Sarah Thebarge ponders the intersection of faith and medicine in this insightful narrative of her medical mission trip to Togo, West Africa.
When she applied to the Yale physicians assistant program and the admissions panel asked why they should admit her, she replied, -Because I'm going to change the world some day.-
After more than a decade of practicing medicine and encountering the medical world herself as a cancer patient, she still wanted to change the world through medicine. She optimistically raised funds to serve without pay in a missions hospital, only to struggle daily with shocking diseases and death. And, in a harrowing bout with malaria, she nearly succumbed herself.
So many of her patients died, that this cancer survivor was drawn back into the vortex of death and dying, forced to grapple again with the theology suffering. And in the backdrop were social encounters with the people of West Africa and American and European missions volunteers that forced her to painful examination of the white supremist threads often woven into Christian missions.
Her insightful, ultimately uplifting narrative explores the difference between changing the world and
healing the world. Her story demonstrates what it means to truly become a follower of Jesus: to use faith to change
ourselves and thereby heal the world.
