Should happiness be the focus of one’s life, or something deeper?
Tom Catena, a doctor for 14 years in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan — a desolate, rebel-held area that was bombed repeatedly from 2011 until 2018 by the Khartoum government when Omar al-Bashir was president — may have the answer.
Catena has been the subject of a documentary film, a winner of the Aurora Prize, and profiled by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times.
In a recent WhatsApp call, he made an important distinction between happiness and joy: Happiness is an emotion that changes from hour to hour and day to day. Joy is more deeply rooted. It comes from living a purposeful life; in his case, following a religious calling.
Catena said some days he is ecstatic. But most weeks, he is working 24/7, confronting challenge after challenge, performing 2,000 surgeries a year and dealing with 130,000 patients, since his hospital serves a catchment area of over 750,000 people.
Thank you Tom. I pray that you and your wife remain safe and that you two have have the peace and joy while in the middle of the oppression knowing you are doing His work.