This is Elsa, who is grateful to be able to help pull together the thoughts of Rik Celie with his amazing and so very important Doctors on Mission. The words, feelings and experiences are all his. I have given to Rik and his Doctors on Mission a monthly donation for a number of years, and I have a lifelong calling to help. Right now he is in the Bolivian Andes and the Bolivian Amazon. Now it is his turn, starting from a few short letters he wrote to me.
We are alive
We are alive, which sometimes is hard to believe, given the severe symptoms suffered by ourselves and most of the team when we came out of the Amazon six months ago. We even became healthy again and could return to Bolivia after treatment in the summer of 2023.
We know why we do what we do. We help as much as we can.
As you know already, the pandemic hit South America with hundreds of thousands of deaths. In Bolivia, where we were, many doctors died. It struck just after a big personal loss, the early death of one of my closest friends, the Bolivian doctor "Dr. Ino," who was becoming the leader of Doctors On Mission. I worked with him for more then 28 years. He died at the age of 52 because of the "Chagas" disease that affects 20 million people in the Andes.
The loss of Dr Ino was a double loss: not just a personal loss but a huge blow for Doctors on Mission. I hope to be able to continue working in Bolivia at least until I am 70. I am now almost 63 and already overcame many life-threatening diseases.
At the Andes base
We came just now from our medical work (no charge to anyone) to our Andes Base (11,000 feet high). I am working at too high an altitude (till 12,000 feet) with meetings, repairing defects of the ambulances and looking for medicines: all things that a normal MD doesn't need to do. And I need to pay all the people myself, as they come from these very poor regions and finished their studies with huge debts.
Medicines, surgeries and all the time consulting for free patients are paid thanks to you. Best for me is monthly donations, as then I can plan. Most of the time, I don't know how to go forward but somehow what we started 33 years ago is continuing despite a communist regime that does nothing but hinder us.
Tomorrow (yes on a Sunday), we leave for the work in the Bolivian Amazon because of the great need, wild fires and the rest. First we prepare this next outreach by looking for cheap medicines, repairing our vehicle and having meetings to know where the need is greatest, where there is an epidemic or where there are many tropical diseases. I still see up to a 100 patients a day, or more when I go with my medical teams.
Thinking back to being 14
My passion, always, is to help people, to help the poorest of the poor. That was my dream, even as a boy. The one thing that pressed me the most was an article I wrote that every day more then 30,000 children die from just 5 easily preventable diseases. Now they are talking about 5.2 million children under 5 years who die each year.
I got a world globe, spun it around and promised myself that I would spend a whole year working in the country where my finger pointed to. It was Bolivia. I did not know, as a boy, how much I would need a community of people, like you, who cared as much as I did.
If there is one big miracle, it is that I am still alive after having helped, though this was forbidden, the minorities in North Pakistan when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were ruling. Another came with the earthquake in Haiti (Jan. 2010), where there were about 250,000 dead.
A big change has happened with my health
I have had to go to Belgium for my health. I can't stay away, as I used to, for 4 years before returning. My health situation doesn't allow me anymore to do all the time the heavy work I used to do. Since the end of the summer, when I was healed again, my medical team has been pleading with me to come back to the Amazon, to go to several villages where no MD had been in years, where a Dengue epidemic had broken out.
Very important
Right now, we are looking hard for a new Toyota Landcruiser Ambulance. The only two that still function of the 5 we got are now 17 years old, and the repairs once we return from these muddy gravel roads are extremely costly. These vehicles along with my 35-year-old "Hospital Truck" have become completely worn out. For a new ambulance, we need about 50.000 US$.
I deeply believe that Doctors on Mission will last as long as there are funds enough. If it ever stops, it will certainly not be due to our local doctors who are very enthusiastic to go on. We have lost count of the number of people we have helped over 33 years, but I remember that in one year, when we were keeping count, we treated more then 23,000 people. Thank you for taking Doctors On Mission into your heart.
