Tom and Monty

(Click Photo to Enlarge)

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World Medical Missions, the medical arm of Samaritan's Purse played a significant role in making our trip to Tenwek hospital possible last November. Their administrative staff was responsible for all of the preparatory work and information that we received months before we ever left the United States, they coordinated our itineraries and airfare, our reservations before during and after our visit to Tenwek hospital and all the transportation in-between. They donated the necessary medical equipment and made it possible for our trip to Kenya to become a reality.

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Although not many of us were fully aware of all of their contributions and the complete impact that World Medical Missions had on our visit to Kenya, shortly after arriving at Tenwek Hospital, we all knew immediately what our favorite World Medical Missions contribution were... 2 guys by the name of Monty and Tom.

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Tom and Monty, Samaritan's Purse BioMedical technicians, were single-handedly responsible for making our cardiac week at Tenwek Hospital a huge success. Most of the equipment we were using was from the United States, and I couldn't begin to explain all the electrical differences between the US and Kenya (50 cycle current vs. 60 cycle, etc). All I know is that 5 minutes after I plugged in the heater-cooler on our first day of surgery it burned out and shut off. You really can't do open-heart surgery without a way to regulate the patient's temperature, so losing the heater cooler would have had a huge impact on our program that week. Thanks to Tom and Monty, all we had to do was give them a call and push the broken piece of equipment out into the hallway. They would come and work their magic and bring us the equipment back when we needed it in tip-top working condition.

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The picture of Monty in the upper left corner of the collage pretty much shows how we were all feeling right after we arrived at Tenwek Hospital while we were trying to pull all the supplies together in preparation for our first day of surgery. Thanks to both of them the cardiac week was not only a great experience for us, but for our patients as well. We couldn't have done what we all did without their constant behing-the-scenes support.