January 20, 2003

Missionaries eager to return to Serbia
after successful brain surgery in Texas
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___HOUSTON--Ben and Meredith Hanna can't wait to tell Serbians about God's care in the removal of a brain tumor from Mrs. Hanna's brain.
___The Southern Baptist missionary couple hope to return to Serbia from Houston soon, once doctors give them clearance to travel.
___Mrs. Hanna first began feeling something was not right about 18 months ago, but the facial numbness and other symptoms seemed to disappear when she became pregnant with her fourth child. Soon after delivery, however, those symptoms began to return.
___On Nov. 8, an MRI revealed a meningioma, a benign tumor of the cells lining the exterior of the brain.
___The couple didn't have to face the trauma alone, however. Two days before the test results came back, a medical mission team from Texas arrived. The timing of their trip had been planned more than 18 months earlier.
___One of the members of the team was Hanna's childhood friend, cardiologist Jim Furgerson, son of the former executive director of Texas Baptist Men. Furgerson was able to help the couple decipher the MRI and its ramifications.
___Hanna summed up the arrival of his friend in two words: "God's timing."
___Furgerson immediately attempted to reach a surgeon he had met as a student at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. That surgeon was the person on call that evening, which meant Furgerson didn't have to relay a series of phone messages from Serbia to Houston.
___The surgeon friend, Furgerson discovered, now heads the neurological department at Methodist Hospital. He agreed to see Mrs. Hanna as soon as she could get to Houston, and he offered to call her parents in Houston and update them on her condition.
___The next hurdle was to get the MRI to Houston so the surgeons could prepare. The radiologist in Nis, Serbia, transferred it to a floppy disk, but initial efforts to e-mail the data to Houston were unsuccessful.
___Another member of the medical mission team that had come from Texas previously owned an Internet company, and once the disk was in his hands, the information was transmitted with no further difficulties.
___The family was able to pack and leave on Nov. 12, the last day their daughter's passport was valid to travel. A delay of even one day would have stalled the trip at least two weeks. A travel agent met Hanna in Belgrade at 2 a.m. prior to the family's 6:40 a.m. flight in order to get them on the plane.
___After arriving in Houston and meeting with doctors, surgery was scheduled for Nov. 18.
___Prior to surgery, Mrs. Hanna sent out an e-mail to those praying for her. "I want this to count for the kingdom, not just for me, so please ask the Lord to do that also through this situation," she wrote.
___She also encouraged her prayer partners: "It is tempting to think about tomorrow and what it may hold, but God wants us to focus on today, for that is where he is--his grace, love, strength, presence. So don't worry about tomorrow, my dear friends."
___Furgerson was present for the surgery, even though he had returned from Serbia only two days before and needed to attend a meeting in Washington, D.C., the next day. Jered Sellers, also a member of the Serbian mission team, returned home to Lubbock and then he and his wife, Kay, drove eight hours from Lubbock to Houston to babysit the Hanna children.
___During the surgery, Hanna and family and friends prayed in the waiting room for specific things--that the tumor would be soft and not vascular so bleeding would be limited, that the tumor could be removed without damage to nerves, that the doctors would not become fatigued.
___"Each time the nurse came out, we never asked for any information, but the news she gave us each time was a direct answer to what we had just been praying for," Hanna explained.
___Doctors had cautioned that Mrs. Hanna might lose sensation in her face and her ability to swallow due to nerve damage in the area of the tumor.
___"The last thing we prayed was that there would be no neurological damage," Hanna said. "As Meredith was wheeled by the waiting room afterward, she turned and said: 'I can feel my face. I can swallow. It's me!'"
___Her recovery has gone just as well.
___"The doctor said she is doing way above average, and we are very, very thankful for that," Hanna reported. "We had Thanksgiving, and we had a lot to be thankful for."
___Doctors reported that 96 percent of the tumor was removed and a follow-up MRI will be done in the next few weeks. While not putting a time frame on a return to Serbia, Hanna said they are anxious to return and tell the people there of God's loving care.

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