A sense of calling

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For the past 16 years, Dr. Tim and Joan Herrick have pursued a calling to interact with and aid those less fortunate, bringing the compassionate message of Jesus along with them.

For the past six years they’ve been working and living in Bamako, Mali, in Africa as development workers in the medical field. Tim Herrick is a family doctor while Joan is a physical therapist who teaches at a physical therapy school in Bamako.

The Herricks previously spent nine years in the Ivory Coast, where they adopted their two children Nick, 13, and Sam, 10.

The Herricks return home to the United States about six weeks out of the year, and visit Tim’s parents, Dorothy and Leland in Princeton, and travel to visit the churches and individuals who donate and support their work overseas.

Herrick currently teaches at a nursing school and supervises the medical aspect for a drop-in center for young people. He also works with a self-help association for lepers who live on the streets.

Herrick said he supervises a nurse’s aide in a tiny room at the center. There they treat patients for superficial wounds, STDs, bronchitis, and occasionally tropical diseases.

“We can see very young infants. Some people living on the streets are girls, and some of them deliver their babies on the street, essentially. So we see their babies and the girls occasionally,” Herrick added.

The Herricks are part of a group called The Navigators, an interdenominational, non-profit organization helping people to know Jesus Christ. More than 4,000 Navigator staff are serving in more than 100 countries.

“We got into this way of life because of a sense of calling. We felt like God put us here for a reason and part of that reason is to put ourselves in places where we could interact with people that don’t necessarily have an easy time finding out about Jesus. We’re very excited about sharing Jesus with people of other countries, of other faiths,” Herrick said.

Herrick said Mali is rated third from the bottom in the world on the human development index which rates the health, education and wealth of the country.

“So it’s poor, it’s uneducated, there’s a lot of disease, and it’s in a hospitable climate,” he said.

Despite those conditions, Herrick said they ironically feel safer in Mali then they did living in various urban areas in the United States. Violent crime in Mali is actually very low, he said.

Herrick also said there are tremendous benefits for his family in living overseas.

“It’s a very enriching experience. We’re very much different people than we would be if we were living in the U.S. in some sort of suburban context,” he said.

Herrick said his son, Nick, is attending a bilingual educational system, currently in the official French system and supported by the French government. His younger son, Sam, is attending a school with American curriculum.

Herrick said a difficult part of their medical work is that it does not involve a lot of direct patient care, because they don’t want to appear to be competing with the local people for work. Therefore, they try to reinforce the capacity of care the local people can provide.

“We keep doing it because we feel like, well, to say the job is not done is ridiculous. It’s an enormous world and so much of it is crying out for some physical or spiritual need,” he said.

“But we feel our part in the job is not yet done. We don’t feel like we’re through. We feel like there’s still more for us to do,” he added.