A Hundred Camels ― A Mission Doctor's Sojourn and Murder Trial in Somalia

Here is the account of a Mennonite mission doctor tried for a patient’s murder. As this suspenseful, true-life drama unfolds, readers are given access to an ancient, clan-based culture few Americans have experienced in a country recently declared by the United Nations as a humanitarian crisis "worse than Darfur." When Dr. Gerald L. Miller left his Markle, Indiana, family practice to respond to an urgent need for a doctor at the Jamama Hospital, he faced the challenge of understanding an Islamic culture much different from his own and of dealing with medical situations unlike any he had encountered: village children attacked by a mad dog, a psychotic woman chained to a stake, infants dead from malaria, banana workers bitten by venomous snakes. Not only did Miller respond readily and with compassion, he also acted with ingenuity, discovering, for example, that the malaria organism was crossing the placental barrier. Throughout a year of challenges, Dr. Miller had his Mennonite faith and the abiding support of Somali hospital staff and mission personnel to sustain him. Readers will be moved by the climax of this drama, a surprising outcome involving the actions of a single Somali family.

Gerald L. Miller, M.D. is a family physician who worked for forty-two years in a rural Indiana community before retiring from the Markle Medical Center in 2006. Growing up in Shipshewana, Indiana, Miller was raised in a Mennonite family and church that placed great emphasis on service and missions. From 1971-72, he was the only doctor at the Mennonite hospital in Jamama, Somalia, and, afterward, made many medical trips to Haiti where he helped establish a medical clinic and hospital. Shari Miller Wagner is the author of Evening Chore (DreamSeeker Books, 2005) and teaches poetry writing for the Writers’ Center of Indiana. She has been the recipient of eight grants or fellowships from the Indiana Arts Commission and the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Christian Century, Christianity & Literature and North American Review.