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People who know me well know that I love the movie “Spies Like Us”, an 80’s comedy where Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd play a couple of wannabe spies. At one point, they find themselves posing as surgeons who have to do an appendectomy in front of an audience of doctors. As they start to wing it, Dan Aykroyd periodically disappears under the table to consult a textbook. My experiences here in Ethiopia have been a little like that at times.
This boy, of about 8 years of age, came to the hospital after a car crash. Among his injuries, he sustained a broken lower jaw. In an attempt to immobilize the fracture in the right alignment, I wired a bar to his upper teeth and a bar to his lower teeth. I then wired the two bars together after holding his teeth together in proper (I hope) alignment. How do I know how to do this, you ask? I read about it in two text books and watched a video!
This, in all seriousness, has been a recurring theme here, but it’s what we expected coming to the mission field. We have really been forced to rely on prayer here. We need God to guide us as we try to help these people. We need Him to heal them. It’s been encouraging to talk with the patients and their families about Christ and encouraging to watch them get better. If you get a chance, say a prayer for young Mamush that his jaw would heal.
Paul
