Dr. Kent Brantly of Samaritan’s Purse cares for a patient at the case management center on the campus of ELWA Hospital in Monrovia. Credit: Samaritan’s Purse, via The New York Times
Before I was old enough to drive, two sainted figures were etched in my boyhood imagination. One was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, whose health clinics in Africa we learned about in grade school. The other was St. Damien of Molokai, whom we learned about from Sister Mary Hillary in Sunday school.
St. Damien’s story was riveting, for the famous words attributed to the Belgian-born priest after he worked for years in a leper colony in Hawaii. “I am one of you,” he announced at one point, after contracting the disease from the people he ministered to. St. Damien died on the island of Molokai at age 49.
I thought about him while reading news accounts of the commitment and sacrifice of the missionary doctor from Fort Worth, Dr. Kent Brantly. He might have made the same announcement to the people he has been treating for the dread disease ebola in West Africa.
What has to be heart-rending for the NGO aid workers there is the fear of doctors, as reported by The New York Times. Thus, a figure as self-less as this modern-day St. Damien is seen as a threat by the very people he is trying to save.