Burma Surgeon 2: An Autobiography and Testimonial to God’S Love and Goodness

By John K. Lim, MD

This is a personal history from age three to four years from Rangoon (Yangon), Burma to China, back to Burma, and onto the USA between the years 19392017. This is an introduction to American life, hospital training, and life in general.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543470543

John K. Lim, MD

John Lim was born on November 20,1939 in Rangoon, Burma. The book is the story of my life from age four to seventy-seven.

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Copyright © 2018 by John K. Lim, MD.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017918600

ISBN:      Hardcover        978-1-5434-7056-7

                Softcover         978-1-5434-7055-0

                eBook              978-1-5434-7054-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/22/2018

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1    The Lord Is My Shepherd

Chapter 2    I Shall Not Want

Chapter 3    He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures

Chapter 4    He Leads Me beside Quiet Water, He Restores My Soul

Chapter 5    He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures, He Leads Me Besides Still Waters

Chapter 6    He Restores My Soul, He Guides Me in Paths of Righteousness for His Name’s Sake

Chapter 7    Even Though I Walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death Anna Had Breast Cancer!

Chapter 8    Thou Dost Prepares a Table before Me in the Presence of My Enemies, Thou Hast Anointed My Head with Oil My Cup Overflows

Chapter 9    Surely Goodness and Mercy Shall Follow Me All the Days of My Life

Chapter 10    And I Shall Dwell in the House of the Lord Forever

Foreword

Far be it for me to mention my name in the same sentence as Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave, yes, the Burma Surgeon who spent a lifetime serving the people of Northern Shan States, Burma (Myanmar today), in the years of the thirties to the sixties (1900s, that is) in prewar Burma.

Life was hard and even primitive when I was assigned to the Northern Shan States (NSS) in 1963, the very same region where Dr. Seagrave served so valiantly. I can only imagine the hardships that he encountered. What with wastebasket surgical instruments that he salvaged from his internship at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and the wartime (WWII) in Burma, life was difficult to say the least. They were basically surgical forceps, clamps, and knives that were thrown away in the dustbin from which he picked up, anticipating that he would be serving in the jungles of Burma.

Dr. Seagrave was a direct descendant, fifth generation to be exact, from a long line of both medical and lay missionaries, the Vintons from his mother’s side. Their love for Burma knew no bounds, and their dedication to all things Burma and the Burmese people cannot be duplicated anywhere except maybe Adoniram Judson (1822) (Judson Story by Emily Hunt, Praise the Lord).

Many of the later missionaries were B-3s or B-4s, those who came to Burma to serve for three or four years after World War II (WWII) in peace-time Burma. They were Baptists and Methodists sent by their respective Missionary Boards.

Recently, I was reacquainted with the work of Dr. Seagrave after reading his autobiographies Burma Surgeon, My Hospital in the Hills, and Burma Surgeon Returns. They were gripping accounts of his heroic service to Burma in the Shan States, Kachin States, and Karenni States in the Northeastern segment of the country. It was my eternal lost not to have met him personally. I missed him when he returned to his haunts after a harrowing experience in the capital Rangoon (Yangon today), having been accused of treason and acquitted by the then postwar government. He served from Yangon in the south along the whole length and breadth of Burma to Myitkyina in the north and even into Imphal in Assam, India. From oppressive tropical and subtropical climes with temperatures in the 110 degrees Fahrenheit, including high humidity, to the northern hills, where temperatures do drop to freezing at night but no snow, the living conditions were brutal with the lack of housing and electricity, running water, basic sewers, and sanitation a constant inconvenience