Did you hear the one about the priest and the dentist who go to Africa? They meet a doctor who runs a little hospital. The doctor asks the priest and the dentist for help. They agree. What happens? The dentist wins a Republican primary and the priest gets a BMW from a locksmith in Randallstown.
Badda-bing!
OK, not much of a joke there.
But it wasn't meant to be. This is something that really happened, and it's all good, as you'll see in a moment. First, some background.
The story begins last summer. The Rev. Jack Lombardi, chaplain of the National Shrine Grotto of Lourdes in Emmitsburg organizes a trip to Africa for a group of Catholic pilgrims. There are 16 on the trip, including Mike Hargadon, a dentist with offices in Eldersburg and Emmitsburg. (Hargadon also happens to be a "Ron Paul Republican" candidate for Congress in Maryland's 7th District.)
The 17-day trip to Africa has three purposes - spirituality, service and safari. "To see the face of God in another land," is how Father Jack puts it.
The group goes to South Africa in August. The nine adults and seven teenagers serve with Mother Teresa's missionaries among orphans, the handicapped and AIDS victims. They visit a day care center and play with children.
They go to Tanzania. They visit a center for the disabled, a school for the deaf and a children's home. In a place called Arusha, they land at St. Elizabeth Hospital.
The hospital is modest, with only a few examination rooms, an operating room, no X-ray device and a small, overworked staff.
"There was a long line of people waiting to get inside the hospital," Father Jack says. "The heroic-ness of the head of the hospital, Dr. Kway, and his staff was inspiring."
Hargadon brings implements so he can provide dental work, and he ends up pulling a few teeth. "All the people we met, they're so poor, but they were always so very nice and welcoming, and very spiritual," he says.
While at St. Elizabeth's, Father Jack and Hargadon ask Dr. Kway - who practices under a single name - what he needs most.
"An ambulance," the doctor says. The 33-year-old hospital, serving a population of 350,000 in and around Arusha, has never had a vehicle, much less one with room for a gurney, oxygen and intravenous equipment.
