Don't Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees Book

Hale puts together a nice variety of doctoring experiences that show things through his deeply religious eyes (some staff are simply "nurses," and other staff are "Christian nurses"). My favorite bit is actually in the introduction when he describes himself as lucky to be there rather than thinking the locals are lucky to have him.

He insists that he is not there to proselytize. In fact, he writes, "Thus we have been invited to work in Nepal only under the condition that we do not 'proselytise.' This means that we agree not to persuade any Nepali to become a Christian by means of material inducement or other forms of external pressure" (pg 11). He also says on the next page, "To neglect sharing with our Nepali friends the joy of knowing Him would make a pretense of our friendship. To withhold from them this greatest gift would be to no longer love them. And so it is not our religion that we desire to introduce to them but Jesus Himself." Is there a difference between sharing a religion and sharing "Jesus Himself?" This man is a true believer, for better or worse, depending on your views.

Someone like me, who views evangelism with a defensive eye and biblical Christianity as a conflicted guide to the good, the true and the beautiful, will find it hard to understand some of the things he writes. Such as: "We will probably never see Maya Gurseni [a healed patient] or her husband again. We can only pray that they saw something of the life of God in us, though they understood it not, and that some day they will come to know and worship Him. Or else, for what has she been spared?" (pg 205). He ends the chapter with that rhetorical question. Really? Can't think of any other reason to "spare" her? Maybe I'm not thinking abstractly enough to correctly understand what Hale means by "know and worship Him." Either way, I don't get it.

If you like Christianity and accounts of modern medicine in exotic lands, you'll eat this book up. If Christianity isn't your thing, you'll have to work to separate it from the rest.