S1E2 African Samaritan

In this episode, Lee discusses the challenges of serving in a remote African village and becoming sick himself. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're a first responder, you know the chaos that comes with answering the call. Join Lee and Pat now as they share another story of resilience, process the heavy burdens of profession, and rediscover the divine purpose behind the badge and the uniform. It's time to move beyond just surviving the shift. It's time to find peace in the pressure and faith in the chaos.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hey everybody, welcome back. This is Answering the Call. This is a podcast by Lee Whitman and Pat Patterson. It's something that we feel God inspired us to do. And we're just excited to be here today. Lee, today we're going to be talking about one of your favorite topics, man. We're going to talk about Africa. I know. And you know, you you've had so many stories from that place, but I want to talk today a little bit about some of your understanding of the challenges and pitfalls of of building an EMS system in a place where they have not only no EMS at all, but no it no care whatsoever. Yeah, in some places, absolutely no care what whatsoever, especially where I came from. Out in the bush. Yeah, yeah. And so uh tell us a little bit, first of all, about where you came from. You said uh what part of Africa were you in and what got you over there to begin with?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Well, you know, early on in as I was um in in high school is really where I kind of caught a little bit of a bug. Not really Africa, but it was more about um service, um service to others, um being that good Samaritan. Um for me, the story in Luke of the Good Samaritan um really uh highlighted to me what a neighbor is and what how we should be Christ-like to others. I think that's kind of the big focus.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Tell me just a little bit about the Good Samaritan story you said in the Gospel of Luke. Yes. I mean I know the story, but can you get to do a real quick rehash of that?

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, yeah. So um I I've been using this in my EMS classes, my paramedic courses on the first day of class. And I'm I I use it because it's not only a biblical story, it's also a state law and and and a law that has been adopted um across the United States to protect people. It's called the Good Samaritan. In Luke, there's a story where um Christ is explaining to people what is to be a good neighbor. And and during this story, there is a man who was beaten and robbed and and and left for dead in the street. And um we see that all the time. And I use this on my first day of paramedic school because it it's an analogy of really the earliest EMS call that you can that you can see. So as I tell this story, think of in context of an EMS call from beginning to end. So the man's beat up in the left in the street, and um and like in today's um culture, many people are gonna walk away.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I mean, we're talking two thousand years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, you know, before they had cell phones, right? I mean, I think now with you know, if that same person was laying in the street, I think you'd probably have a couple dozen cell phones hanging out and just watching this poor man die in the street, and to see if anybody is gonna react to it, right? Um, you know, the the religious leaders of the day, people who thought they were important, not only just walk by this person, but made an effort to walk by them, crossed the street, moved away, went far away from a person who's dying because they for whatever reason it may be. It could be fear, it could be confusion, not knowing what to do. But there was a person, and that was the good Samaritan. And Samaritans at the time were not looked kindly on from the from the from the Jewish people of the day. Um they were kind of outcasts. But this particular Samaritan um found pity on this person who was who was who was robbed and left for dead. Um he went to them, he assessed them, and then started to bandage his wounds. This is exactly what we would expect for a first responder to do today. Those are the people who are gonna step forward during the emergency instead of staying back. And and that's really I think the revealing part to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So let's let's bring if so in America today, we have first responders, we have EMS, and even if one of everybody's videoing this, somebody's gonna call 911, and we're gonna have help in a few minutes. What about in the Bush of Africa? Well, y you know, there are ways and I'm assuming this guy is bleeding, okay, because they said he bandaged his wounds.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Yeah, well, let me finish the story first on that, and then I'll I'll explain that because it is complicated, you know, when you don't have those accesses. So as on that story, so that he's he's he's beaten, left to die, and the Sumerian shows pity as a as a good neighbor and starts to provide care. Whatever he can with the materials that he has. So he bandages the wound, um, uses his his his oil and and his bandages, and then he packages them up for transport. And and do you remember what he transports them on? Uh a donkey. A donkey, right? So in my analogy, that is the first transport. That's the first ambulance, if you would, right? So he's putting them onto a donkey to transport them to where?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Well, he took him to a local tavern or something. It's an inn, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:02

So place this but really, if in my analogy, this is the hospital, right? So now we have this kind of continuity of care that's moving forward. And he talks to the innkeeper. It's kind of like the hospital administrator, or maybe even the ER physician, that he's transferring that information over to. And then he asks him to take care of him while he goes away, and in my analogy, he runs another call. Um at what and then promises he'll come back and pay for anything that this man needs. So this is kind of for me the the starting point for the analogy for me of driving um for that to go through. You know.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

So it's an interesting analogy, Lee, because I've always looked at you as a good Samaritan type person. I mean, people listening this probably don't know you like I do. Uh you are the kind of person who will go out of your way to help people. Okay? Not everybody can say that about their friends.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. No, we see that in in in the culture, and uh it's it's something that I think in my life it's purposeful, right? I mean it it's it's a it's a conscious decision that I I want to be that good neighbor. I want to be Christ-like, right? Right, okay. And I think that's really the starting point. In the United States, in North Carolina, throughout the United States, we have Good Samaritan law. So that's how I tie it back in. The purpose of the Good Samaritan law is to protect people who want to help from any litigation if there was something that goes wrong. So for instance, that there was a car accident here um later today, and then and we had to go and help. Um the law would Good Samaritan law would protect us that if something were to go awry during that, as long as we had good intent and showing that we're trying to do our best, then we can't be held liable. And and before that, that these were all initiated back in the 1970s. And prior to that, and physicians and nurses were afraid to stop because they would be afraid of losing their licensures. So this is a practical way of doing this.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

You know, so now how does that kind of um kind of tie into this whole Africa thing, you know? Well, um as a Peace Corps volunteer, I I I I um I I I told this a little bit of a story about my friend Chad who who broke his neck right before um um we graduated. And um it that was kind of uh for me a burning bush moment. One, it told me that I how I handle emergency situations. So I know what my my physiological response would be when it kind of hits the fan, right? Especially in a setting of of a good friend. And I knew at that point I couldn't handle that situation with not a whole lot of training. But I I at that point I wasn't thinking EMS. I I graduated college and um and eventually um it was a lifelong goal to sign up for the the U.S. Peace Corps. I felt a um a desire to want to serve my country as a young person, and um the military was not really kind of my wheelhouse. Um for me it was a little bit different, probably a little more hippie-ish. So the U.S. the the U.S. Um Peace Corps is actually a federally funded program through the U.S. State Department. Um most of the people who work there um are coming out of colleges with different professional degrees, and then they're used to send it to communities that are developing around the world as support and and and really showing Americans in a in a setting where they can help building up other communities while building bridges of friendship between us. This is the perfect setup for Samaritan, right? Um, so I that's what I did. I signed up for the US Peace Corps. Um I was in 1988. I was super excited I got accepted. It was difficult to get in. At the time, it was one in 45 applications they were accepting. So I was super excited about um the opportunity to go over and serve. And um, so it wasn't really Africa per se that I was going to see. Uh it was for me, it was I think an kind of a divine appointment that that's the reason why I was so excited about Africa because I felt like God was leading me to Africa.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

I've heard a little bit of your story about that time, and you got really violently ill over there, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah, you know, I I when I first got there, we we trained for a few months, and um and then I was sent off to my village in a small village of of Guru, where I by by de facto I found what what nation is that in? It's in Ghana on the west coast of Africa. Yeah. And um, in my small village, there was no running water, no electricity, um no paved roads. I lived in a mud hut. Um I had an outhouse for a bathroom, and this was a two-year commitment. And so it was a very rural, very tough living environment. There's no packaged foods, no processed or clean water, or things like that. So these were things that um that made it more difficult. Um I started working with a mobile healthcare unit. Um, we had a child mortality rate in my village of 45 percent. You're kidding. 45 percent. Number one cause of death was from dehydration from GI um disorders. Just simple.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

No clean water.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Simple, right? And and if this was in the United States, you could get a line, get some fluids, make sure your electrolyte you're good, and probably be sent home in a day or two, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

You know, you you if I interrupt for a second, you and I have been in Ethiopia several times on medical missions. One thing I've noticed today is that there's unlimited bottled water now.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

So do you think it's the same in a small village like Garou that they would have bottled water?

SPEAKER_02 10:18

The bottled water is very expensive. And if you're if you're a subsistence farmer living in a rural African village, bottled water is not an option. And so today it still could be a high mortality rate for children. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, now there are some things in that village that I was at before that have improved. They do have electricity, they have running water, and they have a hospital in that small village that all those years ago that I was at. But you're uh the type of hospital they have there is nowhere near the type of hospital that you're no, but you're at least you're having uh access to some type of health care, you know. Or an ability to get you out if they have to. But this makes it difficult. You know, as a as an outsider coming into a community like that, I have a lot of support. I had the support of the U.S. government behind me. If I get sick, someone's gonna come and rescue me.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Now, that's what happened, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Kind of, yeah. So what happened to me was I'm about halfway through my Peace Corps tour, I um and I I get sick one day, and I I could feel it coming on. It and it was early malaria, is what it is. And malaria is tough. I mean, it's it's it's survivable, it's treatable, it's it's you're sick, but you're gonna get over it if you get the right treatment options. So I I felt for a week I was getting sick, and then it was a week of being really sick with malaria, and and being sick means you're having fevers that are cycling two or three times a day, maximized. I I had fevers over 105. Okay. Um and so I I was really sick, delusional, hallucinating at times. Um and then I it was the longest I've ever gone without eating food, which was five days, and um, which by the time I started feeling hungry again, I was really hungry, and um it was an issue. And um I started feeling better, and then I turned around again. It started getting worse. And it was, I thought I was getting uh I thought I was having a relapse of the malaria, but it was different. And I guess got really, really sick. And we didn't know what it was at the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

At some point, did you actually like tap out and call for help?

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah, so I living in in uh Guru in in 1988, no running water electricity, that means no phones, right? So I couldn't even call for help. Now, on a side note, you asked before, how how do you get someone to help you, right? If if you're in need, how do you get help? Well, this is how basic it was back then. If there was an emergency, like a big emergency, like let's say there was a fire in the village.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Or someone dying of malaria.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Whatever was something that there was an urgent emergency for the community. They had a small um cannon in the center of town. A cannon. A cannon, it's a small one, not very big. And and you'd run to the cannon and light it off, and when it exploded, it was noticed that there's an emergency, come to the center town center and help, right? So if you needed, if you needed a fire crew, set off the cannon and everybody comes and is going to start helping you out, right? So I mean that's how basic it was. Um we had an ambulance in our community, and I I worked um in a mobile clinic, and there's no physicians, but we were working primarily with um trying to keep um children hydrated who were in threat of dying, so they're very small children. Uh but we had an often where we'd have to send an ambulance, we called it, from the town of Guru up to Boku, which is a larger town with a with a hospital in it. But this this ambulance was all it was was a small Toyota pickup truck. And literally they throw you in the back, and it was no paved road, so it was like the most miserable ride you can possibly have, right? Um and that's the problem I had. Here I am sick. I can't travel like that. I have to pay take public transport. I can't call ahead and say help. Right? Um, so what ended up happening with me was um the people in my village started taking care of me.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Oh, they were the good Samaritan.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

They were the good, and that's where the switch, I think, for me turned, right? Is that that motivated me to want to go back to improve things because I experienced what it would be like to have an emergency in a rural developing country.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Okay, so you're back in the United States now, and and how long did it take for you to do?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Well, no, none yet. I was I was I had to get to the Capitol. So I was a three-day travel on public transport just to get to the Capitol. So what I did is as soon as my fevers broke, after I was two, three weeks into this whole thing, my fever started breaking, and um what I did is I packed up my stuff, whatever I could, just to, you know, and I and I went to find the closest Peace Corps volunteer I can find. And that's what I did is I went up to Boku and um some friends of mine, some volunteers were there, and I just got to them and said, I need help.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

And that started this chain reaction. Okay. So now they contacted the Peace Corps, the the people who were in charge of the upper region. They it took a day to get to that to that next Tamaly, which is a large town, and then I was starting now to be kind of they're starting to figure out this is all right, this is serious, we need to get this guy out of here. And then they flew me from Tamaly back to Accra, which is the capital of Ghana. And um and it that was a very surreal experience. I'm sick, I've been in the bush for months and months, and now I'm going straight back to the the you know international airport in the capital. Well, you know, as a foreigner, you know, they think I'm just getting off the plane, right? I'm but I'm not. I'm I'm I'm getting I'm coming from a rural village sick. And um and it was difficult. I I finally got to the Peace Corps uh medical hut and I spent the next two months in the medical hut while over there while they try to figure out what was going on with me. Um they had they were testing me for everything. This is 80s, they were testing me for HIV, um, all kinds of things that that they thought I could have been exposed to. But they still couldn't find it. Rheumatic fever can be very difficult to diagnose.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So I'm assuming you healed up to a certain extent, and then they shipped you back to your United States and where you got further treatment and healed completely. And that's about the time I met you, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yeah, well, it a little bit before. So I I flew back and um I went to John Hopkins and I was evaluated there. Okay. Yeah, and um they um they kind of gave me the diagnosis of first malaria, then rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever, and they believed that it was secondary to a strep uh throat. Now, my first thought was strep throat in the middle of Africa? You know, you you don't really think about that, but but that's what it used to be like that in the United States. People used to get rheumatic fever all the time in the United States. And some of the problems with that is it can cause some problems with your heart. It can cause damage to the mitral valve. Um, I had a small amount of regurgitation as a result of it. I had some tachycardia. I had uh an inability to walk for two months. Um I couldn't walk because my joints were so tightened up and the pain within my joints were really bad at the time. So I I was to state this is an understatement, but I was devastated. Um I this was something that was my goal in life, was I wanted to do this. This is something that I was really uh motivated to do. I had a passion for this. Um I believed in it, what the type of work this is doing. This is um uh being a representative of the United States government in a way that I loved because it's it's just about loving other people, right? We're going over there with no real agenda other than to try to make life better without just throwing a bunch of money into it.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

And so you would just assume that it was over, that your your dream was done. I'm done. I got kicked out in the middle of my service. But at some point you I was just so frustrated. Tell me about how this how did you get into EMS? Because I know you segued right from that into emergency medical service. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So I I'm I'm in the medical unit, and um and that's when I felt the call. That that's when I answered the call.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So when you were lying in the hospital bed, that's when you got the call to be a paramedic.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yes. And um and what I I realized was this is a continent without an EMS system. Think about that. Entire continent with no real access to pre-hospital medicine. Now, there there are some beginnings back in the 80s. Um, South Africa um had a fairly decent um EMS system, um, and Kenya was just starting to explore that as well. So I knew at that point that um I was going to back to the paramedic school solely for the purpose of going back to Africa, to be quite honest. I knew that I was going to use that as a career uh model learning. I know that for a fact.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Because as long as I've known you, I met you at EMS school. Yeah. Uh we were basically on the same um on the same semester program. Okay. But from the very beginning, you told me that you wanted to go back to Africa.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

That that's always been my passion. And again, it's it was so uh interesting about it. It was it's not on my own. I really knew nothing of Africa, to be quite honest. I mean, I was pretty ignorant about the continent itself, um, the people of it, the cultures. I really knew very little about it. And uh when I when I was accepted to Peace Corps, they they asked you for, I think, your top three options of where you want to go.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

What was your first?

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Well, it was on the list. It said Fiji, so I was like, uh I'll put Fiji down first one, right? I mean, but you know, I I didn't expect that I was gonna get and then I think my second was generally Africa, right? So I I I I that was that was more reasonable assignment for the Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Well it's interesting because that was the beginning of a lifelong career for you and serving people and and serving the uh the continent of Africa, because you've been back numerous times now.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Oh, it's been a absolute passion of mine. You and you've been there every step of the way with me on this. Um maybe not in person until late, but um early on, it was a driving force for me throughout my career. And and I don't think there was a single student that never heard this story.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Well before we get to your the the the return to Africa and helping them to develop an EMS system there, which is something we've been working on.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Um tell me a little bit about your EMS career and then your transition into uh becoming an educator.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah. I you know that was the kind of the real catalyst, I think. And and there's some interesting things about this whole process, some that were stumbling blocks for me, and then some that were successes. I'll explain that. Um When I first got into the EMS, um I I you know we got our first job in Durham County, and um we wanted a busy system. We wanted to learn how to do our job. And that's that's really the purpose. Well, I think at the time it was the most progressive system. Um it had uh protocols that were fairly independent. We didn't have to call a lot. I I like that kind of autonomy um that from that that's the It was a great place for us to learn to be medics, absolutely. And it was busy, uh you know, um we saw a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of shootings, but you know, these are these are things that we can learn from and then and and then take it on to the next call. So again, it builds stress, but it also builds resiliency in us, too, right? So um at the time I was as a street medic, I wasn't quite ready to go make that commitment and going back to Africa because I I wasn't ready. I was a new medic and I needed to learn how to do this job. And it really wasn't until I got a call from you and inviting me over for an interview to um to local community college that really changed it for me. Because then I can start to see now I can now bring this information to Africa. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

And you and I worked there side by side as educators for about 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah. Um it was a little more than 20 years, actually. We we were part-time for a number of years, and then I I know I was there full-time for 20 plus years.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, I was there 23, and and you were right behind me. So and we did we did a lot of shared experiences there, including a lot of simulation. Now, that's an interesting part of your story because part of your vision to bring an EMS education to Africa has been to bring simulation there.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yes. And and and and what's interesting about that is it's almost by necessity. And what I mean by that is like here in the United States, if you tell someone you're an EMT or a paramedic, they don't understand the differences between general. Population. They don't understand what is EMT, what is paramedic, how are they kind of related? I used to make the analogy a a nursing assistant is to a RN as an EMT is to a paramedic.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Or a lawyer and a paralegal.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Trevor Burrus, Yeah. I think we're probably a little bit more like a PA as a paramedic. Well, as far as. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Because independency, autonomy, and making decisions on treatment protocols. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

And the level of training. Trevor Burrus, A lot of people don't realize that paramedics are actually pretty well-trained medical personnel.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Well, the problem though is so if if we our population doesn't understand the roles and responsibilities of Africa. Or any other developing nation. Right. And matter of fact, even the kind of the international community, healthcare community, World Health Organization, you know, who, you know, all the um these kind of organizations, they don't get it either. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

And so simulation helps them to get it?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Well, that's the bridge, right? So they understand doctors and nurses over there really well. But since they don't understand the EMS aspect, stimulation is very strong in EMS. I mean, we didn't start stimulation, it really came from the military, or even more specifically, it probably came more so from aviation simulation and kind of blended into this type of simulation. And I found that was the key because that was the bridge between interprofessional. Right? So now the simulation brings in not just that paramedic and EMT, but I can bring in that doctor and I can bring in that nurse and the respiratory therapist and any other healthcare professional out there can now be assimilated into that simulated experience. And it really doesn't matter what the profession is you're working at your particular scope of practice.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

And one of the things we discussed in an earlier podcast was actually what simulation is. We're using high fidelity mannequins that have the ability for us to do anything we could do to a real patient. Yeah. Starting IVs, pushing drugs, uh electrical therapy, airway management, they can even talk to us. So uh we can run sophisticated uh scenarios uh with these mannequins that a doctor, a nurse, a paramedic, anybody could come into and work together.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Yeah, yeah. So um my first breakthrough going back after being sick, after becoming a medic, after getting to education, really became when our Fred Todd had a a need um to fix the problem. And the problem was that this um that um the country of Angola, and particularly in the in the in the capital of Luanda, um had decided that they were going to um purchase ambulances for their country and start kind of implementing an infrastructure of emergency medical services within within Luanda, Angola. So um they had purchased a couple of ambulances from one of our local um vendors that um our friends worked, Carl and Todd worked with. And um, as a result of that, um they had gotten the ambulances over there and didn't know what to do with them, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:01

They got ambulances, equipment over there, and those ambulances were packed full of supplies.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

What was funny about not them not knowing what they needed, they basically ordered one of everything, right? They ordered like one 2.5 ET tube.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

One style of shipped over these ambulances just packed full of equipment.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

So I at the at that first time I actually I I reordered what they needed and brought over maybe a half a million dollars worth of equipment with me. Um, that was the first time. And then after I developed that relationship with them, and I was doing some other things around Africa too. I was I was consulting with um the Kenyans and Nigerians and some of the other folks around the continent. Um but then I got another big um request from Angola for three more ambulances that I brought over in 2014-ish. This was right at the beginning of the Ebola crisis. And and that was you can go, we have a whole story on that. But basically what happened there was um each time at our community college, they did kind of the news would come in and do a little piece about what we were doing in Africa and how we're kind of trying to move the bar a little bit to improve emergency access. But this particular time, because in West Africa there was uh an Ebola outbreak, it really changed everything, right? Um I had the ambulances there, I had a ticket to go, I've been ready to go, and now we're starting to see Ebola pop up around um around West Africa and in the United States. So um I was getting ready to go, and there was talk about preventing me from going because I don't know why. I think I was leaving a country that had Ebola and was going to one that didn't. We were, you know, Angola is 2,000 miles from West Africa, so it wasn't really an issue. Um but um as a result, um this the media hit we took was pretty hard.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

You know, um we I took a uh it was um we uh we had a local disc jockey in Raleigh that um really tore me up pretty good. Um they didn't want me to come back into the country. And um as a result, um social media started taking off on it, and I ended up getting a death threat. And um someone said I don't not want me to come back to the to the United States.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

So at this point, you've you've been serving Angola, you've been serving Ghana, and it it it's just not working out the way you had planned for it to. Is that am I right in saying that?

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Yeah, because I think at the time I'm I'm really thinking, all right, I have to focus in on specifically the EMS aspect of it. But they k they weren't getting it because there's no history there, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:21

And yet your your next step did did work out, and this was in the country of Ethiopia.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Right. So um this was after you had retired, I had um changed jobs, I ended up um leaving the community college, and I went up to the university up in um at Appalachian State University, where um I took a role on as the director of healthcare simulation and innovative learning. Perfect. And um and I was working in an interprofessional lab. I was primarily working with nurses, but I was working with paramedics, EMTs, doctors, um, all kinds of folks. And uh it's uh what I found was that's the sweet spot for me, right? Is that by bridging that interprofessionalism, one, I mean that's the way we're learning now. But learning through interprofessional development is is the way to go. And I'm finding that's that's the kind of the sweet spot. And that's where we're gonna talk about in another episode is is what our work is in Ethiopia, because it really did take off at that point. Um, once we got that first um U.S. State Department grant, um, it was the Nelson Mandela Washington Fellowship reciprocal grant. And we were awarded enough money for travel and training and to bring a high fidelity simulation mannequin with us um to Ethiopia. The first the first true high fidelity simulation, probably in that part of the world.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

And we've been there twice. We've been well received, we've been welcomed back. We we can we can say we've got a we left a lot of friends over there. And you're going back again um on a couple of months or next month.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Um yeah, it's about six weeks now. Yeah, I'm I'm really excited. Um especially in light of, you know, I I I'm I'm I'm less than a year out of brain surgery where I had a large meningioma um tumor taken out, and I feel good. I feel ready. I feel I feel blessed, I feel ready to continue on with this work. I think that's the real bringing it all together here to kind of finish it up. I think the important thing here, yes, the adventures are fun, the adventures are cool, but more importantly, the work of that Lord is guiding us to do is the most important thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

You've learned a lot about waiting on the Lord too. I mean, I have too, but I want to hear a little bit about I want you to expand on that a little bit. You know, you you feel this ongoing drive that you've been feeling for 30 years, and yet you feel like you've had at so many points just to stop and wait. What's the purpose in that?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

You know, it's so difficult to do that as a uh on this side of heaven.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

But you know, I if I can throw in a Bible verse here. Please. Isaiah says, those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Amen. I and it's tough though, you know, it's it's especially well, I found there's there's a blessing in a lot of respects. Um one of the things that I've known throughout my my life as in personal life, my career life, my spiritual life, is having guidance from from God directly, of knowing what my mission is. And that's a blessing to know that. Um sometimes it's difficult because you have uh such a drive to want to try to achieve that, um, but it is a blessing in the fact that you know that the Lord of all creations is asking you to do something.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

And and you know something I've learned from this too, Lee, something that EMS really taught me that my trips with you to Ethiopia just um just confirmed. People are people everywhere. I regardless of your social, you know, economic standing, of your education, of your where you're located on earth, you're you're the same. I mean, we we have the same blood running through our veins, we have the same needs, we have the same desires and dreams. I was uh over in Ethiopia, I asked one of the people there, they got a hard life there. Yeah, I asked uh somebody there, I said, why is everybody so happy? And he said to me, I'm not sure that it's that they're happy, but they're content. They've learned contentment. Yeah. And that's something Americans could really benefit from learning, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Well, I can't wait to share more about Ethiopia. It's a special place, isn't it? And and it's a special place for a lot of reasons, but um but again, it's because we're being we're being asked to go there. I think that's the point, right? It's it's not about that place or those folks, it's it's the fact that we're being asked to serve in some small way um people that um that are neighbors.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

All right. Well, you know, this has been fantastic, man. Thank you for sharing this. And you mentioned wanting to share more about Ethiopia. That's coming up in future episodes.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Thank you, and thank everybody for being here today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Thank you for listening to Answering the Call Podcast, Finding Faith in the Chaos. Please join Pat and Lee for future episodes and engage with him and other listeners on Facebook and other platforms. Be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss what's next. This episode may elicit strong emotions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. We are not mental health professionals, and the stories or advice shared here should not replace professional medical help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help. You can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 in the US and Canada, or contact your local emergency services.