Dan and Elaine Metzger: Return to
Mattru
By Abbie Reese
Copyright Mercy Ships
Dr. Dan and Elaine Metzger served as Mattru Hospital during the
1980s. They recently returned to Sierra Leone via Mercy Ships,
a medical mission ministry. Abbie Reese, who also serves with Mercy
Ships, wrote this story.
Thousands of miles from America's Midwest, two Mercy Ships Land
Rovers made their way in a convoy from Sierra Leone's capital,
Freetown, to the village of Mattru - 112 miles away but an eight-hour
journey.
Dr. Dan Metzger, a physician from Michigan, rode in one of the
ATVs. Heading southeast into the upcountry of Sierra Leone, the
drivers used the whole road - both sides - to avoid the potholes.
Once they reached the top of a hill at the edge of Mattru, Dan
looked down on the village and saw Mattru Hospital. "It was always
exciting to hit the top of the hill," Dan said. "You knew you were
home." Dan and his wife Elaine moved from Michigan to Sierra Leone
in 1983 and except for a yearlong furlough in the States, they
lived in Mattru until 1990. Dan said they decided to leave because
he felt it wasn't where they were supposed to be anymore. A year
later, Sierra Leone's 11-year-civil war erupted.
Nov. 19, the Metzgers returned to Mattru for the first time in
13 years. "The trip up there hasn't changed a bit," Dan said. "The
roads up there are still as bad as ever."
Dan and Elaine, now volunteers with Mercy Ships, were part of
a team of 10 conducting a medical screening upcountry. Twenty-seven
patients were selected for free Maxillo-facial and orthopaedic
surgeries onboard the Anastasis during the hospital ship's seven-month
dock in Freetown. Another 743 patients were scheduled for Maxillo-facial,
orthopaedic, eye and general surgeries at a second medical screening
November 27th and 28th in Freetown's National Stadium.
Heading up the screening in Mattru was Jean Campbell, a volunteer
nurse with Mercy Ships who worked alongside Dan at Mattru Hospital
in 1989. Jean was instrumental not only in the Metzgers' decision
to join Mercy Ships and return to Sierra Leone, but also in arranging
their visit to Mattru, the village they called home for six years.
"It was a treat," said Elaine, a nurse, of her three-day stay
in Mattru.
Jean asked the Metzgers along because they know the area, they
know the hospital and they know Krio. Because of that, the team
needed fewer translators for the screening.
Dan and two other Mercy Ships physicians saw about 100 patients
at Mattru Hospital who hoped to have surgeries onboard the Mercy
Ship. One man at the screening had an ear amputated by the rebels.
The man was selected for a plastic surgery onboard the hospital
ship; his ear will be reconstructed.
Rarely, if ever, Jean said, did she see anyone in her first visit
to Sierra Leone who had been a victim of violence.
"They were just so peaceful," Dan said. In his six years in Mattru,
he never treated anyone for a gunshot wound. He felt safe walking
through the village. He had no qualms about raising his 2 _-year-old
son in Sierra Leone. He was shocked, then, as the civil war unfolded
in the 1990s and news spread of atrocities committed upon the civilian
population. Rebels amputated their countrymen's arms, legs and
ears with machetes, abducted and armed children as soldiers and
forced men and women to labor in the diamond mines.
"I found myself praying constantly," Jean said. She prayed the
church in Sierra Leone would be strengthened and that God would
raise leaders to shepherd the people. During Jean's visits to Sierra
Leone with Mercy Ships after the civil war ended, she would ask
Sierra Leoneans if they had lost anyone during the war. Most people
would list a number of names. Still, Jean said, so many people,
particularly the Christians, are filled with joy. "When you've
heard their individual stories," she said, "you know that joy only
comes from Christ."
It was this faith that brought Jean from Michigan to West Africa
- into the lives of the Metzgers in a village of less than 10,000.
Jean had considered going on the mission field once she became
a nurse. But after a few years on the job, she found it easier
simply to send her money. She remembers the morning her pastor
said that the problem with Christians in America is that they're
afraid of God. "If that's me," Jean prayed, "You have permission
to do what you want with my life."
That evening a friend called to tell her about an opening at
Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone. A nurse at the hospital who was
about 25 years old had died of Hepatitis A. Another nurse was planning
to leave and the hospital was short-staffed. Jean's friend said
she was calling because she knew Jean was a Christian and adventurous.
Having given permission to God that morning to do anything with
her life, Jean said she didn't think she could say no in the evening.
Less than three months later, Jean was in Mattru. The Metzgers
had been living there for four years.
Dan and Elaine always wanted to do missions work. After completing
his medical residency Dan worked in a Christian clinic in Michigan
with about 40 other doctors. One day a message arrived at the clinic
that a 60-bed hospital in the upcountry of Sierra Leone needed
another physician. Dan and Elaine expressed interest. "There wasn't
any competition," Dan laughed. The couple uprooted with their toddler
and resettled in Mattru.
The two didn't hesitate about the decision even though they had
a young boy. They felt called to missions before their son was
born, Elaine said. They trusted God to protect them, Dan added.
Once they arrived at Mattru Hospital, they learned the other physician's
son had recently recovered from cerebral malaria. Another missionary
couple's son in a nearby village died when he bled to death after
a circumcision. The Metzgers' son never contracted a serious illness
in Sierra Leone.
After Dan left Mattru Hospital in 1990, a replacement physician
was evacuated twice. In 1994 the hospital was closed, according
to United Brethren in Christ, USA (UBC), the organization that
ran the hospital. For several years, Mattru Hospital had no physician
staff. There was only Mr. Joe French, a local man who had been
trained at the hospital in the 1960s to do everything from pulling
teeth to assisting in surgeries. He was there when the "belly woman" -
a pregnant woman - would arrive at the hospital on a "bush ambulance" -
a hammock strung up on poles and carried on the heads of two men.
During the civil war, Mr. French cared for his tribesmen, and even
performed a C-section.
In a previous visit to Mattru, Jean learned the rebels occupied
Mattru Hospital for a year. They took everything made of wood and
stole an x-ray machine that Dan had raised $17,000 US to purchase
and have shipped to Sierra Leone. The machine sank when the rebels
tried transporting it by boat.
Villagers escaped on the Mattru Jong River to an island southeast
of Freetown. Jean talked to some from Mattru who hid from the rebels
in the bush for a week to four months, living on fish and cassava
root. Some villagers went to Bo, which was considered a safe place.
Rebels destroyed a village about 20 miles from Mattru near the
rutile mines, Jean said, but they never took Bo. The people of
Bo fought the rebels to keep their city. "A lot of people died
in the effort," Jean said.
After Jean left Mattru, she moved to Virginia and earned her
Master's Degree in nursing. She continued to keep in touch with
the Metzgers and she was still interested in missions. A friend
of Jean's who had been on the Anastasis in the 1980s recommended
Jean attend a Discipleship Training School (DTS) onboard the ship. "She
kept saying Mercy Ships, Mercy Ships, Mercy Ships," Jean said. "I
finally said give me the number." Jean attended the DTS in 1996
and then joined the ship as long-term crew.
December 2002, Jean received a Christmas e-mail from Elaine saying
her son had just graduated from college and another partner had
joined Dan's clinic.
Jean thought: "It sounds like a good transition time." She knew
the Anastasis would need a crew physician by Fall 2003, about the
same time the ship would be sailing to Sierra Leone. Jean e-mailed
and asked the Metzgers to consider joining Mercy Ships.
"I was excited," Elaine said. "Dan was hesitant."
At breakfast one morning they talked about Dan's concerns.
"We could die," Dan said.
"We could die anywhere," Elaine countered.
Within a few months, Dan told Elaine that if they were going
to join the Anastasis, they would need a laptop. That was Elaine's
cue he was ready to volunteer with Mercy Ships and return to West
Africa.
Dan and Elaine boarded the hospital ship in Malaga, Spain and
then sailed with the Anastasis to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Jean,
volunteering temporarily on the Africa Mercy in England, flew to
Freetown and drove to Mattru with the Metzgers and the rest of
the medical team for the upcountry screening. The medical staff
at the hospital, many of whom Dan worked with a decade ago, greeted
the Metzgers with shock, smiles and warm greetings. "Nobody had
any idea we were coming," Elaine said.
Dan and Elaine discovered a larger village than the one they
left in 1990. There are more non-governmental agencies, more construction
and the market is larger. At a market stall where once only "sucky
oranges" (oranges that are drunk) could be purchased, Jean said
Cokes are also sold now.
Mattru Hospital, which reopened under the auspices of Doctors
Without Borders, now has a full staff of two national physicians.
Mr. French continues to work there. |