TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD term medical mission trips . The first trip was to a remote village in Western Ethiopia . I slept in an abandoned missionary house with Ray and Effie Giles , career missionaries , and a small team where the “ music ” to fall asleep was the constant “ hum ” from thousands of bees in the walls of the house . We all “ slept ” in our sleeping bags in the middle of the house , and when daybreak came , we quickly left the house before the bees came out of the walls . When we were ready to leave Ethiopia after 16 days , Ray said to me , “ He who drinks from the African stream always returns .” What I had anticipated would be another worldly adventure dramatically changed my life after spending two weeks with my Giles buddies .
Western Ethiopia , 1998
One year later I returned to the village they served . Ray and I traveled over the Nile River to visit two villages who had never seen a Caucasian man or a man with a beard ; yet we were quickly accepted and Ray strongly encouraged me to accept the cold drink offered by the village chief prepared with water straight out of the river . Both trips were filled with patient encounters including diagnosing leprosy , malaria , other tropical diseases and using auscultation skills learned in cardiology to diagnose multiple cases of mitral stenosis , aortic regurgitation and tricuspid stenosis from untreated rheumatic fever .
Those first two trips with the Giles as well as the reminder from the African proverb prompted dozens of trips to Ethiopia , Gabon , Zambia , Romania , China , India , Afghanistan and Guatemala . While there are too many experiences to detail , I will relate a few experiences that were unforgettable .
In 1998 , we took our 16-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son on their first mission trip to a village in a remote part of Ethiopia where we interacted daily with local families . On one short hike to another village , we left Sean with a local village family where Effie told us Sean would be safer with that family than in a big department store back home . On another trip to Ethiopia a few years later , we visited the ALERT Leprosy Hospital . Sean was 8 years old , and he spontaneously ran across the room to a young teenage girl being treated for recent onset bullous leprosy and jumped up on the bed beside her . When Leigh Anne was in college , she and I traveled to Ethiopia . One evening we opened the door to our room , and we saw thousands of flying termites , which came out of their nests and filled our room making it look like we were in a snowstorm .
More impactful on those Ethiopian trips were the personal encounters with the local people and missionaries . During many of those early trips , AIDS was rampant , and there was no treatment . We witnessed the compassion from Catholic sisters in a large facility for orphaned children of all ages who were dying from HIV / AIDS , and we made repeat visits over the years to interact with the children . We also made numerous visits over several years to a young lady battling AIDS who cared for her brothers and sisters , but she was always full of joy and gratitude .
Our family traveled twice to Gabon to serve at Bongolo Mission Hospital located deep in the jungle . We were able to “ stand on the equator ” and visit the compound where Albert Schweitzer had lived and worked . At the mission , locals frequently killed the deadly venomous mamba snakes on the compound , so Emily dressed 5-year-old Sean in a long sleeve shirt , jeans and boots to play in the jungle when the temperature was 95-99 degrees while the local children played in shorts and sandals . Leigh Anne was a senior in high school , and she scrubbed for surgery to repair a hernia .
The missionary surgeon informed us that approximately a third of patients were HIV positive , and at that time there was no treatment on the compound . Patients ate whatever food their families prepared for them and family members who lived a far distance from the hospital slept under the patient ’ s bed . On the second trip Dr . Bill Hoagland and his family traveled to Bongolo Hospital , and we were able to share not only medical stories we experienced , but family and spiritual encounters as well . Bill had the more difficult task of performing surgeries in the remote hospital ; however , the first week the American pediatrician who was supposed to serve
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