If you go to the hospital, you'll die. That's what many in the Béré region believe because, as Dr. James Appel explains, they go to the witchdoctor or "nurse" in their neighborhood who "treat" people out of a house, or they buy medicine in the market,
If you go to the hospital, you’ll die. That’s what many in the Béré
region believe because, as Dr. James Appel explains, they go to the
witchdoctor or “nurse” in their neighborhood who “treat” people out of
a house, or they buy medicine in the market, and will only come to the
hospital as a last resort. Such as when their baby is about to die.
“Then we do our best, but often they die anyway,” Dr. Appel says, which
is why locals associate the hospital with death. Some die during the
night, many of them babies. Such is the nature of this poor region,
where even parents appear emotionless as they stand by, silently hoping
their child will be okay. Perhaps parents are sadly resigned to such a
fate.
This “hospital” is in a remote area reached via dusty roads that lead
to a dilapidated building. There are few of the necessities found in
modern medicine; there’s no EKG device, no X-ray machine, no glucose
monitor.
Years of civil war, a harsh climate, and being landlocked make
importing difficult and expensive, Dr. Appel explains, which, of
course, greatly affects health care.
“Getting medicines can often be impossible due to the difficulties of
importation and lack of local resources to pay for services. Then, the
lack of education due to poverty and years of war makes it very
difficult for people to understand the need for health care and
especially preventative services,” says the hospital’s only physician,
who is also a Seventh-day Adventist missionary.
“There is also a huge spiritual darkness and oppression as, even if
people convert to Christianity or Islam, they still hold onto many
animistic beliefs which include beliefs in poisonings, spells and
curses as causing disease, which means you should go to a witch doctor
or traditional healer to be cured,” Dr. Appel, who came here from
California in early 2004, says.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Dr. Appel had to admit when examining
one baby who was constipated to the point that his bowels came out. He
will see other things as well that don’t come close to his norm. Yet
they are the norm for this part of the globe where death and disease
are a part of life.
They have electricity four to five hours a day by a generator, and no
phone service. Béré has 60,000 people, most who “live in mud huts and
barely survive through subsistence farming of rice, millet and
peanuts.” Temperatures can reach 54 degrees Celsius (130 degrees
Fahrenheit), but at least there’s air conditioning in the surgery area.
“I think missionaries go over with this idea of changing the world when
maybe it’s not the world that needs changing but just me,” says Dr.
Appel. “When one is placed under extreme circumstances, one finds out a
lot about oneself that maybe could have been hidden under less extreme
circumstances. Then the challenge is what to do about those hidden
evil characteristics once they are revealed. One can go crazy and
leave, or let God have them and be changed.”
It’s not easy to see if God is using this place to introduce people to
Him. “I wish I could say it was obvious, but that’s one thing I haven’t
figured out,” says Dr. Appel. “It often seems that nothing is happening
for the good spiritually. I have to believe that God knew what He was
doing when He placed the hospital here and as His ways are so
mysterious, maybe they are meant to be hidden until the day He chooses
to reveal His purposes.”
There hasn’t been a regular doctor at the hospital since the early
1990s, Dr. Appel says. For the most part, it was nurses. He says he
went to medical school with the “sole purpose of doing missionary work.
I honestly can’t say any lives have been affected except for mine and
my wife’s,” says Dr. Appel, who met his wife, Sarah Andersen, a
registered nurse from Denmark, when he arrived in Béré. She had been
serving at the hospital as a volunteer nurse for several months
already.
“Even though it may be hard to live where people do things totally
opposite of what I always just expected was the norm, I’ve learned that
maybe in many respects their culture is closer to a Christian culture
than Western culture is,” Dr. Appel says. “For example, the emphasis on
community and sharing of resources instead of individualism and
hoarding of resources…”
This small hospital, operated by Adventist Health International, is not
well known, even within the Adventist community. AHI, a non-profit
organization based out of Loma Linda University in California, aims to
transform struggling Seventh-day Adventist hospitals around the world,
and keep open hospitals that are on the verge of financial shutdown.
The beginnings of this hospital can be attributed to a mechanic and a
nurse who came to the region in 1976. She began using her nursing
skills, and the church then decided to start a hospital, and sent a
missionary. Locals would help, beginning as a janitor or maintenance
person and picking up knowledge and experience to the point where they
were doing caesarian sections and other operations.
The Béré hospital story was told through film by Adventist youth pastor
Paul Kim, who says he wanted to show the reality of life for the people
of Béré. “Unto the Ends” exposes the way of life for inhabitants there,
portraying an authenticity that, for some, can be hard to watch.
“The world we live in America, that’s not a good portrait of where the
world is at. Most of the world is suffering in a way that you cannot
even imagine. ... You hear James say ‘I’ve never seen this before’ [in
one particular situation]. Just the magnitude of it. People need to
realize that. And if they’re upset, good. I want people to see and
experience that. ... If I really want to contribute, there are things
out there that are far beyond the struggles I have,” Kim says.
“Exhaustion. Beauty, heartbreak ... just desperation. Godliness.
Literally as I’m watching [the documentary], this is all the stuff that
I’m feeling. How nothing else in life really matters when you look at a
situation like this one,” says Karen Kirkland, a judge at the annual
SONscreen film festival where Kim’s documentary was viewed, and
director of the writing fellowship program and awards and festivals for
Nickelodeon.
She adds, “When they start saying there’s no microscope to see what
kinds of malaria there are, I’m thinking, ‘Well someone get them one!’
But what am I doing for the cause? I sat on my couch, in my air
conditioned, non-infested home. What did I do to help people in Chad?”
The Appels have committed to work in Béré for at least six years. After
that, he says, “If [God] wants us to stay, we will.”
“Risks must be taken since the biggest danger in life is to risk
nothing,” Andersen says in the documentary.
“Only the person who takes risks is truly free.”