January 2011
Happy New
Year again to my sponsoring churches - this time, it's a new calendar
year and a new year of God's Work, Our Hands." I began the last month
of the old year reading the evaluations of the training course we did
here at the Palliative Care Study Center at Sneha Deepam for a group of
Missionaries of Charity. Most of the sisters were happy with the
course. A few thought it was too short, a few too long, and most
thought it was just right. Sounds like a bedtime story!
Once that training course over, I worked on the
course I am taking online from Cardiff University in Wales, and I tried
to work on some problems facing Phebe Hospital in Liberia. They had
been without an Internet connection for almost two months which made it
difficult to communicate with them. That problem is now solved.
The package containing filters needed to get their generators working
arrived in Monrovia more than a month ago but never got to Phebe. I was
able to help track that down, so I hope power will be restored before
long. I assume they have had a small generator running essentials at
the hospital, but other than that, they have been without electricity
for much too long.
I had all the reservations set for four of us from
CMC (Christian Medical College) for planes and trains to Kolkata and
then on to Bihar - a state in northeastern India where we had scheduled
a workshop for about 30 people, mostly Sisters who are teachers,
tutors, and principals on aspects of Palliative Care. It was all set
and then our flight to Kolkata was canceled and I had to start over
with new flights, new places to stay, and new train reservations.
Sometimes being a travel agent is a big part of my job! The workshop
went smoothly - we had classes on communication and loss, grief and
bereavement, pain, and final hours.
After that I took the train to Mohulpahari Hospital
in the state of Jharkhand, just south of Bihar. Well, I tried to take
the train but it was delayed over and over until it was so very late
that I had to arrange to take another train. If I had waited for the
original train, I might still be there as you read this! After
making a visit to Mohulpahari, I took the train back to Kolkata. That
train was actually waiting in the station when I arrived an hour before
the scheduled departure! I stayed the night with a friend's parents
before flying back to Chennai and traveling back to Vellore.
Remember the Masters in Nursing Education program I
was working to set up in Liberia? I checked up on that via email and
learned that the first semester went very well. They were able to keep
up the standards and the students rose to the bar. The house being
renovated for the program has been finished and Edna, the ELCA Global
Mission volunteer who has been working at Curran Hospital in Liberia,
has a place to live when she is in Monrovia.
My Christmas was spent in church - as befits a
Lutheran pastor, right? I had a service Christmas Eve and again
Christmas morning and then it was Sunday, so another service. In
between I managed several meals with friends and a gift exchange at the
hospice. I hope all of you had a wonder-filled Christmas and will take
the joy of Christ's birth into your hearts and into your New Year.
Peace, John
January 19th
Greetings to
my sponsoring churches! I ended 2010 by staying up late in a Watch
Night Service, and started 2011 by having chocolate cake before
breakfast! Then I was invited to a special New Year's lunch in the
Sneha Deepam dining room. There were five different kinds of rice -
regular white, coconut, mango, lemon, and curd. It was a tasty lunch.
The day after, I had the English service at my church and then as
invited to speak at the Tamil service too so I was in church for three
hours. Getting me ready for Liberia and the long services there?
A couple of days after New Year's, I had a cup of
chai with Basha, the owner of the medical shop where we use to get some
of our medications for poor patients. I am hoping that he can find me a
source for geriatric chairs. I would really like to get some for
the hospice - I don't like to see patients sitting in plastic chairs
with their feet up on another plastic chair. It doesn't look
comfortable. He's pretty sure that they are available in India -
just not popular yet.
A pastor friend of mine and her husband came from
Ohio for a two week visit to India. She was instrumental in helping
arrange for the financial support of our chaplain, Grace, for several
years. I took her to see Grace and she met the palliative care team and
chatted with them. The next day I took her on a tour of the hospice and
study center. She was impressed with what she saw and she sat in on the
team meeting. Then she helped with the anointing service where she and
Grace and I stayed busy anointing. She was impressed with that service
too.
We have had a priest - Father Sebastian - staying in
the hospice for almost four years. He was diabetic and at first came
for daily dressings and then stayed on to live there and say the daily
mass. Recently he's had some chest pain, and he made a clear decision
that he didn't want to be admitted to the hospital. After a few
days of the condition worsening, he died peacefully at the end of the
first week of the new year. There was a small service at the hospice
and then a funeral mass in the Cathedral with the local Bishop and a
retired Archbishop presiding, and a hundred priests or so. There
were also a lot of Sisters there - as Father Sebastian was the Bishop's
secretary during the time many of these congregations set up their
convents. It was about two hours long and all but one person spoke in
Tamil. Father Sebastian's nephew is a priest in Australia and he
came for the mass. He was the one who spoke in English.
The Medical Council of India has just approved an MD
in Palliative Medicine and it looks like Christian Medical College will
have the first MD in Palliative Medicine program in India. The
Medical Council requires certain things such as relevant journals in
the library. The hospital doesn't subscribe to any palliative
care journals and they are very expensive! So I have been
exploring what could be done.
I have also been working on my assignments from the
University of Cardiff. My tutor said my first paper was good, but the
grade I got was a 69. I was told that is a B or B+, so that sounds
good. I guess I don't understand the British grading system! I
have another paper awaiting grading and another I am working on.
And of course I have been making travel plans. I
will spend about two weeks in February traveling to the north, and then
I'll go south to Kerala for a friend's wedding. I booked four planes
and a train, so I think I'm ready. Then it will be time to go to
Liberia for a couple of months.
I thank you for your continuing support of my work
and I thank you for your prayers! I could not cope without those
prayers so please keep them coming! You are all in my prayers as well.
May God bless you and give you peace. John
February 19th
Greetings to my sponsoring churches! This month I have been traveling
as well as working on my palliative care courses from Cardiff
University. One of the projects involved videotaping an interview with
the relative of a patient. The son of one of the patients agreed to
help me with this, I hired a videographer, and the taping went well,
but when I played it back, about all I could hear was the fan that had
been running to keep us from melting! After a lot of failed attempts, I
was able to download and use an editing program that cleaned up the
sound a little. I had to do a transcript of the interview as well so
that it would be clear to the professor at Cardiff.
I had a lot of other tech problems too. I
won't bore you with the details of my woes, but let me just say that I
will never take my "gadgets" for granted! They keep me in touch and
facilitate my work and it is very difficult when they are not working!
Graham, my pastor friend from Australia - the
one I visited in 2009 - was in Vellore for a visit. He came and had
lunch with the whole palliative care team and that was very nice. It
was a pot luck lunch and the pots were very lucky indeed and so were
the people around the table eating such good food!
I also had a visit from my boss,
Franklin. He is the person in charge of Asia and the Pacific for
Global Missions. I took him on a short tour of Vellore, stopping at the
Catholic Cathedral, my church Christ Lutheran and their school, and the
hospice and the Sneha Deepam Study Center. The next day I took him to
see the Golden Temple and then we went to the Fort and walked around a
bit. We drove around Vellore, stopped for chai, and then had dinner at
the rooftop restaurant at the Darling Hotel.
In early February, I left for my trip to the
northern part of India. The first leg of this trip took me to Kolkata
where I stayed at the YMCA. Their rooms start on what would be the
fourth floor and there are no elevators. I met with the Missionaries of
Charity to talk about doing classes in palliative care with them as I
have done with others of their order in Vellore and Bangalore. The next
day I flew to Guwahati where I stayed in a very nice hotel. The next
day we drove to Parkijuli Hospital which was founded by a Norwegian
doctor and her pastor husband. One of the
people I traveled with was their son who spent most of his youth there.
He's now a doctor in Norway - helping raise money for Parkijuli.
From there, I flew to Delhi where I stayed in
a guest room at St. Stephen's Hospital where I have stayed before. It's
a good place to stay and there is access to good pizza and even
McDonald's. I taught an all day class on palliative care for 53 newly
graduated nurses. The day after that, I flew to Lucknow in northern
India for the 18th Annual Palliative Care Conference.
The rest of the palliative care team from Vellore came to the
conference as well but it took them 42 hours on the train! The best
part of the conference was seeing friends, getting to talk to other
people in this field and make connections.
From Lucknow, I flew back to Delhi, spent
another night at St. Stephen's, and then flew to Trivandrum which in on
the south western coast of India and got to watch the sunset from the
hotel restaurant. Today is my friend's wedding. More about that next
time. Then I spent time with a palliative care team in Travandrum
- some strategizing and some teaching.
I will be on my way to Liberia soon. I heard
that one of the speakers at this summer's WELCA Triennial Convention
will be a Liberian woman named Leyma Gbowee. Her story and the story of
many Liberian women is told in a powerful documentary called "Pray the
Devil Back to Hell." It is available on video.
Please keep me in your prayers as I travel and
spend some time at Phebe Hospital. And know that you are all in my
prayers as well. Peace, John
March 17th
Greetings to my sponsoring churches! When I wrote to you last month, I
was in Trivandrum in the state of Kerala, about to attend the wedding
of a colleague. My friend and colleague Dr. Reena George was there too
which was good as she was able to translate some of the proceedings for
me. Most of the service was in Malayalam, only the solemnization was in
English because the minister was from Vellore so his options were
English and Tamil. There were a lot of pastors involved in the wedding
so there were a lot of prayers for the wedding couple. The bride
was beautiful in her multiple saris - and the groom was very handsome
in his tuxedo.
The wedding was a lovely break from work, but
before I left Trivandrum I visited a palliative care program and did a
short presentation on spiritual care. The next day I was on the train
back to Vellore. I spent the next week getting ready to leave for
Liberia and also downloading several different palliative care medical
journals for the CMC library. One of
the journals offers free downloads of journals from 2009 and earlier.
We need to have these journals available in order to start a palliative
care specialty program for doctors at CMC. These downloads were plagued
by a variety of technical problems. But I won't burden you with them! I
also spent a lot of time conferring with Scott at Global Health
Ministries because they were preparing to ship a container of goods to
Liberia and I needed to give my input on what would be needed. As
always, parts to maintain the cranky generators were high on the list.
And I went shopping for gifts for friends in Liberia. And I packed.
My pastor friend JP asked me if I ever felt
like a nomad. As I was unpacking after a two week trip and packing
again for two months traveling in Liberia, I did feel rather nomadic. I
was driven to Chennai where I caught a flight to Mumbai where security
caught me with a corkscrew in my luggage! They decided I was not
dangerous, they tossed my corkscrew
into the trash, and let me continue on to Nairobi, Kenya and on to
Monrovia, Liberia with a quick down and up in Ghana. There is a new
bungalow for the visiting faculty of the Masters program and my room
was very nice with an ocean view, a small lanai, and even A/C. Although
the use of the A/C is limited by the limited hours of electricity, it
is nice to have it as a possibility. The power is usually on 5-7 a.m.
and 3-11 p.m. on weekends. Weekdays, the evening hours change to 7 p.m.
- 2 a.m.
While I was in Monrovia, I had several
meetings to go to and some people to talk with. I also had a chance to
sit in on one of the classes of the Masters program and I think it is
going very well. I had some shopping to do as well and one of the
things I needed was a filtration unit to make drinking water safe.
Unfortunately, the filter system does not filter out viruses or
bacteria so the water has to be boiled as well. And I did some
experimentation with a Kindle to see if students could use it for
textbooks and journal articles. It turns out it will be a good thing
for me in Liberia where books are not readily available.
Mango season is about to begin in Liberia and
I think I have mentioned my love of mangoes. They are not as good as
the mangoes in Vellore, but they are mangoes and so are very good. And
whenever I can get pizza, it is pizza season!
The first day I was back at Phebe, I thought
they had 24 hour a day electric power but it turned out to be just 24
hours of power and the next day was mostly no power, but I was told
that the hospital had consistent power so that was good. I enjoyed my
first worship service back at St. Luke's - it was so good to see the
people, hear the music, and enjoy
the dancing. The new church is not done yet but it is an improvement.
There is no railing on the balcony and that's where the children sit so
I was nervous for much of the service!
After a few days at Phebe, I was on the road
to Curran Hospital in Zorzor. The road is not as bad as it was a few
years ago - that's where the potholes were swimming pool deep - but
they were bumpy enough to make it a real relief to get out of the car!
I spent several days at Curran talking to people about what they need
and what new programs might be possible. Then it was back to Phebe on
the same bumpy road. And after a few day there,
back to Monrovia. That is what my stay here in Liberia will be like.
I hope my nomadic travels will be useful to
the people here. Your prayers are the fuel for my journey, so please
continue to pray for me and for the people of Liberia. Peace, John
April 17th
Greetings to my sponsoring churches! I am in Liberia as I write this
and will be here until after Easter. My time here has been divided
between Phebe Hospital, Curran Hospital, and Monrovia. It seems I am
moving from one to another every few days. It makes it hard to get
accustomed to the electricity schedule, but that isn't really a bad
thing because the electricity schedules keep changing!
One of the things I did this trip was take Dr.
Lew - a dentist from Global Health Missions - on a dental tour. We
rinsed and spit our way around my known Liberian world - Phebe, Curran,
Ganta, and Monrovia. We visited the dental clinic at JFK Hospital in
Monrovia and Lew met the dentist there and she showed him some photos
from a recent dental camp. One can be a little blown away by what we
saw and heard. We did a little tour of Monrovia and then we were off
the Phebe where Dr. Lew met Martha the dental nurse - an RN who took
dental training at a school in India so she is able to do fillings and
extractions. He had a chance to look-into a few mouths and see
what kind of dental problems are around. We went to Ganta for the day -
it was an hour and a half of so-so bad road, but the dental clinic
there is new and nicely set up. They have now welcomed a new dentist
and are hoping for another - all from CMC's sister hospital in
Ludhiana. Our last visit was to see about setting up a clinic at Curran
Hospital and then I took Dr. Lew back to Monrovia to fly out.
Then it was time to get ready for a visit from
my bosses from ELCA headquarters in Chicago. Rafael, Global Mission's
Executive Director, and my other bosses Jim and Viking arrived on
Saturday and Lita on Sunday. Rafael preached at St. Peter's
Lutheran Church (Monrovia) the next day. Jim brought me the Kindle I
had ordered online and now I can carry a lot of books in a tiny space
as I travel. We were off to Phebe for a meeting and I drove part of the
way so we could talk which seemed like a good idea until a dog hit the
car. Yes, the dog hit the car and not the other way around! He looked
dead, but then rolled over and got up in time to miss the next vehicle.
The people in the other car said he walked away looking okay, but he
must have had at least a headache if not a concussion! After Phebe, the
group went to Curran and were impressed by what they found there - a
young and energetic administrative staff, promising plans for the
future, and a hospital that looks clean and new. Then we were on our
way back to Monrovia for the Lutheran Church in Liberia Convention.
Phebe has a new X-ray technician - an American
who is married to a Liberian. They moved back to Liberia early this
year. She really knows what she is doing. I am trying to get the
portable X-ray machine working for her. If you remember, one of its
wheels had broken and we got it replaced and we got its other problems
fixed but now the other wheel has broken and it has a battery or
charging problem too. I'm also trying to figure out a drying rack for
the X-ray films.
We have two Danish medical students who are
spending time at Phebe and I took them to Curran for a visit. We
hope to get medical student to come to Curran on a regular basis. It is
good for us and also good for them. They get a lot of experience here
and they get to see a different part of the world.
In addition to the traveling back and forth, I
worked on a paper for my course at Cardiff. The assignment was about
how to handle out-of-hours care for hospice and palliative care
patients, and I wrote about how our palliative care team at the
Christian Medical College looks at the care of a dying patient a
different way. The professional medical team is not the core of the
patient's care. The core is the patient's family and community. The
palliative care team's purpose is to prepare that family and community
to care for their loved one and the team's job is to back them up and
make sure they are well prepared. Out-of-hours care applies to the
family, not necessarily only the professionals. If the family needs
out-of hours help, there are options including in-patient unit at Sneha
Deepam.
Keep your prayers coming. They do more for me
than you can know. Peace, John
May 16th
Greetings to my
sponsoring churches! When I last wrote to you, I was in Liberia and I
stayed there until April 27th. I continued to travel between Phebe
Hospital, Curran Hospital, and Monrovia. One of my stops was in Totota
- on the road between Phebe and Monrovia - where I met Brian and
Christine, the new ELCA missionaries there. Brian was a nuclear
scientist before he decided to go into the seminary. He is a very handy
man to know as he can fix just about anything. I managed to use some of
his skills, but not to do anything nuclear!
I came across a book called "This Child Will Be Great"
written by Liberia's president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. It is about her
life and includes a lot of the history of Liberia. Liberia has a very
interesting history and the President is a fascinating woman.
My jobs in Liberia were so many and varied - anything from
making sure a mobile phone company pays the rent they owe Phebe for use
of some of Phebe's land to getting x-ray machines repaired to talking
to the Minister of Health about the future to helping make sure the
Masters in Nursing Education program continues. Once in awhile, I even
got to preach and serve Communion! We had a nice Maundy Thursday
service with Communion but without any foot washing this year. The dirt
floors in the church would have turned to mud. The Good Friday service
covered Christ's last seven words from the cross. Others preached about
the words and then my job was to summarize. Since some of the preaching
was in Kpelle, I didn't really summarize what had been said but the
words themselves - how they were both human and divine, as was Jesus.
The day after Good Friday, we went to Ganta for the day.
The new dentist who recently arrived there went to dental school at CMC
in Ludhiana. He told me he'd been warned about caterpillars in a
certain tree. If their urine got on your skin and you didn't wash it
off right away, maggots would appear under your skin in a week! I
thought that might well be a "rural myth,"so looked it up. It turns out
that the larvae of certain caterpillars can secrete an acid that will
cause skin to burn without actually causing a lesion. You have to be
touching the larva to get the acid on you, and the burning is gone the
next day, but I guess larvae and maggots might look alike, so the story
may have been loosely based on fact. He's doing well and will be
a great asset in training nurse practitioners to do dental care in the
rural areas.
Easter was lovely because the day started with a slow rain
which made the morning cooler. Three choirs sang and there was some
very good dancing with the Kpelle choir. I left Phebe Easter evening
after doing last minute sorting. I spent a couple of days in Monrovia
tying up loose ends and then flew to Nairobi, Kenya.
I spent five days in Nairobi and stayed at Nazareth
Hospital which is run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary from Tamil Nadu - the state Vellore is in. I have stayed there
before and they treat me extremely well. The nights are high 50s to low
60s - a lovely contrast to Liberia and India. I spent a lot of time at
mass - one for two young sisters taking their final vows, a special
mass for Sister Clara's birthday where I was asked to read the Gospel,
and another mass that was in Swahili. The sermon was in English,
preached by an Irish priest.
Then I was on the plane back to India. My suitcase and I
both arrived together and on time and it was good to be back even
though May is the hottest month in Vellore. It was very good to see the
folks at Sneha Deepam and Palliative Care again. It took the better
part of a week to get used to the time change and I am not quite used
to the heat yet. Did I mention that it is really hot?
Keep me in your prayers and I will keep you in mine. It's
the nicest thing you can do for someone.
Peace, John
June 15th
Greetings to
my sponsoring churches! I believe I may have mentioned once or twice
that May is the hottest month in Vellore, but I feel like I need to
mention it again. May is the hottest month in Vellore! On Sunday
mornings when there are power cuts during worship time at Christ
Lutheran, I seem to sweat more than I preach, and we don't have any
music. The daily power cuts would be more manageable and less
frustrating if they came on time every day, but they don't. We don't
have access to a fan in the chapel where we have the mid-week anointing
services so I am a puddle by the time everyone has come for prayers and
anointing. There are areas in the chapel where there is an actual
breeze, but that's not where people choose to stand, kneel, and wait.
Keeping the Palliative Care Unit's computers free of
viruses, worms, and other nasty things seems to be part of my job. I
like doing that sort of thing, but it is more of a chore with dial-up
Internet service. The required programs are rather large, and the long
downloads frequently are interrupted.
A long and much anticipated shipment from Global Health
Missions finally arrived in Ambur and I went to see what we had gotten.
I remembered doing the ordering over a year ago but glitches, delays
and bureaucracy slowed its arrival. We got a lot of rolled bandages, a
suction machine, Ace wraps, and some other much needed bandaging
materials. The drive to Ambur was a nice break since the car has air
conditioning.
Our chaplain Grace has left to go to Bangalore to work on
a masters program. Her husband Hamilton, who was also a chaplain here,
is in Europe submitting his thesis to earn his masters degree. I was
invited to their youngest daughter's birthday party - she's two now -
and we spoke with Hamilton with the aide of computers and Skype. We had
a goodbye dinner for Grace on the roof of the ASHA building. It was a
week into June by then and it actually cooled off a bit in the evening!
And there was a great view.
We now have a psychologist on the palliative care team.
She will be working half days. We are going to need a new chaplain too.
That search process has begun, but Grace will be hard to replace.
Grace's final anointing service was June 9th and then she and her two
girls were off to Bangalore for a new chapter in their lives. Hamilton
should be back to join them in a month or so.
I have still been searching for professors for the Nursing
Masters program in Liberia - looking all over the world. I've
also looking for a place to send some nurses for a PhD program. I
was really excited about a program in Korea until they explained that
they teach in Korean! Oops! Back to the drawing board.
Did I tell you that I bought a Kindle? One of my bosses
delivered it when he visited last month and I love it! The other day, I
heard a book reviewed on NPR and in two minutes, I had ordered it,
downloaded it, and it was on my Kindle, ready to be read. And it's
great for traveling. My suitcases are heavy enough without all the
books I want to take along.
I hope that Pentecost Sunday reminded you of the great
gift of the Holy Spirit. May you feel the Spirit around you as you go
on your way. You are in my prayers and I hope I am in yours.
Peace, John
July 17th
Greetings to my
sponsoring churches! Did you know that there are a million ants for
each person on earth? It felt like I found a least half of my personal
million in my towel as I was drying off after a bath! The pest control
people came a few days later and sprayed my room after I got home. I
had hoped they'd be able to do it earlier so some venting might have
taken place, but what are a few more lost brain cells!
At the end of July and beginning of August, I will be
traveling to Padhar Hospital in Madhya Pradesh, Parkijuli in Assam, and
then some visits in Kolkata to the Missionaries of Charity, the new
Tata Cancer Hospital which is headed by a retired CMC doctor, and a few
palliative care programs. I have been working out the details of that
and also the plans for a trip I will be making in September and October
to Malaysia and Bangladesh. My second career as a travel agent is
shaping up nicely! In Malaysia, I will spend six weeks teaching
seminary students and pastors, and spending some time with palliative
care programs in Kuala Lumpur and in Kota Kinabalu. I've been
spending a lot of time working on material developed for India - to
make it more appropriate for the Malaysian context.
The other day when I came home I heard a noise at the
window. As I looked, there was that little monkey looking in at
me. She/he ran off when I moved closer to the window. A few
minutes later, the monkey appeared at another window and stayed a
little longer. Then, she/he was looking through my porch windows
and then back to another window in the room. The final time the
monkey stayed a little longer and let me get a little closer - close
enough for the photo. The attraction of my window? I have
mango trees just outside them and I saw the monkey eating a few bites
out of several different mangoes. Then I heard that the monkey
was at the window of the chapel while mass was taking place -
apparently trying to get in. It must be a Catholic monkey!
Another day I had what turned out to be an expensive dead
battery day. The car wouldn't start and my inverter battery was also
dead - four out of the battery's six cells were dry. I need that so I
can run a fan during the power cuts, and when it is 100+ degrees and
feels like 100% humidity, a fan is a really good idea! Early in July,
the weather improved, but the heat came back for what I hope is a short
encore.
When I am not being a travel agent or hosting ants
or monkeys, or replacing batteries, I manage to spend time with the
Palliative Care team and keep their computers and printers working. I
see patients who have requested that I come and talk and pray with the
and I preach at Christ Lutheran on Sundays. I just completed the
necessary paperwork so that the European Dental Students Association
will recruit student for Liberia.
The second week in July, I took a trip to Pondicherry to
visit Chitharai and his new wife. Chitharai is a young man who lost
both legs in a train accident. He was given artificial limbs and
he learned to walk again at CMC. He then went to trade school
here in Vellore. With help from the Missionaries of Charity
Sisters he was able to get a job and get married. They are expecting
their first child very soon. I was not able to go to their wedding last
September, so wanted to see them and meet his bride.
You are all in my prayers Please keep me in your prayers
as I travel in these next few weeks because that is my travel
insurance.
Peace, John
August 16th
The weather
is still pretty hot. Once in awhile, it rains and cools down a bit, but
the heat and humidity do not stay away for long. It was very hot for my
final anointing service after eight and a half years doing them. My
last service was busy but not overwhelming – about 25 for
Communion and 50 for prayers. Two chaplains from Christian Medical
College (CMC) will continue the anointing and prayer. I will miss doing
that service but I will not miss the sweating! No fans and wearing a
cassock made for serious over-heating.
Sr. Victima, the Religious Sister-nurse who came to
start the hospice four years ago, is leaving us for another
assignment. We welcomed Sr. Porkodi to lead the staff of the
hospice. She has a good heart and she is interested in the patients and
in leaning more about palliative care. We think she will be a good
match. Just a few days ago, she was joined by Sr. Julie.
I prepared for my trip north by coming down with a
cold, sore throat and fever. I should have just settled for packing my
suitcase! It would have been a huge hassle to try to reschedule the
trip so I just went and hoped to feel better. The 23 hour train trip to
visit the hospital at Padhar was mostly uneventful except for the
sweating and chills. The food was bad (I should know better than to
depend on train food by now) but the company in my compartment was nice
and A/C was welcome.
The big news at Padhar was the delivery of conjoined
twins. A woman came to the hospital with no prenatal care. When her
labor didn't progress, an exam showed the conjoined twins and a
Cesarean Section was done. It is too early to know what organs they
might share, but there are doctors in India who will be able to do the
surgery when the time comes. Their names – translated into
English – are Praise and Worship. I was asked to bless the babies
and was happy to do that. Padhar also has a new nursing school that was
just approved by the India Nursing Council so there was a lot of
excitement about that. I spent time with two lovely families who fed me
very well, and I also did some presentations on palliative care –
well, that's why I was there!
I was driven from Padhar to Chhindwara to meet the
Bishop and I even preached in his "cathedral church." Then it was back
to Padhar to preach at the evening service. The next morning I met with
the palliative care doctor and made rounds with her and then had dinner
with her and her chaplain husband. The next day I took the train to
Nagpur and then flew to Kolkata where I spent a night at the guest
house before visiting Serampore which was once a Danish colony. I met
with people from the Senate of Serampore University. They seemed
open to adding palliative care content to their syllabus and offering
some courses. Serampore grants the degrees for many of the seminaries
in India, so this would impact the education of many theological
students.
From there, I flew to Guwahati to visit the hospital
there. If you recall, the doctor there has been basically alone for
almost 20 years. Other doctors don't stay – it's too remote and
the pay is not at all good. I worry about him, he has children and
needs to earn money for their education and think about his retirement.
Then I went back to Kolkata and during my time
there, I visited the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity
– Mother Teresa's order. I also visited the newly opened Tata
Medical Center. The Tata Group is India's largest business group and an
international company, and they built this modern hospital with the
mandate to provide 50% charitable services. Their building is beautiful
with lots of windows and natural light. There are 300 pieces of
original Indian art throughout the building – most donated when
asked by the Tatas. They were very eager to work with me and CMC in
providing palliative care. Also visited three other palliative
care services where we refer patients.
When I got back to my room at Sneha Deepam, there
was a surprise waiting for me in my refrigerator. It was full of ants
and moldy food! I guess the housekeeper accidentally forgot to turn the
fridge back on after cleaning it. My silly sister wanted to know if the
ants spelled out "Welcome home" - they didn't!
Now I am planning for my trip to Malaysia and
Bangladesh in September and October. More on that next time. Until
then, keep me in your prayers. I can't think of any place I'd rather
be. Peace, John
September 14, 2011
Greetings to my sponsoring
churches! When I last wrote to you, I was about to celebrate two
birthdays.
August 15th is the birthday of India's independence from England. And
it's also
my birthday so I pretend the national holiday is for me! My day began
with
decorations on my door and birthday greetings from the young woman who
brings
me chai first thing in the morning. I had breakfast with two chaplain
friends
and their kids and then was summoned to the hospice for singing and
cake with
the Sisters, Father Xavier, the staff, and the patients. Then I took
the rest
of the day off and had a nap, dealt with some “outstanding”
emails, and worked
on the clergy handbook for palliative care I am writing. In the evening
my
chaplain friends took me to a nice restaurant. It was a very nice
birthday.
I had a small, portable
printer that I took along when I traveled but it died. New ones are
very
expensive, so I hunted down a used one, bought it, and had it sent to
my sister
in Minnesota. She then mailed it to me, Mailing a letter to India is
cheap but
mailing a printer is not and she told me the postage would be my
birthday
present for this year – and maybe next year as well! When I got
it, it wouldn't
work with my laptop, and it really needed to work with my laptop
because that's
what I travel with. After trying a number of unsuccessful remedies, a
tech
expert did a sort of motherboard transplant thing and now my little
printer and
my laptop travel with me and work well together.
I am traveling right now. I
left India on September 5th and will return to Vellore
November 5th.
Right now, I am in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. The journey from India to
Malaysia was pretty uneventful. I didn’t have the most
comfortable seat in the
plane, but it is only a 4 hour flight. It was an overnight flight but
didn't
lend itself to sleep, so I didn’t get much. There were several
hundred people
in line at Immigration, but only four people doing the processing so it
was
very slow. The supervisor finally came and the line moved along much
better
after that.
My first day there, I met
the Lutheran Bishop for lunch and then had dinner with the Anglican
Bishop –
both really wonderful people. Actually, the Lutheran Bishop acted as
our
chauffeur. The Lutheran Church of Malaysia and Singapore (LCMS) has an
incredible church center. It was built just two years ago and has a
nice
chapel, a 1,000 seat auditorium, guest rooms, and offices for them and
a couple
of other Lutheran entities.
My real schedule started the
next day when I spoke at the Cathedral staff chapel service. I used the
text
about the four men who lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof
of the
house where Jesus was and talked about thinking outside the box.
I am staying in a guest room
in a bungalow rented by the ELCA. My room is nothing fancy but has a
good bed
and A/C which is necessary. Malaysia has a reputation for being pretty
non-veg,
but there are quite a few vegetarian restaurants and they manage to
make soya look
like and maybe even taste a little like chicken, pork, ham, and
seafood. I
haven’t had any of those in 27 years – so I’m
probably pretty easy to fool!
My first Sunday in Kuala
Lumpur, the Anglican Bishop asked me to preach at what he called a
“stalled
mission church.” It was September 11th and if you were
at worship,
you know the Gospel was about forgiveness. I talked about the
importance of
forgiveness and talked about it from the perspective of the end of life
which
is, of course, what we deal with in palliative care.
The next day, two of the
LCMS staff took me to see some care facilities. One was run by the
Little
Sisters of the Poor and is for those without money or family to care
for them.
They don't have a large professional staff but they have 50 volunteers
and do a
wonderful job. Next door was Hospice Malaysia which is housed in an
amazing
building. They also do home care and daycare two days a week and seem
well
staffed.
I have some two day
workshops in a week or so, and a few smaller things in between, so I am
doing
some final preparation. They want something to hand out at the workshop
for
lay-people, so I spent some time putting together a handout. When I was
ready,
I hooked up my little travel printer I was in business. I knew it would
come in
handy!
Look at a map to remind
yourselves where Malaysia is, and then please pray for me as I work
there and
then travel to Bangladesh. Your prayers are my fuel. Peace, John
October 15, 2011
Greetings to
my sponsoring churches! As I write this, I am still in Malaysia, but in
a different city. I'm in Kota Kinabalu which is on the Island of Borneo.
I have been teaching and doing workshops for
medical, clergy, and lay groups. My first week in Kuala Lumpur, I
mostly just got acquainted with the area. The Bishop drove me up into
the hills to stay at a bungalow used as a retreat by the American
missionaries to Malaysia. It was the last place the missionaries handed
over to the Malaysian Church and it is in a beautiful spot. The Bishop
is a wonderful man and we had a great chat during the three plus hour
drive. In the morning, we attended a cultural event for the original
people of the area - the Orang Asli. They now have their first Orang
Asli pastor who also happens to be a woman.
The next Sunday, I preached at two Lutheran churches
in the morning and an
Anglican church in the evening. I love to preach, so that was no
problem, but I was a little tired after being kept awake the night
before by the guard dog named Grumpy and his barking. I did get a nap
in the afternoon, so that helped. After that, I had a week of teaching
five out of six days. Four of those days were eight hours straight. And
it was just me doing all the talking, so no time to sit back and gather
my thoughts. The one day I didn't teach was spent traveling by train to
Penang - a trip that took little over seven hours - to teach a class at
a training center there. While I was there, I went to the massage
school there on the campus and had a sixty minute foot massage. Mostly
it felt good, but the bottom of the foot is pretty sensitive. We took
the bus back to Kuala Lumpur which turned out to be faster and more
convenient than the train, but there was no bathroom and no food!
That next Sunday I only preached at one church, but
I needed to be rescued before I could go there. Grumpy the guard dog
was on a chain that was just a little too long and I didn't want to
lose a chunk of me when I walked by him!
I also visited Assunta Hospital to meet with the
palliative care team there. It's a small team but they are very eager
to learn more. I hope to be able to arrange an ELNEC course for them -
that stands for End of Life Nursing Education Consortium. The course is
an intensive three days of learning about palliative care and learning
how to teach this to others. I hope this can happen in Malaysia.
Then I flew to Kota Kinabalu. It's a two and a half
hour flight, and I was lucky and got to sit in the emergency row with
no one beside me and no one in front of me, so no one could recline
into my lap. I always feel like I ought to be giving the reclining
person a head massage or a shampoo! The airline had free newspapers at
the door of the plane and so I took one. It turned out to be in Bahasa,
the language of Malaysia. The Muslim woman sitting across from me
asked, "Do you read Bahasa?" She then offered to trade papers
with me - hers was in English.
My workshop/seminars were held first at the Anglican
Cathedral and then in a nice, new building at the seminary. Since the
workshop runs all day and into the evening, there are two long breaks
and they gave me a "rest room" to use complete with a big basket of
fruit. There were dragon fruit, star fruit, mangoes, apples, pears,
grapes, bananas, and some oranges and I was told I should finish all of
it before the workshop was over! There were about 50 clergy and full
time church workers in the group and it went well even though that is
really too large a group to have sufficient participation. But I was
glad so many were being exposed to the concepts. I used a movie called
"Wit" as part of the process. My next two groups, at the seminary, were
a lot smaller - just seven people each - but the 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
schedule was very long even with breaks to work relax and get off my
feet.
Once my week of classes was over, I spent a lot of
time with the palliative care team, seeing patients with them. I met
the Bishop of the Basel Church there and had tea with him. It turned
out that he had spent many years in Minnesota where I come from and had
even driven through my hometown of Milaca!
I'll be in Kota Kinabalu until October 20th, working
with the palliative care team and doing some informal teaching. Keep me
in your prayers along with all the patients who are receiving
palliative care here. Thanks you for your support! Peace, John
November 14th
Greetings! When I wrote to you last month, I
was about to spend a few more days in Malaysia before leaving for a
stay in Bangladesh. I spent time with the palliative care team and one
of the home visits we made was to the home of an old man who had 300
chickens, five dogs, uncountable cats (they were in constant motion),
and one crocodile! I know you're asking how the chickens, dogs, and
cats avoid being crocodile food, but I don't have an answer! (But,
rumor is that he's a finicky eater.) I went along on a few other
home visits but that was the only large carnivore I ran into.
On October 20th, I flew from East Malaysia to
West Malaysia which took 2 1/2 hours, and then to Dhaka in Bangladesh,
another 3 1/2 hours. The journey was uneventful – except for the
flash and explosion! On the flight to Dhaka, about 15 minutes out,
there was a red flash and explosive sound just outside the emergency
door where I was seated. What was it? Other than a bit unsettling? No
idea. It obviously wasn’t anything important as we arrived
safely. I settled into a simple but clean room with A/C (a little
noisy) and cable TV.
While in Dhaka, I got to spend some time with
one of the UN doctors I met in Liberia, and had dinner with him and his
family. I also met some folks serving with the Salvation Army in Dhaka.
I spent most of my time with the Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh (LHCB)
staff. Their office is on the 5th floor of a new building and the
elevator had not been installed yet. It was a nice office, but it will
be even nicer with the elevator!
I spent two days at the Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujib Medical University Palliative Care Program. They used to have six
palliative care beds scattered around the hospital but now have a new
unit which has beds for 18 patients. I did some informal teaching
sessions with some of the staff and they asked me to help out with
several challenging patients.
Then I went to Dumki in the southern part of
Bangladesh. It was a ten hour trip but getting out of Dhaka was the
worst part. That city has serious traffic! South Bangladesh is mostly
delta area and so rest of the trip was quite scenic. There are a lot of
rivers and a lot of water and lots of beautiful farmland and trees
grown to be harvested. We had to take two ferries and one of those
trips was quite long. The village of Dumki is home to another branch of
Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh, and is a comprehensive health care
facility that primarily provides maternal and child health care. The
staff welcomed me with flowers and I got settled in to a very nice
guesthouse with all the amenities - and a cook. The senior staff
took me on a tour of the hospital which is basically quite good. They
need things, but they have good people working there.
One day we drove to the area that was hit by
cyclones in 2006 and 2007 and saw where LHCB worked after the storms.
One of the projects was to restore a sacred pond for a tribal
community. They are Buddhist. The pond has fish and the water can only
be used for cooking and drinking, not for bathing. The fish aren't
meant to be eaten either. Lucky fish!
I also spent some time in Madaripur, the site
of the Community Development of LHCB. We visited two women's groups set
up for savings and micro-loan programs where women can take out small
loans to set up small businesses. We also visited a large Non
Governmental Organization set up to help the poor and run by a very
nice guy.
Then it was back to Dhaka and a visit to
Mother Teresa's Home there. The Sisters are in the heart of the older
part of the city which was paralyzed with cattle sales for the Muslim
holiday Eid-ul-Fitr, which involves the slaughtering of a cow. At the
Missionaries of Charity home, a wonderful Sister from the Philippines
asked me to bless all the individual babies in her care. One very sad
child with hydrocephaly and a very cute fellow with no legs and a half
arm with one finger. This kid is probably about two. He gets up and
down stairs without a problem and into your heart pretty easily. His
father visited him the other day - for Eid - and I think he is
rethinking his decision to leave him in the orphanage. Another sad case
- mother and child were in an accident - mother died - child is now
healed of a couple broken bones and no other family has come forth.
I am now back home in Vellore in my room at
Sneha Deepam and I'll stay put for a couple of weeks. Please pray for
the people of Malaysia and Bangladesh and please remember me in your
prayers too. I will remember you in mine. Peace, John
December 15, 2011
Greetings to my sponsoring congregations! It is winter here in Vellore
which doesn't mean the same thing as it did where I grew up in
Minnesota. The nights are nice and cool for sleeping, but the days are
still in the low 90s. It's an improvement over upper 90s and 100s, but
winter means people don't turn on fans. After all – it's winter.
So many rooms and places are still warm and stuffy to me. The
palliative care staff are very good about switching on the fan when
they see me coming. In the summer, everyone is hot. In the winter, it's
only me!
After returning from my trip to Malaysia and
Bangladesh, I spent about three weeks at home in Vellore. I spent time
with the palliative care team, worked on reports on my trip to the ELCA
Global Missions, preached at Christ Lutheran on Sundays, and planned my
next trip – inside India this time. There are a lot of
other things I am working on as well. I spoke with a doctor from Padhar
who is willing to travel to Bangladesh and help the surgery staff there
learn about a different method and different agent to make giving
anesthesia simpler. I also spoke with a psychologist here about
traveling to Malaysia with me when I go back for more palliative care
classes. Part of my job is to get the right people to help in the right
situations.
Toward the end of November, I was off traveling
again. My Thanksgiving dinner was a tomato, cheese, and cucumber
sandwich on Indigo Air's flight to Guwahati. The people I was supposed
to meet with had emergencies and so I will need to return in January.
After that, I went from Guwahati to Kolkata to Howrah Station to
Sainthia Station to Dumka. Taxi, plane, taxi, train, car – all
went smoothly and took 12 hours. It was Sunday and there were no
English services so I went the “cathedral church” to a
worship service in Santal. I was introduced and “garlanded”
which is a bit like getting leis in Hawaii only they are short and fat
and they came up to my nose. Unlike the Hawaiian lei, you take these
garlands off, which was a good thing as I might not have been able to
see or breathe. It was a two hour service in a language I didn't
understand and that is always a bit of a challenge.
The next day I sat in on the Executive Council of
the Synod meeting. I greeted them and talked a bit about what I have
been doing and will be doing in the future. They invited me to stay for
the rest of the meeting but gave me an out – which I took. The
meeting went on in English but much of the discussion was in either
Hindi or Bengali or Santal or Boro. I don't speak any of those!
After that I went to Mohulpahari for the day. I was
warned that the road was very bad and the trip would be long, but I
have seen much worse roads and the drive took less than an hour. I
talked to a lot of people there and was able to deal with several
problems for them. One nurse is interested in getting a PhD and I did
some networking for her.
Back at Dumka, I called Padhar and was invited to be
the guest speaker at their first ever capping ceremony. This is a very
important milestone in a student nurse's life and I really want to be
there. My capping (badging for us guys) was 37 years ago and I remember
it very well. If I can get the right trains and planes and automobiles,
I will be there!
Then another full day of travel to get back to
Kolkata, the guesthouse, and pizza. The next two days I traveled to
Tata – just a 20 minute car trip. I spent time both days with the
psychiatrist who is doing palliative care. He's a very nice guy and I
enjoyed our time together. We have a lot of people in common from CMC
– Christian Medical College. I also met with the Navigation
Coordinator which is a kind of social worker/facilitator. This woman
worked on the US for 25 years and then moved back to India. The first
day I wanted to stop for bread and peanut butter on the way back but my
driver spoke no English so I couldn't ask him. The second day, I had
someone ask him about stopping before we left. When we stopped, I was
in a hurry and didn't really look at the bread I grabbed. It turned out
to be garlic cheese bread. Not the best with PB, but interesting!
Next stop, Delhi and a few days of classes and
presentations. And McDonald's. And pizza. Then, by the time you read
this, I will be back in Vellore in my own room at Sneha Deepam. I will
be here for Christmas, and as I celebrate the baby in the manger, you
will be in my prayers. Please keep me in yours. Have a blessed
Christmas! Peace, John
|
