Global relationships
Summer is the time of year when our students, faculty, and staff tend to travel the most, largely to developing countries, to provide “health care.” I put that in quotes because I often tell them they are healing themselves more than others. Many young people who go into the healing professions have a deep desire to “cure the world.” They want to engage, relieve suffering, and show to many the road to health and prosperity. But what they can provide in a few short weeks is hardly a blip in most people’s lives. What they really offer is friendship, hope, and a listening ear.
Juan Carlos Belliard, known as JC on our campus, directs our Institute for Community Partnerships and has a saying in his email signature that says, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together,” by Lilla Watson.
We have gradually moved away from the old days of the “Ugly American” who traveled the world giving out advice, usually along with goodies of some kind. We used to compare the lives and conditions we found with what we have back home and mistakenly assumed others would like to live like us.
I remember once stopping in the Southeastern African nation of Malawi at a refugee camp for Mozambicans who had come across the border seeking peace during their civil war. It was evening, and the mothers were coming up from the well with a pot of water on their heads and a baby on their backs, father was coming in from the shamba with a hoe over his shoulder, and an older sister was preparing a simple meal on their three-stone cooking fire. The temperature was just right, the sun was setting over the baobab trees, and children were laughing and playing as the family sat down together to enjoy their simple meal.
I remember standing there and asking myself, “What could I do to make this any better?” Sure, they would probably like a radio, or bicycle, or a new cooking pan, but what they had — a nuclear family enjoying the evening together around a meal as they shared stories from the day — was hard to beat. So, one of our first goals must be “don’t destroy what they have.”
This is why we recognize that it often takes a year or two of living in another culture before one can truly understand the true needs and play a meaningful role in developing solutions. And even then, it needs to be done in a way that lets each culture own and incorporate new ideas in its own way. That is why change is so difficult and recidivism to the old ways is so frequent. One of my favorite quotes is from Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism:
Go To the People,
Live Among Them,
Learn from Them,
Love Them,
Start with what they know,
Build on what they have,
And of the greatest leaders,
When their work is done
The people will all say
“We have done it ourselves.”
As the students and professionals of Loma Linda University Health spread around the world this summer, to hospitals, schools, and communities, I pray for their safety and wisdom. May they learn what they don’t know, serve with humbleness and dignity, and gently nudge the world toward a better place. And leave behind people empowered with hope and skills for their own development.
Sincerely,
Richard Hart, MD, DrPH
President
Loma Linda University Health
