Current Congo News

Announcing the publication of:
When Bull Elephants Fight: An American Surgeon's Chronicle of Congo

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Now available at Amazon.com and most other bookstores.

Read a sample chapter.

"When Bull Elephants Fight is a terrific book about a fascinating life. With compassion, intelligence, and unflinching honesty, Roger Youmans tells his story of Congo and one man's quest to bring hope to a troubled land. You will learn much about modern Africa in these pages but undoubtedly more about the nature of human kindness."
-- Tom Barbash, author of The Last Good Chance and the NY Times bestseller, On Top of the World.

"When Bull Elephants Fight is the infectiously fascinating story of a young surgeon's mission to bring medical care to Congo in the 1960s. Driven by heart and soul, Roger Youmans leads his family from the staid world of Eisenhower's America into an exotic realm that most of us access only through daydreams. In prose as limpid as fast-running water, he performs caesareans in the bush, conducts autopsies on bodies three days dead, and survives capture like some latter-day Joseph Conrad. Few of us live lives so deserving of space on the page as this panoramic memoir."
-- James D. Sullivan, author of Over the Moat.

"In a vast country devastated by corruption and handicapped by stressed and limited support systems, Roger Youmans was the architect and manager of a ground-breaking training program that prepared Congolese doctors to save lives and offer hope to thousands. Youmans' abiding faith, so evident throughout this memoir, buttresses his superb skill as a surgeon and teacher."
-- William T. Close, author of the bestseller Ebola and former personal physician to President Mobutu.

"Roger Youmans' story, so well developed in this memoir, reminds me of the service given by Albert Schweitzer and David Livingstone. Dr. Youmans has touched countless lives in his medical missionary work, and it is fascinating to read about his selflessness and that of his family. How fortunate that with this fine book, his experiences will live on in the minds of future generations.
-- Edgar F. Puryear, Jr., author of American Generalship, and American Admiralship.

Excerpt: "We drove all afternoon and for an hour in the dark before we saw a faint light ahead of us. We slowed and saw two kerosene lanterns and two large logs blocking the road. Emanuel and I got out and stood in front of the headlights so that we were visible. There was no moon, and the forest was silent except for the cicada. A deep voice boomed out of the darkness very near us. Emanuel answered in Lingala.

"I heard a rifle bolt open and shut. Several voices whispered in the dark. Then there was silence. I said softly to Emanuel, 'We almost made it.'"
-- From When Bull Elephants Fight