Well Healing Our Beautiful, Broken World from a Hospital in West Africa

Sarah The barge ponders the intersection of faith and medicine in this insightful narrative of her medical mission trip to Togo, West Africa.

Sarah The barge, a Yale-trained physician assistant, nearly died of breast cancer at age twenty-seven, but that did not end her deeply felt spiritual calling to medical missions in Africa. Risking her own health, she moved to Togo, West Africa-ranked by the United Nations as the least happy country in the world-to care for sick and suffering patients. Serving without pay in a mission hospital, she pondered the intersection of faith and medicine in her quest to help make the world "well."

In the hospital wards, she witnessed death over and over again. In the outpatient clinic, she daily diagnosed patients with deadly diseases, many of which had simple but unavailable cures. She lived in austere conditions and nearly succumbed herself in a harrowing bout with malaria.

She describes her experiences in gripping detail and reflects courageously about difficult and deep human connections-across race, culture, material circumstances, and medical access.

Her experience exemplifies the triumph of surviving in order to share the stories that often go untold. In the end, Well is an invitation to ask what happens when, instead of asking why God allows suffering to happen in the world, we ask, "Why do we?"

Sarah Thebarge is an international speaker and the author of The Invisible Girls, named a World Magazine 2013 Notable Book. Sarah earned her physician assistant degree at Yale and was studying journalism at Columbia when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In spite of nearly losing her life to cancer, she went on to care for refugees in the United States and provide medical care to people living in the developing world. In addition to practicing medicine in Togo, she served in the Dominican Republic and started a clinic in Kenya for children who lost their parents to AIDS. Sarah is a spokesperson for Compassion International. She returns to San Francisco when she is not traveling the world.