Oasis Hospital, Al Ain, UAE

Good Morning from Al Ain, UAE!  We are home again.  I am sitting in the quiet morning in our new flat, sipping a mug of hot coffee.  Outside, the winds are blowing, rattling the windows, waving the date palms, and covering the cars and landscape with a fine dark sand.  We took a walk yesterday and soon found how the sand could penetrate into unprotected parts of the body.  Teeth exposed through simple conversation developed a noisy grit.  The scalp and face had a fine coating of dust.  Ear canals gathered small pools of sand as well.  The total head coverings were making more sense as we experienced  a wind storm of the desert.

The week ahead marks a major change for me once again.  I have just finished a month in Ethiopia, where the routines were different but the patient problems and methods of clinics and surgery were familiar.  Both Kenya and Ethiopia were African countries.  Both Kenya and Ethiopia have similar patient groups which are targeted by the CURE mission.  In both Kenya and Ethiopia, the orthopedists essentially set the schedule and run the medical aspects of the hospital.  Not so at CURE Oasis in Al Ain.

I am entering a whole new world once again.  Over the years I have been in many different practice situations.  I have been a member of a multi-specialty medical group. I later joined a single-specialty orthopedic group.  This group was improved by the addition of a physical medicine specialist.  I was later called to leave my practice and become a missionary in a new hospital.  Moving to Kenya was without a doubt the biggest step of faith in my life up to that point.  After many years, the newness of CURE Kijabe settled into a comfortable routine.  Comfortable routines are just that — comfortable.  We all enjoy the predictability of routines.  Change and the thought of change is not comfortable.  Many of us cling to routines to the exclusion of all opportunities of growth and adventure.  Routines can become our idols of daily life.  And then something unexpected — and sometimes unwanted — enters.

Sometimes this guest can take the form of illness.  You are cruising along in your comfort zone and suddenly a  strange bump is found, your chest feels like it is being squeezed tightly, your child falls ill, or something else.  Or maybe you are driving along and a deer jumps in front of your car and you crash.  Your plans veer  off the path of predictability into hospitals and uncertainty.  Priorities change dramatically.  You reassess your life from a completely new perspective.

Another enemy may involve your job.  A new company takes over and you are ‘downsized’ out the work force.  A new boss arrives and changes the way you are to function within the company and you hate your new job.  The company offers you a new position across the country from where you are living.  You need to leave your friends, family, home, and enter the unknown.

Change. No one really enjoys the process.  Change in itself is not often the issue, but rather the unknown that change represents.  “What does this change mean for me?  Is this a good change or one that will be painful?”  Minds race; scenarios come and go.  The mind considers options from those closest to the prior life to others involving dramatic, often surrealistic circumstances.  Sleep can be fitful.  Weight may fluctuate as you seek comfort in things.  Moods may crash or rise to manic heights.   And then it is time.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”  These are the words of James.  I return to them often in my life as I face changes.  Trials do not necessarily have to be major life events; those trials are just more obvious.  Trials can be occasions when you are asked to compromise your integrity for expediency.  Trials can be how you respond to any given situation.  Do you respond with anger and lose control of your emotions?  Do you wallow in the realm of “why me?” Or do you concede you do not know the ‘whys’ of life but live in a knowledge there is a greater force than you in control?

Tomorrow I start a new chapter.  We moved to Al Ain a few months ago and have been exploring some of the area and the culture.  During this time we were definitely outsiders not quite invited into the party.  We wandered the outside reaches, but tomorrow we enter the door.  My licenses are complete.  My visa is pending.  I have been assigned a place within the Oasis building to see patients.  A slot is being created in the operating schedule to accommodate an unknown quantity called “CURE Orthopedics.”   New rules and regulations abound as I embark on a journey very different from the one I left.  I am the “new guy” on the block, starting a new department in a new culture.  Although the most visible change may be minor to most people, this change will bring the most smiles and laughter among those who know me.  The culture here mandates that I wear a tie to clinic!  Yikes!  Ever since my residency training, waaaaay back in the dark ages, I only wear ties on rare occasions.  Usually I wear weird and strange ties since I consider ties a strange practice.  So here we go.  I even bought a few new, more conservative ties to try out.  We shall see how this practice goes over the next few months. (No, I am not including a picture of me in a tie.  I will leave that to your imagination.  Who knows?  Maybe I will come to enjoy a tie.  Yeah, right!)

Starting over again in a new culture, a new department, a diverse group of people, a small fish within the bigger pond, no residency, electronic records — all are changes that start tomorrow.  Am I nervous?  Of course.  I think change brings out our concerns, both real and imagined.  Do I want to quit and return to my comfortable life?  No!  Although the temptation looms great, the option to return is merely a temptation.  I know I have been called to embark on a new challenge and a new path.  I know this path will have its mountaintops and valleys, rocks and smooth paths, laughter and tears.  I know because I have traveled the paths of change many times.  I know because I am lead by someone greater and far wiser than me.  I know because I travel life in His grip.