Decisions, decisions: Am I called to Africa?

I never really thought I'd be at this place at this time in my life. Here I am, a few years shy of fifty, but feeling a bit unsettled, wondering about the proper direction in my professional life.

The background: I finished surgery training and joined a very successful surgical practice in 1991. I worked that job, falling into step comfortably with the perks that go with it. I had the country house, a three-sixty degree view, twelve acres, plenty of time off, good church, and a nice community with good schools for my boys. Twelve years and lots of surgery in the tank, not to mention a little niche in the Christian book market for medical-theme related suspense.

And then I had to go and visit Africa on a short term mission to fill in for a surgeon in need of a break.....

I had the sense within a few weeks of arrival on the dark continent that the whole family needed to experience this. Service to a needy people. People who had no sense of entitlement like my patients back home. People grateful for whatever I could offer to relieve their physical misery.

I presented the idea to the family. With a lot of discussion (and a few details that needed to fall into place like someone offering to buy the doctor-house in the country) we all agreed: the Kraus family would spend a year in Kenya.

A year turned into four with a year back in the states to untie my business connections. By my own admission, this mid-life move was "career suicide." I left a job as a full partner with great benefits to take my family across the world and resettle in order to serve the poor.

My boys attended an international Christian school run by our mission. A phenomenal experience. Kenya was a boy-heaven place to grow up. Camping. Riding motorcycles among the giraffe and zebra. Service opportunities like helping to build mud huts for the community. Planting trees to promote reforestation. Climbing Kilimanjaro. Scuba diving in the Indian ocean. Killing birds for their supper with dart guns.

My work was stretching. I became general surgeon, urologist, plastic surgeon, pediatric surgeon (occasionally), trauma surgeon, neurosurgeon and even an obstetrician occasionally. But there was definitely a joy in the service. Rewards in Kenya were different. Grateful patients. The satisfaction of creating a solution in the midst of little provision. And then, there was the excitement of reaching out to a completely unreached people group, being the first Christian that many Muslims had ever met. Scary stuff, but also full of opportunity.

And patients facing tough physical crisis were coming face to face with faith decisions. Love was building a bridge strong enough to carry the gospel into thirsty hearts.

My wife? She made the best of the situation, provided the glue for a busy family functioning within a culture sans the ultra conveniences of frozen instant prep foods, a nice house (definitely not the doctor-house we left!), endured the bad roads, the government corruption, the constant stream of beggars at our door and frequent petty theivery and mostly smiled in the process. She worked in the international school where my children attended, teaching sewing and tutoring students who were falling behind. But the years of inconveniences took their toll. After our second son graduated from high school, we returned to the US for a needed furlough. Now, she would return willingly, but I understand she would be quite delighted if we made a decision to stay in America where life is easy and predictable.

Now, we've been back for eight months and I'm asking God again about his calling. Are we to return to Kenya?

In the US, I've been working as a surgeon an hour from home, as my old partnership job had long been filled by others with a vision for practice-building in America. So now I find myself fully qualified, mid-life without full time work, living far beneath the typical surgeon standard. It's not hard to see how my decisions for missionary service have impacted my family financially.

Do I regret service in Kenya and the impact it had on me and my family? NOT FOR A HEARTBEAT.

Unequivocally, the years in Kenya set the stage for my oldest sons to attend prestigious universities here. They learned so much more than they could have learned if they had been exposed only to western, doctor-rich, US culture.

Now the question returns: what about the future?

For a number of years, I've discounted the need for a heavy emotional experienced-based "call." Too many Christians sit on their backsides when opportunities for service abound, waiting for some heavenly experience to constitute a divine "call."

Before I left for Kenya for the first year, I remember looking at Galatians 6:10 which says, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people..." I thought, OK, that's all the "call" I need. I have opportunity to do good, so I should do it. It was that simple. Oh, and he had to reassure me by providing all the other small answers: I needed to raise support successfully, we needed to sell the house etc. But the "call" issue was simple. I had opportunity and the means, so I went for it.

Now, I'm struggling with the same questions. My wife and third son are back in the USA with me and are loving it. Thoughts of returning to Kenya drag up memories of all the work of packing, moving, organizing, arranging, changing schools (again!), disrupted schedules, breaking friendships, and mental adjustments, adjustments, adjustments.... It is not easy for the missionary in foreign service to make these kind of life-altering decisions that impact not only themselves, but more importantly, the family.

There are three things important in considering a "call." Competency, character, and chemistry. Am I competent to do the job? Do I have the character to bring the love of God into the situation? Am I able to work well with the people? How are my relationships with other missionaries and the people I am serving?

More importantly, God calls married couples as couples, not individuals. I have to consider my wife and my son. What is best for them?

Part of the reason for my struggle intensifying now: An opportunity to practice with my old group in town may open up for me in the near future, but will come with strings: they will want at least a three to five year commitment that I won't "jump ship" again in mid-stream, heading off to serve in Africa. Can I give them that kind of commitment? To sign on the line and reenter my old surgical practice (a great practice, by the way, with opportunity to be light and salt here in my community) will effectively close the door on Africa.

Practice in Africa turned me into a very broad (experience, not fat!) surgeon, something I cannot be in the US. It is something I miss. But I must think of my family. What is best for my wife, my son?

God isn't in the business of writing an answer in the skies (not often, anyway). Would you pray that God will make this important decision clear?

Thanks for your support as my readers, but also as fellow prayer-warriors. We fight not against flesh and blood....