Where there's danger, there's Lighthouse Medical Missions

In 2003, 40 cruise missiles were fired on Bagdad the day before a Lighthouse Medical Missions team flew to Freetown, Sierra Leone, with fears they would face a violent reaction from the largely Muslim population there.

In 2005, the Lighthouse team flew to Kenema, Sierra Leone -- only a year after their national director in charge of the Lassa fever hospital died of the hemorraghic fever. He received an accidental needle prick and died within 18 days. Kenema was not cleared for international travelers.

In 2008, rebels fired rockets on the capital city of Burundi the day before the team flew there.

In 2011, there were riots in the capital city of Burkina Faso over food shortages the day before the team flew there.

"Every year, there's something," said Dr. Lawrence Czer, a veteran on Lighthouse missions.

As the latest mission ended April 5 with a mini clinic of 65 patients, team members again felt as if they had brushed with death. The potent Ebola virus had exploded in Guinea and appeared to move northward with alarming speed.

One wonders: Does Lighthouse Medical Missions, a Christian charity now in Africa for 16 years, choose the most dangerous times and places to hold its clinics? They certainly seem to lack the knack for circumventing peril.

After hearing that Ebola was suspected of breaching Mali, Dr. Robert Hamilton, a Santa Monica pediatrician who heads the charity group, said, "We need to go to Mali."

He wasn't joking. (If you don't know Dr. Hamilton, just imagine Harrison Ford from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with a doctor's coat on and a stethoscope instead of a bull whip.)

There's no mincing words. Lighthouse Medical Missions is the ultimate bucket list adventure.

While medical practitioners are premium, pretty much anyone can volunteer for the trip. You can help with the pharmacy, security, logistics. No whiners, however, are allowed. You'll need to work well under pressure and not lose your head.

Just ask Dr. Janice Hull. Her dad died unexpectedly on March 29 while she was in The Gambia. A text she received the next day from her family said: "We don't want you to come home now. Stay and finish your medical mission."

Dr. Hull, an Ob-Gyn with clinics in Century City and Inglewood, cried at 4:00 a.m. in the Shalom retreat center where we stayed. Hearing her sobs, all the young girls on the team invaded her room. "They sat with me and cried with me," she said. "That was comforting."

Early Monday, she boarded a bus for a grueling 10-hour ride to Guinea, where she took care of patients with the 20-member team there. Meanwhile, Ebola loomed in neighboring Guinea Bissau at only 100 miles away.

"I felt pressure because I wanted to give each patient the best of my ability," Dr. Hull said. "I felt like my dad would want me to continue working there."

A 45-member team divided into two nations of West Africa and attended to 1,400 patients. Ebola only slowed them down.

Ebola has an incubation period of two days to two weeks. Then it causes hemorrhaging from the eyes, nose. But its transmission has not been documented through ticks or mosquitoes, so it's epidemic potential is far lower than malaria, said Dr. Czer, head of Cedars Sinai Medical Center's heart transplantation program.

The list of close calls with hair-raising mayhem is only growing.

In 2007, a clinic held in the Wilberforce military barracks of Freetown was overrun by the multitudes pressing in to get medicine on the last day. The rope used to cordon off proved ineffective, as the soldiers themselves supposedly on guard instead swooped down on the free, quality medicines, Dr. Hamilton said.

"We've had to call the police many, many times to shut a clinic down," Dr. Hamilton said. "It was a shark feeding frenzy that day. We had to escape one by one."

So far, no one has gotten injured or sick from such high risk dangers, although more than a few team members have gotten diarrhea, and once a Santa Barbara sheriff broke his arm while doing a perimeter check. He fell into a hole. With so many cool ways to die and get injured, why so prosaic?

So far, the nightmares have worked mostly in their heads. The fear of a Muslim backlash for the Cruise missiles on Bagdad proved groundless. Actually, the Sierra Leoneans supported the Allied attacks, Dr. Czer said.

No one got sick of Lassa. The rocket-firing stopped in Burundi the day Lighthouse team members arrived. Rioting ceased in Burkina Faso just in time.

But will Lightouse teams always defy calamity?

With Lassa "I was really paranoid. I was wondering if we were going to all get sick," Dr. Czer said. "But it's turned out that nobody got sick. God has protected us on these trips. Despite all the dangers, we've gotten to and from Africa intact and safe. As long as it's God's will, we're under His protection. I'm going to keep on going on these trips as long as I'm able."

The latest trip was Dr. Czer's 19th. We the Brussels Airline jet was taking off on April 5 at night, there was a red flash, a pop and a bump that caused the pilot to slam on the brakes and stop the plane sharply. We had to stay another day, and investigations showed that pigs were sucked up into the powerful engine.

Never a dull moment.

If you would like to donate to medicines, schools or water projects or sponsor team members, check out www.lighthousemedicalmissions.com . They are associated with www.thelighthousechristianacademy.com .

This is entry #11 of my chronicles of an African medical mission. To read #12, click here.

Or if you would like to start with entry #1, go here.