Celebrations, Dancing, Working Together for the Mission…

One of the great highlights of visiting the missions is the celebrations. The community often comes together to greet us as we arrive and say good bye when we are preparing to leave, even for a brief visit.

This week in the North East of Cameroon they celebrate National Youth Day. Terry Hake’s class, the entire school, and all young people across the country take time away from class (although I know one math teacher who may think more time in class is called for) and celebrate this national holiday together!

We are getting ready for our annual celebration and while not a national holiday, the Mission Doctors Auxiliary is once again hosting the Gala Benefit. This year on February 19, we will be ‘Celebrating the Mission, Creating the Possible’ at the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles.

It is important to celebrate and this year we will honor a couple who have done so much for the work of MDA. Dr. Ed and Mrs. Mary Lou Malphus have been involved for many years in this work and we will thank them for their commitment and service. Dr. Malphus, outgoing president of the board of MDA will also be the recipient of the Msgr. Anthony Brouwers Award.

So we celebrate! There will be dinner and dancing, working together for the mission. We are gathering to ensure that we will be able to continue to make it possible for doctors like Jim Hake to serve and dance in the missions. Visit this YouTube video that I took while visiting the Hakes in Cameroon he is just back from an emergency at the hospital and joins in the dance!

If you can join us, please contact our office, tickets are still available!

Mission Continues...

January 14, 1964, Msgr. Anthony Brouwers, founder of Mission Doctors Association lost his battle with cancer at 51 years old.

Today, we strive to continue his legacy by making it possible for Catholic doctors and their families to serve at mission hospitals and clinics.

"As never before, the sufferings of mankind easily transverse oceans and become part of the consciousness and the conscience of the American Catholic medical expert. Their plight is our problem. Their cries of pain and misery are necessarily as personal and impelling as those of our loved ones at our own hearths." Msgr. Anthony Brouwers, 1963

How much more in 2011 are we exposed to the suffering of our brothers and sisters around the world - perhaps to the point of a sense of saturation and increasing sense of impotence. Yet today, when it is easier to stay put and chose comfort over sacrifice, Mission Doctors Association has seen an increase in the number of doctors willing to share their skills.

We pray that more will continue to answer the call to serve and that those who can not themselves deliver a baby in Guatemala, or provide care for emergency patients in Uganda or treat HIV patients in Cameroon will make their service possible.

"Am I my brother’s keeper?...This is no rhetorical question. To be Christ-like each of us has be one declarative statement: ‘I, we and all of us everywhere are our brother’s keepers’." Msgr. Anthony Brouwers, 1959

Mother Antonia (The Prison Angel and Foundress of The Sisters of the Eleventh Hour) reminds us to ask Msgr. Brouwers to intercede on our behalf, and to note when these prayers are answered.

A book on the life and legacy of Msgr. Brouwers is available - contact our office to learn more.

Special Day

I recently had a phone call from Mother Antonia who reminded me that December 8th is a special day, not only because it is celebrated as a holy day of obligation, commemorating the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Mother Antonia told me that it is also the anniversary of the ordination of our mutual founder, Msgr. Anthony Brouwers.

Mother Antonia shared that every year she has seen special miracles on and around this date that affirm for her Msgr. Brouwers’ place among the saints. One such miracle spared one of her own sisters an amputation due to medical complications.

We too remember our founder in a special way on December 8th. Msgr. Brouwers dedicated this movement of lay people to the missions to this feast of the Immaculate Conception which we celebrate. Let us work to continue his legacy of international service for Catholic laity through our prayers and all our efforts.

If you have had the opportunity to be blessed, as Mother Antonia has been, in seeing or experiencing special miracles on or around December 8th – perhaps invoking the prayers of Msgr. Brouwers, please write up a brief description and send it in…
Perhaps one day they may be a first step in acknowledging the sanctity of our founder.

Of course we know many holy people who have lived and died are counted among the Saints, as Mother Antonia reminded me. Our parents, family, and friends who make up the heavenly choirs. If we area able to acknowledge Msgr. Brouwers presence among them, it may help more people know of his legacy in the mission work we strive to continue.

If you would like to know more about Mother Antonia and the Religious order she founded – there is a book about her life – “The Prison Angel: Mother Antonia's Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail”, available on Amazon.

If you would like to know more about our founder, Msgr. Anthony Brouwers, LMH and MDA have a book available about his life and work: “For We are God’s Helpers’ - you can obtain a copy of this inspirational book by contacting LMH.

Its that time again.

Time to wait in joyful anticipation.

While we wait, we struggle to wrestle back the meaning of the Holidays from the commercial trappings that encircle us.

Of course, it is wonderful to find gifts that make our family andloved ones smile, feel loved, and know how much we appreciate them each day of the year. Yet all too easily the gift giving can become a task, a reciprocal duty that looses any meaning. It is wonderful to deck the halls, but too easy to get so busy that the days just pass without time for reflection and prayer.

So as we wait this very blessed season of Advent - we light a candle each week on the Advent wreath, the growing light increasing to banish the darkness.

Sometimes for me it can feel like I have one foot in the holy – the true reasons and meaning of this season, and the other foot deeply and busily emerged in the preparations, decorations, baking, shopping, wrapping, and preparing. What I want to try to do this year is not see these as separate things but pull all the seemingly busy work into the holy – prepare with joy; decorate with gladness; bake and shop with the true intention of making my friends and family happy; wrap and prepare with a peaceful heart intent on preparing myself too for Christ to come.
Wishing you joy this Advent.

Let us light the candles together and keep both feet exactly where they should be!

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Of course I do have two commercial messages for Mission Doctors

– for those of you who like me shop online – you can just shop as you would, but go through iGive.com and support Mission Doctors.

And – if you would like to make a gift to Mission Doctors Association in someone’s name this holiday, we have prepared beautiful full color cards for you to let them know of your kindness.

Communication

Today, we communicate in ways that our parents could not have imagined. This blog, the internet, cell phones on dirt roads in Cameroon, websites, Facebook, instant messaging, skype – all ways to communicate, to reach out and connect with others.

I think this is basic human nature. We want to tell our story and we want to hear others and learn where our interests, our lives intersect. Shared values draw us together – a belief that all people, everywhere are created by our loving Father, deserving of our love and opportunities to live healthy lives.

For several months we have been working on the new web site for Mission Doctors Association. I am so excited about the updates and our ability to add information and keep the content current to what is happening today. I was able to add the photo of Dr. Talbot to the slide show on the home page – and he is in Cameroon right now on short-term service with his wife Jane Fehrenbacher Everyone is so excited to have a dentist there that the sisters from other hospitals have been making the trek to see him!

So – as we prepare for the season of thanks I also invite you to watch a video that tells a special story of thanks.

Blessings to you and yours!

St. Luke – patron of healers…

For many years the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had not had a ‘White Mass’ – a Mass held to honor the work of health care professionals, so named for the white garb most commonly worn by doctors, nurses, and others who are engaged in the healing ministry.

Two years ago when our MDA Board of Directors took on the task of a 5 year strategic plan – this was one of the items that came forward, re-introducing this celebration in the Archdiocese. We wrote to Cardinal Mahony who welcomed the idea and we were partnered with the dynamic woman who (among other titles) is the Director of Health Affairs for the Archdiocese, Sr. Angela Hallahan. Working together last year with a small but dedicated committee this annual event was re-introduced with wonderful success and we immediately looked to ways to grow the celebration for 2010.

On Sunday we will gather again at Holy Family in South Pasadena; ‘Blessing Healers – Celebrating Health’. The committee has grown, the numbers have increased, and this Sunday promises to be a wonderful opportunity to bring together those who give so much of themselves in service to others. One of the highlights of last year’s Mass was the blessing of hands, a moment when the healers were invited to stand and extend their hands, palm up, to receive a blessing. As moving as it was to witness these humble individuals stand, bow their heads, and raise their hands, I also watched a doctor who had been practicing medicine for more than 40 years brush away a tear.

Let us pray for all who minister to the health of others. May they always see Jesus in their patients, may they feel the breath of the Holy Spirit as they bear the burdens of this ministry and may the know their work is in partnership with our loving Father.

What a trip it was!

It wasn’t a long trip – but it was packed full with an impressive amount of visits, contacts, hugs, tears and laughs. Greeted at the airport by my dear friend Sr. Xaveria we headed out to Padre Pio Clinic for the night, and followed it in the morning with a meeting with Archbishop of Bamenda, Cornellus Esua and the honor of Mass at the Cardinal’s private chapel in Douala celebrated by Archbishop Esua and the Cardinal. On to the 8 hour drive by the ever reliable Bo’Paul – (father of Paul) who has been driving for the hospital for 20 + years! To say that the car was in good hands is a great understatement – also known as Henry this driver’s infectious smile and laughter can only be met with same.

Arriving at Njinikom, Martin de Porres Hospital, after the obligatory stops half way to purchase pineapples and papaya, I was greeted by music, hugs from the many sisters and Jim and Terry Hake who began their three-year assignment this summer and two of our surgeons who were serving short-term, Bill Walsh and Magued Khouzam.

Over the next 10 days I had the opportunity to attend daily Mass with this wonderful group of faith filled people, to make rounds with our doctors, observe surgeries, witness both tragedies of loss and miracles of recovery. Coming home my heart is filled to near bursting with the faith and friendship, with joy and love and I know that I am so very blessed to have the opportunity to be a witness to this amazing ministry of healing.

We are preparing a new web site for MDA and we decided upon a phrase to put under the title of the organization that I believe does a wonderful job conveying just what this is: Mission of Healing. Partnership of Hope.

Please keep all these wonderful people in your prayers – know that you are in theirs.