Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 from November, 1995

New York, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan: November, 1995: After arriving in New York City and getting checked into my hotel room in Manhattan I took a taxi to the United Nations Permanent Mission office of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) on 515 E. 72nd Street. My meeting was with DPRK’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Han Song Ryol and Ambassador Kim Jong Su. Even though Han Song Ryol and I had just been together in meetings the previous week when I was in New York, we still had some brand-new things to discuss as a result of my trip to Koreatown in Los Angeles earlier this week. 

I reminded him of the load of medical goods we had sent from our Denver warehouse, which had already arrived in Nampho Port, DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). I also reminded him of the two containers Project C.U.R.E. had already shipped from our Phoenix warehouse. I then gave him the good news about the outcome of my trip to Koreatown, Los Angeles. I told him that I had been able to procure the medical supplies sufficient to fill the equivalent of four twenty-foot containers, and that they would be shipped to the DPRK by the first week in December—within two weeks of our conversation. 

I asked, “Do you realize, Mr. Han Song Ryol, that Project C.U.R.E. has been able to ship to your country almost two million dollars’ worth of needed medical goods just in the year 1995?” 

I left the meeting very pleased with the outcome of our time together and musing to myself about the possibilities of our future involvement in North Korea. As I hailed a taxi to take me back to the hotel, I recalled the verse that I had memorized which had really become a comfort: 

Be strong and courageous and get to work. Don’t be frightened by the size of the task, for the Lord my God is with you; he will not forsake you. He will see to it that everything in finished correctly.

I packed my things, caught the bus to Newark Airport, for my flight to London. I flew British Airways from Newark and landed in London’s Heathrow Airport at about 7:00 a. m. on Tuesday. There I had a layover of about four hours before I continued on to Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt I boarded the Uzbekistan Airways flight for Tashkent. 

That flight into Tashkent was another all‑nighter, arriving at the airport at 6:45 Wednesday morning. I was beginning to think that a good shower and a clean change of clothes would really be nice. I had now been traveling in the same outfit Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday without a chance to lie down or really clean up. And as it was about to turn out, it wouldn’t be until Thursday morning that I would be afforded those exciting luxuries. 

When I left Denver for New York, it was my understanding that when I arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I would be met by a representative of the CAFE (Central Asia Free Exchange Inc.). They coordinate different world-relief agencies with efforts throughout Asia. It seems to be a highly regarded network to know. I had been told that it would be very difficult for me to fly into Tashkent for the first time and try to get through the regulations and get out to the city of Andijon when I didn’t speak the Russian or Uzbekistan languages. 

Earlier in November on my trip to Los Angeles, Dr. Woo Sung Ahn asked if I would meet up with some of his Korean friends who were doing missions work in Uzbekistan with the Korean community now living there. He had even given me some medications to deliver to two of the Korean missionary’s wives upon my arrival.

I must detour here a little and explain what North Koreans are doing clear over in the western section of the old Soviet Union. When Stalin took control of the USSR, he determined to strengthen the security of his eastern borders. Many Koreans had moved into southern China and eastern Russia to escape the atrocities of the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea during the 1920s. Stalin did not trust those Koreans in his country. So for security reasons, he killed many of them and rounded up all the others and put them on trains to be transmigrated into Uzbekistan as forced laborers. A large majority of them died of starvation or disease from the inhumane conditions, but thousands made it and settled into work communities in Uzbekistan. 

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Koreans from the USA and South Korea had sent over one hundred missionaries to these communities and had great success. The Koreans had been displaced and neglected but had made friends and, in some cases, intermarried with the Uzbekistan people, who also over the years were trying to survive from their common enemy, the much-hated Russians. Dr. Woo Sung Ahn and Elder Kim were scheduled to return to Tashkent just a few weeks following my trip in December. They had wanted me to meet some of the leaders of that endeavor while I was in Tashkent and had arranged for them to also meet me at the airport. 

After my long, clumsy ordeal of clearing passport control and customs at the Tashkent Airport, I went outside and found the Koreans. Dr. Shinn is the overall director of the missions effort. The Koreans and I met successfully, but the group from CAFE was nowhere to be found. I really began to be thankful for the last‑minute agreement that I had made with Dr. Ahn to meet the Koreans at the airport. 

The late-November morning in Uzbekistan was very nippy. The sun had not come up sufficiently to burn off the morning fog, and ice had formed on all the mud puddles around the Tashkent Airport. The Koreans and I stood outside talking and waiting for the CAFE people to show up. They never did. Dr. Shinn had to leave for an appointment, and Herbert Hong suggested that we get out of the cold, go to his house, and eat some rice for breakfast. 

We drove across town in his little car and pulled into one of the Soviet concrete apartment buildings on the outskirts. As we got out of the car to go into his apartment, he said he hoped that I didn’t mind, his children were at home from school that day and were very sick. There had been an outbreak of diphtheria and typhoid in the community, and eight people in his area had recently died from it. He was hoping that his children were not sick from that or the large outbreak of hepatitis A that the US was trying to help fight. Suddenly the rice and soup for breakfast did not sound so appealing, but I went on in and joined them for breakfast. The hot tea felt good. 

Maybe I was supposed to buy a ticket in Tashkent and go on to Andijon and be met there. I mentioned that possibility to Herbert. “Oh no, it would be impossible for you, a foreigner, to make it through the process of locally buying a ticket on a domestic flight and clearing all the requirement points to get to Andijon by yourself. The country of Uzbekistan is not in any way set up for foreigners to travel. No one just comes to leisurely travel around Uzbekistan.” 

I had a chance to read the medical-alert message that had come to the parents of the school children. It was printed on bright red paper with the bold heading “MEDICAL ALERT.” It told about the diphtheria and hepatitis outbreaks and also informed parents of the following: 

People in our community now have scabies. This is a highly communicable disease affecting the skin. Other names are “seven year itch” and “skin lice.” Small insects lay eggs just under the skin. When they hatch, they show themselves in small, red bumps with tiny white or grayish blister‑type “heads.” When you scratch them, the eggs get under your fingernails and are transmitted to other places your fingers go. The first bumps usually appear between your fingers or toes and spread from there. It is spread only through skin contact, and the itch is most annoying. If you experience these symptoms, please contact the nurse for treatment and let the school know. 

Herbert’s two daughters were in bed most of the time I was there, but the son was quite active and enjoyed climbing on this new visitor, wanting me to play with his toys. I began feeling like I needed to scratch all over, especially between my fingers and toes and also right in the middle of my back. 

Next Week: On to Andijon!

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 from July, 1995

India : July, 1995, (cont.)  At 8:00 Wednesday morning, Samuel called me from his house in Salem. He had already talked to Benny and said that Benny would stop by the hotel at 11:00 to make sure I got back to the airport in good shape. Benny had taken off work and had ridden the train for over seven hours from Salem to Madras to meet me at the plane. Now he would deliver me to the airport and then head back to Salem on the night bus, which would arrive sometime the next day. As I left Benny at the Madras airport, I thanked him and gave him a box of English toffee for his family. 

Samuel was at the airport to meet me, and we drove for another hour and a half to Erode were I was to do the Needs Assessment Study for Project C.U.R.E. The hospital was directed by Dr. Vizia Kumar. For years the hospital had also run a nurses’ school. The patient load was about 2,500 per month, of which less than 50 percent of patients had any means to pay. Their per capita gross income for the year was less than $150. The hospital tried to charge the other 50 percent of the patients some amount that the market would bear. The hospital received no government assistance because it was a Christian organization in an area of India that was 98 percent Hindu. The London Missionary Society started the hospital in 1903, and in the hallway there was a plaque that made a big deal out of the fact that in 1933 electricity was brought into the building. Even today there are rows and rows of kerosene lamps on shelves for use during frequent power failures.

What did the hospital in Erode need from Project C.U.R.E.? Everything! They did have a Siemens X-ray machine that looked pretty good but was only a 200 milliamps (mA)—not very powerful. They had one EKG machine, but it wasn’t working. The emergency room needed to almost start over again with different equipment. The hospital, overall, was perhaps cleaner than some of the bad ones we had assessed in Africa, but not much better equipped. Most of the equipment and fixtures were, without question, pre–World War II.

From Erode we drove about another one and a half hours to Salem, the city where Benny had said he lived. Salem was a city of two or three million people, and the headquarters for Samuel’s ministry. Samuel and his wife run an orphanage and a school for three hundred abandoned kids. Samuel’s great-grandfather was the first Chris­tian convert in India. He was royalty, but when his family found out he had converted, they repeatedly tried to kill him and have him killed because of the shame that it brought on the family name. Finally he ran away and was raised by missionaries from England. But for four generations now, all of the offspring have been Christian and involved in ministry. The orphanage and school are located outside the main area of Salem on a twenty-acre plot of land. 

As we drove up to the orphanage, the driver stopped the car and Samuel said that we would walk from there. As we walked in through the gates, I had a surprise awaiting me. Lined up in two straight lines on either side of the entry drive were about three hundred kids. They were very quiet and orderly, and several came and put a large ornamental neck­lace over my head. Then the children began singing and throwing flower petals on Samuel and me. They were not in the least rowdy, but they certainly enjoyed welcoming their guest.

Samuel and his wife live in a house on the complex. They have two children of their own. One daughter who is finishing high school, and a son who is also off at boarding school. However, personally, they had adopted five other children ranging in age from one and a half years to seven years. They were all abandoned babies when Samuel and his wife received and adopted them. Quite a family! I stayed there in Samuel’s house in an upstairs guest room.

Thursday, July 13  At about 4:15 a.m. I was awakened by roosters crowing. I went back to sleep until about 5:30, when I began to hear voices of lots of happy kids. Breakfast was served for Samuel and me at 8:00. But just prior to our eating, the air was filled with a three-hundred-voice kids’ choir gathered in a building next door to eat their breakfast. They were singing a prayer before they ate. I couldn’t resist … I had to go next door and see all the kids. They were lined up sitting at long tables. In India most of the people use no silverware service. So in front of each child was a large metal pan, about ten inches in diameter, filled with hot cereal and fruit. The kids were greatly enjoying themselves as they scooped up the cereal by hand and ate it. 

The driver took us first to the large regional government hospital. This one hospital served over twenty million people in Salem and the surrounding area. Seventy-five thousand patients passed through its doors monthly. As our car drove up to the side door, it was apparent that the hospital staff knew we were coming—a delegation of doctors and hospital officials was waiting for us on the curb. The procession was led, then, up a flight of stairs to the hospital director’s office. They presented me with a large, thick research packet, which laid out the activities and goals of the hospital. I asked enough questions to fill out my assessment forms and then asked if they would mind if I took pictures as we toured the hospital facilities.

The hospital was quite typical of a large African or Asian government institution—pathetic. Samuel told me as we walked that they had really cleaned it up when they heard that the American was coming. All of the services at this hospital were covered by the government and were free to the people. So it tended to collect some pretty sorry cases. Some parents here in India will actually cripple their children in order to give them a competitive advantage at begging. But, of course, only a very small portion of the injuries are intentional or self-inflicted. 

A great number of the hospital beds did not have mattresses but, rather, a metal or wooden bottom. Many of the emergency gurneys were two-wheeled rather than four and were made out of bicycle parts and wheels. This large hospital had only one small X-ray machine.

I was impressed with their blood-bank and eye-bank setup. The doctor who headed up the eye bank told me that he now had over forty eye donations for their future eye surgeries.

As we passed the hematology section, I noticed a small ward where they had four dialysis machines in operation. The machines were exactly like the ones I had sent out in different container loads. I asked if they kept those machines busy. The doctor told me that those four machines were used almost continuously for victims of poisonous snakebites. I stopped and looked at him with surprise. “Snakebite victims?”

He said that this area produced a lot of chickens and eggs. Where there were lots of eggs, there were lots of viper snakes—very poisonous. “A lot of people are bitten by the snakes,” he told me. “Most would die without the dialysis machines. The machines purify the blood before the venom overloads the kidneys and shuts them down, thus causing death.” What a great use for a dialysis machine!

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 from July, 1995

India: July, 1995, (continued):  I had another instant flashback. I was in Kenya, on one of our safaris. The guide was pointing out how the cheetahs and female lions watched the eyes and behavior patterns of the gazelles or waterbucks. The ones they picked out to ultimately attack were those with a flaw, a weakness, or a lack of confidence that could be detected.

About that time in the midst of my flashback, a couple of desperate-looking, dark-skinned Indians with shabby clothes began looking at me and my luggage with a little more interest than was com­fortable. I thought, No way. If out of desperation you’re looking for panic or lack of direction in my eyes, you’ll have to find it in some of the other passengers’ eyes.I walked straight for an abandoned luggage cart in the street, placed my two bags on the cart, as if it had been planned for a year, and then turned the baggage cart back toward the terminal and the crowd. There was another entrance to the terminal, but it was blocked by Indian police. I pushed my way through the crowd, smiled, gave a hand gesture to the police, and walked past them back into the building. I wasn’t supposed to go back in there once I had left the security area, but I had to return to the beginning of the line of placard holders and start over again. 

By now a lot of people were coming out of customs. I searched the line again, but nothing. I backed my luggage cart up against a wall, put my foot on it, and nonchalantly studied the crowd. Over an hour passed. No one. So this was Madras, India, city of ten million? The only thing you can predict about desperate people is that they are unpredictable. I decided to stay in the building for the time being. Several other tattered folk came close, looked over my luggage, sized me up, and moved on. Where in the world was Browning? 

In the crowd, pushed up against the fence but with no placard, were a kindly appearing gentleman and his wife, both about sixty-five or seventy years old. They looked European or American enough. I pushed my cart again through the crowd, right up behind the couple. I reached over a row of short Indians and laid my hand on the old man’s shoulder. 

“You aren’t Mr. Browning, are you?”

“No, I’m Mr. Selz, from Utah, USA.”

“I’m Jackson from Colorado. We’re kind of neighbors when you consider that we are halfway around the world and in time zones they determine in thirty-minute intervals.”

We chatted awhile. He and his wife were Mormons from Salt Lake City and were just finishing their fifteenth month of an eighteen-month mission to Madras. They were at the airport to pick up another older couple needing to fulfill their missionary work for the LDS (Latter-day Saints).

I mentioned my predicament and asked for his advice on a good hotel near the airport, in case my situation came down to my needing a hotel.

He said, “I would definitely tell you the Trident Hotel. You could take a taxi from that stand over there. They will take American dollars for the fare.”

About that time, their anticipated couple arrived out of the customs area. We hollered at each other, and they disappeared into the crowd. Another twenty minutes went by. I looked back out the window onto the street. There was a bus just arriving that had Trident Hotel written on the side. I left my baggage cart and quickly went back out past the police and onto the street. I waved at the Trident driver. He stopped and got out of the bus. I told him my name was Jackson, and I needed a ride to the Trident. 

As he was putting my bags into the bus, a young Indian fellow called him over to the side, and my ears flapped when I heard the name Jackson. The young man came onto the bus where I was sitting, stuck out his hand, and said, “Jackson?”

I said, “Yes. Are you Mr. Browning?”

“No, my name is Benny. Mr. Browning could not make it, so Samuel asked if I would meet you. but I didn’t know how I was going to meet you.”

Then he went on to tell me, “I already made reservations for you at the Trident Hotel, and I knew if I waited for you to get on the Trident bus, I would be able to meet you.”

I didn’t even bother to ask him how he thought I was supposed to know that there ever existed a hotel by the name of Trident before I met Mr. Selz. It was impossible that Benny would have known that I would be getting on that bus!  But the next thing he said still had me wondering.

“You were the first person to come out of customs security, weren’t you? I saw you but did not expect you to come out first.  I just watched you. You were so confident, and it appeared that you knew what you were doing and where you were going. You looked like you had a plan, and I guess I was looking for someone lost and in a panic.”

I thought, Oh boy, maybe sometimes those gazelles and waterbucks need to be eaten!

Benny did not stay at the hotel. He was going to stay at his sister and brother-in-law’s place about an hour away from Madras. I didn’t know when Benny finally got to bed, but by the time I got checked into the hotel, it was about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. I went to my room, and there was fresh fruit and biscuits on a small table. So when the attendant came up with my bags, I ordered a pot of hot tea. Two o’clock in the morning or not, it was time to relax with a good cup of tea.

Next Week: India’s Creative Use of Dialysis Machines

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 from July 1995

(I have been traveling extensively internationally since 1978. It is always dangerous. I was told one time that desperate people in foreign countries do not see you as black or white, but they see you as green; the color of money. You have what they desperately need and you are vulnerable. So many times I have had to depend on God to rescue me, although I did not always understand how he did it! I share this example of India with you.)

India: July, 1995: India’s population of one billion people amounts to about one-sixth of the world’s entire population. Yet it is only one-third the size of the United States. But why should Project C.U.R.E. get concerned about India? Good question! Perhaps it is because there are over four million people there with leprosy. Perhaps, it is because over one million Indian toddlers die yearly of malnutrition. Or maybe it’s because 80 percent of Indian new­borns are now expected to be HIV positive. How is that for justification?

About a year and a half ago my son, Dr. William Douglas Jackson, was introduced through his friend Dave Sattler to an energetic, young Indian man named Samuel Stevens. Doug was living in San Diego at the time, and Samuel, a long-time friend of Dave’s, had traveled to Califor­nia on a speaking tour. During Doug’s meeting with Samuel, Doug told him about Project C.U.R.E. and the exciting things that were happening with donated medical goods be­ing sent around the world. Samuel was overwhelmed. He was involved in trying desperately to refurbish two antiquated hospitals in India and build out of nothing one brand new hospital. 

The trip to India was then planned and coordinated between Samuel and Project C.U.R.E. for July 9 through 21. 

The first segment of the trip took me from Denver to San Francisco on United flight 405. At 2:05 a.m., I boarded Singapore Airlines flight 001 from San Francisco. My route would take me to Singapore via Hong Kong. The flight segment from San Francisco to Hong Kong was over fourteen hours, and then another three-plus hours from Hong Kong to Singapore. A same-seat trip in excess of seventeen hours gets to be kind of long. From Singapore I boarded Malaysia Airlines flight 622, which would take me to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, north of Singapore about one hour’s flight time. From Kuala Lumpur, I again changed planes to head for Madras, India. 

An interesting thing happened just before takeoff. The captain of the flight came on the intercom and announced that flight time from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Madras would take just over three hours. Then he said something I had never heard before: “There is a two-and-a-half-hour time change from departure point to arrival.” It was now 9:40 p.m. The captain continued, “You may set your watches to 7:10 p.m. Madras, India, time.” 

Perhaps my body could handle thirty-minute incremental time changes … or maybe not. I thought I was programmed for sixty-minute time-zone changes. I had been notified by letter prior to my leaving Colorado that a Mr. Browning would be meeting me in Madras. The letter stated that I would probably not like arriving in Ma­dras for the first time without being met by some friendly face. So I was anticipating walking out of the secured customs area and seeing a friendly person carrying a small placard saying, “Welcome to India, James Jackson.” 

When the plane landed, I grabbed my two carry-on bags and headed for immigration control. I was second in line, not bad for a crowded flight on a huge extended Airbus model-400 aircraft. Oh yes, and there was another advantage of not checking in luggage. After leaving immigration I did not have to wait for the luggage to be unloaded from the plane but went straight to the customs line, where they looked at my honest counte­nance and waved me right through without checking anything. 

Well, I was at least five to ten minutes outside the customs door before anyone else from the flight even appeared. I entered the unsecured area where the disembarkers (I would use the word debarkers, but it sounds so K-9) were separated from the eager throng of excited family members and friends. As was almost always the case, there was a fence separating the crowd from the arriving passengers. Pressed up against the fence and hanging over the fence were the people carrying the signs welcoming those who were arriving. 

I was the first through the line. My eyes raced over the crowd and along the fence now to spot my name and the friendly face. Then I had an instant flashback. About two weeks earlier, Anna Marie asked just what I would do if I went to some country, and no one knew about my arrival and things grew hostile? I remembered tell­ing her with a smile, “No worry, baby. If I have a return ticket and a credit card, I’ll make it home just fine.” Dummy! Now I was thinking about that and not smiling. 

The waiting crowd with signs extended out through the doors and the airport lobby and into the street area outside. It was past midnight. Ours was the last flight. I was quickly outside, into the street, and no sign, no Mr. Browning, no smiling face. Now I was out where the beggars and lepers lined the concrete, and lots of people were sleeping on the sidewalks and streets. I had another instant flashback. I was in Kenya, on one of our safaris. The guide was pointing out how the cheetahs and female lions watched the eyes and behavior patterns of the gazelles or waterbucks. The ones they picked out to ultimately attack were those with a flaw, a weakness, or a lack of confidence that could be detected. 

About that time in the midst of my flashback, a couple of desperate-looking, dark-skinned Indians with shabby clothes began looking at me and my luggage with a little more interest than was com­fortable. 

Next Week: Where is Mr. Browning?

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #4 from March, 1995

Israel: March, 1995, (continued): About midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem was an Israeli Armored Corps museum. Shaul, having spent over thirty years in the national army or reserves, insisted that we visit the museum. Actually, it was extremely interesting. They had collected an example of almost all of the different types of armored tanks that they had used defensively or that had been used against them in war. They started out with samples of the war chariots of Joshua and the kings of Judah, the chariots of the Egyptian pharaohs, and the chariots of the Romans. Then, in the historic progression, they had displayed a working model of Leonardo da Vinci’s tank plans designed over five hundred years ago. Physically lined up in rows were over 120 actual armored tanks, including the French Hotchkiss, the US Sherman tank, the Russian T-72 battle tank, and the highest-tech tank of all, the Israeli Merkava tank, affectionately called the Israeli Chariot tank. Other tanks came from Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Italy, and various allied forces. 

In a display fashioned much like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., the Israelis had listed all the armored tank personnel who had been killed in battles. The time was well spent as an educational aid to better understand Israel’s war history, especially since 1948. 

Another display that was designed to help the world better understand Israel and keep from forgetting Israel’s struggles was the Holocaust History Museum, located just outside Jerusalem. We spent the next two and a half hours visiting that facility. They had done such a great job of documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust that it really was a physically draining experience as we went through the facility. It documented the sequence of events beginning about 1931. I won’t try to describe here the events or my emotions in reaction to the displays, except to say that the memorial certainly underscored the extremes to which any civilization could go when it runs amuck of God’s eternal plan for humanity. What a frightening shame! 

Even though our appetites were not exactly stimulated following the visit to the Holocaust museum, we did go to lunch. Shaul knew of a quaint Jewish restaurant in Jerusalem that served us a very delightful lunch. 

Next on the agenda was a list of sites we had reviewed at lunch that I told Shaul I would like Jay to see. I absolutely wanted him to see the Mount of Olives, the chapel on the Mount of Olives, the garden of Gethsemane, the different stations on the Via Dolorosa (the “way of suffering”), the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, Calvary, the tomb, the different gates of Jerusalem, and anything else we could see in Jerusalem while the sun was shining. My report is that we got it all accomplished, plus a little more, but we certainly walked fast, listened quickly, and kept on movin’.  

All day I kicked myself for not taking a professional tour on Monday just for Jay’s sake. Shaul is such an old-line Hebrew that even though he could be credited for being a good sport and taking us to all the Christian spots of meaning and importance, we received no commentary and, in fact, had to search for all the locations because he was so unfamiliar with any of the Christian locations. I really appreciated his desire to help us even though he appeared to be very uncomfortable at some of the strictly Christian memorials. He was, however, very good at filling us in about Israel’s history from 1948 on. We never could have gotten the perspective any other way on the details of the 1967 war except from a commander who led his troops in through the gates to free Jerusalem. 

March 22 is my birthday. Birthdays ought to be a little laid back. At breakfast Jay took my napkin and designed a birthday card for me incorporating the Grand Beach Hotel, Tel Aviv, Israel, logo into his card. He told me that he had waited nine years to be able to hand-design a birthday card and present it to me while we were in a foreign country. 

He reminded me that I had taken him with me to London, where we were robbed of our passports, train tickets, airline tickets, credit cards, all our money, all our identification, all our everything, and we were left to our creativity and God’s grace to find our way back home. Actually, it was quite fortunate that we were not killed during the incident. But there we were in that stranded predicament … and it was Jay’s twentieth birthday. I could not even buy him a birthday card, so I took a paper napkin and designed a birthday card, told him what a great son he was, and wished him future happiness. 

This time we were together not in London but in Tel Aviv, and it was my turn to receive the napkin birthday card. We laughed and reminisced and thanked God for all his traveling mercies. 

At 10:00 a.m., Shaul arrived at the hotel. Today was to be our last day of scheduled meetings with health-care people and hospital administrators. At the hospital we toured the comprehensive Pediatric Services Building. Assaf Harofeh Medical Center provides a very unique program of medicine, special education, and rehabilitation for children with developmental problems and cerebral palsy. I was very impressed with the dedication and qualifications of the staff people. They are doing such a great job even though they are horribly overloaded with children and the facilities are housed in old buildings and are physically quite inadequate. 

Next we assessed the hematology and oncology units that were housed in a separate multistory building and appeared to be less than ten years old. In our opinion, that department is doing quite well right now. Just down the road was the building that houses the emergency department. Approximately 116,000 patients were treated in that facility in 1994 alone. It needed help. It was probably the most overworked department we assessed, next to the laboratory department. 

The intensive care unit was the last department we visited. It was housed in the large hospital center and was one of the finest I had visited. 

With our Needs Assessment Study completed, it was time for our luncheon meeting at the director’s office. The meeting included Shaul, Jay, me, Dr. Yigal Halperin, and Dr. Mordechai Waron, the hospital’s director. Dr. Mordechai Waron has served at the hospital for nearly thirty-five years. He was the doctor who had taken over the military facility from the British and started the fourteen-bed hospital in an open army barracks building. The hospital today stands as a great testimony to the dedication and drive of Dr. Waron. 

The meeting had some interesting twists. Where some of the middle-management people had been concerned about the age of equipment, expiration dates, and so forth, Dr. Waron brushed all that aside, and for about one hour pleaded with us to help him. 

I began to see why the hospital had made such strides in the allotted time. He really has a passion for the mission of the hospital. He explained the precarious situation of the national health-care system that had absorbed over 750,000 Russian immigrants just since 1991. He talked about needing over two million dollars this year to maintain equipment status quo with the growth and patient overload and only $100,000 to cover the need. Dr. Waron was a great presenter of the big picture, and when we finished I could not help but feel compelled to come alongside his hospital and help him and our wonderful Israeli friends!

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #3 from March, 1995

Israel: March, 1995, ( cont.) At 8:00 a.m., Shaul arrived at the hotel and assured us that he would find something at the hospital that would take care of Jay’s stomach problem. 

The hospital was about a half-hour drive from our hotel in Tel Aviv and was located just off the freeway to Jerusalem. It was situated on a sixty-acre parcel, and until as recently as 1989, the complex consisted primarily of Quonset huts and army barracks built in the 1930s. Some of the departments still functioned in the old buildings, like the radiology department, the geriatrics facilities, and all the labs. Recently, however, the hospital had raised enough money to construct very modern and superbly adequate facilities for their various departments, including surgical, pediatrics, dialysis, and urology. The only operations that were not now performed at the hospital were open-heart surgeries. 

The name of the hospital was Assaf Harofeh Medical Center (pronounced “asof haro-fey”). Shaul informed us that for defensive reasons the hospital was spread out over sixty acres. One enemy Scud missile might take out one-fourth of the complex but was very unlikely to shut down the entire facility. Historically, the old Quonset huts and barracks hospital had been a military hospital, and now, even though it was run by the separate hospital administration, it still served over eighteen thousand Israel soldiers annually. 

Shaul first drove us around the sixty acres, and then later we walked through most of the hospital complex. Of course, Project C.U.R.E.’s being there dictated that Shaul show us every bad situation that needed to be corrected and necessitated our meeting with every doctor and department that could use special help. The tour we got was very different, I’m sure, from the PR tour that most folks received. 

Even though the older sections of the hospital reminded me of hundreds of other third-world hospitals we had visited, this eight-hundred-bed hospital definitely could not be considered a third-world facility. Most of the hospital was absolutely first-world class, and some departments were equipped as well as, or better than, some of the hospitals in Denver. 

At 11:30 our meeting took place in Shaul’s office. He had arranged for three of the hospital’s decision makers to be present. First was Gaon Chai. He was the chief engineer and had been at the hospital for eighteen years, which placed him there for many years while it was still solely a military hospital. He knew the hospital and the equipment inside out. Then there were two men who were in charge of the ordering and handling of the medical goods used by the hospital. Their names were Semion Shamir and Arik Zipori. Just as Jay and I had been prewarned, all three men were defensive about the Americans coming and dumping old and inferior medical goods on them. 

After our introductions, Shaul asked me to tell them about Project C.U.R.E. and how it came about that we were in Israel. I started out by telling them that we had come to make personal inspections of the facilities so that we would know firsthand the condition and needs of the hospital. I told them that I personally did not see many things they had need of, so we would continue to send our warehouse inventories where there was true desperation. I let them know how much I respected them individually and what they had done to build their fine hospital in the recent past. 

With that approach I could feel them start to relax. They appreciated it when I told them that they could rest assured that Project C.U.R.E. would never send them anything that they could not use and would end up storing down at the end of some hallway, when there were at least ten other hospitals that could truly put it to use. 

That approach seemed to put the shoe on the other foot, and now they began selling me on what they needed and how badly they needed it. I later agreed that perhaps Project C.U.R.E. might have some things in the future that their hospital might use. But totally missing from the conversation were the feelings of gratitude and relief and hope expressed so many times by the doctors in Africa, South America, and Russia who really, truly had nothing. 

About two-thirds of the way through our meeting, I introduced the idea that if Project C.U.R.E. brought updated equipment to them, then they would donate their replaced equipment to us to take elsewhere to some needy hospital or clinic. To my surprise, they were very resistant to that idea of giving their old equipment away to someone less fortunate. Their answer was, “Oh no, we couldn’t just give those to you.” 

Our meeting adjourned, to be taken back up at lunch, which was to be served in the hospital’s private dining room. We were joined there by our friend Dr. Yigal Halperin, the associate director of the hospital, and Dr. Waron (pronounced “varon”), one of the other administrators. 

Our conversation continued, and the engineer, Gaon Chai, looked at me and asked me, “Why are you doing this?” 

I had a ten-minute, undisturbed opportunity to tell him about who I used to be, and because of a changed heart and head, I had vowed to spend the rest of my life helping people in need rather than pursuing a greedy life of personal accumulation. I felt like Jesus was right next to me helping me to say the right things in a manner Gaon could understand. Before we left the lunch table, we reviewed and summarized our discussion for the benefit of Dr. Yigal and Dr. Waron. 

It was good to have Jay on the trip with me. We were able to discuss and reflect on the meetings we had and the things we had seen. Quite frankly, for me the jury is still out on what course of action Project C.U.R.E. should follow. I did not see desperate need in Israel, and Project C.U.R.E., I believe, has been raised up to help meet desperate need. However, these are God’s chosen people, and if God is engineering the association with the people from Assaf Harofeh hospital, then I certainly want to be sensitive to how all those details might fit together. 

Next Week: Understanding Israel

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 from March, 1995

Israel: March, 1995, (continued): After clearing customs at the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv we were met by Shaul Amir. Shaul took us to the Grand Beach Hotel located on the MediterraneanSea. Shaul showed us some downtown streets that he said we would enjoy walking after dinner. He said tourist safety was definitely not a problem in Tel Aviv even after dark. So, following a lovely dinner Jay and I walked around Tel Aviv for about two hours.

Walking in a city at night seemed very strange to me. For the past 20 years of international travel I had learned to be extremely cautious in strange settings. It was impossible for me to imagine my walking along in Sao Paulo, Brazil after dark . . . or Nairobi, Kenya in broad daylight. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk and it set our minds and bodies for a good night's rest in Israel.

Saturday - 18th

Sabbath day in Tel Aviv . . . it was both a holy day and a holiday. The work week in Israel was six days rather than five so the one free day per week was fully utilized by everyone. As I opened our hotel window upon awakening, I looked out over the city. A lot of families and tourists were already in the streets. Many people were gathered on the roof tops of the surrounding buildings enjoying breakfast in the morning sunshine and soft sea breeze. As I stood and watched I remarked to Jay that it certainly was understandable why so many Jews returned to Israel to live. Tel Aviv was a wonderful city.

Shaul was not to pick us up until 12:00, so following breakfast Jay and I decided to walk along the beach front. Our stroll turned out to be far more delightful than we had expected. After passing a couple of public beach areas and several private beach clubs we happened on to what was called the promenade. It was a well-designed, well-maintained cobblestone walkway running for a couple of miles along the beach and adjacent to the major hotels of the city. By that time of the morning the promenade was already getting crowded. Balloon vendors and ice-cream peddlers dotted the walkway. On the beach a continuous string of beach volleyball games was underway. Sailboats out on the Mediterranean and colorful umbrellas of the many activities made an absolutely unforgettable picture.

But the part I enjoyed most about our two-hour Sabbath walk was our encounter with the musicians. Many Russian musicians had recently migrated from the old Soviet Union to Israel. Most of them could not find musical occupations since the Tel Aviv symphony and the other surrounding symphonies were already full. So, those newly arriving masters needed to find jobs somewhere in the common marketplace and on the Sabbath they would gather in groups or appear in solo in order to earn additional money from their performances.  

We came upon a chamber orchestra of six players. When I heard them I told Jay that we were going to sit a while and listen, "You are in the presence of masters." In truth, I had never heard better. We found a small gazebo where there was room to sit and I simply closed my eyes, breathed in the soft sea breeze and let the warm March morning sun saturate my soul as I listened to the strains that I declared came directly from heaven rather than from that beach walk.

At 12:00 Shaul came to the hotel to take us to have lunch at his home. On the way, he wound his way into the old, historic town of Jaffa or Joppa. There we stopped and he led us to the excavation site and museum of the old city. Joppa was where Jonah was thrown up on the shore by the whale. Joppa was where Dorcus lived and Peter raised the woman from the dead. Joppa was where Richard the Lionhearted defended the early Christians with his crusade and saved them from certain death. And Joppa was where Napoleon was thwarted with failure when he tried to conquer the townsfolk. The museum protected the archaeological diggings that took place from 1952 to 1986. Shaul was turning out to be a great local guide.

At his home Shaul and his wife Kika (kee kaw) had prepared a wonderful lunch and had invited another couple to join the four of us. The other guests were Dr. Yigul Halperin (yee gall) and his wife, Ruthie. Shaul and Kika had been friends with the Halperins nearly 20 years. Even though he was an OBGYN Dr. Yigal had served as the physician for Shaul's army command in the Israeli military. Now Yigal was the associate director of the hospital that we came to help. Both couples had spent considerable time in the US and we had some very stimulating conversation regarding US and Israeli current affairs and policies. Additionally, I had a great opportunity to once again tell about the beginnings and mission of Project C.U.R.E.

As Shaul drove us back to our hotel late that afternoon, I hit him with the concept of Project C.U.R.E. bringing state-of-the-art equipment to Israel and then having Isreal agree to give me all their replaced equipment in order that I could take it to some other area that was even more desperate. Their equipment would already be there which would cut down on large shipping costs if we donated it to some Arab or P.L.O. hospitals and, furthermore, knowing where the items from our warehouse were going should be an incentive for the Jewish related or Jewish directed hospitals, say in Denver, to give a little more freely to Project C.U.R.E. Shaul was definitely eager to pursue the idea both here in Israel and also to introduce me to potential contacts in major US cities.

Next Week: A new Idea of Collaboration

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 from March, 1995

(Project C.U.R.E. never ships medical goods into any foreign country unless we have personally gone there and completed an intensive needs assessment study on that particular hospital or clinic. Additionally, we never go anyplace unless we are invited. This is a good example of how we determine where we will go and what we will provide. Shaul Amir has become a very dear friend over the past twenty years and we have shipped, and continue to ship, millions of dollars of donated medical goods into Israel.)

Israel: March, 1995: Why would Project C.U.R.E. go to Israel? It really isn’t a typical third-world country as you would think of third-world countries. It is very westernized, and the people enjoy a relatively high standard of living. Compared to many of the other countries Project C.U.R.E. helps, Israel didn’t need us at all. They should have been helping Project C.U.R.E. help other countries that really need our help.

Those thoughts, and many others similar in nature, had been running through my mind as I prepared for this trip. The background of this trip and my involvement had been rather unusual.

About three years earlier, a woman by the name of Judi Fenner had come to me, along with her attorney and one of her organization’s board members, seeking some advice on taking her ministry international. Aside from her proposed ministry, she teaches private tennis lessons to earn a living. Apparently she is very successful at her tennis coaching and has in her stable of competitive young stars quite a number of kids from Denver’s Jewish community. The Jewish community loves her. She is developing their kids, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, into champions.

Following a very successful tournament, one of the Jewish families threw a victory party. For some reason Judi Fenner and another woman named Beverly Ratalia invited, no, insisted that Anna Marie and I come join them.

As a result of that party, I met Shaul Amir, who was visiting the US from Israel. Shaul is the resource development director for the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Tel Aviv and is responsible for funding and developing the institution. Beverly and Judi had told Shaul all about Project C.U.R.E. and about our mission to collect and distribute medical supplies and equipment throughout the world.

My first official meeting with Shaul was filled with enough craziness as to be unforgettable. The woman who was managing his itinerary during his Denver stay arranged with Shaul for a meeting with me at the Friends of Israel office in Denver for Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. However, she informed me that the meeting would take place on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. So my son Jay and I showed up for the meeting … and stood around, stood around, and stood around waiting for someone to show up at the reception area of the office. No one showed.

I was just wandering down the hallway, trying to find someone to whom we could convey our growing impatience, when I heard someone down the hallway. Jay and I looked at each other and headed into a small back office. The man in the office was so startled by our appearance that he jumped up from the table where he was working and headed toward us. He was working at a word-processing machine, which was sitting on a makeshift desk, with the electric cord stretched across from the table to a wall outlet across the room. The cord was short, so when it was plugged into the socket, there was not enough cord to lay on the floor. It made a perfect booby-trap trip wire.

As the man was extending his hand and opening his mouth, saying that his name was Shaul, his foot got all caught up in the electric cord. Before the entire word Shaul got out of his mouth, keyboard and monitor, papers and books went flying everywhere. A less agile fellow would have sprawled out on the floor in the midst of all the mess. That certainly took the starch out of the introduction. I told Shaul who Jay and I were while we helped him pick up the broken pieces of the processor. “But … but … you were supposed to be here yesterday at 2:30 for our meeting. We were all here waiting for you.”

I pulled out my note from the woman and showed him the scheduled meeting in my appointment book. As far as I knew the meeting was on Thursday.

We quickly brushed past that foible and moved on to a very productive meeting—probably, because of the crazy circumstances, it was a better meeting than we would have had the day before in a more sane setting.

Shaul explained that his hospital was in a very desperate situation. They were treating a lot of refugees on a gratis basis. Supplies were short, and equipment was either lacking or terribly outdated. Would Project C.U.R.E. help? He also told of the phenomenon of Israelis and PLO personnel working side by side at his hospital.

I explained the requirement that I personally visit an institution to do a thorough Needs Assessment Study before Project C.U.R.E would ship any goods. And I asked him if he had any friends in the Denver Jewish community who would be able to underwrite the expenses of such a study trip. He said he was quite sure he did not but wanted to visit Project C.U.R.E.’s facilities while he was still in town.

At the warehouse Shaul began smacking his lips at the sight of our available inventory. He quickly spotted enough pieces of equipment and disposable supplies to easily fill a twenty-foot cargo container. Now he really wanted Project C.U.R.E. to help.

Before Shaul returned to Israel, Beverly Ratalia had him scheduled on a Christian radio talk show. The talk-show host had a history of trying to help develop aid to hurting areas of Israel. In the course of the show, the subject of Project C.U.R.E. and the possibility of their helping Shaul’s hospital came up. The show host pledged the first two hundred dollars toward raising the needed money for the needs assessment trip.

I had told Shaul that both Jay and I would come to Israel, and if he could raise the needed money for one of the airfares, I would match the donation from somewhere and cover the cost of the other airfare. So Shaul needed to raise $1,400. Before the talk show went off the air, listeners had agreed to underwrite exactly $1,400 for the airfare. I thought to myself, That didn’t even come from the Jewish community. This whole effort was an endeavor of love from the Christian community to the people living in Israel.

Even while I was traveling in Russia the week prior to this trip, I found myself looking forward to the Israel trip. It was going to be delightful having Jay, my son and father of my two fabulous grandkids, traveling with me. A little over a year before, Jay traveled with me to Brazil. That trip became a turning point in his life in many ways. Perhaps this trip, in different ways, would be equally significant. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #2 from Nepal 2002

NEPAL: (cont.) More violence and killing by the Maoists in Nepal. We were also following the newspaper reports from India regarding the increased murders and torchings right where we had been just hours before. 

Sunday morning Anna Marie and I spent some quiet time together in devotions at the Summit Hotel. Our verandah looked north toward the majestic Himalayan mountain range. I tried to point out to her where I had been at the village camps near the foot of the great Mt. Everest and also on a map where I had crossed over the scary summits of the Himalayas when I traveled from India’s Kulu Valley over into Tibet. 

At 10 a.m. Anna Marie and I arrived at the Patan Hospital to perform Project C.U.R.E.’s needs assessment study. Their little “palace hospital” had grown up to be a full-fledged 300 bed facility with eight specialty teams in surgery, pediatrics, medicine, OB-GYN, ICU-anesthesia, outpatient/trauma, orthopedics, dentistry, radiology, and pathology. 

There were other hospitals in Kathmandu, but Patan Hospital had earned a splendid reputation and was doing some great medical work. Last year they had treated 266,000 outpatients, 33,000 emergency cases, 20,000 dental patients, and cared for 17,000 inpatients. I told the CEO, B.B. Khawas, and other staff members just how very proud Project C.U.R.E. was to be considering working alongside the Patan Hospital.

The way Project C.U.R.E. had become involved with the Kathmandu project was so very typical of how we became involved in projects all over the world. We never advertised and we never went where we had not been invited. Now, that still meant that the word had to get out some way. 

In the Nepal case, a wonderful couple, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Hecht who lived in Denver, had been introduced to the Patan Hospital and traveled to Kathmandu to visit. Montview Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado, had gotten excited about the work of the hospital and raised $160,000, which they sent to Nepal for Patan Hospital to build a pediatric department. Even the women of the church got busy and quilted blankets to be sent. 

It just so happens … Jim Hecht was a good friend of my good friend, Jim Peters, with whom I traveled to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Project C.U.R.E. pumped about $500,000 in medical goods into Yugoslavia and Serbia. You are smart enough to figure out “the rest of the story.” 

The Patan Hospital was a natural for Project C.U.R.E.’s involvement. I went away from the needs assessment really excited about what could be done in the future to help 22 million Nepalese in the only country in the world that considered itself an official Hindu state. We pledged together that we would start immediately to work on the possibilities of getting Project C.U.R.E. involved with the Patan Hospital on a long-term basis. Anything that Project C.U.R.E. would put into the Patan project would pay great dividends both now and forever more. 

Monday, March 25

Anna Marie and I were both exhausted. I needed some time to complete all the paperwork that had resulted from the days in India and Nepal. Monday morning was spent trying to catch up. 

That evening we took Dr. Zimmerman and Deirdre out to dinner in Kathmandu. There we heard the story of how she was born and raised in Ireland and eventually had decided to go to Africa on a mission. But providence dictated otherwise and she ended up going to the Patan Hospital as their dietitian. Of course, she met this handsome young doctor from the US who was the medical director at the Patan Hospital. He got a taste for the dietitian, and she figured the union would make for a well-balanced program, so they got hitched. It was a beautiful love story. 

Tuesday/Wednesday, March 26, 27

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent traveling back home. Our trip had taken us completely around the world from Denver to Frankfurt to India to Nepal, to Bangkok, to Tokyo, to Seattle, and finally to Denver and Evergreen. As you know, we had the privilege of living March 27 twice on our way home. But sometimes you need that when you are slow learners and need another day to play catch-up! 

Having Anna Marie on the trip had been as wonderful as I had imagined it would be. She was such a trooper and every day God had allowed me to be with her made me appreciate all the more every single day of the past 42 years that we had been married. Faithfully following God was paying great dividends and as everyone in the world with half a brain and one eye would know, we certainly did live a privileged life.

Next Week: Project C.U.R.E. never goes anywhere unless invited. 

 © Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Journal Highlights: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt #1 from Nepal March 2002

Royal Nepal Airlines flight #202 departed Bombay at 5:20 p.m. destined for Nepal. 

Stepping off the airplane in Katmandu was like a breath of fresh air after being in India for nearly ten days. No longer were the temperatures 104 degrees Fahrenheit. There was actually a cool evening breeze wafting through the valley nestled at the foot of the Himalayan range and the great Mt. Everest. 

Equally refreshing was the quickly consummated friendship with Dr. Mark Zimmerman and his Irish born wife Deirdre. They were at the terminal holding up a sign for us as we walked out of security after having cleared Customs. Once in the auto it didn’t take us long to realize that by traveling into Katmandu we had jumped right into another of the world’s political “hot spots.” Fourteen “Maoist rebels” had been shot to death by Nepalese soldiers the day before. 

In 1996 the radical leftist party in Nepal, called the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) or NCP-M had became frustrated with not being able to seize more power within the structure of the government of Nepal. They had decided to launch a guerrilla terrorist movement against the people and the government, styled after the model of China’s revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung. Their goal was to topple the constitutional monarchy by hiding out in Nepal’s mountainous locations and performing deadly attacks of terror on government leaders, civil facilities, military outposts and other high profile targets. 

As was always the case, militant groups would feed on their own terrorist activities and the violence would always escalate into more frequent and more severe atrocities. The militant’s army of terrorists had grown to over 4,000 strong and they had equipped themselves with sophisticated weapons by raiding small and poorly protected military outposts and arsenals. 

In November, the Nepalese government had declared a state of emergency. The rebels stepped up their violence and instead of staying mostly in western sections, planned attacks were aimed at Katmandu, other major cities and tourist areas and base camps near Mt. Everest. By the beginning of the year hundreds of people were being killed in surprise attacks by the Maoists. The guerrillas would declare a “strike” in Katmandu or other cities and completely shut down commerce, transportation, government services and people movement in the city for a day at a time. If shopkeepers left their doors unlocked and continued business, those establishments would be stoned, shot up or burned. If taxis or buses tried to drive the streets the drivers would be beaten and the vehicles burned. 

Just a week before we arrived the violence was ratcheted up another notch. The Maoists attacked and took over a city airport. They almost simultaneously then set fire to buildings and fired at police in the town of Mangalsen. Forty-nine police were killed. Twenty-seven more were killed in another airport takeover. Shortly afterward another 48 Royal Nepalese Army officers were killed. 

The night we arrived in Katmandu the Maoist rebels burned a large number of government vehicles and some buildings and killed another 12 people in the city. 

To add to the civil unrest and instability, Nepal had gone through another shocker in June, 2001. King Binendra, Nepal’s Monarch and 8 other members of the Royal family, including Queen Aiswarya were fatally shot in the Royal Palace in Katmandu. All evidence pointed to Crown Prince Dipendra as the mass killer. He then almost botched his own suicide attempt but died a short time later at the hospital. An official investigation was conducted later which confirmed that the Crown Prince did perform the massacre in a drunken rage of anger. His uncle, Gyanendra Bir Bikram, was the one left upon whom the title of Regent of Nepal was bestowed. 

With that opening of confusion and insecurity, the Maoists intensified their onslaughts of violence to try to topple Nepal’s government. 

The Zimmermans had chosen a quaint Nepalese Hotel in the Patan area of Katmandu for us to stay. We were perfectly safe there and the cool night and our tired bodies successfully promoted the thought we skip dinner and go straight to bed.

Saturday, March 23

The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming and the leaves were beginning to bud out on the trees. We awoke to springtime in Nepal! Even by then the negative aspects of our India experience were beginning to fade into historical perspective. We had been at the right place at the right time speaking to the right people. God had blessed us and protected us. 

We took a little local taxi from our Summit Hotel and met Dr. Mark Zimmerman and Deirdre at the front gates of the Patan Hospital to go for lunch. They took us to the ancient Hindu Temple of Patan which was the center of one of Four Kingdom state cities which sat on the present site of Katmandu. Much of the sprawling temple had been turned into a Hindu museum with a quaint little restaurant attached. 

After lunch Anna Marie and I walked the narrow streets of Katmandu absorbing all the sights, sounds and smells of the city that some claimed to be 10,000 years old.

Dr. Mark Zimmerman had finished his medical education at some prestigious schools in Eastern USA. He had traveled to Africa during his medical school days to do a short stint there. He agreed to go to Nepal for 3-6 months to help out before he started his practice in America. He went to Nepal and stuck. He had been there for 15 years and had become the Medical Director of the Patan Hospital. 

When Nepal opened up to the world in the l950’s it was decided that there would not be just an influx of humanitarian and religious groups allowed in the Hindu Kingdom. Instead, it was agreed that the Methodists, Presbyterian, etc. groups would be allowed to jointly open one medical venture in Katmandu. Eventually, that effort became known as the United Mission of Nepal and they were allowed to open a hospital in an old palace where even the patient wards boasted of crystal chandeliers. 

The medical work built a strong reputation throughout Nepal and soon outgrew the old royal facilities. What amazed me about Patan Hospital right away was the fact that such an ecumenical diversity could get organized and work together on any project for that long and be of such a success. My attention was captured. I was eager to learn more about the hospital and its mission.

Next Week: Patan Hospital a Good Place to Start

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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