Karibu!

Hello and welcome to the first blog I’ve ever created...

In 48 hours I set off on a nearly six-month-long journey, beginning with 9 days in Damascus to visit my sister, and ending with three months of Swahili training in Dar Es Salaam. In between the two stays I’m living with a Rwandanese Christian medical doctor and her family in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. During this time I’ll intern at a large hospital called the Kigali Health Institute and be involved with community development programs with youth my age in the local church. At least this is how the next few months have been explained to me.

Paradoxically, I know both everything and nothing about what I'm doing. On the one hand I know none of the details surrounding my internship, and yet on the other I know everything about what is taking place – I’m intentionally putting myself in an uncomfortable situation and letting that experience change me.

Before I get going too far, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. First of all, to whom am I writing? You all, my audience, are a very difficult bunch to consolidate. Mixed in to the group are friends and family, folks with degrees and folks without - homeless, doctors, homeless doctors, engineers, villagers, lawyers, and college students of all shapes, sizes, and educational pursuits. Some have money, some do not. Some have traveled, others have not. Right-leaning, left-leaning, libertarian, KANU, NARC, and Sinn Fein. You span several continents and social classes, and yet find common ground in knowing me one way or another. My guess is that we’ve likely encountered one another through one of three avenues: faith, health care or social justice. I’ll do my best to convey my experiences in a manner that is beneficial to all.

I do want to pause and address one point, as many of you come from the faith community. It’s true that I’m a Christian, and in the past I’ve been a missionary. But this is not a missions trip per say. So then what is it? In short, it’s a multifaceted challenge.

I believe in absolute truth and in a divine being, and that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. I also believe that we can encounter God through everyday interactions with one another. And by getting to know others I better understand God’s story of love and compassion, redemption and restoration – for me and for the rest of the world. So part of this journey is to have those sorts of encounters.

Is this trip God’s calling? Well, I don’t know – the same way I don’t know if staying in Iowa City is God’s calling. When I hear his voice, I move in that direction. But His voice isn’t always audible, and sometimes I just take a risk and jump. This is one of those moments. It’s not a total shot in the dark, though. Combining faith and health care moves me in the direction in which I feel I’m supposed to head.

Another motivating factor for this trip is simply to take a year off before medical school and travel. I’m intentionally putting myself in impoverished areas to be marked by experiences that will shape me into the physician I aspire to become. I want to intimately know these stories so that after all the debt of medical school and fatigue of residency, I still remember why I chose this path in the first place – and return to places such as Rwanda to unite my privilege with peoples’ suffering, and somehow heal together.

I look forward to writing from the Middle East, and to sharing these next few months with you all. Thanks for the love and support that make this possible.

And to end it all, a poem that my good friend Nicole Novak recently shared with me:

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don't end in me,
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

-Roque Dalton
translated by Jack Hirschmann