Beth’s lifelong ministry to medical workers

Beth said: “I still have such a heart for mission and for seeing people use medical skills to bring the love of Jesus to the least reached.”

“There are many of my friends that, if they were to die today, would go to hell. And the gospel is the only way that they are going to have the gift of salvation.”

That gospel commitment has underpinned her work and her life. When she arrived in Guinea, it was considered an unlikely posting for a young nurse from rural Maine, especially as the country was, and still is, predominantly Muslim.

“There are many of my friends that, if they were to die today, would go to hell. And the gospel is the only way that they are going to have the gift of salvation.”

Despite the SIM team’s reservations about whether a single woman could sustain long-term ministry, Beth had heard God clearly and He allowed her to stay.

She said: “I loved getting to know the culture, the language. I loved taking care of mums and their new babies. Witnessing the miracle of God, how He does it, it just fills you.”

Her experiences in Guinea have shaped her life and her ministry. She knows what it is like to be a helpless witness to great tragedy.

During a measles epidemic in Guinea, the clinic lost four babies within three hours, each death avoidable but each mother had been too afraid to vaccinate.

She said: “I cried the whole way home. God, how could you let these lives be taken so quickly?”

“My initial thoughts about how it was going to be is not how it ended up. But God led me all the way. He was preparing me for every next step.”

She made it in time for the team’s prayer meeting that evening. They said sorry and prayed, but the particular helplessness of medical loss, she found, was hard for others to fully enter.

That gap in understanding between those who carry the clinical grief and those who can only observe it is something Beth has never forgotten. It is precisely what shapes how she now comes alongside others serving in medical roles, helping them stay rooted in the Jesus who called them to those communities.

One of the workers Beth supports was at risk of burning out after being forced to leave one country because of the political situation and then jumping immediately into another role. She had not been given time to process what she had lost.

When Beth came alongside her, she was able to sit with the grief of an abruptly ended calling rather than bury it.

Beth said: “Knowing that I was going to talk with her each week helped her keep track of her emotions. I am helping keep other mission workers on the field and helping them be fruitful.”

Looking back across nearly four decades of mission, she lands somewhere simple.

She said: “My initial thoughts about how it was going to be is not how it ended up. But God led me all the way. He was preparing me for every next step. Just be willing to let God lead and guide you.

“Knowing that I was going to talk with her each week helped her keep track of her emotions. I am helping keep other mission workers on the field and helping them be fruitful.”

She continues to do that and hopes to explore a return visit to Guinea in the future, and to see where God might lead her for possible ministry opportunities.

As she said: “You’re always a missionary.”