My mentor gave Grand Rounds on Global Health yesterday. I was post-call and in pain but I stayed the extra hour, set in the middle of the intimidating auditorium. I found myself nodding and smiling even after one of he worst two week periods of my professional life. About half way through, he quoted the bible. Most ears would not have heard it but I heard it.
“To whom much is given, much is required.”
90% of the world’s children live in the developing world and a huge chunk of them have limited access to care. In the world of endless ventilators and children who are trached and have permanent feeding tubes where I live it is easy to forget that most children are lucky if they can get IV fluids.
We have so much. And much, much is required.
As I stare in the face SHINY HIP number two a procedure that costs 50,000 Kenyan Shillings and probably at least 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars. I am so grateful. So grateful. That I don’t have to go beg my relatives to come up with the money or choose between eating and my medicine. I am so grateful for my magical insurance card that several precious friends here in the States do not have. Not to mention for the divine provision that the best surgeon in the US is at my finger tips in network, four hours from my parents’ home.
I have been given so much. And much, much is required.
I am disappointed about canceling my trip to Zambia in Jan, a casualty of the scheduling changes that took place to make way for the shiny hip. But I am so grateful. So grateful that I have been given a way out of the constant pain and the progressive disability so that I can be healthy enough to move to Africa full time a year and half post-op.
How different our churches would look in this country if we awoken to this simple phrase…
A New Leaf Emerging 