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"

A Spacious Place

Hello from our new home at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya!  We’ve been thinking of our friends and family as you welcome fall in the US.  We pretend like it’s fall here and drink our pumpkin spice lattes and wear flannel, but it’s a tropical 60s and 70s nearly every day here.  And instead of watching our trees change color, we watch monkeys jumping from tree to tree in our backyard! Monkeys and baboons are everywhere here, something we didn’t have at Tenwek.

Three monkeys and a Kijabe sunset

Thank you so much to those of you that have walked through this move with us – friends both stateside and in Kenya.  We are truly grateful for your love and prayers as we made the difficult decision to leave Tenwek for a time.  

We had about two weeks at Tenwek in August to pack up and say our goodbyes.  Our happiest moments were being reunited with our dog Nova and having one last celebration with the Tenwek neuro team before leaving. We celebrated all that God has done through PAACS neurosurgery at Tenwek since we first began in 2016.  What a privilege to be a part of this work!

2023 Tenwek Neuro Team

She remembered us after being apart for a year.

We arrived at Kijabe in mid-August.  Shortly after, Will began work at the hospital and the kids began school at Rift Valley Academy.  Kijabe and RVA are located next to one another in central Kenya in the Great Rift Valley, about one hour’s drive outside the capital city of Nairobi. 

 

What a beautiful part of the world. This is the view from my neighbor’s house where we have Bible study each week.

Mt. Longonot in the distance

 

As expected, Will is working as the only full-time neurosurgeon at Kijabe.  He has excellent support staff working alongside him that welcomed him on arrival.  It has been a slower pace so far, but word is spreading that there is a neurosurgeon at Kijabe and the service is building steam.  Kijabe Hospital is also a PAACS site so Will is continuing to teach residents here from across Africa. 

 

The Kijabe neurosurgery team in September with doctors from Uganda, the US, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

 

He is also still serving as the residency program director at Tenwek.  He zooms in for meetings and has already returned once to Tenwek for a few days to help cover call, attend didactics, and connect with the neuro team in Bible study.  He’s hoping to do that every other month or so. We are thankful that Kijabe has been agreeable to his on-going service at Tenwek. We are praying for wisdom in how to balance the pull between the two hospitals.

Goodbye Tenwek house

Many have asked how we are all adjusting to a new place.  Truthfully, we had all braced ourselves for the next hard thing.  Expecting misery, I guess you could say.  After a season of challenges, pessimism had crept in, anticipating the next shoe to drop.

 

It has not been what I expected.  The kids have transitioned beautifully to a new school.  (I think a small part of me hoped they would desperately miss my homeschooling.) Their teachers and peers have warmly welcomed them, and they have quickly found community at RVA. We are so grateful.

the path from our house to the school

It has been pressing on my mind that many of you are walking through a season of change yourself and maybe not seeing the beauty on the other side yet – whether it be losing a parent, losing a friend, moving cities for a new job, raising challenging teens, getting married, changing churches, adopting a child, and many more.  Maybe like me you’re anticipating the next hard thing.  I do not think it’s wrong for us to expect the next hard thing to come.  But continually living in that head space for too long is defeating and mentally exhausting.  

My dad loved the psalms, and I am loving them more and more as I see the fuller picture of God they give me.  I read that I have much more to anticipate and expect in this life than hardship.  Psalm 118 says God brings us into “a spacious place.”  It’s easy to visualize that characteristic of God in the beauty of the landscape here.   I can expect and trust God to be that spacious place presently and to bring me to that in the future. He is my hope in life and in death. He is my spacious place.  This song, "Not My Home", by Luke Bower has resonated with me lately when I think about hope. Maybe it will encourage you too. 

Rhett and a friend picnicking in a spacious place near our house

Waiting

I started writing this from the waiting room of a surgery center in Little Rock yesterday.  It was the second time in six weeks I'd been waiting in that room.  In January we learned that Alisa had advanced osteoarthritis in both hips and would require bilateral hip replacements.  How's that for a welcome to your forties?!  So on April 14 she had one replaced and yesterday she had the other one done.  It's been a curveball we didn't expect to deal with this year, but we're grateful that it happened while stateside when I'm not working full-time and when we've had lots of help from family and friends. Alisa at home on the day of her first surgery.  This woman is the most resilient and beautiful one I know.  She's strong in the Lord!  It's a remarkable thing being married to her. Another unexpected turn of events that has come this year, one that has caused us much sadness, is a change in our plans upon returning to Kenya this summer.  Last month we made the difficult decision to pursue a temporary relocation to Kijabe Hospital, another mission hospital on the same compound as the school where our high schoolers had planned to continue boarding.  We plan to be there until the summer of 2025 when Liam, our oldest, will graduate from high school.  At that point our hope is to return to Tenwek. Kijabe is about three hours east of Tenwek.  This view of the hospital compound doesn't lack for beauty that's for sure. This change in plans has grieved both Alisa and I as we love so dearly our relationships and ministry at Tenwek. The PAACS Neurosurgery residency program started there in 2020 will continue under the excellent full-time guidance of Drs. Fraser Henderson and Hugh Sims-Williams. During this time away I plan to return to Tenwek for one week of clinical work approximately every 5 weeks. In addition, Kijabe has offered that our residents from Tenwek can spend time rotating with me. Still, this change has left me questioning how God wishes to use me in this next season. Kijabe does not have a full-time neurosurgeon. In a sense then, the answer is easy - I’ll show up each day and ready myself to treat the great number of patients that will come in search of neurosurgical care. And with that is the wonderful opportunity to share the hope that Jesus offers to everyone, a hope that will last long beyond any surgical help I can provide.  But other questions remain...Do I try to establish the kind of busy neurosurgical service we now have at Tenwek, if I’m unsure what may come of it in two years? Currently there is little neurosurgical equipment at the hospital. I know from experience the time and effort required to obtain all that is needed and it would be no small undertaking. Or do I focus on reviving the pediatric neurosurgical service that was started at Kijabe by Dr. Leland Albright years ago?  I admit pediatrics is not my first love and I feel somewhat inadequate to do it. Or do I simply use what little equipment is at the hospital and take care of those patients that I can, doing mostly trauma and other less resource-intensive cases. Perhaps it's me being prideful but I feel like that would be a waste of my talents. Leland and his wife Susan Ferson (nurse practitioner) served at Kijabe from 2010-2014 at the end of his renowned academic career. Leland, as one of the few American neurosurgeons who knows the challenges of full-time neurosurgery in Sub-Saharan Africa, has become a cherished friend and mentor. So I find myself waiting. Christians often speak of waiting in terms of a period of trying to discern what God’s will is for a certain decision or season in their lives...“Should I take this job?  Should I marry this person?  What should I major in in college?  What should I do at Kijabe?!”  But the Bible has given me a will I do know now… “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:31 “Do good, be rich in good works, be generous and ready to share.” 1 Timothy 6:18 “Value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4 And it tells me of other truths that I can stand on during times of uncertainty… “I am God, and there is none other.  I am God, and there is none like me… My counsel will stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” Isaiah 46:9-10 “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” Romans 8:28 And it reminds me that I am waiting ultimately for a day to come when quandaries like “What should I do at Kijabe?” will seem trivial... “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them.  They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4 So I move forward with the will I do know, confident that He is at work for our good and that He will accomplish all His purposes. And all the while, for that great day to come I’ll keep eagerly waiting.

Please consider partnering with us in the work in Kenya.  With this move to Kijabe our budget has increased, and we are looking to add to our monthly group of financial supporters.  If you are willing to support at any amount you can do so by signing up to give at wgm.org/copeland. We love to hear from you.  Our email addresses are  wrcopeland3@gmail.com (Will) or alisa.copeland@wgm.org (Alisa). Looking to share this with a friend? Click here Was forwarded this but want to receive future Copeland updates? Subscribe

"I Know One Thing..."

Dr. Paul had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that was causing him to loss vision.  As a native of the Ivory Coast and now one of only two general surgeons serving at a hospital in Guinea, he knew the challenges of accessing neurosurgical care in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a mutual connection at Mayo Clinic Rochester, Dr. Paul was able to come all the way to Tenwek for a successful surgery.  That's a LOOONG way; think Seattle to Miami and then another 1500 miles into the Atlantic.  And this all happened without my even being in Kenya!  Since our family returned for our year stateside last July, there have been not only one but two full-time neurosurgeons to carry on the work at Tenwek.  My how things have changed since we first arrived at the hospital in 2016.

Dr. Paul and his wife with our neurosurgery social worker Dominic

January marks the beginning of a new academic year for our neurosurgery residents.  Below are Drs. Fraser Henderson Jr. and Hugh Sims-Williams (my co-consultants at Tenwek) presenting certificates to Drs. Josephat Mburu (top), Ivy Barasa (middle), and Daniel Ndaro (bottom).  Dr. Emmanuel Wafula, our most senior resident, is currently away on an external rotation.  These trainees are one of our greatest joys in being at Tenwek.  They are smart.  They are committed.  They are funny.  And they love Jesus.

Upon preparing to leave Tenwek and return home to Guinea, Dr. Paul wrote a note expressing his appreciation for the care he received.  In it he said, "Thank you for your prayers.  Thank you for your humility.  Thank you for your expertise.  I know one thing: God is at Tenwek Hospital."  Indeed, He is.  Much more than receiving needed neurosurgical care, our desire is that patients would encounter Jesus at Tenwek and come to know the lasting hope of eternal life that He offers to anyone who believes in Him.

Sledding with friends Tom and Kady Weigel

We just finished a trip back to Rochester, MN.  It was a busy three days, but a great time of reconnecting with  so many friends.  We spoke about Tenwek at an event with colleagues from Mayo Clinic and also shared at two church services.  We managed to enjoy some sledding too.  Nora, our 7-year-old, somewhere along the drive between Little Rock and Rochester, said to Alisa during one of our (innumerous) bathroom breaks, "Mom, is that white stuff on the ground snow?"  She's never seen that in Kenya! We will be returning to Tenwek this coming summer.  We don't have tickets purchased yet, but will keep you updated as to our plans.  As always, we cherish your prayers and words of encouragement.  Thank you for your continued love and support.

We're Still Here!

Remember us?  Our blog has sat silent for some time, but we are still here!  Lots of life has happened in Kenya over the past months - much to celebrate and much hardship.  Our family is learning the truth that in Christ we can be "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing"; both happy and sad at the same time.  That's good news because sorrow and struggle is all around us, whether in our inner-circle or something we hear about that's burdening someone else in the world.  We would sink if joy couldn't exist in our lives at the same time as sorrow.  Joy and sorrow can co-exist!  

On that note, here are some of the things that give us joy right now...

Tenwek's PAACS neurosurgery residency is growing.  We now have two consultants and three residents with a third consultant and fourth resident joining later this year.  Our first trainee is on track to graduate in January of 2024.

I Saw Another Neurosurgeon!

For the first time in almost nine months I had a companion!  For twenty minutes at least.  Dr. Bethwel Raore was born and raised in Kenya but did his neurosurgical training in the US and now practices in the Atlanta area.  He had returned to Kenya a couple of weeks ago to visit family and unknown to me had decided to drive four hours to Tenwek just to say hi briefly and drop off a much-needed electric surgical drill (I was down to my last functioning one).   Like for many of you, it's been a bit of a lonely year.  Because of COVID, there have been no neurosurgeons come to Tenwek since early March.  I've missed the camaraderie of those visits.  The work here has some high highs and low lows.  Often I wish there was a fellow neurosurgeon here who understood those victories and defeats  - who could celebrate the good outcomes, and listen and give advice after the bad ones.  Still, most evenings I walk home with a deep sense of fulfilment from the day's work, and Alisa and I remain with a strong conviction that this is where God has led our family.

Bethwel's surprise visit was such an encouragement

It's been as busy as ever at the hospital.  Early during the pandemic one of the main hospitals in Nairobi - where one of the larger neurosurgical practices in the country is - became a designated COVID hospital, and so many of their patients came to Tenwek instead.  More recently, because of continued frustration over lack of appropriate protective equipment and overall poor morale from being overworked, many doctors and nurses in surrounding hospitals have gone on strike, again leaving Tenwek to shoulder an extra heavy patient load.  And it's not just the people of Kenya we are serving.  Last week we removed a brain tumor in a lady who had travelled all the way from Gabon, a country on the complete opposite side of Africa.

Mouembe before leaving to return to Gabon

I wrote in my holiday email last year that 2020 marked a new chapter for neurosurgery at Tenwek.  Dr. Emmanuel Wafula has spent this year as a neurosurgery resident-in-waiting and in January 2021 will become the first official neurosurgical resident at Tenwek.  Tenwek will be not only the first neurosurgical training site in all of Africa for the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS, through which all surgical training at Tenwek happens), but also the only neurosurgical training program in Kenya currently outside of the capital of Nairobi. What I didn't know last year was that Dr. Fraser Henderson Jr.'s visit to Tenwek in February would lead he and his wife Betsy to commit to joining Alisa and I here full-time in January 2022.  That God would lead another neurosurgeon to Tenwek has been our hope for several years now.  It's hard to overstate our excitement at this news!

Emmanuel is going to be a great neurosurgeon.  He loves the Lord deeply.  The opportunity to work one-on-one daily with him is one of my greatest joys here.  Here he is operating on another patient with a brain tumor.

Fraser (left) operating with Emmanuel and I this past February

Fraser and Betsy, along with their daughter Phoebe, will be joining us in January 2022

Tenwek has been approved for a total of three residents and in January Emmanuel will be joined by Dr. Ivy Barasa as our second.  The surgical training programs at Tenwek rely 100% on the financial support of partners like you.  The cost of putting a resident through their 6 years of training is $25,000 per year.  In addition, there is a critical shortage of resident housing at Tenwek and fundraising continues for the building of more housing units.  Each of the three units needed for our neurosurgery residents will cost approximately $40,000. If you're interested in joining the work at Tenwek by supporting Emmanuel and Ivy, along with future neurosurgical trainees, Alisa and I would be very grateful.  To do so you can give a tax-deductible donation to Friends of Tenwek by clicking here and designating your gift for the "Neurosurgery Residency Scholarship Fund".

The Copeland crew at our Thanksgiving celebration last weekend.   We are grateful for the support of so many of you that allow us to continue serving here at Tenwek.  Blessings to you and yours during this Advent season.

Lest you think I'm the only one doing cool stuff around here...This is a picture of Alisa with the ladies of Side By Side-Tenwek when they received their copies of the Bible study book Seamless.  Side By Side is an outreach ministry of the Christian Medical and Dental Association designed to encourage women in their faith and medical marriages.  Alisa started Tenwek's chapter back in 2017 with one resident's wife and it has grown to now include most of the wives.  What a blessing it is to be united with Alisa in our purpose here - to train and disciple residents and their spouses to serve those in need and tell of God's goodness shown in Jesus Christ.

A Living Hope

You know the statistics.  You know what it's doing to the world.  Perhaps you know most keenly because you know what it's doing to you.  It's threatening so many of the foundations of your life - your job, your retirement account, your social network - and reminding each of us that the day will come when we won't ever work again, when we won't have a penny to our name, when our social calendars will forever be empty.  COVID-19 reminds us of death.  C.S. Lewis's words on war seem as pertinent in a pandemic:      What does war [or the coronavirus] do to death?  It certainly does not make        it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be                increased.  It can put several deaths earlier, but I hardly suppose that that is      what we fear...Yet war does do something to death.  It forces us to                      remember it...War makes death real to us...("Learning in Wartime") Each of us who has known life has known the fear of death.  And yet in Jesus Christ the fear of death is turned on its head.  Consider the words of the biblical writer Paul:      For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  If I am to live on in the flesh,          that means fruitful labor for me.  Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.  I am        hard pressed between the two.  My desire is to depart and be with Christ,          for that is far better. (Philippians 1:21-23) Times like this test whether we can say the same.  It can be easy to say "to live is Christ, and to die is gain" when life costs us little and death seems far off.  It is another thing to say the same when disease is spreading and we, or someone we love, might die.  Is death really good news for those who love Jesus?  Is life after death really better, by far, than even the best this life on earth has to offer? With Jesus, death becomes a servant - a door into His all-satisfying presence forever.  Death is gain, not because the experience of death is any less likely, or any less painful, but because of what death gives us - because of Who death gives us. I've found myself lately cherishing anew the words of the apostle Peter:      Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great                mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection        of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish,      spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you...In this you greatly rejoice, though now      for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.      (1 Peter 1:3-4,6) In this time of uncertainty, when you're tempted to fear or despair, may you find rest in the assuredness of our living hope, Jesus Christ.  Or perhaps during this Easter week you would come to know that hope for the first time.   A friend sent me this song this week and I love the truth in its lyrics Many of you have reached out recently to see how we're doing and how the coronavirus is affecting Kenya.  Thank you.  It means more than you know to hear from you and know you're thinking of us. We're doing well.  The country's first case was diagnosed on March 12th and as of this morning there are 125 additional confirmed.  Tenwek Hospital has yet to receive a patient with COVID-19 but we have been busy making preparations in anticipation that, if it spreads like it has in so many countries, it may soon threaten to overwhelm our systems. Elective surgeries have been cancelled though most of what I do is urgent/emergent so my days feel mostly normal.  Alisa's Side By Side women's group has stopped meeting for the time.  And since homeschooling doesn't stop to social distance, the kids are enjoying being on Spring Break! Thanks again to all of you who support us in so many ways.  We couldn't continue in the work here without you.