Beth and Ben each grew up in an international context with missionary parents, Beth in Zambia and Ben in Taiwan. Beth is a general surgeon with a subspecialty in trauma and critical care. Ben is a psychotherapist with a background in biology and computer programming. They have 3 children: Elias, Simon, and Adele. They will be moving to Lilongwe, Malawi.
For much of her life, Beth has had the vision of using her unique training and experience to bring emergency surgical care and the capacity for ICU care to the African context where she grew up. A lot of death and disability can be prevented by access to safe and urgent surgery, but this is sorely lacking in the developing world. Beth will be joining the surgical staff at Nkhoma Mission Hospital outside Lilongwe and helping in the development of an intensive care unit. This will allow Nkhoma to offer more complex surgeries and to become a surgical training program for future Malawian surgeons. She hopes to establish relationships with the medical school and government teaching hospital in Lilongwe as well.
Ben will wait till they are in Malawi to find the best use of his diverse skills set, whether that is continuing to be a therapist, doing something else in the field of mental health, assisting in technology development, or a little of all of the above.
They are both humbled and excited about God’s direction in leading them to Malawi, and about what He has planned for their family there.
