Cleft palate repair comes to Malawi
You may have heard the saying that “it takes a village to….” and in my travels I have found this to be true. Tomorrow Connectmed arrives with a group of doctors and nurses to perform free cleft palate and cleft lip surgeries.
The story for how Connectmed got involved in Malawi is one like many that are told here. It is a story of one person who meets another person that gets involved who tells someone else who gets a team to come who connects with people living here to involve other people and so forth and so on. Life does not live in a vacuum. Some folks don’t have the opportunities others have. Some don’t have the experience or professional training others have. What we all have is a connection to each other and if we look outside ourselves we see that we can, if we want to, make a difference.
One of the surgery recipients is a little girl from the Jidi area. Grace is the one in the picture above. Grace lives in a remote village an hour and a half from the capital city of Lilongwe. We met her during one of our E3 mobile clinics and put her in a file of people to help if the opportunity arose. She has no access to regular medical care let alone a life altering event such as cleft lip repair.
Meanwhile, one of the people associated with the African Bible College talked to a person who works with Connectmed; a group that flies around the world performing these types of surgeries. This got Connectmed to contact the clinic here at ABC. A little bit of this and a little bit of that biddy bing biddy boom and tomorrow the team arrives. It takes a village. And now, because of that worldwide village about 50 people will receive life transforming surgery.
So, those of you at home thinking that you can’t make a difference I am here to tell you that you can. What it takes is for one person to take a passionate interest and that will lead to another person and then another until the next thing you know there is a medical team or an environmental team or a pastoral team, you name it but someone will be here that makes a difference, no a radical difference in the life or lives of people who really need it.
Over the next few days if you think about it please send up a prayer for the medical staff who live here and who are visiting. They will be under a lot of pressure and stress as around 50 people get surgeries. Please remember the patients as well and pray that their surgery and recovery goes well. And please pray that the logistics and weather cooperate.
For the Grace’s of the world who don’t have a voice; and for all of you who support E3, ABC, and medical missions; THANK YOU!!!!!. Without you, this would not be possible.
David
e3worldwide 
One Response to “Cleft palate repair comes to Malawi”
Thanks for this great story! Amazing how the puzzle all comes together!!!! We have a God who is very present and involved in the lives of people and He will go to great lengths to show how much He loves them!