Sweat furrowed tracks down our dusty shins as my cousins and I raced each other back to Grandmother’s house. After a morning spent playing stickball with cans in the vacant lot and hide-and-seek in the combo chicken-house/smoke-house, we were finally going to be allowed back in the people-house. The aunts made us wash up with a hose before they unlocked the screen door. We had been waiting a long time for the deafening blast of the steam whistle that signaled lunchtime at the Basila garment factory. Little Pavlov puppies, that shrill toot let us know we were finally going to get to eat fried chicken, drink sweet tea, and sit in the air conditioned dining room, at least for a little while.
It’s been a long time since sound regulated my internal clock. Like everybody else, I now check my phone constantly to see what time it is. But at Hebron Medical Center, I’ve gotten used to another kind of lunchtime signal: worship music drifting down the hall from the assembly / patient waiting room. The faint notes of old hymns give me the same comforting sense of joy and anticipation that I remember feeling back in Leakesville. Here, not only is my stomach about to get soothed, but my soul is too. It’s time for the pre-lunch devotional service.
I leave the GYN clinic, walk down the hall, and join the entire hospital staff: twenty-five medical residents, fifteen Khmer attending physicians, eight missionary physicians, countless nurses, nursing students, technicians, housekeepers, administrators, and clerical staff. The short service includes a song, a prayer, and announcements. My favorite part is when we turn to one another, bow and say, “Thank you for today.” It’s a beautiful pause in the middle of our work day to honor God and honor the work that each of us is trying to do in his service. And then we eat.
Recently, the room was unusually crowded, and I realized that a large contingent of people I didn’t know filled the extra seats and flowed out into the isles. But they were strangers only to me. Pastor Park introduced them as members of the EMAS team here for their sixth Hebron mission trip since 2018. EMAS Canada (Education, Medical Aid, and Service) is a Non-governmental Organization (NGO) founded in Ontario, Canada, in 1948. The relationship between EMAS and Hebron shines as a model for what effective medical mission work can be. They served not only patients, but also every member of the Hebron staff. Their visit reminded me of another ritual from my childhood: the revival meeting.
This team included fifteen people: nine from Edmonton, Alberta; five from Toronto, and one from Taipei, Taiwan. Because of their longstanding relationship with our hospital, they understood very well what services were most needed at Hebron and compiled a team that would best serve our patients and our resident physicians. The range of services stretched from Internal Medicine to Anesthesia to Plastic Surgery to Occupational Therapy to Psychological Therapy to Nursing.
At Hebron, we provide outpatient services, inpatient services, hemodialysis, and surgery. Currently we have a pediatric surgeon, two gynecological surgeons, and a general surgeon who also does a significant amount of urologic surgery. But often, there are surgical needs we cannot meet, including some plastic surgery cases.
On their most recent visit, EMAS physicians performed nine cases, ranging from eyelid repairs (that interfered with their eyesight), a foreign body abscess from the left palm, a nerve repair and separation of fingers (birth defect) on a two year old, a surgery on a toe with bone fixation and tendon repair on a fifteen year old, a surgery on a large scar on the shoulder of a four year old, excision of a scalp mass, and a left ear repair on a birth defect on a fourteen year old. On past visits, they have also done surgeries on cleft lips /palates, burn contractures and vascular malformations.
Hebron resident physicians, technicians, and nurses were able to receive hands-on training from these visiting physicians in surgical techniques they usually don’t see at our hospital. EMAS understands our teaching mission perfectly, and they provided continuing education lectures and seminars throughout the week. They allowed our residents to shadow them during clinics and included them in rounds all week. Because they come regularly, they know people by name (even some patients!)
But I think the most impactful thing about the EMAS visit was the way they ministered to the staff. They hosted special meals for different groups of employees. They made sure to spend time really connecting with our staff, all the people who work so hard to serve others every day at Hebron. They made each of us feel seen and valued. Each day after lunch, EMAS hosted a worship service filled with meaningful music and heartfelt testimony. They shared their call stories and they asked us to share ours.
One day, I mounted the stairs to the sounds of a concert pianist at work. I walked into the chapel to find Dr. Josh Wong, one of the visiting plastic surgeons, playing the prelude. Music in heaven must sound like that. During the testimony part of the worship service, nurse Jonathan Lo shared his story. The first Christian in his family, he explained that following a motorcycle accident that should have killed him, Dr. Wong sewed his body back together and then led him to Christ.
Nurse Jonathan was in Cambodia with Dr. Wong because he believes that God saved his life for such a time as this. I think the fact that Jonathan is about the same age as my youngest son Matthew, a nursing student in Louisiana, made his testimony especially meaningful to me. That these people, so gifted and so busy with their own lives, felt called to serve beside us at Hebron gave me a renewed sense of the importance of my own call to serve here.
EMAS offered a ministry of medicine, certainly, but their ministry of presence was just as meaningful. Writing this makes me smile because I am reminded of how much comfort and uplift those fifteen people brought in one short week. I didn’t know them on Monday, but by Friday when I heard the music drifting down the hall, I felt like I was headed to sit with family and tell them, “Thank you for today.” The only thing missing was sweet tea!
Like Paul, I say, “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel” (Philippians 1:3-5a).
Thanks for the kind words about the EMAS Canada team.
I work for EMAS Canada. Christ-centered healthcare is among our core values; is is reassuring to hear that our representatives were exemplary.
It was a such a pleasure getting to know your story and how you got to Hebron. See you soon!