And He will guide your path.
Proverbs 3:5
Thank you, Mission Doctors,
I don’t get awards every day. So, this is a good day.
And the good days balance the bad days.
And I am grateful.
We all want to help each other. We want to help our families,
our children, our parents, our friends and even strangers in need.
When I was younger, I wanted to help others and serve God.
I wanted to make a difference. I wanted my life to matter.
I went to college to become a doctor.
But it wasn’t going very well. I was losing.
I had one really bad semester. Organic Chemistry.
I didn’t get an A. I didn’t get a B. I didn’t get a C. I got a D.
And then all the guidance counselors came out of the woodwork
to tell me that I didn’t have what it took. They said that
I didn’t have the talent and that I should do something else with my life.
Well………. NO!
If we look backwards on our lives,
We can see the pattern of God’s Hand.
Where there is pain, there is often God’s Hand,
directing and molding us.
“And we know that all things work together for good
for those who love God,
to those who have been called according to his purpose.”
Everything happens for a reason.
I did the best I could.
I went to medical school in Mexico.
I tried to learn Spanish.
There were lots of us down there.
At the time, I could not see or understand that
God was at work molding me and shaping me.
But He was.
I remember when I was working in a small Mexican town.
It was hot, dusty and there were many flies.
There were lots of livestock: donkeys, chickens, pigs and goats running around.
I was a student, wearing my white coat, my white pants, my white shirt.
I met up with the local people, with their straw hats and sandals.
And their clothes were faded and over-worn; not designer types.
Then I got a look at where they were living:
adobe huts, brown mud brick, with tiny windows.
There was no electricity and no running water.
They had nothing. I’d never really seen poverty before,
but now I was surrounded by it.
Then a stray idea came to me.
I still wanted to help others and serve God.
I still wanted to make a difference and for my life to matter.
But how? How is that going to happen?
Where can I make the biggest difference?
I looked around.
Maybe I could make the biggest difference,
by going where the need was the greatest;
Going where the need is greatest, to make the biggest difference.
A simple idea.
And that simple idea has ruled my life and
stayed with me for the last 45 years.
And it has never faded.
That’s really it.
That’s why I am standing in front of you this evening.
Nothing more complicated than that.
I’m just trying to do the same thing that you’re trying to do.
just in different places. This is just how it came out with me.
It feels strange to be accepting an award.
Is it a sacrifice to do what I want to do?
Is it a sacrifice to want to serve others;
to be where I am supposed to be, doing what I am
supposed to be doing?
No.
I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing.
It’s a joy. It’s not the “jumping up and down” kind of joy.
It’s the peace of mind you have when what you are doing feels right.
Working for God; working with God, through His people.
Playing on the winning team. God gives all of us a jersey and a number to wear.
And He lets us run around the field and run around the earth.
At this time last year, I was in Sudan, at Mother of Mercy Hospital.
It’s an Islamic State. Which means they hate Catholics. They hate Christians.
Incredibly, 3 years ago, the central government was bombing the Catholic Hospital
with cluster bombs, throwing shrapnel and pieces of steel in all directions.
People would throw themselves into holes in the ground to avoid the flying steel.
What is it like to be shoulder to shoulder with people who have been persecuted ?
It’s an honor. Yes. But those people made me stronger: stronger in my faith.
If they can handle being bombed for being Catholic, so can I. So can you.
God doesn’t want a bunch of wimps doing His business.
God made us to be strong.
Here’s a Christmas story. It’s a little out of season, but it fits.
Let’s go to the South Bronx of New York in winter:
Inner-city, fields of rubble, grey skies, shortened days, cold!
Now let’s go to Lincoln Hospital.
The rooms of the patients were dark and cold too.
Patients needed 3-4 blankets to stay warm.
High on the walls, they had those crummy old television sets with lines running across them.
They were sick and cold. They had no visitors. And nobody was coming.
Now switch the spotlight over to my good friends, Mary and Mike.
They’re a power couple like few I’ve seen.
Mary got her MBA from Columbia. Mike got his MBA from Harvard.
They worked on Wall Street, giving financial advice to banks, while I was down in the South Bronx. For some inexplicable reason, they sent me a Christmas present that year:
two boxes of the most exquisite cakes that I’ve ever seen.
The devil’s food cake had about an inch of frosting around it.
And there was blueberry, strawberry, lemon, coconut flavors too. Incredible cakes!
I did not eat them. I took those cakes into Lincoln Hospital and delivered them, one-by-one, to my patients in those cold dark rooms. And they smiled. And it was spectacular and wonderful. It was a good day.
Without Mary and Mike, it would not have been a good day.
I would have had no cake to give anyone.
In a real sense, Mary and Mike were the cake that I was delivering to those people in dark places. And, without you, the Mission Doctors Association and Lay Mission Helpers have no cake either. Without you, Mission Doctors has no cake.
Without you, the missionaries in the field have no cake to give to anyone.
You are the cake. They are giving you to the people in great need.
God has given each of us something good to do.
And it’s great and spectacular to be doing it.
Thank you all for being a part of His team.
I’m proud to be a strong Catholic.
May God continue to bless all of us.
As we all continue to do His work.
Working for God, working with God, through His people.
And we know that all things work together for good
for those who love God,
to those who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
