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Words from Before It's Too Late by Goo Goo Dolls.

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Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Daunting

So its settled then.

I am going to Cambodia. The feeling is still quite surreal. I have always wanted to go on a medical mission trip, and now that I am actually going...it just feels so unreal.

I don't think it has hit me yet. Maybe until I start packing (yes, I haven't started!), then it will hit me. Or maybe when I actually get there, and start to breathe in the different smells, visualize the differnt sights and hear the different sounds, will it then hit me.

Whatever it is, I really can't believe I am going.

I picked up the tickets today and in addition, the first aid kit.

Apparently, because Im the only person who is doing anything medical in an entourage of 9, that I have been designated the 'in-house-doctor'.

Help! I have not graduated yet!

When I was told that Im going to be the one handling the health of the other group members...I went 'GREAT'.

Instantly, I prayed for good health for the members and that I need not ever to have to open up the first aid kit. Yes, I know Im going to make a 'great' doctor.

I have been briefed on my trip to Cambodia, and have since found out that I will be working with the local Cambodian doctors. At first, I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to do, because my 'expertise' is only limited not only by my inexperience of being only a 3rd year medical student who has not graduated into the 'real world', but also by the fact that I've only been exposed to 1st world medicine.

But it all changed, when I saw some of the video footages of the places that I am going to be leaving my footprints in...I teared

Long queues. Patients waiting under the hot sun. Some with I.V drips in tow. Some with fulminating abscesses and wounds that could have easily been resolved within 20mins in 'our world', but has been left to worsen in a place that has no proper medical facilites, with the nearest too far to walk, and too expensive to travel.

One that shocked me the most was the presentation of a young gentleman who was bitten by a snake on his thumb.The flesh on his thumb has since been left to rot away, and has left behind only the bone.

It was an inexpressible sight.

I was mortified.

At the same time, I began to understand why the presence of this medical team that Im travelling with is so treasured.

Although I still feel daunted at the aspect of what is to come, I realise its not only the medical expertise that we can bring, but its the fact that we have made the conscious decision to leave our lives of comfort and pleasure to serve these people.

His people.
God's people.

I have come to serve, and not to be served.