Special place.

Staying at the hospital observing the doctors scuttle in and out of their clinic rooms attending to the multitude amazes me in a way I cannot describe. They’re busy, they must be tired; Because most of the equipment is second-hand or donated, they often have to contend with second class technology, balancing it with more astute clinical judgement; Sometimes, the power gets cut off (even in the middle of surgery) and everyone is thrown, if only for a moment, into pitch-black darkness. One has to cope with the stresses of uncertainty and have the fortitude to overcome unpredictable situations. Working in a missions hospital should be just as, if not, far more stressful than working in a top-class hospital. Yet, the quiet warriors plough through the day with steadfast patience- there is tiredness but never weariness, a smile never far from the edges of their lips.

There is something so different in the air here. Perhaps, it is everyone’s presence in this place itself which glues the entire community together. There is an unspoken understanding that each person had sacrificed something, had left loved ones behind, had made a firm and weighted decision in order to live a different kind of life- one of meaning and purpose, no matter if the world thought they were stupid.

There’s Dr H and Dr Mel (whom we affectionately call Ibu, which means Mother) who gave up promising careers in the cities to head the jungle hospital. They’ve been here for the past 20 years, serving not only the poor, but taking time and effort always to look after the junior doctors and hospital staff, throwing house parties, driving them hours away to town on weekends… simply because, “we don’t want the junior doctors to feel lonely. They have no family here, so we are their family, you know.” It was yesterday that I found out, that Ibu, who cooks and hosts us, drives us around, laughs and jokes and mothers us on top of caring for patients at the hospital and supervising the junior doctors, had been diagnosed with a late-stage breast cancer. Even now, she is undergoing chemotherapy- we realised, that all this while, we never knew because of the wig she wears.

Why didn’t she return to the city? Why does she and Dr H continue to stay?

There’s Dr Hussin and his wife, Dr Wiwik. They married each other in medical school because they both had a heart for the needy. They’ve stuck around in the jungle hospital for more than a three decades, spearheading community outreach projects in villages, and starting more than 70 satellite clinics all over Kalimantan. When they were waiting for the right someone, did they not question that they may not ever find the right person?

That day, when I shared with him my fears and doubts about the great sacrifice of doing medical mission work full-time in future, Dr Hussin told me, ” Sacrifice? What sacrficice?” He smiled a strange, fatherly smile, “There is no sacrifice, Wai Jia. All these years, God has blessed me far more than I could ever imagine.”

“But how about loneliness? Dont you ever get lonely here? I mean, your friends and family… there’re all far away.”

There’s Dr Steve, who left a 12-year lucrative career in his private practice in Ophthalmology in the USA to bring his beautiful wife and 3 children to stay long-term right here in the middle of nowhere just so he can help the local doctors start up an eyecare centre. Thousands of people suffer from blindness because of cataracts, and the many eyecamps he has helped to lead have relieved many of this needless suffering. Compare Minnesota and a jungle in Serukam, Kalimantan. There is nothing here- no cinemas, proper schools, cities, public transport… there is nothing here but a jungle, and more jungle. They homeschool their children. But why?

And of course, there’s Dr G and his wife Becki, whose parents were the ones who built the hospital from scratch, as well as the hydroelectric plant 10 miles away to power the hospital. Dr G said he had never wanted to be a doctor- the last thing he wanted was to take over his parents’ work because that was exactly where he grew up in- the jungle. But after seeing how great the need is among the poor, he simply decided he had to return to the place he had grown up in. “Ah. Why do I stay here?” he asked whimsically, “ That’s for you to find out in the next 3 weeks.”

Today, as Dr Yo introduced me to his patients with a smile on his face and attended to one patient after another with such tenderness and joy, as Dr Steve patiently tried to communicate to his patients with the limited Bahasa Melayu he spoke, as Ibu Mel lovingly taught me how to put a feeding tube into a 29-week old premature baby who had been brought in by a couple who had seen the witch doctor, I suddenly understood, with such crystal clarity, why I joined medicine, and why I wanted, still want to be a missionary doctor.

Something deep inside tells me, that in spite of all my worries and fears, doubts and anxieties, the very thing that called all these doctors to this remote place on the earth, which awakens them each morning to serve with such commitment, joy and freedom, which calls them to add and not subtract from humanity, is also the same thing which calls and is still calling me to a place like this to serve in the future.

There is something in the air here, something which adds and not subtracts, something wholesome, true and real here.

It is a special place.