HVO Story of the Month - August 2007

By Jerry Koleski, MD

Two nurses from Europe came to learn missionary nursing at Vozandes-Shell while waiting for their new mission hospital in Curahuasi, Peru to be completed. Connie, from Lucerne, Switzerland and Carolin from the Turin state of Germany had just finished six months of Spanish language study together in Cusco, Peru. The inauguration of their new hospital will be this month.

What did they do before entering the mission field? Connie worked in a rehabilitation clinic for athletes with sports injuries and Carolin worked as a nurse on an orthopedic surgery unit. Why come so far from home? Carolin, says that she likes the combination of being a missionary and a nurse. She has longed to combine her two loves with a third, travelling away from her native Germany. Connie says she has always wanted to work in a mission hospital.

What impressed these women about their brief three weeks in Ecuador? For Connie it was seeing the death of two-year-old Marlin. Marlin was a child with cerebral palsy who was from a children's home in Shell run by a fine missionary and former U.S. Army diesel mechanic Patty Sue Arnold. Marlin struggled for almost every breath and was fed by a tube going through her skin directly to her stomach. She had about seven admissions to Vozandes-Shell in her brief life. Connie had never seen a child die before Marlin. She felt sad but also content in knowing that Marlin is now in Heaven.

Carolin was impressed by a young man named Victor. He lost the middle finger and ring finger of his left hand to a shot gun blast. He was carrying the shot gun. Most of the firearms in Ecuador do not have safety latches. Carolin said that she could not imagine losing her fingers at her age. She was impressed that Victor spoke so little with the doctors in the emergency room, but he would ask her every so often, "Will they cut off my fingers?" Unfortunately, the fingers were already gone. Victor had a hard life working in the jungle, and now Carolin wonders how he will work without two fingers.

What will these two nurses take away about God, about missions?