Welcome to my first blog!!!
Before I update you all on this trip, I want to thank you
all for keeping me on your minds and in my prayers! This trip is beginning to
fall together in ways that only God could control and hopefully this become
more evident as I continue to type.
Just a little background on these
ramblings. After a
handful of international volunteer experiences, I believe that God is calling
me into a career of international medical mission work. In order to explore
this calling, I wanted to go overseas during my 4th year of medical school
for an extended period to find out what actually goes into being a missionary
surgeon. About 10 months ago, my mentor Dr. Paul Lim suggested going to Soddo
Christian Hospital (soddo.org) in Ethiopia to work as the functioning surgical
intern, and after many prayers, a fair amount of research and meeting the on-site
orthopedic surgeon, I signed up and will be going there for 6 weeks from May 21st
to July 7th (I had to shorten it from 8 weeks due to boards L).
Now in regards to funding, I estimated that I needed about
$4,250 for this trip, in my mind a fairly substantial amount. About one month
ago, a few friends and one consistently generous grandpa asked me how much more
I needed for the trip, and they were able to completely cover the remainder of
the cost! But not only is this trip completely covered, in the past 3 weeks I found
out that Trinity Lutheran in Waconia and the Christian Medical Dental
Association awarded me an additional $1500! This means that in addition to getting
to provide care for some incredibly needy people and observe much more skilled
individuals, we get to financially support the mission of this great hospital
with these extra funds. I cannot express how grateful I am for this support; I am
just amazed at how many generous people I have in my life and I just pray to
that I will use your monies with wisdom.
In addition, the details of the trip have really together
amazingly smoothly. I have completed the online coursework, gotten my malaria
meds, filled out way to many forms, and even registered this trip with the
State Department. Although I wasn’t expecting it, I will be receiving academic
credit for this rotation from UMN so residencies will know about this adventure
as well. INMED, the sending organization, has been absolutely amazing and
without them I would likely end up trying to hitchhike from some random town in
Afghanistan to Soddo J
This is all of the update that I can think of for now. I will
of course still be coveting your prayers, specifically over traveling to Soddo
and the people who are currently working there. I would like to leave you with a few
words from my Biblical namesake that have served to remind what/who this whole
adventure is supposed to be about and what an awesome God it is that we serve.
“Because of your
promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about this
greatness, to make your servant know it. Therefore, you are great, O LORD God.
For there is none like you and there is no God besides you.” (Sam II 7:21-22)
In Him,
David
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