by Dr. Jim Thomas
Let me tell you about a cup running over.
From 1979 to 1981, I served as a nutritionist with the Paul Carlson Medical Program at the Loko Hospital and Mission Station. As animal sources of protein disappeared due to deforestation, I became the link between agriculturalists introducing beans—a vegetable protein—and the villagers they were intended to benefit. A Congolese mother, Susanna, helped me create recipes that local women would be comfortable preparing and feeding to their young children, who were the most vulnerable to malnutrition.
When I returned to the States, I obtained a PhD in epidemiology (my research focused on malnourished children in rural Kenya), married Gayle—the daughter of missionaries to the Ubangi (she was featured in an earlier newsletter)—we raised two sons, and I had a career as a professor of epidemiology and ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, working in more than 40 countries.
In 2023, Gayle and I returned to the Ubangi with the Paul Carlson Partnership. When I visited Loko on that trip, Susanna and a few other women had set up a cooking hut outside our guesthouse to host us. When I arrived and stepped out of the Land Rover, I recognized her immediately. She gave me a warm hug and said, Ozungi! (“You came back!”). She then introduced me to the son she had named after me: Jim Thomas. Gayle and I have been able to help Jim complete his studies to become a nurse.
From left to right: Me, the other Jim Thomas, Susanna, and her 103-year-old mother-in-law. In the background is the kitchen hut they created to host us.
This September, Gayle and I will once again be on the Medical Ambassador team visiting the Ubangi. Since the trip in 2023, I have become the president of the Medical Ambassadors. I also published a book with Ethics Press entitled But I Meant Well: Unlearning Colonial Ways of Doing Good. With its model of training trainers rather than supplanting local physicians by providing medical services, PCP has done a good job of moving away from old colonial models. As Medical Ambassador president, I will work with the PCP staff and the Congolese to continue collaboration in ways that honor the leadership of the local people.
On the September trip, we will listen intently to the needs and desires of our Congolese brothers and sisters, and with them discern how we can best be of service. They have requested assistance in taking their malnutrition programs into the villages. This is an area where I have a fair amount of experience and can perhaps help. Importantly, I am not providing the main direction or momentum—I will be following theirs. And since the nursing school is at the Karawa mission where we will be based, I will also meet with Susanna’s son Jim to encourage him in his care for her and the people of the neighboring villages.
My cup runs over with thanksgiving.
