They brought the poor kid in, a gaping wound smeared across his forehead.  His eyebrow was sagging open, and the meat beneath was pushing his eyelid closed.  Bone could be seen at the bottom of the bloody trough.  What could have caused such a nasty wound?  A machete?  That would be a good guess, but no.  Black panther claws?  No, they are mostly extinct around here, and only 6 percent of jaguars have the all black coloring.  Hmm.  Japanese Ninja throwing stars?  wrong again.  Gee, what causes about 89% of all the injuries we see at the hospital.  Yep.  Moto accident…

This is not a post ‘soap-boxing’ about riding motorcycles, and the perils that one faces in choosing this mode of transportation.  (In fact, my hypocrisy would be blatantly exposed since I am now borrowing a moped from Miss Eliza, while she is gone for a bit.  However, and in my defense, a moped isn’t a real motorcycle as my friend and local celebrity surgeon Dr. Dave, likes to point out to me.  Every time he sees me coming he cries out:  Ha-Haaaaaa!

No, this post is about timing.

I think sometimes a person can be in the right place at the right time.  Everything just falls into place, and things work out just right.  Call it what you will:  Good luck;  Karma;  Chaos;  Chance;  God’s will.  I believe the latter myself.   However, I think sometimes we have to be deliberate about getting ourselves in the right place for the right time.  I think God can really use you if you are purposeful about putting yourself in the right situations, if you open your eyes to see opportunities, and if you are willing to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced.

Dr. John Talley came down to visit us for a week, to do a little scouting, get the lay of the land, and see how he might help people with his reconstructive surgical skills—for a future trip.  I think that God decided that He really just needed John’s help right here and now—and John jumped in head first.

Among other things, I am thinking about the events of Last Friday.  John was going to hang out with Dr. Peter, watch what he does and help a little here and there.  Little did he know that he was going to get a full workout this day.  I will say this about John:  I’ve seen some people work and sweat really hard here—but I think John topped them all.  His scrubs were drenched.

First, our sweet little gal in the ICU had her chest tube malfunction.  The other surgeons were unavailable, so who might we call on to replace the tube:  Hey, it’s John!  Then, Peter had a fellow come in with several cosmetic issues including a giant lipoma on his face.   Bam, there’s John!  And then the young man described above arrived in the ER with the laceration across his forehead.  Now, I think I could have repaired the wound but he would have looked a little bit like Frankenstein when I was done.  But, since I happened to have a plastic surgeon hanging out with us this day, I simply called good ol’ John.  He did an amazing job on it.  It took him quite awhile though, I think it might have been the nose job he threw in at the last moment…

 

 

 

The point is, it was really fun to see Dr. John just jump into the chaos of the day and accept every challenge that was given to him.  He wasn’t planning on working that day, but he was willing when his number was called.  And he did it with a willing heart.   I think he felt the joy that comes from helping people with no strings attached.  And I think the patients were really blessed by his skills.

He was definitely in the right place at the right time.  But, it took a bit of effort to get here, to the jungles on the North Shore of Honduras.

Where could you put yourself to be in the right place at the right time?  Is it at your kids practice, instead of the office?  Is it with your wife on the couch (easy there, tiger), instead of in front of the computer (working on some dumb blog…)?  Is it in a job that pays a lot less but brings you joy and serves others?  There are so many possibilities…

 

Quick update on our fundraising:  We have made a transition to a sending agency called Christian Health Service Corps, so if you are doing a monthly donation for our ministry you will need to transition it to CHSC.  You can click on THIS LINK to make the switch.  We are currently at about 30% of our goal to continue our ministry for this next year.  Looking for some more help.  If you want to know a little more about it, we will be back in the States in September and would love to share with you.

 

On to some pics…