THE WHY OF PROJECT C.U.R.E. (Part 2)

(Nigeria, Africa Journal: November, 2000): Featuring Mrs. Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda, a couple of years ago turned out to be a great hit, and I knew the emphasis on Ethiopia and Project C.U.R.E.’s work there would likewise be a winner.

But no one from Ethiopia could break away to travel to Denver to speak at the banquet. Their political situation with Eritrea is tenuous enough that the leadership has been forced to stay very close to home. So the banquet committee volunteered me to speak for the event. I protested the prospect of speaking for a couple of reasons. First, I preferred continuing the tradition of having an international speaker for the event to give the occasion a little global importance and credibility. Second, we’ve been trying to broaden the leadership base of Project C.U.R.E. so that the identity and emphasis of the organization aren’t tied too closely to Jim Jackson.

The more I’m featured or put up front, the less effective we are at portraying the truth that the Project C.U.R.E. phenomenon has very little to do with me and everything to do with the people who have come together to carry out the mission of saving lives around the world through medical donations. To feature me as speaker, in my opinion, would mean taking some steps backward in our efforts to legitimately display the new levels and personalities of Project C.U.R.E. leadership. Project C.U.R.E. is healthy and strong and has long since grown past me in leadership procedures and position.

In order for Project C.U.R.E. to expand toward excellence in the future, the image and leadership base needs to move forward with lots of new blood.

But I was outvoted, and as I thought and prayed about an approach to take for my speech, it dawned on me that nearly everyone knows by now what Project C.U.R.E. is, what we do, where we do it, and under what circumstances we get involved in humanitarian activities in countries around the world. However, I couldn’t remember a time when I had articulated precisely why Project C.U.R.E. does what it does.

So at the banquet, I disclosed that, in my opinion, there is a true and positive correlation between the success of Project C.U.R.E. and the degree of relinquishment our volunteers and staff members bring to the organization. To explain this concept of relinquishment, I shared with our guests the story of Johnny Appleseed, who trudged across the countryside in the frontier territories of early America. In his grubby leather pouch, he carried apple seeds, knowing full well that one can count the number of seeds in an apple, but one cannot count the number of apples in a seed.

As the legendary frontiersman walked the land, he would take from his pouch the apple seeds, stoop to scoop out some soil, and drop the apple seeds into the earth. He relinquished his rights to his seeds in an on-purpose effort to grow apple trees, which would produce an abundant harvest of apples. Obviously he wouldn’t be there to claim the harvested apples, but he rested in the knowledge that pioneers and pilgrims who would follow him would benefit greatly as they reaped the fruits of his efforts of relinquishment.

I believe that same attitude of relinquishment, with no determined thought of personal return, is the key element in the extraordinary success of Project C.U.R.E.

I went on to explain that the true measure of greatness will always be determined by how well we care for others, not how much we accumulate for ourselves. Our culture places great importance on how high we can heap up wealth to fill the grocery carts of our lives in the shortest amount of time. Those who have the fullest carts at the checkout counter will win the prize. But even though we are programmed to grab things for ourselves, we can never get enough. Therefore, we almost have to go counterculture when we embrace the idea that success comes through giving and not through getting. In that respect, Project C.U.R.E. is counterculture.

The motivation behind our accumulation, I believe, should be the recognized opportunities for distribution, and we need organizations like Project C.U.R.E. as vehicles to allow us to experience such expressions. I challenged our guests to spend at least as much time in their lives on distribution as they do on accumulation. That would be a good place to start.

I expressed that more than likely, our greatest fulfillment in life is achieved through giving. Because what I hoard I can lose, and what I try to keep will be left behind and fought over by others. But what I give will continue to multiply and will forever generate a return—just like the trees Johnny Appleseed planted.

My final challenge to our dinner guests was for all of us to assume a posture of standing on our tiptoes in eager expectation of opportunities to give ourselves away and learn from personal experience in the years we have left the true thrill and satisfaction and joy of relinquishment.

The banquet took place on Saturday, November 18. That day, I experienced another rare thrill and opportunity. My grandson, Jace, is nine years old. He just finished his very first season of playing in an organized football league. Serendipitously, I was invited to bring a guest with me to a Denver Broncos open house and junior training camp at their Dove Valley headquarters. Of course, my chosen guest was Jace. At the open house, the Broncos staff showed us highlight films, fed us lunch, and gave us a complete tour of the Broncos’ workout rooms, weight rooms, locker rooms, classrooms, and practice fields. We even went to the artificial-turf field enclosed in a gigantic fabric air bubble, where the Bronco players and trainers put the fifty or so of us through fundamental drills and patterns.

Jace was absolutely beside himself with excitement. To complete his football dream day, he collected autographs from some of the players and even had his number-30 Broncos jersey personally signed by his football hero Terrell Davis, who wears a number-30 jersey in real life.

Out in the lobby, a professional photographer took a picture of Jace and his “papa” standing in front of the sterling-silver Vince Lombardi trophies presented to the Denver Broncos when they won their two world-championship Super Bowl victories. Recalling the following Vince Lombardi’s memorable quote really put me in the mood to stand in front of the Project C.U.R.E. crowd at the banquet and talk about relinquishment and changing our world:

After all the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your own room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.

Maybe it was okay that I had to speak that night.       

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THE WHY OF PROJECT C.U.R.E. (Part 1)

(Nigeria, Africa Journal: November, 2000): Just why would I ever agree to go back to Nigeria? I’ve come closer to physical harm and danger in Nigeria than perhaps any other country in my twenty years of international travel. I’ll always hear ringing in my ears the sincere voice of the lady customs official at the airport in Lagos. When the people assigned to pick me up had failed to show, she sternly advised me, “Do not trust anyone here at the Lagos airport—not even me. Those people who are so aggressively soliciting you know you are American. You have what they want, and they will kill you to get it. Do not talk to any of them. Do not give them your name or the names of any of your contacts in Nigeria. Do not exchange money with them, and above all, do not get in a car with them or go any place with them.

They are here to kidnap and hold you for ransom or, more easily, put you in their car and rob you, and should you try to resist, they will drive out a short distance and kill you, and no one will ever know what happened to you. Back up against that wall with your luggage in front of you and silently wait for your people to come and retrieve you.”

But no one came to pick me up, and I couldn’t buy a plane ticket at the Lagos airport. The customs lady had my full attention. She was the only official at the airport, but she was only an immigration and customs agent. There were plenty of individuals in ragtag, mishmash police or military uniforms. But none were legitimate. They were only scam artists, and their uniforms were merely props to get people to place their confidence in them. In Lagos there is only lawlessness, and everyone has to fend for themselves.

The current travel warnings are the same for this trip as they were for previous trips. The US State Department has warned in effect that violent crimes are perpetrated by ordinary criminals, as well as persons in police and military uniforms.

 Kidnapping for ransom remains common, especially in the Niger Delta area. The use of public transportation throughout Nigeria is dangerous and should be avoided. Taxis pose risks because of fraudulent or criminal operators and poorly maintained vehicles. Most Nigerian airlines have aging fleets, and there are valid concerns that maintenance and operational procedures may be inadequate to ensure passenger safety.

Just thirty days before this trip, news-wire services reported outbreaks of violence between Nigeria’s two largest tribes. People died in the fighting, and bodies were strewn in the streets of Lagos. I learned that thousands have been killed in ethnic and religious violence since President Olusegun Obasanjo took office last year, ending fifteen years of military rule. The recent clashes broke out between the Hausa tribe from northern Nigeria, who are predominantly Muslims, and the Yoruba tribe from southern Nigeria, who are mostly Christians.

As you may recall from a previous journal entry, God sent an angel named Vera and her husband, Innocent, to rescue me from the dangerous Lagos-airport episode. They made me promise I would return to Nigeria someday and visit them. They are wonderful Christians, and Vera confided to me that God had told her to go to the lobby of the airport and meet a Christian American man who desperately needed help. She was obedient, and I was rescued.

I received perhaps a half-dozen official Request for Assistance forms from needy medical organizations in Nigeria begging Project C.U.R.E. to travel there and perform Needs Assessment Studies at their facilities so they could qualify for help.

I had conveniently filed those requests in my file drawer. Then in June of this year, a letter from Vera and Innocent landed on my desk. At the same time, an urgent plea came to me from the Cecilia Memorial Hospital and Clinic in Imo State, Nigeria. Pastor Leo Emenaha said he had been waiting since February 1998 for Project C.U.R.E. to travel to his hospital and complete the assessment. How much longer would I delay?

I rearranged some other commitments and decided to sandwich the trip between my trip to northeast India, our big Project C.U.R.E. annual fund-raising banquet in Denver, and our annual Christmas brunch on December 9, when Anna Marie and I will host about sixty Project C.U.R.E. guests in our Evergreen home.

I had a strong sense that I should make the trip but approached the travel preparations with the simple conviction that if God really wanted me to travel back to Nigeria before the end of the year, he would have to intervene in working out the details. Pastor Emenaha would have to come up with the funds for the Needs Assessment Study, invitation letters would have to be secured for the Nigerian embassy in Washington, D.C., and the proper visa would have to be obtained for my passport.

Strangely enough, the details of the trip came together over the following weeks. I was scheduled to depart Denver the day after Thanksgiving and return home late at night on December 3. The deadlines were tight, with Doug picking up my returned passport from the Washington, D.C., embassy at the FedEx office in Littleton, Colorado, five minutes before they closed for the Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday night.

My trip to India just a couple of weeks ago left me pretty exhausted. I think the emotional strain of India itself, plus the nerve-wracking episodes with the military and insurgency fighters in Manipur State, and our efforts to get out of the mess back to Calcutta “wore me slick,” as my friend Jim Claunch used to say. I was very grateful to exit India without serious harm.

Our Project C.U.R.E. banquet at the big Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Denver on November 18 turned out to be a great success and inspiration. Many people expended a lot of time and effort to make the event such a memorable occasion.

We had desperately tried to get the prime minister of Ethiopia or Seeye Abraha, the former commander and chief of the Ethiopia armed forces, to speak at the event. I personally felt that Ethiopia needed a bully pulpit from which to present their survival story to the press and their friends in America. The Project C.U.R.E. venue would have been perfect for such a speech. Furthermore, our medical team just returned from Ethiopia and had some great experiences that would have tied in nicely. Also, we’re currently preparing to send eleven more forty-foot cargo containers of donated medical goods to Ethiopia at a value of about $4.5 to $5 million.

Featuring Mrs. Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda, a couple of years ago turned out to be a great hit, and I knew the emphasis on Ethiopia and Project C.U.R.E.’s work there would likewise be a winner.

But no one from Ethiopia could break away to travel to Denver to speak at the banquet. Their political situation with Eritrea is tenuous enough that the leadership has been forced to stay very close to home.
 
Next Week: SO, WHO IS TO SPEAK?                 

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part 6)

                                                                 NOTICE
               REALLY GOOD NEWS: Winston Crown Publishing House is excitedly working on a total compilation of all of Dr. James W. Jackson’s actual field journals and transition journals 83 – 2008, under the titles of  “ROADS I’VE TRAVELED DELIVERING HEALTH AND HOPE.” This epic undertaking will include twelve separate books containing all the stories, international incidents, colorful individuals, step-by-step growth and progress of Project C.U.R.E., and venues of over 150 countries. . . plus his personal photos. We will keep you updated and informed.

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: November, 2000): The Needs Assessment Study at the Oking Hospital in Kohima, Nagaland, had to be one of the high points of Project C.U.R.E.’s history. Our hosts told me that Project C.U.R.E. is the first organization from the outside to ever come and help them. As soon as we finished our study at the hospital, Puii and Dr. Thongu asked if we would like a tour of their mountaintop city.

It was about 12:30 p.m. when we arrived at the marketplace. I think if I could just stroll through the Kohima market about noon each day of my life, I would be able to save lots of money otherwise spent for lunches. As we entered the market, Puii reminded me that the Naga people have been highly regarded historically as hunters. That fact was underscored immediately as I spotted dead monkeys offered there for butchering and cooking. Just a few yards away were squirrels hanging by their hind legs, and below them were ordinary small birds for the picking.

On the market table to my left were quarters of small deer cut up but with the hair and hides still on. Then I saw what I didn’t necessarily want to see: short-haired, tan dogs split open from their nostrils to their tails and cleaned and ready for sale. As we moved on through the open market, other exotic scenes jumped out at us. Two older women were kneeling behind their sales table working on a meat product. While I was trying to determine what they were so diligently working on, I almost missed the huge, hairy object lying quite limply on top of the table. It was the entire forearm of a very large black bear. I had Drew hold the heavy arm up so I could take a picture of the prize. One old woman had just managed to sever it from the rest of the huge body, and they were now on the ground skinning out the bear’s body with careful precision so as to perfectly preserve the hide, which would be sold separately.

Having spent a considerable bit of time in Asia, I realized what a prize possession the woman had brought to market. Bear meat is valuable, and except for being a bit greasy, it tastes like pork. But the value of the bear is really in the bones and organs and such things as its paws, claws, and skull. The Asians hold in high respect the medicinal value of spare bear parts as much as they desire deer horns.

Toward the end of the first set of market tables were stacked the displays of nutritious and protein-laden worms. Several different kinds of larvae and worms were available. There were some quite small in size; these worms were taken from the tender part of the bamboo stalks. Then there was another selection of red, caterpillar-type worms about three inches long. Those were very lively. Next to the red worms were several varieties of plump, ivory-colored worms. But the prize objects were the huge insect nests harboring the black-bee larvae. The bees were black only after they had hatched and formed tough shells. The larvae were white, with little yellow mouths. The combs or nests were two to three feet in diameter and were brought to market intact so as not to disturb the wiggling larvae. People buy the nests and take them home quite quickly, because the longer the nests stay at the market, the more the larvae hatch, and then the product has a way of crawling away. Once in the purchaser’s kitchen, the larvae are coaxed out of the nests with prods and tweezers to be prepared for the meal.

As I viewed the huge black-bee nests, my heart and sympathy went out to the poor hunter who had to sneak into the insects’ habitation to steal and carry away the large hives. There had to be some unhappy hornets or war-waging wasps somewhere looking for their offspring.

We walked on past a display of wild boars and snails, big and small. But at the table where they were peddling huge spiders, we stopped and gawked. The vendors fold newspapers into envelopes, then corral about thirty to fifty very large, long-legged spiders, and herd them into the envelope. The spiders were black with yellowish stripes along their bodies. Puii told us how very good and nutritious they are and bought a package of them to take home.

Drew was overjoyed at the thought of eating large spiders for dinner. But as Providence would have it, we were invited to the home of Dr. Thongu’s brother for dinner. He is a high government official in Nagaland, and we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner and hospitality, as well as the opportunity to get acquainted with the official.

Tuesday, November 7–Wednesday, November 8
I woke up Tuesday morning with a smile on my face. Drew and I will be starting our long journey home. Puii wanted to take me out into her lovely greenhouse and show me one more miracle before we left India. “During the dry part of the year, our town of Kohima has problems with fresh-water supplies. But we must have fresh water for our hospital. So, I began to pray for a source of fresh water that would not dry up during the hot, dry months. God showed me a place in my garden where I should dig for a well of fresh water. I dug a hole about twelve feet deep with a shovel, and I suddenly hit a water supply here on the side of our hill.”

Puii showed me the well and the pump and pipes. “The level of water in my well never goes down, even when it gets hot and dry here in Kohima. We pump the water from this well up to large storage tanks. Then we draw water from the storage tanks to take the fresh water to our hospital. I have been doing that for about three years, and we have plenty of fresh water for our hospital.”

Then she added a remarkable twist to the story: “All of our neighbors dug wells when they saw the amount of water we discovered. But even though they’ve gone down to a depth of fifty feet by hand digging, no one else has found water. I believe God put that well in my backyard so we could always have fresh water at our hospital.”

I left the doctor’s home with so much admiration and respect for this Christian couple. Their hard work, discipline, frugality, and absolute confidence and obedience certainly must make God smile everyday! 

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part 5)

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: November, 2000): Indian Airlines flight 7256 departed Calcutta and headed northeast to Nagaland’s capital. Dimapur. I really didn’t think John and Evelyn would be there to meet us. Yet I still had peace about making the decision to go on to Nagaland, and I was confident some local contact would pick us up at the airport. But to my great surprise and delight, standing just outside the security door were John and Evelyn waiting for us, along with Dr. Vike Thongu. I breathed a prayer of true thanks.

The capital city of Dimapur wasn’t our destination city today. We planned to travel on to the city of Kohima, which serves a population of about three hundred thousand. After a bit of lunch at a Dimapur restaurant, we set out in Dr. Thongu’s Mitsubishi four-by-four for the two-hour ride to Kohima. Dimapur is down in a broad river valley, so we began to climb almost immediately as we left the city. We were headed back up into the lower Himalayan Mountains, where the inhabitants build their villages and cities on the steep mountainsides and ridgetops. The foliage and terrain were much like that of eastern Mizoram and Manipur but not quite as tropical. Being farther north meant more eucalyptus trees and fewer banana trees, but there was still a lot of thick underbrush, indicating some pretty heavy annual rainfall.                           
                          
After being jostled for two hours, we arrived in Kohima. The people definitely looked more Mongol, like those you would see in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Cambodia; Thailand; Vietnam; or even southern China, and not at all like the Punjabi or Sikh Indians of Delhi, Bombay, or Calcutta.

Dr. Thongu is a gracious man. He said he wished to take us to his home to meet his wife and family and to see his house. After we met his family and viewed his home, we could then decide if we wanted to stay with them or at the hotel where they had made reservations for us. I thought that to be a pretty classy approach.

To our delight, the doctor’s home was very comfortable and probably one of the finest residences in the city. Drew and I took one look inside and agreed that the doctor’s home would be just right for the next two nights. Most homes are built on pillars embedded in the steep hillsides, but all four corners of Dr. Thongu’s home were actually on mother earth.

The doctor’s wife, Puii, was very hospitable and efficient and welcomed us graciously into their home. She even had a cozy fire going in the dining room, with hot tea and breads waiting for us. John and Evelyn also stayed at the doctor’s home.

From the fireplace, I could see into the kitchen, where the hired help was preparing the dinner on open fires beneath vented hoods. It was all like a photo in a National Geographic magazine. Nearly everyone we met in Nagaland was Christian. As I mentioned earlier, Nagaland’s population is about 80 percent Christian as the result of the early missionary influence. The doctor and Puii are very strong believers and said they had prayed earnestly for some group to come to Kohima to help them.

The inhabitants of Nagaland are great hunters. Before Christianity came to the area, they were a warring people and were quite vicious headhunters. Now they pride themselves in hunting wild game, such as certain species of deer, elk, and wild boar, and many birds.
                         
The dinner entrées were nearly exotic. We had pig and goat (I think) and lovely dishes of squash, rice, potatoes, and vegetables (I couldn’t tell for sure because the electricity had gone out in the city and we were eating by candlelight). There was one specialty dish that I had never had before. When I first looked in the bowl, it appeared to contain an ivory-colored pasta. But on second look, the “pasta” took on a little stranger texture and shape. The doctor said it is the most delicate and desired dish of their culture and is very expensive. They are only able to afford to serve it when special guests come to visit. The whole bowl was filled with a generous serving of young bamboo sprouts cooked with wasp larvae in varying stages of development--wasp larvae--nice big, plump worms. Some worms had developed heads and front legs, and some had actually sprouted small gossamer wings. A few others had hatched early and resembled adult wasps. The most mature insects were black in color and about two inches long. Most of the larvae were still one inch to one and a half inches in length. Perhaps the strangest aspect of the exotic dish was that the larvae actually tasted quite delicious, and the doctor assured us that they are a great source of protein.

Monday, November 6
Today, Drew, the Pudaites, and I spent the entire day in Kohima. A generous breakfast was served for us at the doctor’s residence to get us off to a great start. The doctor and his wife had heard Drew and I like french toast and had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare it for us, along with eggs, pork, and rice, and a cereal made of tapioca. To my great relief, no leftover larvae were served for breakfast.                               

Following breakfast, we proceeded through the narrow, winding hillside streets of Kohima to Dr. Thongu’s Oking Hospital, located in the heart of the busy commercial district. Across the front of the building were sprawled-out, painted signs that read CT Scan Service, Ultrasound Machine Diagnosis, Pharmacy, and Endoscope Surgery. I soon found out that Puii and Dr. Thongu are running the most technologically advanced hospital in the whole northeast section of India. Their story of insight, discipline, hard work, and entrepreneurial risk taking is unparalleled. Dr. Thongu’s specialty is surgery, and he is good at it. He performs every kind of surgery you can imagine, from orthopedics to skin grafting to delicate brain surgery, and everything in between. Their hospital is the only institution to possess such modern technology for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

The couple started out years ago with a God-given dream. They established a start-up clinic with a pharmacy attached. They set aside 10 percent of all their pharmaceutical products to give to people who couldn’t afford medicine. They also made sure that at least 10 percent of all medical procedures they performed would benefit desperate people who were too poor to pay. Additionally, they disciplined themselves to set aside in savings another 10 percent of everything they earned to build for the future. Eventually, they had enough money saved to purchase the property on this busy street. Since it was almost impossible to borrow money for construction or other investments, they began to build their forty-bed hospital as they put the money into savings. It was strictly a pay-as-you-go endeavor. Their discipline and hard work paid off handsomely.

Puii told me they began putting away another 10 percent of their income to eventually purchase high-tech equipment, knowing that if they could offer such services, they could exclusively capture the medical market. Personally, they refused to take even needed medicine for their own children out of the pharmacy unless they paid the full price. Puii built a greenhouse by hand on their residential property and began growing their own vegetables in order to save money normally spent on food so it could be applied to building the hospital.
                         
They had no money to buy beds or other furniture for the hospital, so they made their own beds and sewed their own mattresses and sheets. When the hospital opened, they needed divider partitions between the beds, so Puii took the drapes out of their own house and sewed them into usable panels.

As the forty-bed hospital on the busy little street began to function, the patients started coming from all over. Soon Dr. Thongu and Puii realized that forty beds weren’t enough to take care of patients, other than their surgery patients. The property owners to the rear of the hospital agreed to sell their land and small buildings to Dr. Thongu and Puii. Dr. Thongu and his wife didn’t have money to pay for the land, so they began to rent out rooms in their house to raise the needed capital.

As an economist and businessman, I was in awe of the entrepreneurial example of this wonderfully dedicated Christian couple. Their eyes sparkled as their story unfolded. They never acquired MBA degrees from Harvard or Yale, but they are outperforming classic business planners by leaps and bounds and making sure all the time that their charity work is never cut short. In fact, a couple of years ago, they started bringing village people from across the border in Burma to their hospital and training them to perform simple medical procedures. Then they send them back to their villages in Burma with knowledge, experience, and boxes of free medications.

Next Week: Yummy India Marketplace & Miracles of Hidden Water 

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part 4)

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: November, 2000): The curfew was lifted for a couple of hours last night so the townspeople could leave their homes and purchase food for their families. Poor northeast Indians don’t own refrigerators, nor are they affluent enough to store non-refrigerated foodstuffs in their homes.

Even our hotel ran out of food and needed to buy eggs and rice at the bazaar. As quickly as the curfew was relaxed, it was reimposed as large military trucks with loudspeakers demanded that civilians return to their homes and stay inside.

This morning the streets were strangely silent again. Soldiers in military uniform were the only people moving around the city. I really wanted to get some photos of the military situation but knew that would be a real fast way for me to get into big trouble. But I did try to take some outside shots from inside my hotel room.

Under siege or not, the people of Imphal are getting their efforts organized to counter the military action. The families of the shooting victims refused to claim the bodies from the bus station area, which puts the military in an awkward position.

One of the plans to get us out of Manipur and back into some neutral place like Calcutta was to arrange for a helicopter to pick us up and fly us out. Some other businessmen who were caught at the Imphal hotel were eager to share the helicopter if one could be made available. None of those rescue efforts materialized.

Just as we were all accepting the fact that we would be stuck at the hotel for some time, we received word that Indian Airlines was flying an airplane to Imphal. The military had granted permission to the airport support people to go under escort to the airport to open it. As we found out later, the military needed the airport open so they could take advantage of the commercial flights to get their top people in and out of Imphal. At any rate, the news was wonderful.

We all packed and carried our bags to the entry of the hotel. The situation in Imphal doesn’t look like it will just mend itself but will probably end up in civil war. The local and rural insurgent movement is strong and determined. The Indian military position is equally determined.

As our group loaded into vehicles with our luggage, we were all hoping that a window had been afforded us and would remain open until we could get out. People watched our little escorted motorcade on its way through the stark, empty streets to the airport. I could see them watching us from behind windows, open doors, and porches. We passed machine-gun nests, miniarmored tanks, truckloads of patrolling soldiers, and occasional pieces of heavy artillery stationed at strategic intersections and bridges.

Presuming Drew and I were able to get out of Imphal and make it safely to Calcutta, we were faced with another interesting decision. Would we opt to cut short our India plans, grab the next international flight out of Calcutta, and scoot as quickly as possible back home, or would we follow through on our commitment and travel on up to the northern state of Nagaland to complete the Needs Assessment Studies at the hospitals there? I had a few more hours to make that decision, but the present emphasis was to get to Calcutta.

You can only imagine how tight the military security was at the airport. It wasn’t a time to haul out my camera and start snapping pictures. I just wanted to grease myself and slide right on through the situation. Drew and I received confirmed boarding passes for the flight out of Imphal, as did another three members of the group. The rest of our group was denied boarding passes. They had to return to the Imphal hotel for one more night and will hopefully fly out to Calcutta tomorrow.

Among those not getting boarding passes were John and Evelyn Pudaite, our hosts and guides for the trip to Nagaland should we opt to continue our assessments. John and Evelyn said they would try to secure a vehicle and drive north from Manipur into Nagaland. The capital city of Nagaland is Dimapur, and the New Delhi restrictions under which we are living specify that we can’t travel by road from Manipur into Nagaland. The only entrance into Dimapur is by flight from Calcutta.

But John thought that since he and his wife look “native” and have local paperwork from living in the area the past few years, they could make it by driving the steep mountain roads. And if they start out quite soon, they could drive directly north and get there about the same time we do, since we’ll have to overnight in Calcutta. John asked if we would be willing to finish the assessments, since we’re already halfway around the world. He promised that he and Evelyn will try to meet us at the airport in Dimapur, but if they don’t make it, he will have people there to meet us.

As he wrote out the names of the contacts in Nagaland, John began to explain that Nagaland is under restriction as well, because they likewise are experiencing Indian government military repression and abuses, as well as active resistance from underground insurgence groups.

I felt I had to make my decision about going on to Nagaland based on the very real possibility that John and Evelyn won’t make it by road to meet us. I felt very peaceful about the decision to fly from Calcutta to Dimapur as originally planned. I tucked all my contact information for Nagaland into my documents, and Drew and I boarded the Indian Airlines flight to Calcutta. We have no reservations in Calcutta. We will have to wing it.

But it actually feels good to be in dirty, awful, terrible Calcutta. The civil violence and volatile situation in Imphal and Manipur are now behind us. I keep hoping and praying that John and Evelyn will find a way to successfully make it over the treacherous mountain roads and meet us in Dimapur.

Sunday, November 5

Early this morning, Drew and I woke up, ate some breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and checked out of the hotel. As we got into a junky little shuttle car and headed toward the airport, I took a deep breath of polluted Calcutta air and thanked God for the opportunity to start a new chapter of Project C.U.R.E.’s efforts to help needy people around the world. We are being afforded unprecedented opportunities to make a difference in tens of thousands of lives otherwise not touched by health-care support and love. I’m a happy man for the unique privilege.

Drew Dixon is proving to be a great traveling partner. We’ve had lots of time to discuss principles involved in what we’re doing. His educational background, spiritual motivation, and familiarity with Scripture make him a great discussion partner. I had prayed that God would give us a trip that would be a life-changing experience for Drew, drawing him closer to God as well as giving him a better understanding of what Project C.U.R.E. does around the world. I’m certain the events of the past few days will prove unforgettable for him, and I imagine that he has drawn a lot closer to God as result of the siege of Imphal. Those kinds of situations have a way of helping you catch up on any delinquencies in your prayer life.

Next Week: Decision: Head for home . . . or Finish our Assignment?

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part3)

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: November, 2000): What had been an insurrection power play had now escalated into a military nightmare. We now had dead soldiers. We now had dead civilians. Nightfall was coming and we were supposed to be in our hotel in Imphal. But the roads were blocked and we couldn’t get out of Sielmat. We were in trouble. There was no such thing as safety on the roads, especially for out-of-compliance- foreigners.

Our people fanned out to try to glean as much valid information as possible. We all waited at the main house of the mission compound in Sielmat. After dark, we decided to load up into different cars and cautiously proceed along the back road we had taken earlier in the day. Everything was very quiet as we motored through the villages.

Our first stop was at a military checkpoint, where we could talk directly to the soldiers and try to determine whether we could make it all the way back to Imphal. With the insurgents out in the fields and along the roads, it wouldn't be a safe trip. It would have to be a calculated risk. The civil unrest had been brewing, and now it could easily escalate into even more violence.

The spirits of everyone in our group were staying high as we tried to grasp what was happening. Then one member of the group, whom I’ll call Fred, contracted a case of verbal diarrhea. He began telling everyone else how important it was for him to get back to Imphal to rest up. He had to be physically and mentally fit to meet a project contractor on a job he had in Colorado, and how the pressure on his wife was already unfair. He unwisely began to verbalize to the other group members all the terrifying possibilities of what could happen in such a volatile situation. As he spewed out his own selfish insecurities, I could just feel the confidence and stability of the group slowly ebb away and fear seep in.

At the first military roadblock we talked the officials into letting us proceed down the road to the next military checkpoint. It was getting quite late, and there was talk that roving bands of gypsies were taking advantage of people who were caught out on the road at night by the strike. More military guards were being dispatched regularly as the night wore on. No one, not even the military, could give us advice or clearance. By that time, we were about one-third the distance back to Imphal, but the closer we got to the city, the more dangerous the situation became.

At one stop we were informed that a curfew had been imposed on Imphal, and the airport had been indefinitely closed. Flights were being diverted around the airport. At that point we made the decision to turn around and go back to Sielmat and stay the night at the compound. It wasn’t legal, but we’d tried the other options, and the choice was defensible.

On our return trip to Sielmat over very dark roads through dark villages, the military stopped us several times. At one point our group was surrounded by soldiers with guns aimed into our car. As the officer in charge yelled out his commands, a soldier jumped back into the machine-gun crow’s nest of his armored minitank, buckled up his helmet, and sighted down his machine gun right at us. It wasn’t a game for them. They were all very serious. After searching the women’s bags, the soldiers returned them, and we proceeded back to Sielmat.

Back at the mission compound, we were assigned beds, ate a little snack as quickly as possible, and went to our rooms to sleep. Our clothes and toiletries are still back at the Imphal hotel, but we’re all safe and together.

Friday, November 3

To add to our excitement, this morning we heard the news that a Singapore Airlines flight had crashed at the Taipei airport in Taiwan, killing an undetermined number of passengers. The 757 Boeing aircraft was on its way to Los Angeles. That was the same type of airplane and the reverse route we had taken to India ten days ago.

I continued to quietly watch and evaluate the interesting dynamics of our team. By morning “Fred” had several of the group pretty scared about their safety and the anxiety our situation here might be causing for their families back home. He seemed to enjoy using the situation to direct attention to himself and, through fear, make those around him dependent on him. I was real happy that it wasn’t my problem or Project C.U.R.E.’s problem. But it was a great case study to observe “action manipulation,” as I think it’s called.

Our group got up at 4:30 a.m. and was soon on the road. We figured we’d take advantage of the insurgents and the military being up all night. Early morning would be the best time to get back to Imphal. We didn’t know which of the two roads would be open, if either one. We just had to go and try. We employed the same strategy as last night: Go to one military post, talk to them, and try to get permission to go on to the next military post. We kept moving forward and finally passed the spot where our bus had broken down. It certainly seemed as though a lot more than a day had passed since we crowded into the heave-green-colored jeep.

At the military post, just past where our bus had broken down, we were stopped, and it didn’t look like we would be allowed to go on. We were told that Imphal was virtually under military siege. Everyone was forced to go to their homes and stay inside. No one was allowed to be on the streets—no buses, no cars, no taxis, no rickshaws, and no pedestrians, just military-enforcement patrols.

But a strange thing happened at the checkpoint. Instead of detaining us, they put an officer in the backseat of our car and gave us a three-car escort all the way back to Imphal. We sailed back to the city! If the soldiers at a checkpoint tried to stop us, our escort would pull up, shout an order, and wave us through.

As we entered the city of Imphal, we experienced another strange phenomenon. It was as if the plague had hit or the second coming had occurred. Nothing was moving. People peered at us through the shaded windows of their houses. I couldn’t imagine a busy, crowded city in India with no one moving.

We were escorted right up to the front door of our hotel. The city was under siege, but we were safely back inside the concrete hotel compound, with military guards out at the gates and foot platoons marching in front of the hotel periodically.

Imphal certainly is a city under lockdown. But the lockdown works both ways. We’re protected from any random violence in our guarded shelter. But likewise, we aren’t going anywhere. The streets are under military control, and no airplanes are flying out of Manipur. I don’t like to think of it that way, but we’re also under siege because we aren’t going anywhere.

The government and the military are so preoccupied with their own problems that no one even thought to hassle us about staying in a restricted area without proper paperwork. The military is worried about a grassroots uprising in reprisal against the blatant shooting of civilians at a bus stop. The military strategy is to clamp down on everybody so no adverse momentum can get started. There is enough movement for independence in the hearts of the people of the northeast border states of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, and there have been enough human-rights violations not only on the part of the Assam Rifles group but also by the Indian National Army and the different police forces that the shootings may well have pushed the emotions of the people over the threshold.

Next Week: Some taken, Some Left

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part 2)

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: November, 2000): On our return bus trip from Sielmat to Imphal, we bumped into some surprises. The military had expanded and greatly intensified its presence. Tomorrow the governor of the area will be speaking at a cultural event in Churachandpur. He will be traveling the same road we’ve traveled, and the speaking platform and performance stage were built not too far from the Christian hospital where we are working.

Apparently, the military had been alerted to the possibility of the local underground insurgents making a protest somewhere during the event. Soldiers of the Indian National Army lined the roads, manned machine-gun roadblocks, and could be seen at every intersection, along the edges of the rice fields, and in armor-plated minitanks. Truckloads of the regional Assam Rifles military forces could also be seen wearing full combat gear, with old M-16 rifles over their shoulders or AK-47 automatic rifles in their laps. They certainly were expecting something.

Our bus was stopped several times, and on a couple of occasions, armed soldiers boarded our bus with guns drawn to find out who we were. It’s comforting to know they’re in the area to keep things under control.

It was about an hour after dark by the time we unloaded from the bus at the Imphal hotel. Some of the group said they had heard gunshots during the night quite close to the hotel. But since the Assam Rifles headquarters is on the other side of a water moat not far from our hotel, any importance ascribed to the alleged gunfire was quickly dismissed.

Wednesday, November 1

Drew ate some mutton curry on rice last night, and by this morning he was regretting it and swearing to never look at mutton curry again as long as he lives. We decided it would be the better part of wisdom for him to just stay close to the bathroom for the day. The rest of us piled into the bus and headed to Sielmat to work. The military presence had been heightened even more overnight, but our group took all the pressure in stride and accomplished our respective agendas.

This evening we visited the Imphal Christian school and enjoyed dinner there. As we drove back to the hotel property, we saw military vehicles and armed soldiers stationed outside the hotel gates. Even other hotel guests were talking about the increased military presence.

Thursday, November 2

This morning Drew was feeling well enough to join the rest of the group. We decided to leave the hotel half an hour earlier just to give us sufficient time on the road. Before we pulled out of the hotel driveway, we had determined that we would travel a circuitous route to Sielmat and stay off the main road to save time and the inconvenience of stopping at military checkpoints. The alternate route took us along inferior roads that at times crossed over the tops of the rice-paddy dikes.

But everyone agreed there was no sense in traveling the main road, where the military presence was so strong. We didn’t want to experience any unnecessary delays.

One of the local church leaders with us had heard that a dissident group of university students had blocked and closed the main road and the entry to the airport, which we passed every day. The insurgent group was demanding some specific concessions from the government before they would call off the strike and road closure.

Our group agenda for today included participating in the dedication ceremonies of a newly built church at Lamka, which is situated quite close to the Sielmat hospital. Our alternate route turned out to be very rough and pocked with deep washout spots from the rainy season. I was riding at the front of the bus in the seat adjacent to the driver. We had just made a sweeping curve and started down a long hill. I watched the driver put his foot on the clutch to shift the transmission. The clutch pedal went to the floor, but instead of springing back up and engaging the transmission, the pedal just stayed on the floorboard. The driver kicked at the pedal several times with no result. The road leveled out, and the bus slowly came to a halt, stopping in the middle of a bad stretch of washed-out road.

The driver became a little more animated as he reached down and pulled the pedal off the floor by hand. Nothing happened. The transmission seemed to be shifting fine, but the clutch mechanism was broken and wouldn’t engage. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Mobile phones were nonexistent, and towing companies were a distant figment of past recollections.

We all disembarked from our immobile dinosaur and laid hands on its tail long enough to push it out of the center of the road. After we had brainstormed several impractical possibilities, a man who had passed us earlier in a bus returned with a small, heave-green-colored army jeep that sported a blue plastic tarp over the back, suspended by split-bamboo sticks. He suggested that he could take a few of us at a time to some town about thirty-six kilometers away, where we could catch a local death-trap bus that would likely be able to take us on the back roads to Sielmat. We bought into his plan except for the part where our group would get split up, with some of us waiting and some of us traveling for several hours. That wouldn’t have been safe.

It seemed the only viable option was for all twelve of us to try to squeeze into the jeep with all our belongings. We ended up with five adults in the front two seats and seven squeezed into the back under the flapping blue tarp. The ride certainly became a close bonding situation as we joined hips Siamese style. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, the jeep delivered us to the dusty intersection of a small village. There, the driver of one of the famous, intimidating Tata buses waited impatiently for us to board his bus, which was already loaded with suitcases and other pieces of unnecessary stuff.

By the time we pulled into the town bus barn in Churachandpur, we had stretched the usual two -hour trip into a full six-hour ordeal. The real miracle was that we even made it to Sielmat at all. Because of our untimely delays, the church dedication was rolled back to later in the afternoon.

The dedication, once started, went off without a hitch, and everyone was so proud of the new brick sanctuary building. Visiting church choirs had come to share in the ceremony, and at the close of the regular service, we all filed out into the churchyard, where we were served sweet juice and gummy bread while the youth groups put on a cultural program of ancient dancing in their colorful tribal outfits. At one point, the dancers came over and pulled us white folks into the circle and had us do some kind of a chicken-mating dance with them.

While we were engaged in the festivities, the rest of the world was in chaos. The military situation had taken a turn for the worse and had erupted into tragic violence. At about 3:30 p.m., some of the striking insurgents allegedly detonated a bomb in the ranks of the Assam Rifles military organization. The blast killed one soldier outright and wounded others. It was reported to us and later in the newspapers that when the Assam Rifles group realized that one of their men had been murdered, they retaliated with lightning speed by opening fire on civilians at a bus stop not far from the airport, killing ten on the spot and injuring some thirty others.

It didn’t take long for us to size up the situation and realize we were in a pickle. Now, all the roads back to Imphal were blocked. We couldn’t return to the capital city, but we couldn’t legally stay where we were. Either way we were in trouble. The military was moving with vengeance, and the strikers would try to take advantage of the high-profile incident and the momentum it ignited.

Next Week: Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

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DANGEROUS INDIA (Part 1)

Note: In the next few blogs I will relate a sensational episode from my field journals covering the far flung and hazardous areas of northeastern India. I am dedicating these blogs to Dr. Drew Dixon, who is now a prominent medical doctor with a beautiful family and is heavily involved in a career of helping scores of other people become better off.

(States of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland, India: October, 2000): Drew Dixon, a young college graduate from a fine Christian home in the Denver area, somehow got ahold of one of my travel journals and read it. His plans included going to medical school, but he was looking for some real-life medical experience while waiting to determine which school he would attend. When he read of my experiences with Project C.U.R.E. and our impact on world health, God seemed to tug at his heart and compelled him to learn more about Project C.U.R.E. As a result of a meeting Dr. Douglas Jackson and I had with Drew and his father, Dr. Jim Dixon, Drew decided to work full-time for Project C.U.R.E. He even raised his own money to come on as a stipended volunteer.

We started Drew out in the warehouse to get a feel of the scope of the domestic side of Project C.U.R.E. Very soon Doug promoted him to logistics coordinator to oversee domestic truck transportation and the shipping of containers into foreign ports.

To help Drew get an idea of Project C.U.R.E.’s international procedures and policies, I asked him to accompany me on a trip to northeast India. A ministry organization, headed by John Pudaite, had made application for Project C.U.R.E. to help them complete a hospital in a city called Sielmat, in the far flung northeastern state of Manipur. Additionally, there were a number of other clinics and hospitals in the northeast that John wanted us to visit and assess. We agreed to schedule the needs-assessment trip for late October and early November. I was praying that the India trip would make a life-changing and unforgettable impression on Drew.

The trip required several layers of permission, since our destinations were considered restricted areas for foreign travel. Strangely, the restrictions were set in place not by the US State Department but by the Indian government. For a time, it appeared that the whole trip would be scratched. Civil and military unrest isn’t uncommon in northeast India. Old feelings about secession and gaining independence from India are still strong in the freedom-fighter hearts of the people in Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. India’s military still occupies those areas, even though New Delhi granted them statehood status.

Our flights took us through Bombay, Calcutta and on to Aizawl, Mizoram, where John and Evelyn Pudaite and a small reception committee of government dignitaries were there to meet us. The population of Aizawl numbers about five hundred thousand. We were taken to the local government headquarters to be registered. As I mentioned earlier, the Indian government in New Delhi considers the three states we’ll be visiting restricted areas. The northeast cluster of states doesn’t really feel they should be a part of the rest of India, not only because they are separated physically from India by Bangladesh but also because the languages and customs are different, the people ancestrally look more Mongol than Asian Indian, and their religion is different. Instead of following the Hindu religion, about 80 percent of the people in northeast India are Christians, and they resist being governed by Hindus or Muslims. But any notion of independence is severely punished.

While the rest of our party was arriving in Aizawl and getting organized, Drew and I headed out on a ten-hour jaunt to an area called Lunglei to assess another hospital and several clinics. About half way there we had to stop for the night at Chittalang. Drew and I were awakened about sunrise the next morning by a sound that resembled an air-raid siren. I got up, pulled on my clothes, and went outside to investigate. On the branches of the eucalyptus trees and the broad leaves of the banana plants, as well as on the ceiling of the covered walkway outside our room, was a countless myriad of large winged insects about four inches in length that were green in color and way noisier than any jungle insect ought to be. A very loud whistle emitted from its posterior, and the sound kept going for at least ten minutes straight. I mentioned the annoying bug to our host at breakfast, and he said the insect was just singing. Local folk songs had even been written about the pesky pestilence.

After a long, long day of hard travel, Drew and I made it back to Aizawl and checked into the hotel where the rest of the team members were staying. A big percentage of the group was sick with vomiting and diarrhea. Thankfully, our side trip to Lunglei had allowed us to dodge that bullet.

Monday, October 30

Upon finishing our work in Aizawl, we flew on to the adjoining state of Manipur, India. Again, even though we obtained permission from the Indian government in New Delhi to enter the restricted area, we had to register in Manipur after our arrival on Indian Airlines flight 211.

John Pudaite’s mission compound in northeast India is located in Sielmat, a village about an-hour-and-a-half drive beyond the capital city of Imphal, Manipur. There they have a Christian hospital, a school of fifteen hundred students, a seminary, several quite large churches, and lovely brick homes for staff members. John planned for the team members to stay at the mission compound in Sielmat today through Saturday. Laundry facilities would be available, and kitchen facilities could accommodate the needs of the group very well.

But when we arrived at the Imphal International Airport, the Indian military authorities wouldn’t grant permission for the group to travel from Imphal to Sielmat or stay overnight there. We received approval to travel each day to and from the mission compound, but with the stipulation that we would return to the capital city by night and stay at the Imphal hotel on Tiddim Road. We learned that there had been some civil unrest recently. Certain insurgency groups and university students were making demands upon the Manipur and Indian governments to address the oppressive actions of the Indian military army, as well as certain claims of rape and assault by the regional military group called the Assam Rifles and additional pressures applied by the local Imphal police.

John and Evelyn Pudaite were disappointed that the group won’t be able to stay at their compound. It will definitely be an inconvenience to hire a bus each day to haul all of us one and a half hours one way from Imphal to Sielmat and the town of Churachandpur. But it was agreed that we will simply do the best we can with what we have and endeavor to have a successful week.

The Imphal hotel’s condition and management made it even tougher to adjust. The place is dirty, and deferred maintenance is about to swamp the facility. There is only one sheet per bed and no toilet paper, and the carpets are not only old but filthy. The towels are stained and not thoroughly clean because they have been laundered over the years in cold, dirty water without soap. The grounds have been left unattended except for holy cows, which have been allowed to wander at will and munch the lawn and shrubs. In order to relax in bed, it is necessary to put a piece of clothing over my pillow to block out undesirable smells and unwanted soiling.

Tuesday, October 31

At 6:30 a.m., our entourage left the Imphal hotel in the old beat-up silver bus that we had rented. We were headed to complete the needs assessment at the Christian hospital located in Sielmat. The traffic was heavy, and we had to stop many times for military checkpoints, so it took us two and a half hours to make the journey instead of the normal one and a half hours.

The Christian hospital is far better off than the government hospitals. But they too have some pretty pathetic needs. They have no monitors, EKG machines, or defibrillators, and their lab equipment is very poor. They had made some homemade IV poles out of wood, and none of the staff had ever heard of oxygen generators. Their closest supply source for bottled oxygen is nearly six hundred miles away. Sometimes the bus brings it to them; other times not. But the hospital was clean, and I easily observed that the people who work there care a lot about what they’re doing.

When we finished our needs assessment at the Christian hospital, Dr. Joute and others afforded me a wonderful experience. They had dug a fresh hole about eighteen inches deep and had placed a small-sized rubber tree next to the hole. They had a little ceremony and asked me to plant the rubber tree in front of the hospital. It was a great honor. They also made a plaque commemorating the occasion, and when I was finished planting the tree, they placed a bamboo guard around the tree and very properly affixed the plaque. They told me I must return each year to check up on my tree.

At lunch the Indian Children’s Choir came to where we were eating and entertained us. Last year the group toured the United States raising support and scholarship money. They were great kids. It’s great to have Drew along on the trip. He has a lot of insight and loves the medical emphasis. And it’s wonderful to have someone I can turn the camera over to so that I don’t have to worry about the photo documentation.

During the afternoon, Drew, John, a couple of other doctors, and I toured the government hospital. You can only imagine what a sad mess we found. Once again, I prayed as I walked the halls that I will never be in an automobile accident anywhere, but especially in India or Africa, where they would throw me on the back of a truck and deliver me to a local government hospital while I was unconscious!

Next Week: Grenades and Gun Fire

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THE FORMAL PRESENTATION

(Dakar, Senegal: October 6, 1999:) Over the past two days we located our 40-foot cargo container, collected and hand carried all our paperwork for approval through over 30 bureaucrats and departments, and personally saw to it that the valuable medical goods were delivered to the government warehouse. That location would be the venue for our official presentation.

The ceremony is to start at 4:00 this afternoon. The government leaders, and the national press with live T.V. coverage will all be here. The pressure is on us now to completely unload the huge cargo container, organize the contents, set up for the festivities, go back to the hotel to clean up, and return here in time for the presentation.

With some extra sets of hands and strong backs, we were able to unload the entire container by noon. We arranged all the contents under some spreading, leafy trees at the front of the compound.  I was sweating like a pony-express nag running out of Saint Louis, and my mind kept jumping ahead to the presentation ceremony. By then it was 2:15 p.m. Mamadou Gueye drove me back to my hotel, where I showered and dressed up for the ceremony.

When we drove back to the warehouse the whole health-ministry world had shown up for the event. I was escorted to the head of a line of dignitaries. National newspaper reporters and television crews were there to cover the story.  I greeted all the dignitaries and the ceremony began. There was a speech in French welcoming everyone to the occasion. Nothing of such medical magnitude had taken place in Senegal before. At the end of the opening speech, I was introduced. I was very glad that I had decided to bring my best black suit, white shirt, and health-ministry tie with me.

I began my speech by telling the people that it was my third trip to Dakar in the span of one year. I was like a teenage boy who fell in love with a girl and had to keep returning to see her. They all laughed and nodded. I finished my words saying, “When I look at the huge empty steel freight container sitting here today, I have sadness in my heart. As I think of the wonderful people of Senegal and see that empty container, I can only wish that we could have done more. But today I also have a great feeling of happiness and joy, because I know this is only the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We love the people of Senegal and want to join you in this special time of need. May God honor and bless us as we look forward to a brighter future. Don’t give up hope, but rather let hope conquer despair as we work together.”

Following my speech, the Minister of Health spoke. The speech was very complimentary of Project C.U.R.E. and our follow-through on our commitments. He expressed appreciation for the medical gifts donated to the free clinic in Diorbivol in May, which were valued at seventeen million Senegalese francs. He then thanked Project C.U.R.E. for the present gifts, valued at over three hundred million francs. Within the span of one year, Project C.U.R.E. visited Senegal three times and gave two sizable gifts. Nothing like that has ever happened in Senegal. What a special day! After dinner I returned to my hotel.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8

This morning Mohammed and I, and some of our friends, are back at the warehouse. Today’s assignment will be a challenge.  Everything from the container is still spread out under the trees like we had arranged it for yesterday’s presentation. Usually Project C.U.R.E. sends a container to a specific hospital, and the entire load is delivered to that hospital. But we are going to divide up the donated medical goods, on the spot, between four different hospitals.

At the warehouse we met two of the village men from Diorbivol. They had helped us run the clinic there in May and wanted to help now with the load. I was pretty impressed that they came, because I knew it’s a twelve-hour drive from Diorbivol to Dakar.

In the first twenty minutes of our meeting with the men from Diorbivol, I received ample reward for my entire involvement in Senegal. The men were so excited, they wanted to give me a complete update on the village. They were eager for me to know that because of Project C.U.R.E., the clinic is now open to the public. Before May, the clinic had been closed for six years because there were no supplies to run it, and since there were no supplies, the government health department had even quit sending any nurses to the village. So for six years, the people had to travel many miles by foot or pony cart to the next nearest clinic. But now everything has changed.

The men told me, “Now people from all over come to our clinic. Even people from across the border in Mauritania come by boat to our village for help … all because of Project C.U.R.E.” They also wanted to update me on the people who received help at our May clinic. We had seen over one thousand patients, so I simply didn’t remember many of the cases the two men told me about. But several of them I recalled vividly.

One man had a big tumor on the side of his head and had traveled all the way to the hospital in Dakar for the doctors to examine it. The amount of money they were going to charge to treat him was far in excess of his accumulated worth. So the sad man traveled back to the village and resigned himself to the fact that he would surely die soon.

Dr. Merl Jacobsen and nurse Laurie Tucker had operated on the huge cyst, removed it, and stitched the man’s head back together. The two men from the village told me that the first thing he does when he gets up each morning is look at his head in a mirror. He has a difficult time believing that he isn’t just dreaming. “He is now perhaps the happiest man in the village,” the men said, “because he knows now he won’t die in a short time and leave his family fatherless.”

They related another story of an old lady who had a very large cyst and dangerous infection on the inside of her left thigh. I definitely remembered that woman and her problem. When Dr. Jacobsen cut into the thigh with the assistance of Helen Brown, it literally burst open and shot infected matter across the room. The terrible stench of death filled the small clinic the entire day. It was just awful. But now the old woman is up once more tending to her herd of goats and cooking for her extended family over an open fire.

The reports continued about children who had leg infections from parasites in the river water, but now they can walk again without open sores draining painfully down their legs. Other children who had infections have also been healed. The men concluded their update with these words: “Our new friends from Project C.U.R.E. are all heroes in our village. We talk about them and how they came one day to bring love and help to us. Many of us are alive and well today because of our new friends.”

I had to walk away from them for a few minutes and find a place behind the parked freight container to regain my composure. I thanked Jesus for the opportunity to partner with him in just a small way in his miracles. I didn’t deserve the reward I had just received, so I gave it back to God in the shade of that loaded container.

Now to the challenge at hand. I sized up the situation and what it was going to take to divide up all the inventory. If I told the Senegalese crew what to do and how to divide up the materials, it would take another three weeks to accomplish the task. So I grabbed a couple of the strong crewmen and showed them where I wanted the pallets positioned on the warehouse floor; a separate location for each hospital: Bargny, Diorbivol, Rufisque, and Diamniado. I then took off my shirt and started personally attacking the pallets piled high with boxes.

Soon we had a little game going. I would grab a box, read the label to find out its contents, and toss it to one of the fellows positioned at the different pallet groupings. They would, in turn, hand it to someone else who would stack it on one of the pallets. It was so hot in the warehouse that in no time at all, even my pants right down to the cuffs were soaking wet. The warehouse people and the health-ministry crew were chattering back and forth while we worked. Later Mamadou explained to me what they were saying, “He is a white man, but he sure must not be French. We’ve never seen a white man just take off his shirt and work that hard—never!”

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USA CULTURE SHOCK

 (Dakar, Senegal: October 6, 1999:) For the past couple of days we have been fighting the African bureaucratic system trying to get our ocean-going cargo container released from the Senegalese authorities. It is interesting to observe my friend Mohammed Cissé. He has been living in the USA for the past few years. Now, upon his return, he is going crazy trying to cope with the African way of doing things. His tolerance threshold is very low, and he becomes impatient with his countrymen.

 “Here, everyone makes excuses for why things can’t be done. In America, when we see a problem, we simply figure out the quickest and most efficient way to solve it and get on with what we’re trying to accomplish,” mumbled Mohammed as we were standing in line in one of the hot hallways.

I then related to him a vivid memory from my childhood. One day when my oldest brother’s tennis shoe was untied and the shoe tongue was flopping in front of the shoe, my dad said, “Bill, fix your shoe.”

Bill answered, “I can’t. I lost my shoestring, and the tongue just comes flopping out.”

My dad then sat Bill down and explained, “We don’t say “I can’t” in this house, so instead of insisting that you can’t fix the shoe, I want you to come up with ten solutions to the problem.”

Before long, Bill and my dad had figured out ten ways to fix the shoe using baling wire, an old electrical extension cord, twine, cotton rope, and a few other objects.

Then my dad said, “Next time, it would be a whole lot easier if you simply find one good solution to your problem instead of saying “I can’t” and having to spend time figuring out ten ways to fix it.”

Mohammed and I both had a good laugh over the story, but we both understood that most of the world still follows the “I can’t” model, and more time is wasted on explaining why a situation is impossible rather than just solving the problem and getting back to business.

Mohammed carried the conversation a little further. “When you first go to America from a Third World country, you are totally overwhelmed by the beauty and cleanliness of the cities and countryside. You can’t believe that any place could look so good—and my first stops were in New York and Washington, D.C.! But I was still overwhelmed by the beauty.

“Then,” he went on, “the next thing that hits you is the infrastructure. The public transportation actually works. The trains, the buses, and the taxis run on time and get you where you’re supposed to go. The service stations are clean and convenient, and the public restrooms have toilet paper, soap, and towels to dry your hands.

“Next, you start realizing that the electricity works all day and all night long. And there is clean water you can drink right from the pipes in your house or even at a store. The sewer runs through underground pipes, and you can’t even smell anything even if you try.

“The next thing you start to realize is that things are organized. People don’t realize it, but they too are organized. Things run properly. People get to work on time. If you say you’ll be somewhere at a certain time, people will already be there expecting you, and you had better not be late. People actually live by lists of things to do and know when they are to do each task. It’s a wonderful and beautiful thing to experience, but it’s a shock. A culture shock. And because of the organization and structure, people are confident and move quickly from one place to another with an attitude that they know what they’re doing and what can be expected. When I first arrived in America, I was just amazed.”

Then Mohammed said, “As you probe even deeper, you realize that the basis of the American system, which is totally different from the Third World cultures, is that the country is run by the rule of law. People know clearly what they are to do and what they are not to do. If they decide to do what they should not do, they know they run the risk of getting caught and paying the consequences. But everyone knows that it’s the same for everyone, and they can learn the rules.

“In a Third World society, there is no rule of law. There is a rule of politics and powerful people. But the rule changes all the time. You can never really be confident when you try to operate your life with an uncertain set of expectations. Someone else can get by with doing what you can’t. If you have influence and money, you can do just about anything you want and keep someone else from doing what they want even if it’s the same thing. Operating under a known rule of law also helps the American people move about with an air of confidence. They know what they can do. I don’t think Americans have ever stopped to think out why their society works differently from other societies. They just grab it and go for it, and the factors work whether they understand them or not.”

As we continued our talk, Mohammed pointed out another interesting factor. “In Third World countries, no one has hope. Everyone knows that because of factors outside their control, things could get worse—and sure enough, they get worse. There really is no idea of a bright tomorrow for their families. The families have experienced for generations the same disappointments and cruel setbacks. But in the USA, the Americans have hope. It is a spirit of knowing that if you risk everything on a venture and lose, you could pull yourself together and start over again and make it work. Everyone in America knows their children will experience new conveniences their parents never dreamed of enjoying. I think hope is there as well as confidence because of the rule of law and organization.”

I wanted to add one more unique component to Mohammed’s observations. “No another society in the world is as generous toward others as America. Who is the first on the scene when disaster strikes? Who continues to underwrite the charities of the world even when world organizations abuse American generosity"?

Next Week: The Formal Presentation

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