Medical Mission Adventure

Going out for a medical mission used to be a routine job for me especially when it was funded by some politician or civic group. Medicines, supplies and logistics would be taken cared of, and I, the physician, would be sitting pretty at the center of the team, which would include some nurses, a dentist or two, a pharmacist and some student volunteers. This time it would be very much different, a true representation of the great sense of fun and adventure that makes up my very person.

The place? Some islands in the tsunami-stricken Andaman Sea off the coast of Ranong in southern Thailand, beside the Myanmar border. My host would be a young and gracious German, Ralf, who established some day-care centers on the islands as part of his method in bringing the gospel “to the ends of the earth.” I first saw Ralf in church one Sunday morning when he took to the pulpit to deliver a report on his work and to make an appeal for volunteers. The testimony touched my heart, even if his slide projections were cut short due to a power outage. 

The target population of this mission would be a village of Moken Sea Gypsies who survived the infamous 2004 tsunami that took the lives of thousands of locals and tourists. Ralf outlined to me the details of his work and where I could best fit in as a transient volunteer. He set the date and time, and I was on my own for the preparations. I wrote my sister and her husband in the US and they pledged dollars for the project. The Filipino nurses in our neighborhood donated their surplus medicines from previous illnesses, and my daughter gave some money for the other medicines that were badly needed for the children.

The day of departure came and Ralf instructed me to meet him at the Bangkok Southern Bus Terminal in Taling Chan at 7 pm. The specific spot for our rendezvous was not mentioned, but I was confident that I wouldn’t have any difficulty spotting a 6-foot “farang” in an Asian crowd. I left the house with a prayer that God would maximize me in this trip for his glory, kissed Kailee my granddaughter good bye and went to the bus terminal. 7 pm came and went and there was no Ralf. It was now obvious that he and I had different ways of taking on the situation, which was as diverse as the colors of our skin. So he boarded the bus to Ranong and I boarded a taxi cab back home.

You might ask “what about your cell phones, didn’t they come in handy for the situation?” That was exactly what Ralf at that moment was wishing that I had – a cell phone. You see, ever since I quit my job in the Philippines to move to Thailand I decided to wean myself from this device, and my life since then became as peaceful as the calm before the storm. Now the storm and I don’t have anything to carry me through. So the adventure continues.

The following day I was able to contact Ralf with my daughter’s phone, and he instructs me to take the 10-hour bus ride to Ranong, then a motorcycle to the pier, then a boat to Koh Phayam then another motorcycle to Koh Phayam Cottage Resort where he would be waiting. Eight pm comes and the medical team boards the bus. The team is composed of two hands and two feet plus the rest of the aging anatomy of what I am. What a team! Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that God would put together a bigger team, one step at a time as I neared the Moken village, and it would consist of unique individuals from at least four different countries.

I get to the pier for Koh Phayam at six in the morning and it is already raining, and no one is in sight, not even a boatman or a dockhand. In an hour a white guy with a heavy backpack joins me. He is Claudio Silvio Nardis, a young ambitious economist of Italian blood from Liechtenstein. [If you don’t know where that is, just imagine a small landlocked country inside cold Switzerland] In about another hour we are joined by Sergio Martinez, an adventurous writer from Spain. Both are headed for Koh Phayam to “get away from it all,” and they want to join me in my visit to the Moken village. They have some clothes and shoes that they want to give to my patients.

We get to a resort in Koh Phayam where Ralf graciously opens a bungalow for me to stay in. I was not ready for his generosity because all the while I was imagining myself sleeping with the Moken in their thatch roofed houses like I did in my previous trips to the Matigsalug and Maranao tribes in the Philippines. Ralf also introduces me to four new faces who would assist me in the clinic that we were going to have. They are Isaac Oberg, Charlotte Wagner, Christian Wagner [gradeschoolers] and Sascha Kurth [a teacher], all full-blooded Germans. These guys had no medical mission experience but they were just what I needed – a lively team.

The following day we were able to bless about 15 patients with the medicines and medical advice. We planned to go to a second village in another island but cyclone Nargis was creating havoc in the sea and so we holed in for the worst. The following day we boarded the ferry in the midst of a strong rainstorm and headed back to Ranong city in the mainland. There I got the opportunity to visit the Ranong Tsunami Student Home that is actually an orphanage and I had the chance to tour the facility and to pray with them.

We board a rented van back to Bangkok and home. It is only here where I realize through the news that the cyclone that passed us left more than 80,000 dead in mainland Myanmar. God has his wondrous ways in our lives and I live only to serve him more.