There has always been this desire in my heart to serve the poor, to change their lives and change the world. Growing up in Switzerland, one of the riches and safest countries of the world made me aware how fortunate I was. One of the first memories of poverty was seeing the pictures of famished children in the camps during the Biafra war. Soon after, Stella became part of my class in primary school. She had been rescued from a refugee camp and adopted into a Swiss family, and we became friends. I started to be interested in Africa and studied the colonial history of this continent, more and more asking myself, why some countries end up in chaos and poverty, and others accumulate wealth. It became clear to me that I would end up in Africa changing the lives of many! Most of my essays in high school focused on this theme, but I did not know how to put it into practice. Should I become a teacher like many in my family, or a lawyer like one of my uncles who served in the national parliament, and always focused on social responsibility?
One of my friends in high school solved that dilemma. She suggested joining her in medical school, and we planned to open a hospital in Africa after finishing training. We convinced another friend to enroll with us, and we went as three musketeers. The trio did not last long. The initiator left medical school after six months and got married, never to follow her dream. My second friend at least finished medical school but got married as well and settled down in a nice house with a swimming pool in Switzerland.
It did not distract me from my dream. I was part of the Swiss protestant church, and the pastor invited missionaries to present their work during Bible talks. I was hanging on to their words in order to know what it was like to be a missionary in Africa, especially in the medical field. Of course I was most intrigued by the missionary stories from the African continent. I wanted to see for myself what it meant to live and work there.
I volunteered in a missionary hospital in Niger after medical school for ten months. It was not the typical “Out of Africa” experience I had expected. Niger as part of the Sahel zone is very dry, and people were quite reserved, but I was able to learn the language quickly and build some relationships. A very crowded outpatient department kept me busy, and the surgical team taught me procedures, especially C-sections.
Pretty soon, I was confident in my work and enjoyed giving simple but effective care to hundreds of patients every day. I was inspired and sure that Africa was the place for me. The missionary doctors advised me to go through surgical training if I wanted to return to Africa. I was hesitant at first as surgical training in Switzerland is more or less a male world. However, I felt that God opened up doors, and I got fantastic training in the next few years. It was not easy, and I worked hard to accomplish my goal, more and more diving into this competitive world to move ahead of others. I told myself that it was all about my dream to help the poor. Looking back to that time, I see that it was more about myself and finding a purpose for myself.
My dream to go back to Africa had slowly faded away. However, there was a longing in my heart. Suddenly, I heard myself talking about my first time in Africa over and over again. Out of the blue, I received a phone call from the Swiss government and was asked to join a medical mission of the Swiss disaster relief in Rwanda after the genocide. I was so excited about this opportunity and landed in Kigali two weeks later. All the old memories returned, the sounds, the smells, the red clay roads, the smiles of the children-it felt like coming home, this time to the “real” Africa.
The excitement did not last long. The country was still recovering from the genocide, and most of its medical infrastructure was destroyed. Resources were scarce, and we often delivered babies under a small petroleum light. We were not able to see if they looked healthy but it would not have made any difference as there was hardly any oxygen to resuscitate them. I felt heart-broken at seeing how easily and quickly a country could be destroyed after many countries, organizations and churches had invested in it.
I felt that my dream was shattered, and I returned to Switzerland very depressed, not knowing what to do with my life. Everything had been geared towards preparing me for development work, especially all the hours spent in competing with my colleagues to finish my training quickly. What was the purpose for my life? I was so depressed that I was thinking about suicide, but instead I turned to God and I prayed for Him to show me His plan for my life.
Only a few weeks later, two disciples invited me to church in a busy shopping area in Zurich. When I went to church the very first time, I was inspired by the dedication of the disciples, their love for God and for each other. I felt that God had sent me to these people to know His direction for my future. When I started to study the Bible, the biggest challenge was to give up my dream to go to Africa but to instead have a dream for my own country. I wrestled in prayer and only resolved to hand it over to God after I understood that God would give me back my dream if it was His dream for my life.
A few months after my baptism in March 1997, our church leader asked me about my dream for my life. I shared it with him but told him that I had to be challenged to give it up. He mentioned to me the work of HOPE worldwide and that the church in Zurich always wanted to send somebody to work in one of the programs. Soon afterwards, Dave Malutinok, one of the HOPE worldwide vice directors at that time visited the church in Zurich and shared about the work in Cambodia. I was very impressed by the Sihanouk Hospital Center of HOPE and the disciples who worked there, but convinced that Cambodia was not on God’s list for my life.
What did I know about Cambodia? I remembered some reports on TV when the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown, and the lady who sold us Cambodian skulls in medical school for our anatomy classes. How grateful was I that I never bought one! Definitely, Cambodia was not God’s plan for me.
At the beginning of 1998, I decided to send my CV to the HOPE office in Philadelphia, writing about my dream and hoping to work in Africa in such challenging places as Sudan or in Afghanistan. Three months later, I got a letter -- from Cambodia -- asking me to come to Cambodia. They needed a second general surgeon at the Sihanouk Hospital Center of HOPE. I was certain God was playing a trick on me, and I was eager to dismiss this proposal, but the sisters in my family group challenged me. As a consequence, I bought a plane ticket to Phnom Penh for two weeks.
After just a few days in Phnom Penh, I realized that all the years of training I had received in the medical and surgical field, but also in management had been preparation for this place. It was a fantastic fit, and I wanted to commit immediately to come back. However, I was told that the moment had not come yet. How disappointed did I return to my work in Switzerland, and soon forgot about it.
Suddenly, a splendid career seemed to open up in Switzerland. A new surgeon had taken over my department and counted on me to help him in developing it. Although it seemed like my life was finally falling into place, I felt like Satan was playing games with me and that I might soon have to make a major decision. Just a few days later, I got a call from our church leader who told me that I was asked to go to Cambodia. I tried to bail out, all of a sudden realizing that I had to take a stand and could not compromise anymore. Immediately, I committed to give up my job and position in Switzerland to follow the call.
This was more than 14 years ago. Initially, I still thought that God had prepared Cambodia as a transit point for me to make it to Africa at the end, but He had a different plan. He had brought me to Cambodia to teach me compassion, kindness, and a deep love for people. He showed me my heart of selfish dreams where everything was about me feeling good to help the poor. He changed it to have dreams for others. He put wonderful disciples in my life, many sisters and brothers who helped me through these years to let my dreams go and let God work in my life.
God definitely has a sense of humor. In the first few years, he let me do the things I am really good at: removing massive thyroids, football-sized tumors in a belly or removing infected tissue, treating patients on an ICU ward and training a generation of surgeons, but more and more, he taught me to become a manager, deal with human resource issues and finances till the time was ripe and I was not hanging on to my surgical expertise anymore.
God stripped away what gave me security, first when the surgical department closed due financial challenges in 2011, then in 2012 when I was asked to be the first director of the Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital in Kampot. When we started with the outpatient department in Kampot, my surgical activities were limited to correcting casts, remove lumps and bumps and see patients with medical problems. More ironical, God brought many patients with psychosomatic problems and suddenly, I was engaged in life counseling and prescribing anti-depressants, as a board-certified surgeon! Well, God has not given me more than I can bear! He uses my own experiences with menopause and depression to help other women through this challenging time of life, and I am grateful to learn that God is using everything I am going through for His own purpose. He has given me many talents and wants me to use them to help others. Poor or rich, all my patients need love, a kind word, to be touched and understood.
Am I still thinking about Africa? Yes, once in a while especially when I play my bongo drum or listen to African music, but God has given me contentment in where I am and what I do.
I have just bought a plot of land and plan to build a house next to the hospital so that we have a place to meet and worship. Sometimes I wonder if the moment will come soon when God will ask me to move on just at the time when I try to settle down! Well, should I be worried? I learned that it is worthwhile to give up whatever we might be hanging on to, because God’s dream for our life is superior to our own and serves to glorify Him only, not ourselves and our work.
