A man with incredible passion to follow God’s call to bring health care and the Gospel to his own people. That was my impression when I first met Dr. Frederic Djongali in Chad, Africa, in 2012. Frederic received his medical training in neighboring Niger, but felt called to respond to the needs in his home country of Chad where he returned in 2006. It was not an easy time to live in Chad.

My ears perked up when nurse Denise Maxwell, Luke Society ministry director in Monrovia, Liberia said that there had been a number of triplet births over the past few years. My wife and I know some of the joys and challenges of having triplets as ours are now 12 years old. Yet, what we experienced was nothing like the stories Denise was telling.

Let me offer an invitation to think about things differently while you pray this month. Try to look at things from the perspective of a patient seeking help from a Luke Society medical clinic. Put yourself in their shoes. Use your senses and enter into their story.

One of the great encouragements we have working in the Luke Society central office in Sioux Falls, SD, happens every day when the doorbell rings and a U.S. postal worker climbs our steps with an arm full of mail.