Dr. Bob or Indiana Jones?

Once on a medical mission in Nicaragua, Dr. Bob Hamilton decided to cross the lake and take care of patients of the Tasbapauni hamlet. They piled people and pills into rickety canoes and paddled off. Heavy-laden, the canoes’ gunwales was a mere couple inches from the water level.

“It was actually pretty scary. We had to balance the the canoe. Thankfully there weren’t too many waves; it was an inland lake and it was very quiet,” Dr. Bob says. “One of our canoes however did take on water. Weended up having to rescue those guys.”

Lighthouse Medical Missions, which has done more than 50 popup clinics all around the Third World, never has a dull moment, and it’s leader, Dr. Bob, may be a mild-mannered, cultured pediatrician in Santa Monica, but loose him on the world and he becomes Indiana Jones.

Another one of his adventures includes the time they were traveling late at night in the jungles of Sierra Leone, Africa.

“We were driving these roads that I’m not sure if you could call them roads,” Dr. Bob says. “We couldn’t find the right turn off. We were in the middle of the jungle, and we were lost in the middle of the night.”

Right now, LMM is gearing up for a second medical mission in Liberia, where they went in 2024. The team is set, but the money is not. LMM needs to raise $40,000 to buy and ship the medicines to Liberia for the clinic. Donate here.

Dr. Bob says he’s not so young anymore, and wouldn’t venture a canoe-crossing in an overloaded boat again. But the stories of his adventures keep piling up enough to make Harrison Ford envy.

Like the time that right in the middle of a medical mission in West Africa, the ebola virus broke out in West Africa. The crew in The Gambia had heard that a suspected case was in bed at the national hospital less than a mile down the road from where they were staying.

Half of the team, led by another doctor, freaked and booked an emergency flight out.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bob told the remaining team members to stay calm and carry on. Dr. Lawrence Czer, a cardiologist from Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, listened wide-eyed, intently to his colleague. The decision to stay, it seemed, was not obvious. But Dr. Czer submitted to the leadership of Dr. Bob.

As it turned out, Dr. Bob was right. Decisions made from panic were not the best. The “case” of Ebola just 500 yards away, turned out to NOT be Ebola. Fears subsided, and life returned to normalcy.

“There have been moments which are kind of scary,” Dr. Bob says.
How does he keep his cool?

On the flight out of The Gambia, the plane’s engine sucked in some pigs. A red flash was seen outside the window and the pilot slammed on the brakes. A phone went flying down the aisle from coach into first class. Nobody knew it was pigs.

The plane taxied back. Mechanics started peering into the jet engine. The began looking for damage. Passengers were deboarded and put up in a hotel, pending further mechanical probes. The escape from Ebola territory had been thwarted, but it least it seemed like contagion was not spreading uncontrollably.

It turns out that no damage was done to the jet plane. The pigs were converted into the perfect puree and spat out the back.

These Lighthouse Medical Missions can include unforeseen adventures.

They also are life changing. They give you a vision for what the world grapples with. They show you the meaning of the phrase “First World Problems.”

To go on a Lighthouse Medical Mission is something every American should do.

This article first appeared on PilgrimDispatch.com