Lifetime missionary
Helen Marie Schmidt grew up hearing stories about life in foreign lands.
Missionaries frequently visited her parents’ Veradale home. A seed was planted as she listened to their tales of hardship and adventure while doing God’s work.
“I was headed for medical missions since junior high,” she said.
Schmidt spent 34 years as a surgical missionary in Cameroon. She retired and returned to Spokane Valley in 2003 with a lifetime of memories.
As she recovered from recent hip replacement surgery, the 70-year-old doctor reflected on her life in Africa.
“Without the missions component, I probably wouldn’t have gone into medicine,” she said. This was the 1960s, and it was still very difficult for women to gain admission to medical school. “I wasn’t a straight-A student, but God opened the doors,” she said.
In 1968, Schmidt became the first woman to complete the surgical residency program at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. She left for Cameroon shortly after.
She adjusted quickly to life in Africa, and her work at Banso Baptist Hospital intrigued her. “I had no time for culture shock,” she said with a smile.
For the first few years, Schmidt was one of only two doctors at the 160-bed hospital.
During her years in Africa, she encountered situations that would have been unusual back home.
“I treated a young girl with a generalized bacterial infection,” Schmidt recalled. “The elders in her village wouldn’t allow her to have antibiotics. They used native medicine instead. By the time the girl was admitted to the hospital, gangrene was so advanced that all we could do was amputate.”
The girl lost a forearm, several fingers and both legs. “We fit her with prostheses, and she was able to continue school,” Schmidt said.
Another memorable patient was a woman who had been hit by a car and lost both legs. Her family disowned her because she couldn’t work.
“But one son dedicated his life to learning to care for her,” Schmidt said. “He became a ward attendant at the hospital, then went into nursing and then became an optical technician,” she said. “Eventually, he became a Christian.”
Schmidt said the son suffered for his faith because his family opposed his conversion. “But he was Christianity in action through the love and care he gave to his mom,” she said.
Many things changed during the course of her service in Cameroon. The hospital grew to 250 beds and now has a surgical residency program.
And the AIDS epidemic has had profound repercussions. According to Schmidt, 50 to 75 percent of patients in the wards were HIV/AIDS patients.
“We launched a very active AIDS prevention program,” she said. “The government now utilizes it to train others.”
Ironically, Schmidt found the transition to living back in the United States much more difficult than adjusting to her move to Africa. She missed the work – and the people.
Schmidt also said tribal conflict was common in the area around the hospital. “There were times we just didn’t go out at night. But they took care of us because they needed us. I feel less safe here than I did in Cameroon.”
Schmidt also said she misses the tight-knit medical community. “I was surrounded by people I knew. All the single missionaries ate together. We always had people over,” she said.
Even though she had retired from the mission field, Schmidt wasn’t ready to retire from medicine. She began working with the Mobile Medical Clinic in 2005, which helped ease her transition back to the United States.
Schmidt is the sole doctor for the clinic. “I’m primarily treating people who are in need. Nine hundred people depend on us.”
Hip surgery hasn’t slowed Schmidt down much. She eagerly is preparing for her first trip back to Cameroon since her retirement. She’ll be attending the graduation of the first two doctors in the hospital’s surgical residency program. She’s busy filling boxes with gifts for the graduates.
While anticipating her trip, she said, smiling, “I’m hoping the mangoes will be ripe.”
Her adjustment to life in the United States has been slow but steady. “It’s starting to feel more like home.”