My Journey With God

I was blessed to be born into a Christian home to parents who made sacrifices to ensure that their children would grow to love God. From an early age I learned about a loving Saviour in Sunday School, at church and at home. Later I would attend Christian institutions through elementary school, secondary school and my undergraduate years.

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It is always easiest to follow Christ in church after an emotional appeal from the pulpit, and much harder to do it on a moment by moment basis thereafter. Certainly I often seem to be much better at the former than the latter. However, as the former are more memorable, I will mention a few dates.

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My earliest recalled step of obedience took place at the age of 5 years at my mother’s knee after an evening “Hell fire and brimstone” service when I asked “Jesus to come into my heart”. I don’t honestly recall much about the experience with the exception of the freedom from fear that followed.

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Somewhat more easily recalled is the commitment after an evening service at the age of 8. We were watching movie on the life of Hudson Taylor, when I felt the Spirit prompt me to answer the call to missionary service. I have never wavered from this commitment, although I could perhaps be accused of dragging my heels a bit.

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There have been other services, where I have made fresh commitments to follow God more closely or serve Him better et cetera. What matters more, I think, is a daily commitment to be the body of Christ wherever He puts me. I freely admit that I am not often as stellar a servant as I would aspire to be, but fortunately God is faithful. He has proven it to me time and again, on three continents. God continues to use me, a flawed vessel, to carry His love. He is always more than enough for anything.

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Life in the body of Christ is not often smooth and I have had the experience of Church division more than once as a youngster. We attended a number of church denominations growing up, and I continued this trend of attending very different churches as an adult – for reasons of location. (Until Arusha, I had never lived in the same city for more than 6 years as an adult.) This left me with a broad experience of Christian traditions from Anabaptist to charismatic to liturgical and a deep concern for Christian unity.

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I firmly believe in the tenets of the faith summarized in the historic creeds of the church. I would generally consider myself a Reformational Christian as I believe in the doctrines of sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura. I believe in Missio Dei: the Mission of God to, from and in all six continents.

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I believe that our God is just and merciful. I believe that wholeness and harmony are God’s design and desire for people within themselves and in relationship to Himself, to others and the non-human creation. I believe that as Christ bearers it is our job to facilitate redemption at all levels of life. I believe that the Holy Spirit leads and empowers us for Christ’s work.

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I have been given the gifts necessary to be a good surgeon, a good teacher, and a good student of languages and cultures, as well as the push of the Spirit of God in the direction of medical missions. Not to use these gifts would be disobedient and ungrateful. I have had the privilege of serving God through surgery in Africa on a short term basis multiple times in the past. Then through a combination of “divine accidents”, God led me to Arusha Lutheran Medical Center (a setting I would never have considered at the outset), at the right time. I transferred on the field to long-term missionary status with Commission to Every Nation (Canada) at the end of November 2013. I partnered with ELCT-NCD in Arusha to open the PAACS program there. At the end of 2021, with a mature PAACS program, I felt God leading me away from that situation. After another year of investigation and service in various parts of Eastern and Southern Africa, I have agreed to partner with the FPCT to work long-term at Nkinga Referral Hospital in Tabora Region, Tanzania, (beginning in 2024) where we hope to start another PAACS program. I continue to serve with Commission to Every Nation. God continues to shower his unmerited favour on the work of my hands, and the testimony of my lips.