A doorway at just the wrong height.
Thousands of years from now, if the end of the world doesn't come first, scientists will be examining the heads of male foreigners in Peru, and discover that they have bony callouses on the tops of their heads. What were they there for? Beauty? An advantage in head-butting competitions? They will unlikely decipher that we foreigners are just a tiny bit too tall for the local construction. Nebraskans, the progeny of the hardy stock of tall Scandanavians that immigrated in the early 1900s, are tall. I'm not. But in Peru I'm the spiker and blocker on the volleyball team, and the one they ask to hang balloons at the kids' school. Because of this, I've hit my head countless times on city bus doors, concrete beams, even a cactus in the roof of a village house to keep people off of it. (Maybe that's why my memory isn't like it used to be?) One of our new missionaries, David Jeyachandran, is from Australia. He's pretty tall by any measures, which is why less than 1 minute after I said to his wife, ,"At least I don't have any medical emergencies at this team meeting,", he hit his head on the gate, lacerating his scalp. Luckily, our team meeting was at the Reuters' house, who are two of our missionary nurses from Germany. They had suture and needle-drivers, and for about $5 at the local pharmacy, I bought some lidocaine, sterile gloves and needles. With many helping hands we had him sewed up in no time.
In our administrative roles, I think it is normal for doctors to question if they are doing what God has called us to do. He continually sends patients to our door to help us practice what we spent years training to do.
Serving with you,
Allen & Amy
Allen, Dorothee and Amy attending to David's scalp laceration
