Thomas Hale (1) (1937–)

Thomas Hale had planned a career in politics. Christine was training to be a concert pianist. Both felt God’s call to become medical missionaries and changed their studies to medical school. As the only two prospective missionaries in their medical class, they soon became friends and eventually married.

After finishing school, internships and specialties, the two, now a surgeon and a pediatrician packed up their two young sons, and headed to Nepal. They had assumed they would be in a city hospital where their specialties would be put to the best use. Instead, they ended up in a tiny hospital high in the mountains, accessible only by hiking several days.

When they arrived in 1970, although it was not illegal to be a Christian, it was illegal to proselytize, so they could only show their love of Christ through their actions. They had been taught by their missionary organization that they must be on guard to never let themselves feel that they, their education, or culture were superior to the people they served. The Hindu Nepalese, in turn, regarded all acts of kindness or charity as an effort on the part of the giver to increase their merit for a better rebirth in the next life. The Nepalese felt that they were doing a kindness to the missionaries by letting themselves be treated by them.

This is their story, told with both humor and good humor of having very limited medical options to treat patients, who were often carried for several days to be seen by the doctors. I believe social conditions have changed somewhat since the tourism rush to climb Mt Everest had not yet begun during the time of this book.

The book ends in 1982, with the Hales still in residence in Nepal. The author leaves the readers with some thoughts about Jesus telling his followers to give all their possessions to the poor and how very few in the West make such a monetary sacrifice.

Recommended to Christian missionary work or those interested in remote hospitals.… (meer)

The author was a doctor at a Christian mission hospital in a remote Nepali town in the 1970s. Things are in Nepal are quite primitive now, but they were much more so back then. I'm not a Christian, but I enjoyed reading about the doctor's experience trying to practice medicine in third-world conditions, and his explanation of trying to run a hospital in a developing nation: the challenges of making the limited funding stretch, of maintaining good relationships with the local villagers and the Nepali workers at the hospital, and so on. I would love to see how things are different in Nepal now, over forty years later. The only thing I would have liked more of is something about the author's non-hospital life: his marriage, how he and his wife raised and educated their children in Nepal, and so on.… (meer)