Healthy pride

It's good to have a little science to reinforce the point that healthy pride is important for self-esteem. Self-abasement masquerading as humility neither dignifies the 'image of God' in us nor helps us grow as persons. The author points out that a healthy self-esteem not only spurs you on but also encourages others to esteem you more correctly - 'pride, as long as it stems from a real success and doesn't slide into know-it-all obnoxiousness or narcissism, not only pushes us to keep trying hard but actually makes others like us more..'

In short, let's bin self-flagellating false modesty and be real so that others can also relate to the real you.

If you are in the habit of self-devaluation, it may be helpful to do a little reality check from time to time. Ask yourself:
1. Have I received any words of appreciation or approval recently?
2. Did I display some virtue recently?
3. Did I perform some job with particular competence?
4. Has someone commented about something attractive in me?
5. What do I know from religious scripture about God's love for me?

Feeling proud makes people more dominant and likable in social tasks

Think back to the last time that you beat a friend at a card game or outdid your previous record in a 5K race. Did you try to suppress your satisfaction so that others wouldn't think you were conceited? In fact, new research suggests that pride, as long as it stems from a real success and doesn't slide into know-it-all obnoxiousness or narcissism, not only pushes us to keep trying hard but actually makes others like us more.

"Contrary to the idea that pride is an emotion that we should tamp down, the experience of pride can be very socially adaptive," says Lisa Williams, a graduate student in psychology at Northeastern University and the new study's lead author. She and Northeastern psychologist David DeSteno found that people who were told they had excelled on a spatial rotation task subsequently took more control over a similar, team-based task, regardless of their mood or how competent they reported feeling. Both teammates and outside observers rated proud participants as more dominant and as more likable than participants who had not been tricked into feeling proud.

The study did not examine the signals proud people send that make others like them, but other research has shown that feeling pleased with yourself tends to change a person's subtle nonverbal behaviors — for example, triggering more smiling or a more confident posture.

Carpenter, Siri
Scientific American Mind; 2009, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p9

Dont talk about it

Now we know for sure sitting around and complaining never helped anyone. There's a difference between ventilating (to get it off your chest) and ruminating (going on and on to reinforce the excuse for inaction.) This is the very reason I avoid inter-collegiate bitch sessions or meet-the-VIP forums. Nothing positive ever comes out of these; if anything they concretize the negativity and lead to more depression as this little study featured in Sci Am Mind shows.

Too much chat about their problems may lead middle school-age girls into depression, according to a recent study at Stony Brook University. Past research indicates that girls are more likely than boys are to co-ruminate, repeatedly discussing difficulties with friends, speculating about causes and excessively dwelling on negative emotions. In the new study, psychologists confirmed that girls who co-ruminate more often than their peers have more depressive symptoms. They also found a new link with romantic experience: co-rumination was most likely to result in depressive symptoms among girls who were most active romantically.

Scientific American Mind; 2009, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p7

Close calls count

If GAME OVER happens very close to my high score, I just have to play again. Doesn't matter if it takes me ages to reach that level and it's past midnight. Addiction? Maybe. Sci Am Mind features a study that shows we are wired that way; fascinatingly, to keep us breaking our own ceiilings. I realise I choose subjects, projects and sports that have high potential for discovery and pushing limits. Now I know why.

To our brain, a near miss is as good as a win

Close but no cigar, the saying goes. But new research shows that when it comes to gambling, the human brain seems to take a very different approach. In our head, near misses, such as a lottery ticket just one number away from the jackpot, are interpreted as wins.

Using functional MRI, Luke Clark of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues looked at the brains of 15 volunteers who were playing a computerized slot machine. Unsurprisingly, wins activated the players' reward system, whereas complete misses did not. When the wheel stopped just one position from the pay line, however, the reward system of volunteers' brains got excited the same way it did after a win — there was much activity in the striatum and the insula, areas involved in reinforcing behavior with positive feedback.

This type of reinforcement makes sense in behaviors that involve actual skill, such as target shooting, because a sense of reward provides encouragement to keep practicing, Clark says. "A near miss in a game of chance doesn't mean that you are getting better," he notes, yet it seems that the brain mistakenly activates the same type of reinforcement learning system in these situations.

The findings expose the underpinnings of gambling addiction, according to Clark. Even though all volunteers were nongamblers, those whose brain showed a greater response in the scanner also reported feeling more desire to continue trying after near misses. Excessive recruitment of these reward areas, therefore, may be a risk factor for compulsive gambling, Clark says.

Scientific American Mind; 2009, Vol. 20 Issue 4, p6.

Number of obese growing bigger

Malaysians had also grown accustomed to an affluent lifestyle, and were more comfortable sitting at home and watching television or being in front of the computer, instead of enjoying the outdoors.

..so says our YB The Health Minister who admits to being obese himself.

The point of my last post exactly! Now you can be in front of the computer as long as you like, and the longer the better. I've just done 15km on my bike just reading the Star and chatting with a couple of friends.

And, as promised, I found a pine-wood plank to put up on the handles, as pictured below. So now the mouse can go on and I have full PC control.


NEXT: The brackets and screw or maybe velcro to immobilise the tray.

STEMLIE??

Medicine Malaysia alerted that a particular cord blood banking company in Malaysia is facing serious allegations of malpractice. I'm wondering if any serious investigation is being undertaken or if this is just an internet hoax or company war.

Ethan's cord blood is being stored at one of these companies (though not the one alleged). If one of these companies (supposedly the pioneer and most reputable one) is guilty of such horrific practices (read 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Use Co. X) one has to wonder if any of these companies are properly accredited.

Another reason to stand up against corruption wherever it is found. Bangladeshis are trapped by the thousands, flyover bridges collapse over your head, murders go on unsolved, and tainted cord blood is stored for future reinfection?! God have mercy on us all.

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The Disk Arrived

Today I am the happiest man.

I have waited 3 weeks, and it has arrived. I palpitated thinking of it. I moaned waiting for it. I lost sleep wondering what it would be like to hold it in my hands. And today I have it. The best 400 bucks I've spent in a long time for the wealthiest resource I could own in one disk.

The IVP Essential Reference Collection.

I need no longer scrounge around others' libraries and look longingly at their volumes. I don't have to wait for that once a week visit to a pastor's office to thumb his New Dictionary of Biblical Theology or hang around SU bookstore to get free reads. Now I have it under my fingertips (not at), under, in my laptop.

My favorite of the 25 titles here must be the Biblical Theology dictionary and possibly the background commentaries for New and Old Testament. I'm awed by these works and can imagine how much more enriched will be my studies and meditations on Christian Scripture and the history of Christian Thought.

I am a happy man indeed! Back to the books I go.

Another team goes!

Another team has gone.



This time, with some dear friends of ours in that team.

We had seen them from the signing up, briefings, talked them through their fears and doubts and prayed with them. Today, seeing them raring to go at the airport was wonderful.

And heartbreaking.

Partly because we are not going. Partly because we're going to miss them. It was hard to do the necessary distancing and allow the new team to catch their own wind.

Back home, we think of the adventure they will have, the children they will bless - and we're happy. Our prayers go with them.

Critical conditions in Pakistan

The situation has turned critical for quake-hit victims in Pakistan in the last week.



United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
reports that thick snow is falling, roads are cut off, children are dying,
and tents are no longer adequate. It seems like a panic effort to
bring in tin sheets are now futile.

Please keep praying for the people and aid workers, and if you or
anyone you know might be able to volunteer for a short trip please
contact CREST or myself. There are several tonnes of winter clothing
and insulation material here in KL waiting to be dispatched, and CREST
badly needs a medic to go with them to access the villages.

Pakistan Mission Log Index

The Pakistan Mission Log

Day 1 - Islamabad
Day 2 - Bannu
Day 3 - Bannu
Day 4 - Bannu
Day 5 - Bannu
Day 6 - Bannu
Day 7 - Balakot
Day 9 - Amlok Bande
Day 10 - Harori Bala
Day 11 - Nogram
Day 12 - Sharka Bala
Closure

Pakistan last days

Salam. Kya Hal He?

I am writing from the comfort of home. There wasn’t any time at all in the last 2 days to sit and write.

We did our last village trip on Thursday, going to Battal town itself. The destruction there was massive. I think I mentioned before that we saw innumerable houses on all the slopes and up to as far as the eye can see up the peaks. And many of them are either flattened are half rubble. The place we setup clinic was one such home whose wall had fallen off. I ran my ‘open concept clinic’ with a chilly draft blowing in! Imagine the countless homeless, already living in sub-zero temperatures now. Many have tents but not all have insulation sheets (the blue sheets you see on some of the tents).



I mustered the courage to pray for a few patients on that last day, and am I glad I did. The people are entirely open to prayer and will say ‘Amin’ with us at the end. And I’ve not felt God's presence in praying for a sick person so strongly like I did up there.

We were all euphoric at the end of that day, and drove back with an overflowing sense of joy and relief, mixed with some sadness for leaving the people behind us. But we remember that the little we’ve done, though it feels like salt in the sea, were our 2 loaves and fishes for God to use. I spent the entire night going through all our medications, classifiying them, boxing them up for the next team to use.


Friday morning we slept in late. We could breathe again and not worry about getting enough sleep, buying drugs, and getting out in time to make it to the mountains and back by nightfall. It was a much needed time for us all to relax and share our stories. Bonds that have formed between team members, Malaysian, Pakistani, British and African are deep and forever. Joan and I both reflected on how we’ve left halve our hearts in Pakistan, and we’ll never be the same again after what we’ve seen and done. We got to see a bit of Abbottabad town and did some shopping. I got a whole bag of every variety of tea from Afghanistan to Kashmir, so anyone who comes visit us can have a cup or even a bag of tea while stocks last.

We reached the airport on time and found the bag we had lost on the first day at Karachi. This time, we got hell in the airports (Islamabad and Karachi.) Two of our team members’ confirmation had mysteriously ‘disappeared’ and they had to be put on standby! We were given the runaround all over the airport for a mistake of their ticketing office’s. Then again and again we were harassed by airport officials and security, wanting to go through our things, body search us, detain us at security posts, etc. It was highly frustrating and disappointing. Even when we produced embassy letters and credentials, they continued to harass us – where are your names on the letter?, where is your official tag? It was a sad day for Pakistan. Then our flight was delayed another two hours. We took off at about 130am (430am Malaysian.)

Thank God though the 4-seater middle aisle seats were mostly empty and we each grabbed a row each to sleep. I took some time to finish my reports and reflections from Islamabad to Karachi, and slept all the way back from Karachi to KL. All my suppressed anxiety about getting home surfaced in nightmares! In one – I dreamt we landed in a dark, musty place, and when I left the airport, there was a solitary neon sign that read – ‘Abbotabad’. I woke up in cold sweat. The second – again, we arrived in strange airport, though in day time, with brick and clay shops. And then a bearded man and scarved woman approaches me and asks ‘Do you want chay (tea)?’. I almost died.

What a relief it was for us to reach KLIA. I could’ve kissed the ground we were walking on. Joan meeting us at the airport was a sight for sore eyes. And she brought me coffee! I am home.

Our hearts and minds have been stretched beyond our wildest imagination. We have been inspired, moved and humbled by the love, hospitality and passion of people we have met there. We have learnt and been blessed far more than we have ever given. We will never see life the same way again. We pray this small step we’ve made is a first in a new direction that God wants to take us on our spiritual journey, and there is no looking back.

To anyone reading this and wondering, ‘I wish I could do something like that’, I have to say – you can, and you should. There is no regretting it. But when the time comes when you just ‘have to do it’, you will know. And if you wonder if you have what it takes, I must absolutely say, no, none of us do, and yes, what you are is what God will use. It is our inadequacy that makes us instruments for God’s grace and power to shine through.

Thank you all for following us on this journey. For praying for us so faithfully. We would never have survived the many dangers, trials and challenges without you.

Please keep praying for the peoples and volunteers in Pakistan. They are still homeless and cold. The race against time is getting closer and workers are still breaking their backs out there on the treacherous slopes. Every little bit we can do will count. I will update you in time on how you can help.

Kuthan Apko Berkat De (God Bless You).

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Pakistan Day 12

Today was the 2nd last village trip and day 12 of my trip to Pakistan.
To be honest, I'm quite homesick and missing Char Kuay Teow, Bak Kut Teh and Hokkien Mee. Even a bowl of maggi mee would be fantastic right now. One more Naan and I'm going to crack up. Ok.. just some griping.

We were at Sharka Bala village today, again nearby Battal. I saw another 70+ patients and did quite a bit of deworming.


I've been reflecting on lessons learnt on this trip.

One thing that's helped much was learning the language. We got ourselves 'The Rough Guide to Hindi and Urdu' and learnt some key phrases on the flight here. Even with translators, when we ask the questions ourselves, it brings you a lot closer to the people.

I've learnt to say:

'Salam' - Hello
'Kya Hal He' - How do you do?
'Kya Taklife?' - What is your problem?
'Umer?' - Age?
'Dard?' (pointing to part of body) - Pain?
'Pani?' (pointing) - Discharge?
'Shukriya' - Thank you
'Kudhan apko berkat de' - God bless you

The most hilarious thing happened on our 2nd trip out. I started asking the patient questions in Urdu, and my translator, by reflex, translated into English for me! I asked, 'Umer?' and he asked the patient, 'How old are you?' I burst out laughing and almost fell off my chair. Today, I could almost go on seeing patients without my translator. Funniest thing was I started writing my notes in Urdu! I wrote for one patient - c/o - cough, nazlak, bukhare...... oops

Our 8-seater vehicle has been dubbed 'Chariot of God'. If you've seen the terrain here you'll understand. Our van has to climb slopes and terraces you would never have believed could be negotiated by any 4 wheeled vehicle. Two men will run out ahead of the vehicle, throwing off rocks and signaling to the driver to avoid holes, while two others hang on to the back of the vehicle to balance the weight and lay rocks behind the wheel whenever it gets stuck. This is a mountain cross-country in extremis.

We've met many lovely and friendly people here. People on the street will stare at us suspiciously until we smile or say 'Salam' to them. Invariably smiles break out and people will shake our hands and hug us in receptivity. They are thrilled that we have come from Malaysia. I have received many gifts from sundry store keepers - matches, razor blades - refusing to be paid. Chay (milk-tea) is standard hospitality and is hard to refuse. The people feel very rejected when you say no, I've eaten.

Children here are absolutely adorable, green-eyed, red-cheeks, and bubbling with excitement. The third village we visited had been entered before by another medical team. Which was followed by tent distribution work, and subsequently children's ministry. So when we were there, we were pleasantly surprised when the kids ran out with our van and started singing Sunday School songs... something about "Jonah, Jonah, in the belly of the fish..."

God has been absoulutely faithful in opening the way for us to enter villages, taking care of our travels and vehicle, and our health and well-being throughout. Thank you again for your prayers and I look forward to come home and talking to you with the photos on my cam.

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Pakistan Day 11

Today's village trip was extremely challenging. A small place near Battal, (Nogram) sited on a high terrace, the trail into the village was menacing and impossible to drive through but somehow, with some amazing skill on the driver's part, guidance from our guys, and a lot of pushing and laying of rocks in the right places we managed to get in.


We worked in very cramped quarters, again the women's team in a tent, and myself on a chair & table next to some donkeys! Saw 70 patients quickly and then made a hike up the mountain to see a debilitated patient trapped at the peak. This was the most challenging house-call I've ever made! Me and my translator (boh of us rather hefty, and wheezing up) trekked some 20 minutes up steep slopes until the clinic-tent was a blue spot in the landscape. The ruins that greeted us there was also humbling.


We've become quite efficient at what we do and managed to clear the village sick in three hours, making it back to Abottabad early this time. Thank God.

Hope to rest well tonight.

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Pakistan Day 10

We travelled some 3 hours to a village called Harori Bala by the Battal river. The terrain was challenging but cleverly maneuvred by our driver Sober.


The drive is always punctuated by torn houses and rubble that indicate what were once homes. I learnt that 50% of the homes have been destroyed completely - mostly mud huts - and the ones we see are the stone/brick ones that have survived. Only tents remain as protection against the winter. Temperatures are sub-zero here at night.


With a little more experience, we were faster in setting up. Quickly we set apart one tent for the women - seen by Ruth (a midwife from UK) and Faith (from Nigeria). I on the other hand saw all the men and some children at my 'clinic' - one table in the open air. Warmed by the noonday sun, the icy cold winds weren't that bad. As we worked, Wolf choppers would fly by ever so often, as eagles also circled above.


I saw some 66 patients while the other team saw 30+. OPD and Sarawak longhouse experience is proving useful here! This village seemed to have a little better standards of hygiene and sanitation. But as you can see from some of the photos - skin infections are bad. One infant I saw was bloated with worms, bleeding per rectally and eating soil.


After the long day's work, we were treated to some late lunch in a home that had a fireplace. We made good friends, gave thanks for our food and ate. Subsequently the men performed their Asar prayers just next to us.

Returning to Abottabad at about 8pm, we hastily headed for the local pharmacies to stock up for the next few days. I almost froze in the night chill.


To be honest, the first village trip was hard for me as I was very tired and nauseous from the journey. The second day was better since I ate less in the morning, slept on the way up, and spent much time meditating on the Scripture: 'Even though the mountains be removed and the hills be shaken, my covenant peace will no be removed and my unfailing love will not be shaken'. It was a promise both for the people who have literally seen mountains shake and hills stripped, as well as source of strength for me. Without the Lord's love, we have no love to give.

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Pakistan Day 9

Our team of 9 travelled 4hrs from Abbotabad to Amlok Bande, a small mountainside village north of Batgram. Surrounded by snow-laced peaks and terraced slopes, the view was breath-taking.



Seeing the many brick or clay homes reduced to rubble, on the way up, was sobering.


But nothing prepared me for the scale of infectious diseases I would see at the village. In our hastily put-together clinic, dispensary and surgery, we saw 100+ patients and did some dressings. Many patients needed better health care but being in an inaccessible area, and hospitals being completely unaffordable to the impoverished, I felt particularly helpless. Not being able to do more with our very basic medications was very distressing for me at first. But it's where I'm learning what doing your best and letting God do the rest means.


The driving plus work is particularly exhausting. This morning we tried to spend some time remembering 'Even if the mountains are shaken and hills are removed, my covenant peace will not be shaken and my unfailing love will not be removed' speaks to the people (who have seen literally mountains shaken and hills stripped down), and to us who can only give if we are ourselves overflowing with His love.


Night temperature is 5C but bearable. We have indoor heating. There have been no aftershocks so far.

Thank you again for your prayers that are holding us up. We are all small instruments in His greater work. May our work be a sweet sacrifice to Him.

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Pakistan Day 7

Leave for Abbotabad on an express bus at 4am.


Super breakfast spread of Puris, Prathas, Naans, and the srcrumptious chick-pea dhal.


Take a car to Balakot. Visited a large medical camp run jointly by Diocese of Peshawar, Hospital Christian Fellowship Pakistan, Norwegian, and Military. Huge number of tents, a tent hospital under construction. Preparing for the winter crisis. Medical coordinator Dr David wonders if they are doing the right thing, setting up a hospital rather than going out to the unreached villages who will soon be engulfed by the winter blizzards. Temperatures are already subzero at night here.


Joan gets really close to the children there who wouldn’t let her leave.


Large number of relief camps on the road alongside Kunhar river by various organizations.


Visited APMA (Alliance of Pakistan Minority) camps who provides shelter and education to children.

Reached ground zero, Balakot. Destruction is staggering. Can only wonder what people were feeling in the buildings when everything came down. Hundreds of men working against time to break down old structures and rebuild.




Rush Joan from Balakot to Islamabad, slam jam into a traffic gridlock there. Checks in by the skin of her teeth, without her luggage (still in Rawalpindi hotel room).

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Pakistan Day 6

Chapel service – Faith prays for healing for the staff and commissions them to heal others.

I share a farewell message on behalf of the team.

The staff organizes a march for World AIDS day, followed by some talks joined in by patients/relatives.



Thought I would close the clinic, but swamped by last-minute patients, so kept on seeing patients way past our departure time.

Was very saddened that I had to pick up so many cases only to tell them I cannot stay to operate for them.

Spoke to daughter of the patient I operated on. A premed student who had to give up her dream of doing medicine because of lack of funds, and no scholarships available for Christians like her.

Left for Rawalpindi at 3pm and arrived at 8pm+.

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Pakistan Day 5

Holy communion in chapel service. How definitive of the work here – a people blessed by God, broken to be given freely to the people of Bannu.

Taken on a trip to the Mission School of Bannu. Astounding setup and education provided. Students I met speak impeccable English in this illiterate Pashtun community. What a stark contradistinction – computer labs (funded by Finnish government) within the walls, and donkey carts outside. A place that will produce many visionaries and leaders, doubtless.

Giggly girls at recess


Students range from preschool to mustached young men

Performed a polypectomy for one lady whose nose was completely packed with massive nasal polyposis. Anesthetic technician gasses her with Halothane, tubed, no monitors, no capnograph. Just a hand on the pulse and another squeezing the bag while I operated!


Went on an escorted trip around Bannu town, finally. We are not allowed outside the hospital without escorts – in fear of Taliban or Al-Qaeda kidnappers. A trip back in time by a few centuries. Total chaos and confusion. A wonderful mess indeed..


At night – Joan has to transfer a child to the military hospital for respiratory distress. A child with congenital heart disease, pneumonia, and plummeting oxygen sats. We arrive at the military hospital only to learn that they have no ventilators as well. Not there, not in the whole of Bannu!! Amazingly, on hearing that, the child decides to get better and start playing with us cheekily. These Pashtun are made of steel.


The rascal!

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Pakistan Day 4

Chapel service – Faith preaches about God providing all our needs.

OPD is even busier today. Word has spread in Bannu town that there is visiting ENT and Paediatrician, so they are all coming in. Every man looks like a Taliban or Mujahideen who could run me down with a camel or riddle me with bullets. The women look like walking fortresses in their Burqas. What false preconceptions we harbour. Instead they are humble, beautiful and loving people as vulnerable and needful as any other people in the world. I am greatly humbled to be able to perform a myringotomy for one such man who is afflicted by a sleep-depriving tinnitus. What a thrill that was.

I can hear!


Sister Alice

Had tea with Sister Alice. She is the prayer woman of the hospital. Story is she was once a nurse as a young girl in the old mission hospital. Recently she was admitted in the new hospital with status asthmaticus. When she got better she was called by the nurses who recognized her to pray with them and soon she was invited to join the staff as a prayer woman. Now she goes around the hospital daily praying for all the patients and staff. It’s amazing when she comes into the OPD and starts praying there in Pashtun in full view of the patients (who, also amazingly, do not find it offensive but will bow humbly in prayer also.)

Some facts I learnt about Pennel Memorial Christian Hospital:
- first setup by Dr. Pennel 150yrs ago, a British missionary who walked among the people in Pashtun garb, and spoke fluent Pashtun. Story is after he died, a man blinded by cataracts asked to be operated by Dr Pennel. But upon learning that Pennel had departed, he said, ‘If Dr Pennel is alive, I want to be operated on by him, but if he is no longer with us, I have no need for vision.’
- The mission hospital has been defunct for 50 years
- Reconstructed over the old hospital 2 years ago with funds from Diocese of Peshawar (Anglican), government grant and Finnish support
- Now self-supported, patients are charged minimal sum for consultation/drugs/surgery
- 600,000 rupees monthly expenses, in gross deficit every month
- 4 doctors, 67 ancillary staff consisting nurses, lab technicians, translators and other workers. Visiting dentist (Reginald’s wife) and ophthalmologist (Reginald’s brother.)
- 50 bedder
- Active outreach work to remote villages in Bannu to provide vaccination and to ‘collect’ patients in need of hospitalization
- Many services not available have to be ‘contracted’ out to private labs, or to Peshawar
- 2 other hospitals in Bannu: one military hospital not accessible to civilians, and one government hospital which is in even worse shape


Doctors at work - Reginald, Faith, Joan, Julia (from Kazakhstan)


The 2 o'clock Lord's prayer in the foyer


The guard who keeps us safe from unwanted intruders, and keeps us from going out without permission!

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Pakistan Day 3

Day starts with chapel service in basement of hospital. 8am sharp, music of tabla and harmonium and voices in Urdu praise wafts through the hospital like a sweet fragrance.


Faith, who is pastor of a church in Nigeria, preaches the prayer of Jabez.

Did our rounds after breakfast of Prathas and eggs and the traditional Chay (milk-tea). Lots of TB and Malaria and an assortment of Reginald’s surgical cases.


Profile: Dr Reginald is a surgeon who had worked some 15 years in Tank Mission Hospital. He has a reputation of performing 15-20 surgeries a day, and a record holder of 31 a day! (We have witnessed him finishing a vaginal hysterectomy in 30 minutes!). He had been in private practice in Hyderabad for some years before the Diocese of Peshawar called him to setup the Bannu Mission Hospital 2 years ago. He left the lucrative practice to startup this work.

Met Rev Altaf – priest of the Anglican church in Bannu. Tells us there are 300 Christian families in whole of Bannu. Very oppressed and restricted work in this Muslim fundamentalist state ruled by MMA (our version of PAS).

Ran our OPDs – Joan saw all the children, and I saw ENT patients. My self-designed portable endoscope light source gave trouble at first but once working, worked full steam. OPD is 9am to 2pm, then 5pm to 8pm. 2-5pm is surgery time.



Prayer meeting at 8pm in the home of one of the staff. Heavenly Urdu singing accompanied by Dr Reginald on the harmonium. Faith shares about spiritual warfare.


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