My God is an Awesome God and He Reigns on High!

Wow this is difficult. I am going to share with you all what I’ve not shared before – my doubts and struggles, which I know everyone else has but most times it seems like I’m alone in this struggle. I know however that that is just the Devil trying to stamp me down and doubt the existence of God in my life. Somehow I feel I have the courage to out this on my blog – weird how it feels easier to post this to a web page yet I couldn’t share it at house group this week or in the past with the closest of friends. God is really working hard in my heart at the moment! Please bear with me and pray for me as you read the following. I have been sitting for the past hour trying to decide whether to press the upload button or delete it all, but I am going to be brave and do it!

Over the past half a week or so, I’ve really been struggling with God’s purpose in my life. Which is strange, because for a good 5 years now I’ve been certain He wants me to be a medical missionary in Africa. I think this is still true, but the magnitude of it all has suddenly hit me. I’ve been asking myself (and God) – what am I doing here? Past thoughts and dreams have come to haunt me – I just want to settle down into a nice comfortable job in the NHS, have a family, and grow old in the comfort of England. With the work that God seems to have laid out before me – a life of travelling in strange countries providing medical care to those who need it most – am I ever going to have what I so desperately want, a family?

Jeremiah 29:11 comes to mind – I have a plan for you, a plan to prosper and not to harm you. I really do believe this, but it is so hard when God’s plan doesn’t seem to coincide with what I want, especially when what I want is not sin, but everyday life for other Christians.

On Wednesday evening Psalm 91 popped into my head – I have no idea why apart from the fact it must have been from God. I had no idea what Psalm 91 said I couldn’t even remember whether I’d read that one before. I have never heard from God in this way before, the word was so clear in the midst of a prayer. What did I do? Yes I ignored it – I didn’t believe it was from God, so I went to bed still in turmoil. The next morning I got up late and missed the daily morning worship the hospital has but instead sat down with my own daily devotion (The Doctors Life Support 2). I don’t remember exactly what the days thought was about but God spoke again – Psalm 91. This time I read it:

He who dwells in the shelter of the most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty
I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’....
.... ‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.’

WOW! God in one paragraph renewed my strength. I still don’t understand why God wants me, and why He loves me so much, but with all my strength and the little faith I have I WILL TRUST HIM, I know He only has good things for me and His way is the best. It is still hard to grasp this, even though I’ve been a Christian for 11 years now.

God is still speaking to me now (I know He always is, but don’t you think sometimes He just shouts at you because you are so thick not to hear His whisper?!) I am listening to Kathryn Scott’s live worship album, the current song is:

Found freedom from my sin
And still the road is narrow
Sometimes I fall and bad thoughts are on the way
But I know your grace is strong
And your mercy new each morning
So I’ll stay the course until the race is run
Jesus I will follow
Follow anywhere you lead
No turning back
I’ve tasted and I’ve seen
That you are like no other
You reached beyond my sin and rescued me
So forgetting what’s behind
Remembering your great mercy
I choose to run until I win the prize

Amen! :-)

Mount Mulanje Madness!

Another week gone - eeek! I've been here 6 and a half weeks now! In some ways it feels like years, and in others it seems like a few days. The photo that will hopefully appear above after my dinosaur of a computer and the slowness of African internet combined decides they have enough strength to upload it. Unfortunately it has already failed in uploading the pictures to Facebook. I will try the whole FB photos again but it will probably be limited to 2-3 at a time. I really want to show you all some photos as the views on the top of the mountain were amazing and Hollie took some good ones of me operating last week. Also I think photos help you all know who I'm talking about! (Hence the photo above - back row: Nathan McGrath, Hollie Sapsford, Tim Jones, Seth Miller; middle row: Phil Grunder, Stephanie, Me; front row: Martyn McGrath, Camilla McGrath, Sharon Miller)

Well I went up Mulanje again :-) It was awesome fun, more than last time because I knew I could make it and I went with a big group of people (10 in all). I went with my Tuesday Bible study group + 2 younger siblings of the group, and a friend of the McGrath family. We went a different way to last time and stopped 2 nights, the first night after we climbed up to the plateau and then the second night after we had hiked across the plateau, and then the third day we trekked down and had pizza at a restaurant at the foot of the mountain - very yummy! Surprisingly my muscles don't ache in the slightest, but I do have some blisters on the feet and rather bad sunburn :-( I put cream on when I was still wearing my t-shirt and didn't think to add cream to shoulders and back when I took it off and wore my vest top instead - DOH! Please pray for it's quick healing as I'm struggling to sleep with the pain at the moment.

I am really blessed with a good group of friends (see above picture) and thank God that I am now calling the place I live in home. It even looks like home now as I have put photos and hangings up on the walls in my room and have my Ugandan throw over my bed. It is still strange sometimes though and the realisation that I'm in Africa only hits me when I see a strange orthopaedic condition in the hospital or ride in one of the minibus taxis that are packed to the roof with passengers and chickens or when there is a power cut just when someone comes round in the evening for dinner!

I am on call again this coming Sunday so no exciting trips around Malawi - but maybe a browse around a coffee and book shop not far from the guest house and some shopping at the local market for vegetables.

I'm hoping to be able to go on one of the many outreach clinics the hospital does all around the country soon, maybe in a couple of weeks to Dowa which is in central Malawi.

That's all for now folks....!

H xxxxxxxx

Miss (well nearly!) Miller, MBChB, Lead surgeon!

In the past week now I've been allowed to be lead surgeon operating on some of the children, still only simple things like excising extra digits on hands and feet (polydactyly), debriding ulcers and infected wounds, and putting in/taking out K wires and such like. But it's still really cool to see my name on the top of the operating notes: Lead Surgeon - Dr. Miller! AWESOME :-)

So as you can see things at work are going well. I had another nice relaxing weekend just gone, we went to a really nice coffee/gift shop, where me and Hollie had lunch and mused around all the cool hand-crafts and suchlike. We then had a film night at Aysha's (the lead physio here) where we watched Harry Potter 5. Sunday involved going to church in the morning then lunch in town at the food court, (where they have the most amazing Bakery shop), and then there was a women's bible study group in the afternoon at someone's house.

Last Wednesday evening went well too - which was Bianca's leaving party and also my on call night. I didn't get any calls and loads of people turned up to the party. We unfortunately didn't have any power, but we had planned for that and had cooked the chilli (yes Vic and Katie - it was silly chilli!!) and potato wedges and rice all before the power went off at 6pm and kept it warm in the oven till guests arrived at 7ish.

I have played hockey a couple of times with some girls at the local sports complex in the past week and will definitely continue going as it's fun (despite automatically kicking the ball with my feet still - I usually play goalkeeper but have been playing outfield!) - yesterday I also got hit just under the jaw with a stick - which hurts :-( Please pray for quick healing.

This weekend we have planned to go up Mulanje with the Tuesday bible study group. There will be about 8 of us which is going to be awesome. We are going up early Saturday morning and then staying 2 nights on the mountain and then be back in Blantyre Monday evening in time to go to the local cinema to watch inception. Please pray we are all kept safe this weekend, both travelling on the roads and up the mountain, and that we will all have fun and be fit enough to do the whole trek!

Thanks to my Mam for help sorting my bank card. There wasn't a problem in the end, just a random ATM that refused my card - apparently they do that sometimes in Malawi. And thanks to Vic too - mmmmmmmmmmmmm Haribo :-) loved the card too. Thanks to everyone else too who is regularly emailing/messaging - love you loads :-) You are all making it easier to be here knowing you are thinking and praying for me.


Much love to you all,
H xxxxxxxxxxx

Home Sweet Home

So, I've been here a month now - eeek it's totally flown by! But I really feel at home here now :-)

Didn't go anywhere exciting this weekend as I needed to renew my visa which happened successfully and with no trouble at all though I had to pay £20 for the privilege. I tried to pick up some post that has arrived for me - very exciting :-) but couldn't as it was shut at the weekends. Will hopefully get there tomorrow.

It's a good job I didn't go anywhere really because apparently I was on call on Sunday and only found out when a guard came to fetch me (they couldn't get hold of me on my mobile as it was switched off from being in church in the morning!) African organisation!! Oh well, it was OK and there wasn't an emergency - just all the kids needed clerking for the coming weeks surgeries. By the time I'd got to the kids ward the consultant doing surgery on the Monday was already there doing his ward round, he didn't seem to mind too much that I hadn't clerked any of his patients!! If I was in the UK I would have been sacked - never mind nobody had told me I was supposed to be on call! Anyway all is well and I have now tracked down the on call schedule for this month and am on call this coming Wednesday night and on the 20th. Please pray whatever (if anything) I get called about I will be able to deal with confidently and well. I continue to be amazed by the patients here - they cope with so much. Any child with a deformity, even as small as a clubfoot, will have less in life than 'normal' children. Their families may reject them, they have less education, less job prospects, and even less prospect of marrying! It breaks my heart. Yet we are constantly rewarded by the huge smiles on their faces when they see that their limb is fixed/no longer in pain, or even when we tell them we can do something to help. I manipulated (pulled into it's correct position) a fractured forearm today in a 10yr old boy who had ONLY been given paracetamol and ibuprofen 30 minutes beforehand! He didn't even shed a tear, yet in the UK we would spend hundreds of pounds doing it in theatre when the child is anaesthetised. By the way this was a western kid who has lived here for 6 years as his parents are missionaries.

Sheila has now left :-( but I am getting on extremely well with Hollie the new med student. Dr Cashman is really nice and is very approachable and is good at teaching. I hope to get a project started soon with him on neglected lateral condyle fractures and how we should be treating them.

Bianca (the German student) leaves this Friday :-( I have also gotten on really well with her and will be sad to see her go. We are having a party around ours on Wednesday.

I have even found a hockey team at the medical school who I can train with and am going tomorrow - they have a goalie kit I can use (who knows what state it is in though!) I am really looking forward to it.

That's about it really for this week, ooooh the upload of a photo of me and Sheila up the mountain worked :-) YAY - see it above.

Much love

H xxxxxxxxx

Climbing Mountains!

So, I made it up Mount Mulanje! I got about a 1/3 of the way up on the Saturday and was sore;y tempted to turn around and go back. Sheila however, urged me on! 7 hours later after stepping off the minibus in Mulanje town we had made it to the plateau and rested for the night in one of the 10 huts situated there. We met some others also staying at the hut who were Malawian and were planning a trip there with school children to teach them orienteering and other scout like activities. They told us of some of the myths local Malawians believe about the mountain.

The highest peak - Sapwita - which means 'Don't go there' makes Mulanje the 3rd highest mountain in Africa. It is called don't go there because the locals believe witchcraft is on the mountain because people go up there and never return....!


We climbed down a different way on the Sunday which took equally long and by the end my feet were killing me - we had a well deserved soda at the small supermarket in Likumbula which is 6Km from Mulanje town round the side of the mountain. The views were stunning and we could even see Mozambique peering at us from below the clouds! I tried to upload some pictures for you but internet is snail pace here and it wasn't working :-( I'll try next time.

Work continues and is going well. Dr Cashman is back tomorrow, he is the other consultant doctor on the team I work with. This hopefully means I will get to help out with some elective joint replacements on the private patients which I have not yet done as Dr Sam mostly works with the children and minor fractures. A medical student arrived today for her elective, which means I have a travelling buddy for the next 7 weeks - she wants to go to Mulanje, I told her she'd have to wait at least a few weeks for my muscles to recover! I hope that she wants to visit the lake too.

bible study at the McGrath's was amazing - especially the roast chicken dinner beforehand :-) I'm looking forward to the same tomorrow evening. We are going to go to the local Chinese restaurant on Friday for Sheila's leaving meal - she goes on Saturday, please pray for safe travel and for her week in South Africa sightseeing before she returns to the US.

Thank you for your prayers about my stomach - my pain has completely gone :-) I'm now sure it was just a doxycycline side-effect as it is listed in the BNF. Please pray for this Saturday - I'm staying at home this week as I need to renew my visa. Please pray that it will be quick and easy with no complications and that they won't charge me too much.