A Sunday afternoon drive in Nepal
One Sunday afternoon in Nepal two colleagues and I drove about six miles to visit a twelve hectare piece of land owned by the hospital. It was open farm-land. Now, a few years on, it is thickly wooded, as thousands of young trees have been planted. Several large ponds have been dug and stocked with fish. The sky was cloudless, the sun brilliant and, with a gentle warm breeze, it was idyllic.
I was in Nepal to upgrade my surgery. Christian Blind Mission has decided to offer blind people intraocular lens implants after cataract extraction so that they will no longer have to wear those thick, heavy glasses. Working alone for over twelve years I've not benefited much from meeting others who serve in the developing world.
After walking through dense clumps of tall bamboo we sat down on a wooden veranda to chat. First to speak was Dr Margaret Hogeweg. For three months of each year she works with CBM visiting hospitals and clinics in South East Asia, including China, Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma.
Eye camps
For seven weeks she works for the Lions Club of Holland, holding eye camps in Nepal in remote mountain villages. She and her eye nurses and a string of porters carry all they need: food, bedding, clothes, medicines, instruments, equipment. They walk for two or three days up valleys, over mountain passes, through snow, across rope bridges, along slopes where landslides have obliterated the footpaths, and fording streams, until they reach their first village.
They set up the clinic in any available building. For four or five days they examine patients, selecting those who need surgery, then operate and, leaving a couple of eye nurses there to look after the surgical patients, trek for a further two or three days to the next isolated hamlet.
Over seven weeks she operates on between 350-400 patients (the number of operations for an 'average' ophthalmologist in England in a full year). She has done this for ten years - and is now in her fifties. Her work has been recognised by the Nepali government and she is to be decorated by the King.
For six weeks she visits Nigeria on behalf of the Dutch Leprosy Association. She travels for six months each year, leaving her husband in Holland. While at home she works for part of the year in a university department of ophthalmology. It makes one breathless just listening to her.
270-bed eye hospital
Next Dr Albrecht Hennig described how in 1983 he was sent to set up an eye department in a small general hospital in Lahan, south east Nepal, about twelve miles from the border with northern India. The population of Nepal is around 19 million, but India's 900 million seem just a stone's throw away. Annual outpatient attendance has soared from 17,000 to 72,000. Last year they operated on over 12,000. This puts into perspective my recent boasting in Benin, when I reached just over a thousand! CBM built him a 270-bed eye hospital next door to the general hospital and they employ a staff of sixty including two Nepali eye surgeons.
Dr Hennig's two sons are now in a boarding school in India. Before that they were in Kathmandu, which takes over a day to reach by car, so for several years his wife and sons lived in the capital during term time and the family endured long separations. That takes commitment.
And the woods and fish ponds? They are to help the hospital support itself financially. The timber can be sold and new trees planted. The fish will go to market and all this will provide income to enable the fees to be kept low. Meeting Dr Hogeweg and Dr Hennig was stimulating and enriching. I salute them.
Back in Benin
I was on a bit of a high in Nepal and not just because I was in the Himalayas. It is good for us to ask occasionally 'Why are we here?' Today in church, during the incomprehensible translation from French into Fon, my attention was drawn to verse 12 from Ephesians chapter 4: '. . to prepare God's people for works of service . .'
Aha! 'Service' is not a word one hears very often these days. We hear of 'fulfilment', 'reaching one's potential', 'doing what feels comfortable'. Even among the so-called caring professions few talk of vocation.
Returning to Benin was oh! so depressing. I felt close to writing a letter of resignation. Somehow I didn't. A dreadful nurse left. Better ones took his place. Patients began to arrive in larger numbers. After six months without rain the heavens opened.
But above and beyond all the difficulties is the sense from which I am unable to free myself. It is that I am here to serve. Should I leave, resign, or be fired, nothing will remove that vocation.
One Sunday afternoon in Nepal two colleagues and I drove about six miles to visit a twelve hectare piece of land owned by the hospital. It was open farm-land. Now, a few years on, it is thickly wooded, as thousands of young trees have been planted. Several large ponds have been dug and stocked with fish. The sky was cloudless, the sun brilliant and, with a gentle warm breeze, it was idyllic.
I was in Nepal to upgrade my surgery. Christian Blind Mission has decided to offer blind people intraocular lens implants after cataract extraction so that they will no longer have to wear those thick, heavy glasses. Working alone for over twelve years I've not benefited much from meeting others who serve in the developing world.
After walking through dense clumps of tall bamboo we sat down on a wooden veranda to chat. First to speak was Dr Margaret Hogeweg. For three months of each year she works with CBM visiting hospitals and clinics in South East Asia, including China, Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma.
Eye camps
For seven weeks she works for the Lions Club of Holland, holding eye camps in Nepal in remote mountain villages. She and her eye nurses and a string of porters carry all they need: food, bedding, clothes, medicines, instruments, equipment. They walk for two or three days up valleys, over mountain passes, through snow, across rope bridges, along slopes where landslides have obliterated the footpaths, and fording streams, until they reach their first village.
They set up the clinic in any available building. For four or five days they examine patients, selecting those who need surgery, then operate and, leaving a couple of eye nurses there to look after the surgical patients, trek for a further two or three days to the next isolated hamlet.
Over seven weeks she operates on between 350-400 patients (the number of operations for an 'average' ophthalmologist in England in a full year). She has done this for ten years - and is now in her fifties. Her work has been recognised by the Nepali government and she is to be decorated by the King.
For six weeks she visits Nigeria on behalf of the Dutch Leprosy Association. She travels for six months each year, leaving her husband in Holland. While at home she works for part of the year in a university department of ophthalmology. It makes one breathless just listening to her.
270-bed eye hospital
Next Dr Albrecht Hennig described how in 1983 he was sent to set up an eye department in a small general hospital in Lahan, south east Nepal, about twelve miles from the border with northern India. The population of Nepal is around 19 million, but India's 900 million seem just a stone's throw away. Annual outpatient attendance has soared from 17,000 to 72,000. Last year they operated on over 12,000. This puts into perspective my recent boasting in Benin, when I reached just over a thousand! CBM built him a 270-bed eye hospital next door to the general hospital and they employ a staff of sixty including two Nepali eye surgeons.
Dr Hennig's two sons are now in a boarding school in India. Before that they were in Kathmandu, which takes over a day to reach by car, so for several years his wife and sons lived in the capital during term time and the family endured long separations. That takes commitment.
And the woods and fish ponds? They are to help the hospital support itself financially. The timber can be sold and new trees planted. The fish will go to market and all this will provide income to enable the fees to be kept low. Meeting Dr Hogeweg and Dr Hennig was stimulating and enriching. I salute them.
Back in Benin
I was on a bit of a high in Nepal and not just because I was in the Himalayas. It is good for us to ask occasionally 'Why are we here?' Today in church, during the incomprehensible translation from French into Fon, my attention was drawn to verse 12 from Ephesians chapter 4: '. . to prepare God's people for works of service . .'
Aha! 'Service' is not a word one hears very often these days. We hear of 'fulfilment', 'reaching one's potential', 'doing what feels comfortable'. Even among the so-called caring professions few talk of vocation.
Returning to Benin was oh! so depressing. I felt close to writing a letter of resignation. Somehow I didn't. A dreadful nurse left. Better ones took his place. Patients began to arrive in larger numbers. After six months without rain the heavens opened.
But above and beyond all the difficulties is the sense from which I am unable to free myself. It is that I am here to serve. Should I leave, resign, or be fired, nothing will remove that vocation.
