Dear all:
Kristy and I would like to update you on where the Lord has been leading us in these past few months. We have both felt the Lord's calling to the mission field, and we are hopefully, finally making this a reality. Samaritan's Purse has a program called the Post-Residency Program. (Click here for their website) This is a 2 year commitment to a hospital in the developing world. I am completing my Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship in June of 2013. Originally we had planned on working for a few years to pay off loans, and then try to go full time on the mission field. However when we heard about this program we applied and we heard this week that we have been accepted. We have also been given 2 choices as to where God is leading us to serve.
1. Kijabe Mission Hospital, Kenya - this is the world's largest mission compound including a main hospital, Bethany Children's Hospital, and a K-12 school called Rift Valley Academy (RVA) that Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for in 1908. They have a very small ICU, and I would mainly be performing General Peds, and hopefully Kristy would be teaching at RVA while the kids attended there.
2. Mulago Hospital in Uganda - this is a new partnership for Samaritan's Purse (SP), as Mulago is a government run hospital, however the Children's Heart Project (a branch of SP that brings children with heart defects to the US for surgery- click here for their website to learn more) has a presence there as they work with the physicians at Mulago to perform children's open heart surgery in Uganda. This is the opportunity that we are most excited about. God seems to have been working on this one for a while! Last Spring a physican came to UVA and gave a lecture about work he is doing in Uganda, going on trips involving children's heart surgery. This gentleman trained with one of the physicians I am currently working with, so, afterward, we were introduced. As I explained I have an interest in East Africa, having previously served there, he told me that the Ugandans have wonderful heart doctors, and a heart
surgeon, but no cardiac intensivists. Here at UVA I've received a lot of training with children recovering from heart surgery, much more than in other fellowships. This leads me ideally suited for this position.
Needless to say everything seems to currently be working perfectly that the Ugandans are happy to have me, SP is happy to work with them, and I will be bridging both words opening up a new partnership. There are not one, or two, but three international schools in Kampala, Uganda that Kristy is applying to, and that hopefully the kids can attend.
We are very excited about the next 2 years of our lives, and we need your prayer support as we embark on this journey. My first time in Africa, I was not a doctor, dad, or husband, we have never traveled or lived internationally with the kids, and Kristy has not taught in an international setting while also being a mom. So many challenges await us, yet we look back and see how the Lord has opened these doors for us, and walking with HIM we will walk through them together.
As we know more details including financial support we will share them with you. You can follow us at www.jkvanderford.blogspot.com. Eventually we will have an account number on the blog which will link to SP's website where you can donate tax free directly in supporting us.
Please feel free to send this to anyone that you know who would want to partner in prayer with us.
Thank you for your prayers!!! Joel, Kristy, Caleb, and Kianna
