“I have a poem for you” he shared. He picked up the stack of papers in front of him and began:

“So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught….”

The soft yet confident voice of a Kenyan man echoed through the concrete conference room as he continued to read through the entire poem. Fourteen medical professionals sat around him in the dark room, many of us with tears in our eyes….Dr. Kajira Mugambi put down the papers when he was finished and smiled at our group. We were on day three of our MedTreks Kenya Global Health Field Course. Dr. Mugambi is the founder of Village HopeCore International (HopeCore), the community health and development program that MedTreks has closely partnered with over the last decade.

The entire poem, by Michael Josephson is posted at the bottom of this blog – and even though I have personally heard this poem read by Dr. Mugambi before, this time, it felt more meaningful. As I looked around the room of 14 medical professionals; doctors, NPs, PAs, RNs, lab scientists and EMTs…all who traveled half way across the world to learn about global health, I realized that this poem was truly representing this group and their dedication to living a life that matters.

Over the years, guiding trips and teaching at various conferences – I frequently get asked questions like “I want to get involved and use my medical training to make a difference, I just don’t know where to start and I don’t know which program to choose” 

Our MedTreks Kenya course is not your average “medical campaign” but rather a cross-cultural, educational collaboration experience blended with a very unique opportunity to witness the day-to-day operations of a boots on the ground community health program in rural Kenya. The trip begins in Nairobi with an orientation to global health, humanitarian medicine and the history of Village HopeCore program. The following 5 days are spent in the village on the slopes of Mt. Kenya joining up with the HopeCore program and participating in a variety of public health activities as well as learning real-time fundamental concepts for poverty eradication such as micro finance and capacity building.

One of the main goals of this field course is to provide healthcare professionals with an in-person experience of what it looks like to run a program on the ground and expose some of the challenges to resource-limited healthcare in places like Sub-Saharan Africa. My personal hope as the founder and director of this program, is that after participating in this course, health professionals will not only feel more inspired, but also empowered to go out and participate in sustainable humanitarian and global health programs. I kind of see this as a “launching pad” for people who really want to learn how to use their skillset in other areas of the world.

The other main goal of this program is to provide continuing education and training to our local staff in Kenya at HopeCore. Often it is expensive and time consuming to send a staff of 30 to a city such as Nairobi, and so part of our commitment with the MedTreks Kenya model, is to provide education and training that has been requested by HopeCore or is relevant to the work that they do.

This past month our MedTreks Kenya course participants hosted a full day training on Mental Health for the HopeCore staff. Four of our MedTreks participants teamed up months before the trip to design and build out a curriculum on Mental Health.The MedTreks instructors; Zan Zachry, Debi Solberg, Mia Duenes and Chelsea Tersavich had recorded their lectures and compiled the content into a virtual course that the Kenya team can access anytime after the in-person training. Personal stories were shared, difficult questions were asked and at the end of the day – there was so much gratitude from everyone who participated in the course, learning to address mental health and breakdown the stigma associated with mental health issues. It was yet another example, of living and walking…a life that matters.

Over the years we have hosted many trainings for our HopeCore team in Kenya. In return, they have generously shared with us their culture, their healthcare system, their knowledge of the local diseases and the unique barriers to bringing medicine to the communities they serve.

I am feeling deeply thankful for all of the MedTreks participants who have chosen to travel to Kenya to learn, to grow and to walk the path of living a life that is purposeful..a life that truly matters.

We hope to see many of you on a future MedTreks Kenya trip!

We welcome all practitioners in healthcare and also non-medical professionals are welcome as well.

We are happy to chat on the phone and discuss more about the program at any time!

Thank you for reading!

Warmly,

Ari Rasori, MedTreks Founder/Owner

Join us in Kenya! 

 

What Will Matter? (by Michael Josephson)

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten
will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations
and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought
but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success
but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned
but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage, or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence
but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories
but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered,
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.