Of the ebola outbreak, Nancy Writebol says "Nothing can be achieved if there isn't enough help on the ground." — Benjamin Rasmussen
En español l On a brisk October morning, Nancy Writebol is regrouping in the Fulton, Mo., home of her 82-year-old mother, Mary Sillivan. "It's a privilege to be alive," she says, no doubt realizing the understatement of her words. "I thank God for that."
The second American citizen to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus that has spread across West Africa and to the U.S. since March 2014, Writebol can be credited with bringing a face, and an urgency, to one of the largest and most frightening epidemics of our time. Ebola has officially killed more than 5,000 people so far, though most experts believe the number is much larger.
Writebol's story — how she contracted and somehow beat Ebola — illustrates some of the mysteries of the disease. It also offers insight into the motivations of thousands of aid workers and religious missionaries who, like Writebol, take great risks to toil in the developing world, saving strangers' lives.
Writebol, 59, comes from a family steeped in religious evangelism. Her father, a volunteer firefighter, made humanitarian trips to Haiti when she was growing up; her parents hosted traveling missionaries in their home. "The influence and the stories — hearing what God did all around the world — was very influential," Writebol says.
Writebol's husband, David, also 59, her high school sweetheart, became a youth pastor after the couple married and soon felt the call to greater service. So when their two boys were in their late teens, the couple, then living in Charlotte, N.C., began exploring options to do mission work. David, a software specialist, and Nancy, a stay-at-home mom and later a college counselor, agreed in 1998 to abandon the security of their home for lives of service in virtual poverty.
"We felt compelled because of our faith," explains Nancy. "People didn't understand, but that life seemed normal to us."
The couple sold their four-bedroom house and all their possessions except clothes, scrapbooks and computers. Their beloved pet collie, Sophie, went to Nancy's mother before they took up volunteer posts in Ecuador, in northwest South America, and then Zambia, in southern Africa. In August 2013, they decided to join the 120-plus-year-old interdenominational Christian group known as Serving in Mission (SIM) in Monrovia, Liberia, the fourth-poorest country in the world and a nation recently wracked by civil war and sectarian violence.
Nancy and David lived in a small bungalow within SIM's Eternal Love Winning Africa (ELWA) compound, home to a 50-bed hospital, a Christian school and the first Christian radio station in Africa. David worked as the technical manager of the hospital, and Nancy served as a nurse's assistant. When not working, the pair delighted in getting to know the locals, strolling the beach nearby and spreading the gospel in the war-torn city, which lacks basic infrastructure.
Next page: Writebol is told she has the deadliest strain of Ebola. »
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