News

Eschewing comforts, Wards go to Togo

Dr. Rachel Ward, Dr. Bryant Ward and their son Jasper are headed to France and then Togo with World Medical Mission.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 8, 2015

Dr. Bryant Ward and his wife, Dr. Rachel Ward, had it all.

A newly minted family doctor, Bryant Ward could have opened a practice, made good money and settled down in his native North Carolina mountains. Rachel Ward was celebrating both a new baby and a doctorate in public health. They owned a lovely older home in Asheville, had plenty of opportunities to use their gifts and would soon learn they had a second baby on the way.
It was all good, except for the nagging sensation that they had left behind a dream they shared from the time they first started dating as undergraduates at UNC.
So instead of settling into that comfortable life, they signed up to do mission work in medicine and public health in the West African country of Togo. They left Monday for Albertville, France, where they will spend a year learning French before embarking on a three-year commitment in Togo.
"It's something we had wanted to do when we met in college," Ward said. "There's not a better time in our life to be able to step out and to make a change before I get settled into a practice or settled into a job. It's what we feel like God is calling us to do. It's an opportunity for both of us to be able to use our skills."
In a blog that chronicles their mission work, the couple acknowledged that many friends ask, "Why are you doing this?"
It's "a question we're frequently asked, and nearly constantly asking ourselves," they wrote. "Why are you selling your beautiful home? Are you really taking your baby to Africa? Why aren't you getting a normal job? Are you crazy? (We avoid answering that last question...)"
The two high-achiever had spent their whole lives making A's on tests, mastering complex subjects, fighting off sleep in library carrels, scaling the highest peaks of the academic world — and almost forgetting why they chose their professions to start with.
"Beaten down by the drudgery of medical school and the jobs of our early twenties, and distracted by the here and now, we'd long forgotten our interest in global health and missions," they wrote. "Gradually and somewhat painfully, God started us on a path of accepting the fact that'd we'd overcomplicated our lives. We'd filled it up with stuff. We'd neglected to stop and ask 'What's on your heart, God?'"
Now, Bryant says, they've asked, received an answer and acted on it.

No bells and whistles

Bryant, 30, the son of Alan and Beth Ward, graduated from Hendersonville High School in 2002, UNC at Chapel Hill in 2006 and ECU's medical school in 2011. He finished his residency at the Mission Health-affiliated Mountain Area Health Education Center last June. Rachel, a native of Raleigh, earned undergraduate and masters degrees from UNC and a doctorate from East Tennessee State University.
After training at a language school in Albertville —site of the 1992 Winter Olympics — Bryant and Rachel will travel to Tsiko, Togo, a densely populated country of 7 million about the size of West Virginia. A branch of Samaritan's Purse International Relief, the World Medical Mission sends physicians, dentists and other medical personnel to hospitals and clinics around the world.
"They take people fresh out of training and provide a way to get out in the mission field in hopes of becoming career missionaries to replace physicians who are retiring," Ward said. "They found there's a need to replace doctors who have been working their whole lives and are getting ready to retire. That's what this program was founded to do."
Bryant will work at the 50-bed Karolyn Kempton Memorial Christian Hospital.
"They've got a pediatrician that works there, a couple of surgeons and a few family doctors," he said. "They deliver a lot of the babies and they do a lot of dental surgery. They don't have a lot of bells and whistles."
The hospital sees tuberculosis and other infections but the Ebola epidemic has not reached Togo and Ward said it appears public health agencies have started to turn the disease back. They'll still be in France when Rachel is expected to deliver their second child.
"I think (medical care) will be similar to what we have here," he said. As for West Africa, Ward said he thinks the couple, their son Jasper and newborn will be fine there, too.
"Certainly the resources will be limited but I'll be working at a hospital," he said. "If there's any way to get it, I'll get it."
If there's no bells and whistles in Togo, there's an abundance of will and spirit in the hearts of the gifted couple setting sail on their biggest adventure. Riding to the airport on Monday, Bryant fielded, for the thousandth time, the question of why.
"I guess the question for that, is why not? I think it's wonderful opportunity Samaritan's Purse has provided for us," he said. "We've been fortunate to be able to get these skills and be in place where we can make a big difference in people's lives and we're excited to be able to do it."

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To read more about the Wards' mission work visit http://wardsgototogo.com./