Missionary Carries Work, God To Guinea Despite Blindness

Dannie Hawley doesn’t need eyes to treat illness. She doesn’t need sight to survive in a West African jungle, where panthers, snakes and other creatures keep humans in at night.

For the 48-year-old nurse, blindness is just one of many challenges she faces as a missionary in the Republic of Guinea. She and fellow missionary Anne-Lise Debrot built their own medical clinic out of mud bricks in 1991. They learned a new language and culture.

They learned to treat everything from colds to sorcerers’ curses.

Hawley is now in the Valley, visiting her family and telling her story to local churches and community groups. She works closely with Spokane Valley United Methodist Church, her home church, and a place where she has occasionally preached.

The Valley is the distribution center of her non-profit group’s quarterly newsletter, which is sent to hundreds of supporters around the country. Hawley hopes to expand the project, to include several medical clinics in Africa, along with a school and a farming project

It’s a dream that began in first grade, when a group of medical missionaries from Africa came to speak at Hawley’s church. She was 6 years old, and decided right then to follow in their footsteps.

The dream stayed in the back of Hawley’s mind through childhood, nursing school, and her years as an intensive care pediatric nurse. It resurfaced when she was in her 30s. She started receiving pamphlets in the mail about medical missionary work. She took it as a sign, and headed for a stint in Mexico. She worked in 12 different countries over the next seven years.

In 1991, she and Debrot began building a medical clinic in Republic of Guinea, a country where medical services are scarce and poor in quality. They chose Kalexe, a village of 1,300. Soon, patients were walking 10 to 12 hours for medical help.

They’ve included children who have third-degree burns over most of their bodies from falling into cooking pots. The nurses use what medicine is available, wrap the them in bandages, wait and pray.

Hawley has learned to do the best she can, and leave the rest to God.

It’s a philosophy that has helped her go on despite her blindness. When necessary, her partner acts as her eyes. But often, she’s learned to do without them.

“Most of what you do is related to your ears and your hands and your brain,” the nurse said.

She views the loss of sight as a test of her faith, and a way to prove her beliefs to the villagers. Her blindness came just weeks after a much-feared sorcerer in the village put a curse on her. Curses are not taken lightly there, Hawley said. If she leaves, the villagers will think she’s fleeing, and that her God is weaker than their own.

Now completely blind, Hawley misses the smiles of the village children, and the beauty of the lush jungle around her. Still, she has no intention of ever leaving Africa.

“You can feel the lives touched,” she said. “They’re healthy and they’re well, and they wouldn’t be if you weren’t there.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Here to speak Dannie Hawley’s medical clinic is a project of the non profit Swiss Protestant evangelical mission association (Good Samaritan Village). Local groups interested in hearing Hawley speak about her work can call 927-0662.