This year, my child and I participated again in the Africa Cries Out Mission Trip in Senegal, and my heart was still full of anticipation as the first time. This time, my child started preparing early and kept sharing her experiences of the last mission trip with her circle of friends. There were several of her friends who were very interested, but their parents had more concerns, and most of them did not go. One parent agreed and prepared to go, but because she signed up too late, she could not go, so we could only encourage her to sign up earlier next time.
Coming with a burdened heart
The original intention of our family to participate in the volunteer medical program was that this activity has work arrangements for teenagers, and the mood was like that of many participating parents. At the same time, I was particularly impressed by the volunteer medical mission led by Dr. Xu. Dr. Xu himself spoke from his own experience and talked about the changes in his son before and after participating in the volunteer medical mission. This is the embodiment of “teaching by example” in traditional Chinese culture. The arrangement of youth activities included making breakfast, distributing medicine, assisting doctors in seeing patients, etc. The parents who led the teenagers had made every effort and adjusted. I felt that the parents and the team were trying to summarize the experience from the last activity to make it better this time. I must praise the courage of all parents for coming to this distant African country to participate in the service. Especially those parents who were not in the medical field, many of them are elites from various industries. They put down their own things and brought their children to participate in the service and did some extremely ordinary things. In such an environment, the children saw how parents treated people and how to deal with difficulties. Such a learning experience was more vivid than any classroom.
Parents and children
Joint team serving in the kitchen
Real change
Since participating in the volunteer medical service last year, my husband and I have seen the changes in our child. My child is in the teenage stage. Usually at home, she is indifferent to the things around her and turns a deaf ear to them. She is the kind of person who will not help even if the cooking oil bottle falls. However, from the first day of the volunteer medical mission, I felt the changes in my child (after my child participated in the volunteer medical mission last year, she wrote an article on africacrisout.net titled Africa Cries Out Report 2023 014 My Diary of Senegal Medical Mission Trip – Source: africacriesout.net, welcome to read). After returning, I was also worried that my child would lose the warmth in her heart and soon return to the old ways. Thank God for His continued work. My child’s self-discipline has improved significantly, and she has become more demanding of herself. Before, my child was a typical lay-flat type, with neither progress nor decline in academic performance, and gave up when faced with difficulties. After last year’s trip to Africa, I gradually saw that she began to be interested in science and was no longer satisfied with just completing homework and getting an average score.
Disciple-like leadership
My child really benefited from the care of this big family during the short 10-day mission trip. As an anesthesiologist, I stayed near the hospital with the surgical team most of the time, busy with the preparation and implementation of various surgeries. The children were with the rest of the volunteers most of the time, where she had many good teachers and friends. When she first came last year, she was still like a little kid, a little immature; but when she came to the base for the second time this year, she has obviously matured a lot. Parents often send me messages to report that she took the initiative to introduce the base to the new children, helped the internal medicine doctors to see patients, etc., and did all the work in a very good manner. This was the power of the team. It is the love and enthusiasm of the doctors, teachers, brothers and sisters who brought this ignorant little girl up, and the seeds of love gradually sprouted and grew under the watering. Every time we went there, we felt that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”). In the eyes of others, we are providing medical services to the locals, but in fact, we and our children had gained something from it. Seeing the growth of the children is the most comforting and touching thing for parents. It is a great gift and blessing.
In the past, when our child see my life as a doctor, she made it very clear that she did not want to study medicine because she felt that the quality of life of doctors was poor and they could not enjoy life. She could not understand how her mother could endure the boring days of getting up early and going to bed late, and being on duty on holidays. When she came to participate in the free medical treatment, she saw a large group of people like me, and although she only participated in simple medical services, she felt the value of her service and the feeling of being needed, which made her feel extremely satisfied, touched and inspired. She mentioned in her article that seeing girls of her age holding their children to see a doctor made her realize that the living conditions of teenagers in different places are so different.
This is what my child shared in the article last year
Cloud-like testimony
My child met the daughters of Pastor Anna and Pastor Felix at the camp base. These were her peers. They were all beautiful, generous and smart; She also met the young, lovely and intelligent Dr. Rebecca Wu from the surgical team, Amy- a medical student, and these two instantly became her big sisters, beautiful “witnesses” surrounded her like clouds and became her role models. Dr. Rebecca shared her experience of how to become an obstetrician and gynecologist. The twists and turns, the perplexity in Dr. Rebecca’s growth, and the way she traveled with God all deeply touched me, and my child was also thoughtful after listening. After the free medical mission ended, my child has not yet resumed church gatherings. I believe God has his own time arrangement (Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”).
My child making breakfast with another girl volunteer
My child together with Dr. Rebecca
Dr. Liu’s on-site teaching
He personally accomplished it
In terms of missionary work, I was obviously not as enthusiastic and proactive as the children. I just chatted with friends around me about what I had seen and heard and the original intention of going there. I must admit that I envy the ability of internists to speak eloquently. I was relatively plain and lacks appeal in expression, which was one of the reasons why I chose the anesthesia major, because I felt that it would be very challenging to communicate with patients and their families. But He has done things beyond my imagination. After only a few simple conversations with sister Zhang Liang from the church, she began to seriously consider going with me. Although she was a little afraid of traveling alone with her children, she quickly began to prepare step by step and soon decided to sign up.
Another sister in the church, Jennifer, although she could not go with me, saw the advertisement for collecting sports shoes posted in the group, and quickly prepared many pairs of clean shoes and interestingly asked many questions about youth service.
What surprised me most was one of my colleague -Aisha. She is an black mother and a technician where I work. Usually when we meet, there would be some classic mother to mother conversations about children’s education. She said that her second daughter was smart and studious and was determined to study medicine. She was choosing university courses and hoped to do some medical-related activities. I talked to her about taking her children to Africa for medical work. After listening to my sharing with great interest, she immediately expressed her desire to go with me. There were many volunteer medical teams from the United States. To be honest, I didn’t think she was serious at the time. She had to go to a strange place, and the team was mainly a group of Chinese who could speak English. But when she learned that she could sign up, she quickly decided to sign up. In the end, she chose to join Dr. Xu’s team. I think an important consideration was that most of the participants are Chinese. Since Aisha did not have WeChat and could not see the information in the group, she could only ask me various questions during the registration process. Although we sometimes meet in the corridor, we did not have time to talk for a long time. I guided her how to send a registration email to Brother Jack and how to pay online by taking screenshots of text messages. From the perspective of an ordinary person, didn’t she worry about being cheated? But when I look back at what happened, I thought, wasn’t it verified in the bible Philippians 2:13 “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure”?
Aisha’s daughter’s integration process with a multicultural team also touched me deeply. She quickly got to know and became familiar with the other children in the team who she had never met before. We often saw these children hanging out and serving together. Seeing children of different skin colors getting along harmoniously, how did the voices emphasizing racial inequality in the United States originate? In His eyes, everyone is beautiful!
Young people’s bright smiles
Aisha and her daughter participating in the post-meal medicine packaging work
Nothing was difficult for Him
Compared with the first time, I had some experience in the work and life of volunteer doctors. My inner worries about daily life in Africa had been significantly reduced. But I still had many concerns about preparing for medical services. Going to volunteer doctors, especially for surgery, required a lot of special drugs and equipment to be prepared in the United States in advance. Last year, our department head here was obviously not so supportive. Before leaving last year, he only agreed to give me a set of tracheal intubation-related equipment.
This time, after signing up in October 23, I started praying for this. After returning from volunteer medical service last year, I made a report on Senegal medical assistants at the department’s weekly morning meeting. My colleagues responded very well to it, and the attitude of the supervisor also changed, saying that they would support it more. So I discussed with the technicians in charge of equipment and asked them to sort out the equipment that was close to expiration. In the end, they sorted out several large boxes, such as: laryngoscopes for tracheal intubation and tubes for general anesthesia, spinal anesthesia puncture needles and spinal anesthesia operation kits, epidural puncture needles, operation kits, various intravenous cannula needles, etc.
But the commonly used anesthesia drugs were controlled by the pharmacy. I had been to the highest supervisor of the hospital. They all said that according to regulations, even expired drugs need to be recycled and could not be given. At that time, I was discouraged. SHEN was prepared. During the preparation process, colleagues in the team kept reporting that there were drug donations, especially Dr. Tian from the anesthesia department, who basically prepared all the commonly used drugs one after another. Dr. Wang from the anesthesia department of New Jersey, although he was unable to go with us this time, also generously donated drugs.
The surgical team opening the donated medicines and equipment packages and preparing for surgery
The time of departure for each volunteer medical service was also a challenge for us. The volunteer medical service time was around the spring break of schools on the East Coast of the United States (but it did not coincide with the spring break of my children’s school). During that period, there were many people in the workplace who needed to take a vacation. This required me and other colleagues to coordinate several times to get this vacation. Thank God for allowing us to go smoothly. This reminds me of 2 Corinthians 12:9 God said to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Paul’s response: “Here fore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Every time I participated in the volunteer medical service, I had new challenges and experiences. I thank the Lord for His guidance and continuous work. The team’s strength was constantly increasing. Dr. Jun Xu presented a new goal to carry out pediatric cleft lip surgery next year. Everyone should continue to pray and hope that experienced maxillofacial surgeons will join the team and participate in the ministry together.
About the author: Jenny Zhao, MD. Anesthesiologist in New Jersey, 2023 & 2024 volunteer doctor for Africa Cries Out
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If you feel moved to support our ministry in Africa, please contact us：
Jun Xu’s WeChat: jun9174343767
Email: Africacriesout@gmail.com
Public WeChat account: LifeExploring (人生天路)
Website: https://africacriesout.net
Editors in charge: Cao Juanjuan, Zhang Kun
TranslatorWei Peng
English Editor: Xi Wang
Editor: Doris Cruz
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