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Mission of mercy takes Sewickley family to Africa
Wednesday, October 10, 2001 By Georgene Gallo
The first time Dr. Richard Bowers and his wife, Miriam Rader, went to Africa, it was on their honeymoon 10 years ago.
Volunteers often benefit as much from mission trips as the villages and people they visit
The Sewickley couple combined the trip to Sierra Leone with a mission of mercy. Bowers, an ophthalmologist, worked at a clinic in the capital city of Freetown, and Rader, a music therapist, volunteered to play her guitar for children, teaching them songs and learning songs from them. The trip wasn't entirely pleasant.
"It was really rough," Bowers said. "War was breaking out as we left."
Later, through a colleague at the University of Minnesota, Bowers learned about a clinic on Africa's east coast, across the continent from Sierra Leone. He was determined to go there someday on another medical mission.
This year, the couple got that chance. In June, they again set off for Africa. Their destination was the Lighthouse for Christ Mission and Eye Centre in Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city.
Kenya, Bowers said, "has the blessing of never having had a revolution." A safe place was essential because this time the couple were taking their three children along -- Leah, 9, Eve, 7, and Levi, 6.
One of Bowers' goals during his three-week stay was to teach a young Kenyan doctor the techniques of corneal transplants. Bowers, in fact, carried the corneas to be used in the transplants from the Center for Organ Recovery and Education, based in O'Hara, to Mombasa, replacing the ice during the trip to make sure they remained fresh.
Of the approximately 60 patients Bowers tended to in Kenya, a few dozen required cataract surgeries, so Bowers was able to share with his African colleagues new surgical techniques that are quicker and require less cutting. Bowers also performed another surgical procedure at the clinic for the treatment of glaucoma.
By the end of Bowers' stay in Mombasa, the young doctor under his tutelage was adept at doing corneal transplants on his own.
Barbara Shamburger, who coordinates volunteers and supplies for the eye center from its U.S. office in Tyler, Texas, said, "This year has been the most fantastic year we've ever had, thanks to all of the volunteer doctors who go to serve more than 20,000 patients a year."
While Bowers had high praise for the skill, intelligence and training of the doctors he met in Kenya, he is well aware of the difficulties they have in obtaining implants, sutures and other medical necessities, which are often in short supply. No eye-banking system is in place there, and screening for AIDS is inadequate, he said.
Bowers is one of seven doctors who make up Sewickley Eye Group, which he joined 10 years ago. In his practice, he said, he sees mostly adults because of his specialty in cataract and corneal refractive surgery. In Kenya, the story of one young girl who came to the clinic was of great interest to him, even though he had only seen the child during a follow-up visit.
The girl was born deaf, and a disease, possibly hepatitis or malaria, had caused cataracts to form in both of her eyes, leaving her blind. The girl's first cataract surgery was a success.
"When they took the patch off her eye, there were ear-to-ear grins as described to me," Bowers said. Now, she has started to learn to communicate with simple sign language.
Stories such as the young girl's confirm Bowers' belief in medical missions abroad.
"It's one of the reasons I wanted to be in medicine," said Bowers, who was born in Iran to parents who were medical missionaries from America, working through the Presbyterian Church.
"Some missionaries go and talk about the Bible, but I don't know enough," he said. "I'm more of a 'works' kind of person. What you do tells more about you. I always wanted to do medical mission work."
On the couple's most recent trip, he said, they saw everything through their children's eyes. "Flying over Mount Kilimanjaro, seeing the Nile, you pinch yourself," Bowers said, and you think, "I can't believe I'm here."
Chickens, stray cats and bugs are plentiful in the country, he said. "No matter where you go, there are bugs," said Bowers, which delighted his son, Levi, who had barely exited the plane in Nairobi before seeing huge grasshoppers, the biggest he had ever seen.
The family took a weekend safari, and near the end of their month out of the country, they stopped in Amsterdam to rent bicycles and see the sights.
Although the trip to Africa was a medical mission, Bowers acknowledged that "going there was good for me, too, especially as an African-American, just to let them know they are cousins across the ocean. Maybe it will change their view of Americans."
The trip left him with a question, though. "How in the world does a society like ours use so many resources while others use less and still survive?" he asked. "It helps me see a little bit about what's important. ... It's like going from blindness into light."
Georgene Gallo is a free-lance writer.
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