February 2023

Well, after many years of ignoring calls for notes, I am writing to catch people up. After 40-plus years of pediatrics, including the last 15 in Tanzania, I retired at the end of 2022. But God was not finished with me yet, I think. A very close friend of mine once told, a few weeks after his "retirement" that the word retire was not in the Bible. So he continued in an emeritus position for our hospital and continued to raise funds and grants until his untimely death last year. We (my wife and I) felt led to come to India to teach and help with community health projects for the Emmanuel Hospital Association, a group of 19 Christian hospitals mainly in northern and northeastern India, where a large portion of the poor and marginalized live. We are doing some teaching and helping with protocols, as well as learning Hindi in order to communicate better with the staff and patients here. It has been quite interesting here. The people are wonderful, and we love the food. Some of the illnesses I have encountered here are different from what I was treating in Tanzania. Some are the same but in greater proportions and further advanced. I am learning as much as I am supposed to be teaching.

Before we left Tanzania, we made a bucket list tour of Israel. Despite all the political ramifications and tensions of the area, we both left with a profound sense of God (and history) in Israel, which we are still processing.

In America, I have four children and six grands. My mother is 91; mother-in-law, 96.