Chapter 9 Straddling the Centuries

Dr. Robert Moffat, our next global health worker, feels contemporary in his style, even though he worked in East Africa at the turn of the previous century. His parents were Scottish missionaries in South Africa; he went to Medical School in England; his first assignment was in colonial Kenya, then Uganda - and by the time he was 40, it was time to go home.

But where was home? He tried Britain, Rhodesia, Brazil, and France - but none of these were home. He ended up, in his eighth decade, on his brother’s farm in Rhodesia.

I wonder if Moffat heard Danny Boy when it first came out in 1913. He was 47 then, his first wife had just died, and War was imminent. Danny Boy says “The pipes are calling…” calling you to come home. Danny Boy says “Come ye back…” Come back where? For some global health workers, even today, home is nowhere - and everywhere.

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