Changing of the Guard

This past week marked yet another highlight in the neurosurgery department at Tenwek.  For the first time, we have a fellow Kenyan consultant on faculty - our very first graduate, Dr. Emmanuel Wekesa!  In December, Emmanuel passed his College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) oral board exams and last month completed his six-year residency in neurosurgery to graduate as the first Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) neurosurgery graduate on the continent.  Below is a short video of Emmanuel receiving his graduation certificate.  They wouldn't even let me finish reading before starting to celebrate!  Emmanuel and his wife Daphine, along with their oldest of two girls, Ivanna. I love their smiles.  No more residency! It's hard to put into words the emotions I felt in the week leading up to Emmanuel's graduation.  This year marks our 8th since first moving to Kenya and beginning the neurosurgery department at Tenwek.  At a dinner earlier that week I read part of Psalm 92 to our department..."It is good to give thanks to the LORD and to sing praises to Your name...For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done...".  Indeed, my heart is filled with gratitude and gladness to see how far God has brought this work.    It was just Emmanuel and I when he joined the program in 2020. Now in January 2024 we were 4 consultants and 4 residents Emmanuel said about his finishing training "Here I am Lord, I and my family ready to serve."  Well, to no one's surprise who has visited Tenwek neurosurgery, his first week on call last week was a doozy so he had better been ready!  He clipped two ruptured aneurysms and fixed a thoracic spine fracture, among overseeing a number of other operations.  Those aren't easy surgeries, and are very different skillsets.  Exciting to see him capable of taking it all on independently. A sampling of cases from Emmanuel's first week And while last week brought the adding of one neurosurgery consultant in Emmanuel, it brought the departure of another.  Dr. Fraser Henderson Jr, along with his wife Betsy and their two children, have spent the last two years at Tenwek as part of the Samaritan's Purse Post-Residency Program.  My prayer for many years was that God would bring someone to help me in the work at Tenwek, and Fraser was the answer to that prayer.  His presence allowed our family to take our planned furlough in 2022, and for the residency program to continue during that time.    Thank you Fraser and Betsy for your sacrificial service these past two years! Please be in prayer for Hugh Sims-Williams and Emmanuel, the two neurosurgery consultants remaining at Tenwek full-time.  I continue to serve as the residency program director from Kijabe where we are a few hours away, but it is a very different thing for them to be on the ground running the service and teaching every day.  Those two men are doing hard work.  May God be their strength and their song, giving them endurance and joy in their serving. The picture above was from my parents' visit last month.  Alisa and I and the kids are doing well.  We're honored to be a part of the work God is doing here in Kenya through neurosurgery, and appreciate your support that makes our being here possible. We love to hear from you.  Our email addresses are  wrcopeland3@gmail.com (Will) or alisa.copeland@wgm.org (Alisa). If you'd like to join our family's team of financial supporters,  visit wgm.org/copeland to learn how to contribute monthly or to give a one-time gift. You can also give directly to the neurosurgery residency program at Tenwek by clicking here and designating your gift "Neurosurgery"