A Surgeon Saved His Life as a Teenage Immigrant. Now They Operate Together for Charity in Ethiopia
By Andy Corbley – Jan 13, 2026
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One can imagine it didn’t take much for him to make room in his schedule to return to Ethiopia to do surgeries through the nonprofit Heart Attack Ethiopia. On the first surgery mission trip a couple of years ago, Mesfin surprised Dr. Jim Kauten, who was also there at the time.
“That was especially nice in my mind,” Kauten said. “For him to be able to pay back to his community services that he received in the United States, and he was able to pay it back in Ethiopia.”
As well as providing a key service in the operating theater, the native Amharic-speaker acts as the social glue between volunteer surgeons and patients, children like he once was, unable to understand or talk to his benefactors. His translations help put the patients at ease and stitch both sides of the volunteer team together.
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Sometimes we never know who benefits or how they benefit. In this case, there was a great feedback loop. The lack of feedback should never discourage charity.
Have you heard that old Irish adage about “good works only count if done in secret”. Funny, I learned that from my maternal English Protestant grandmother who wanted to teach me about my maternal grandfather’s “heathen Irish culture that has a few good points”. ROFL!
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