Taking that "Goofy Look" to India
Steve Dennie
May 1995
On March 6, Neita Dey left for India, where she will teach 25 nursing students at Narsapur Christian Hospital.
She's almost a first-time missionary.
A year ago, Neita Dey said good-bye to her career and home and lifestyle in the United States, and left to serve God as a missionary at a different hospital in a different country---Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone. A big, big step. But her jet lag had hardly warn off when we decided to withdraw all of our missionaries.
It was a decision not made hastily. But how did it affect a new missionary like Neita, who finds herself back at Square One. Imagine the thoughts which could run through a person's mind:
Why did God have me pull up roots, only to return me to the States after a few weeks?...Did I misread God's will for me?...Maybe God doesn't want me to be a missionary after all.
"I said all of those things," Neita Dey recalls. "The conclusion I reached is that there are no accidents in God's world. I went to Sierra Leone for a reason. I don't necessarily have to know what it is. And that's all right. And now I'm sure that he's sending me to India.
"I didn't plan this. I didn't come home and say, 'I've got to go somewhere else right away.' But doors opened that wouldn't have opened if I hadn't gone to Sierra Leone. It's God's plan, not mine. If he wants me to go to India, I'll go. And if he had wanted me to stay here, he would have put roadblocks in my way."
* * * * *
Neita Dey has been a traveling nurse, spending short periods of time in cities around the country. She has lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, New York, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and three times in California (twice in San Francisco, the longest time, a year-and-a-half, in Fresno).
Her specialty is Oncology. Cancer. How does it affect her when patients die?
"I learned to realize that I can make a difference in their lives. If the death was comfortable and the family was able to deal with it, even though they were hurting, I feel like my role made a difference."
Neita became a Christian in 1984.
"I had been searching for several years, and praying for that inner happiness and joy I saw in Christians' faces. I called it a 'goofy look.' I wanted to know how it felt.
"Then, in 1984, everything in my life went wrong. My mother died, and my father almost died of a heart attack right after. I was in a middle management job. According to the stress tests, I was double and triple what normal stress would be.
"Finally, I had the wherewithal to thank God for my problems: 'I guess I'm supposed to thank you, God.' And he overwhelmed me with joy.
"I remember hearing a Christian speaker say, 'Never ask Christ to come into your life when you're driving a car.' But that's what I was doing at the time. All of this joy--it was such a strange feeling. I knew that he loved me and that I could be a Christian. I wasn't just looking anymore. I really found it. "
* * * * *
Neita grew as a Christian, and became involved in churches wherever she happened to be stationed at the time. Then along came missions.
"I think missionary work found me more than anything. It wasn't an active thing on my part as much as a sense that God wanted me to work for him.
"I applied through Intercristo and learned of the United Brethren opening in Sierra Leone. Things just kind of happened. I didn't set out saying, 'I'm going to be a missionary in a foreign country.' It just all went together.
"A side benefit is that I've always loved to travel. When you give your life to God, he gives you the desires of your heart. So since I've been working for him, I've been to Africa and Europe, and now India."
What did you gain from your experience in Sierra Leone?
"I gained an understanding of the fear and anxiety and giving of the people there. I saw how much they care for each other. When I think of Sierra Leone, I think of the people and the faces of individuals I saw and interacted with. I wonder about them, and pray for them."
"Sierra Leone was getting kind of iffy when I went there. They even delayed us a week. Things happen, and you can only look at them in retrospect. Even while I was there, things went from bad to worse. In retrospect, it's obvious that things were deteriorating, going from sporadic attacks with looting, to attacking villages and burning and killing. I'm not surprised at what is happening there now."
* * * * *
After leaving Sierra Leone, Neita served as a private nurse with World Harvest Missions in Amsterdam, Holland, and then resumed her work as a traveling nurse in an oncology unit in White Plains, NY.
Then the doors to India opened. The three-and-a-half year program has about 25 students each year. Classes are taught in English. Initially, Neita will live with Dorothy Munce, MD, a native of Montana and the only foreigner of the 267 staffers at Narsapur Christian Hospital. She has served there since 1953, and plans to retire and return to the States this year.
Neita loves the idea of teaching. "In oncology, you do a lot of teaching. You not only care for the patient, but teach the family such things as how to deal with the cancer and the treatments. That's where I get the most satisfaction-seeing that the patient understands what I'm saying, whether it's about the disease or about some new procedure they have to learn."
Neita also loves to teach the Bible. And that's partly what attracted her to India. "When I was interviewed, they kept stressing the Bible. Teaching Bible studies, in addition to teaching nursing, will be part of my job. I am excited by the idea of having that kind of contact with my students."
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