In September of last year, two missionaries became the first Americans diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia. Kent Brantly, a doctor who was trained in Fort Worth, and health care worker Nancy Writebol. This week, Writebol and her husband David are in town talking to students at Dallas Theological Seminary.
KERA’s Lauren Silverman caught up with Writebol, who said in the months before she was infected, so many people were dying at their clinic that only one person made it out.
Here’s a few highlights from Writebol's conversation with KERA:
On Ebola:
“It ravishes the body. And it’s cruel, the disease is cruel,” Writebol says.
In the first few months of treating Ebola patients for "Serving In Mission" (SIM) Writebol remembers the lone survivor, an 11-year-old boy.
“I was very thankful that he survived, we all were," she says. "It was amazing to see the day when he could walk out of there and go home to his family."
On keeping her faith:
“We just kept praying for every patient that came,” Writebol says. “When the doctors and nurses got ready to go in to isolation we always prayed as a team before they went in, prayed for the patients, prayed that the doctors and nurses would know how to deal with them physically.”
On returning to Liberia:
“We look forward to going back this spring,” she says.
“We have at our hospital begun an Ebola survivor’s clinic. So I’m looking forward to helping in that clinic and I’m looking forward also to helping get ministries started back up again.”
