Daktar

Upon hearing about my missionary mandate, many friends and family have given me books and biographies about missionaries to further fan my future into flame.  The first, loaned to me by a dear faithful sister of Gateway Church, Mrs. Pat Widener, was rather daunting.  Titled Daktar:  Diplomat in Bangladesh, weighing in at 452 pages, boasting about size 8 font and yellowed from 30 years since publication, I was tempted to let it rest on the shelf a while.  And I did.  Until Mrs. Pat reminded me about it at the beginning of this summer, I just then picked it up and started reading, but not without my fair share of conviction. 

Those aged pages told of a man named Viggo Olsen, once a brilliant but party-friendly young agnostic in medical school, then a man who found the truth about God through failing at discovering flaws in Scripture, afterwards a successful surgeon presented with an opportunity for a highly distinguished fellowship, and finally a medical missionary who instead decided to open a hospital in East Pakistan for hurting bodies and souls.  Daktar gave an incredibly detailed description of Dr. Olsen’s early life, missionary calling, ventures to build a team and erect the hospital, strains with the East Pakistani government to secure visas and permits, relationships held with the Bengali people, medical work in the hospital, life on the field, persevering persecution, surviving two ghastly wars, the bloody independence of East Pakistan into Bangladesh, and most importantly, trusting God through it all.  Every paragraph that told of the Lord working miraculously through a situation despite his fears and shortsightedness, he never failed to follow with “Thank you, Father!” 

Near the end of the story, Dr. Olsen reflected upon an Indian war monument and related the young liberators of the Bengalis to Jesus Christ.  When India could have stayed out of the war and watched West Pakistan obliterate the feisty Bengalis, they stepped in and fought; when the Father saw our lostness in sin, He also could have chosen to stay out of our mess, but instead he sent Jesus to step in and die for us.  I then realized that this was also what Dr. Olsen and his medical missionary team did – instead of living their own comforting life, they went to a desperate nation, cared for them, loved them, served them, endured hardships for them, shared the gospel with them, and lived a passionate example of Jesus before them, even when the Bengali people could provide nothing in return.

And suddenly, I realized what missions is all about.