really know what you want to do here, so I’ll just let you take care of it.”

In some ways, that’s a good thing—being willing to surrender to God’s will, knowing that he’s in charge. But that’s not really what I was doing. Really, I wasn’t trusting God to take care of my concerns; I was afraid to tell him what I wanted for fear that he’d say no, or, worse, that he wouldn’t answer at all.

My friend’s solution to this problem was to start being honest with God—to tell him what she really wanted. The Psalmist tells us, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge” (Psalm 62:8). Saying, “Okay, God, your will be done” isn’t really pouring out our hearts. I think real prayer is pouring out our hearts and still being able to say, “Your will be done.”

It can be hard to pray specifically about all of the need we see. We’re a small organization, and what we can do is limited. But our God is not.

I was reading Compassion International’s blog earlier today, and the writer explains that many of the people at Compassion believe that extreme poverty can be eliminated during our lifetimes. It’s a big dream, and it requires big prayers.

I don’t know how God will answer those prayers. And I’m not sure if I’ve got the courage to ask for anything that big. But I’m praying for the courage to start praying big prayers.

Will you pray them with me? Pray that God will use our ministry—that lives will be transformed, that societies will be renewed, and that hope will overflow. The need is big, but our God is much, much bigger.

Hope to Walk Again

When she came in to Hospitals of Hope, Gabriela* was convinced she’d never walk again. A year before, she’d been in an accident that had left her leg badly broken. She had been treated at another hospital, which had put an external fixator on her leg to hold the bone in place while it healed. Whether from lack of money or improper treatment, the external fixator remained in place a year later, and Gabriela still had no use of her leg.

When Gabriela came to Hospitals of Hope, staff and volunteers discovered that a section of bone in her leg had completely dissolved. Through surgery, they were able to remove a portion of her hip and use it and a metal rod to replace the missing section of bone.

A few days after surgery, when the doctor came in and told Gabriela that they were going to try to help her to stand, she didn’t believe him. She had given up on the possibility of using her leg. When hospital staff helped Gabriela to her feet and she was able to stand with the help of a walker, her entire countenance changed. Her face lit up as she realized the possibility that she would one day walk again.

People like Gabriela are the reason we do the work that we do. So many times, situations like Gabriela’s leave people in despair. But we serve a good God, one who has good plans—plans for hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11), both for this life and the life to come.

*Name changed.

Christmas in April?

“Papa Noel! Papa Noel!” This is how my dad was greeted as he entered an orphanage in Cochabamba, box of goodies in hand. It wasn’t Christmas time, and my dad doesn’t really look very much like Santa Claus, but, to those kids, he might as well have been Saint Nick himself.

My dad was in Bolivia for a little over 2 weeks, supervising physician assistant and medical students on rotation at the hospital. Judging from his stories and the pictures I’ve seen, visiting area orphanages was his favorite part. He and the students did check ups on the kids, many of whom had untreated health problems. It’s not that the orphanages don’t do a good job, he explained; there are just too many kids and not enough resources.

He told me about one little boy with degenerative retinal disease, who is slowly going blind. The orphanage where he lives has 2 caretakers for something like 40 boys; with that ratio, no one had even noticed that he was losing his eyesight. There is nothing to do to reverse the process, Dad says, but at least now that he’s been diagnosed, they’re taking him to the school for the blind.

It’s easy to become discouraged by need like this. There are so many who need care, and what we can do is so limited. But we believe that, even when we feel discouraged and as if the need is too great, our actions have eternal value.

As Mother Teresa once said, “The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.”

Our volunteers and the staff members at these orphanages will continue to work to make a difference in the lives of these children. We don’t know how our efforts will turn out, but we will continue to show them love in the best way we can. We hope and pray that perhaps, through our efforts, these fatherless children will come to know their Heavenly Father. That is the best gift we can offer.

Dios le Bendiga

It never ceases to amaze me how beautifully people pray in Spanish. I just finished reading a letter from Nestor Hugo, our staff pastor in Bolivia, and he greeted me with these words:

“It is my petition in prayer, that our Eternal Heavenly Father bless you, guide you, and prosper you in all of your activities every day. May the grace and peace of our Triune God be with you.”

Wow. I feel blessed by simply knowing that someone is praying that for me.

Lately, we at the Hospitals of Hope office have been desiring to give prayer a bigger place in our ministry. We want to make sure that we’re praying more regularly as a staff, and we want to enlist more prayer support for our work. We want to develop a group of people who will commit to praying regularly for our ministry, with whom we can share our specific prayer concerns. Jeanie Tidwell, one of our faithful local volunteers, has agreed to coordinate our prayer team, communicating our prayer needs and celebrating the answers.

Would you consider being a part of that team?

If so, please let me know by email, at leta@hospitalsofhope.org, or by phone, at 316.262.0964.

In the words of Nestor Hugo, “May our merciful and compassionate God bless you.”