She was only 12 years old—mature beyond her years, of slight build, with a shy, engaging smile belying the despair in her heart. Her whole family had walked a couple of hours from their mountain home, down steep and dusty paths to our makeshift clinic on the campus of the power company in Sainj (currently engaged in building one of the largest hydro-electric power plants of India), where they hoped to see the “Christian” doctor who would “make all things well.”
Born with a pseudo-arthrosis (extreme curvature or false joint) of her left tibia and fibula, she had already endured three surgeries, and after patiently standing in the registration line for hours and again in our line-up to see the doctor, she slid onto the chair in front of me and meekly, almost apologetically, offered her story to my interpreter. Her left lower leg had been pinned, grafted, and finally plated on three different occasions, yet was still obviously curved and about an inch shorter than her other leg. Worst of all, the stainless steel plate used during her last surgery had worked its way out and had made an ugly reappearance on her lower shin. The bottom two screws had been lost altogether, and the once shiny implement was now covered with street dust and stuck out more than two inches.
You are right! It doesn’t take much training to figure out that this is not a good situation. Actually, it is a perfect set-up for osteomyelitis (a chronic bone infection), and after reviewing her x-rays, we all agreed that she should be bussed to the hospital (a ten- to 12-hour trip south), with all the other surgical patients and their next of kin, to first have the plate and all the infection removed, followed by more corrective surgery a few weeks later. And yes, because of generous folks like you, it would be without cost to them!
There was relief and a heartwarming glimmer of hope noticeable in all their eyes as we gave them final instructions, some multivitamins, and antibiotics.
“Where could she be?”
“Come-on, this isn’t such a big place!”
“We should be able to find her in no time!” we said to each other a couple of days later. What was going on? We had been looking for Pooja (“Adorable”) in all the logical places, both in and around the Shimla Hospital for quite some time, but had come up empty handed.
She and her family had quietly slipped away, and when the story finally emerged, we were told that her mom and dad had decided to take her all the way back to Sainj because some uninformed bystander had told them that the promised corrective surgery wasn’t going to be for “free” after all. With great effort, we were able to track down her family by phone and encourage them to reconsider and to avail themselves and especially their daughter of this opportunity.
They finally agreed to bring the girl once more, but only under the condition that the whole process would be done in a single intervention, which regrettably was impossible. Our sadness and disappointment was profound and palpable. Some of us had even gone out shopping for her, so she could enjoy a brand new outfit after completion of her operation. We had so wanted to help this brave little girl; she had conquered our hearts, and now she had quite simply broken them.
Still, there were others: a man with end-stage lung cancer, a woman with lymphoma, children with contractures from burns, cleft lips and palates, congenital deformities, as well as deaf or mute folks to mention just a few—enough to keep a good faith-healer busy for a while.
Alas, none of us had the gift. They had come from as far away as California (David), Florida (Marina), Virginia (Ron and Tim), and Michigan (Lola, Ewald, Jim, Ray, Don and Alice, and Norbert)—twelve professionals willing to take on the challenges of a first-ever medical mission trip to northern India, combining our U.S. team with local health care workers under the umbrella of Maranatha Volunteers International. Prior to our departure, we had collected more than $50,000 in donated hospital supplies and medications, and with your help raised more than $16,000 for the needed surgeries, $5,000 for renovations at the hospital in Shimla and the community school in Sainj, as well as $13,500 for the construction of a new church in Sainj.
We got our shots, paid for our tickets and, with God’s help, received our visas for India just in the nick of time (Marina’s arrived only one day before her departure), and then endured a grueling trip by plane to Delhi (all our luggage arrived unscathed and was allowed through without being checked—Praise the Lord!) and on the rest of the way by bus to Shimla, a ten-hour ride.
We had arrived at the airport shortly after midnight and were looking forward to a comfortable ride in a nearly brand new tourist bus with air conditioning. The plan was to catch up on our sleep, since we had been through two very abbreviated nights and were already sleep deprived from our preparations for the trip. What we got instead was “terror at night,” not only because traffic was bad, but more so because our driver, unaccustomed to driving at night, was struggling to stay awake even more than we were and managed to “drift off” several times.
While on the topic of “traffic,” let me explain a bit. For those of you who have experienced it, laugh out loud as I struggle to give our reader a glimpse, but for those who have been spared thus far, close your eyes, imagine, then come closer, feel my pulse, and enjoy the adrenaline kick! There are very few roads, most of them too narrow and in great need of repair. Some are very steep and with innumerable curves, many sport merely a single lane, one narrow strip of tarmac lined by a bit of dirt road on either side, inviting you to a very exciting, never-ending game of chicken! Obviously, the larger your vehicle, the more likely you were to stay on the paved portion. These “roads” are, for the most part, lined with dust-covered hovels and huts, houses, lean-tos and tents, small fields separated by irrigation ditches, and occasionally with truly breathtaking vistas, since in the northern parts of India the mountains rise steeply on the one side and fall off thousands of feet on the other.
Because there are not enough of these modern "paths of conveyance," they are by necessity and, with a near equal sense of belonging, pride, purpose, ownership, and adventure shared by all participants simultaneously: hundreds of cars and trucks, trailers pulled by oxen, horses, donkeys, mules, camels, and occasionally by a tractor, thousands of motorcycles, bicycles, taxis, tuk-tuks (auto-rickshaw), and countless pedestrians, most of which carry heavy, bulky loads extending and bulging way beyond the normal confines or acceptable limits, frequently putting equipment, animals and people to the very utmost limit of their abilities. Thus they willfully, continuously, and perilously challenge gravity, rules of balance and centrifugal forces, predictably putting themselves and others into harm’s way. (On the way to Sainj, our lead car saw another vehicle plunge over the side of a steep mountain road with all passengers hurled to their certain death.)
Although intended as bidirectional roads with a fixed number of lanes, even the divided “highways” were scrupulously abused in all conceivable and inconceivable directions by many participants, including the ubiquitous sacred cows, water buffalos, goats, sheep, and dogs, adding one or even two more lanes as needed and ignoring sparse signage and even rarer traffic lights. Most drivers practice passing into oncoming traffic and around curves with variable amounts of skill and care, but also with a surprising amount of tolerance and forgiveness, whether they were on the giving or receiving end of these apparently very pliable, tacit, and ubiquitous “traffic rules.”
Besides the occasional gasps from your unsuspecting passengers, whose prayer life you can assume is most certainly rejuvenated during such a ride, the muffled shriek from a nearly missed pedestrian or a mistreated “opponent,” you would hear surprisingly little Hindi, since most communication on this turf is accomplished by incessant honking, which clamors at your tympanic membranes in all kinds of styles: continuous, interrupted, scaled, staccato, crescendo, and many others.
In town, especially during rush hour, enough of these elements descend upon the inadequate system to bring the whole process to a complete standstill, which is invariably compounded by a cacophony of shrill, angry, and demanding car horns. Throw in an occasional roaming horde of monkeys, a couple of broken down vehicles parked in odd places (like the middle of the road), aggressive hawkers, a cow or two insisting on their right to safe passage, a rare and sorely ignored policemen with a whistle, folks attending to their bodily functions and taking their daily baths along the side of the road, next to neatly piled fruit, vegetables, and cow patties, as well as other sundry items for sale in little booths or even without a booth, frequent areas of road construction and mud slides, and you are sort of starting to get the picture.
After our first such exciting ride, during the waning shock and early recovery period, we were warmly welcomed at the Shimla Hospital and Sanitarium by its CEO, Dr. Baziliel, and the available staff. We relaxed a day with good food, friends, and in worship, and caught up on some much-needed rest, before reloading our stuff into a smaller bus, which took us north more than ten hours into the heart of Himachal Pradesh to a small town called Sainj, surrounded by tall peaks reaching heights of up to 15,000 feet and more.
Land being rare and yields being poor, the farmers there are forced to extract a meager living from these unbelievably steep hills. They are surpassed only by the most saintly monks who have their holy places yet higher than the highest terraced patches of arable land at around 8,000 feet.
During our stay there, we were privileged to see almost 1,300 patients for their various medical, ob-gyn, and surgical needs, more than 400 folks regarding their eye problems, and our ophthalmologist, Dr. Ali, performed 43 cataract extractions with implants, thanks once more to your generous contributions. We dispensed thousands of dollars worth of free medications, dewormed everyone who showed up, including all their family members (thanks to Alice), distributed toys and clothing, as well as direly-needed school supplies. Forty-five patients with surgical needs were bussed back to the hospital where they were promised free care to be given the following week.
Our construction folks, meanwhile, descended upon the run-down community school with avengeance and gave the structure a much-needed facelift, including repairs to the leaky roof, the ceiling, and its floor. Friday was very special, since, after an emotional good-bye from the folks in Sainj (we also had to wait for a land slide to be cleared), we were permitted to spend a night in tents at Shoja, just below the Jalori pass (elevation 10,600 feet), having completed a vigorous hike to the beautiful Serolsar Lake earlier that afternoon. Saturday we continued our return trip to Shimla, but stopped long enough to worship with our brothers and sisters in Ani, where we also left toys and school supplies, as well as funds to purchase 100 Bibles with attached hymnals, since they had none. The following week was packed with general, ob-gyn, as well as eye surgery.
The hospital laundry and one of the patient rooms were scraped clean, patched up, and painted, while Jim poured himself over the recovery room to come up with a couple of concepts to remodel this particular area, as well as the rest of the hospital.
On Wednesday, after a very early start and another stimulating bus ride, we spent a pleasant day in Karsog, where we saw an additional 167 patients for their assorted health care needs. A few more surgeries and several shopping sprees later, we packed our bags once more, said our good-byes to the lovely folks at Shimla Hospital, and made our way south by bus and train to Ranthambore, one of India’s well-known tiger reserves. We had a great time there, but even after three safaris had still no more than pictures of his majesty's (the Royal Bengal Tiger) footprints and a bit of frustration to show for it.
Finally, we committed ourselves to the would-be roads again, drove north to Agra, where we were allowed to inspect and ogle the Taj Mahal, as well as the impressive fort, before being jostled over some more miles of bad road and through bad traffic to the Delhi airport to catch our plane home.
Please accept our sincerest “Thank you” once again for your kind thoughts, your prayers, and your generous funding. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the work we were privileged to do and for being part of such a supportive Church family. May God bless you beyond measure.
Norbert Schwer is a surgeon and a member of the Stevensville (Michigan) Seventh-day Adventist Church. He organizes three mission trips each year.
