What would you like to know about St. Joan of Arc? Do you have a story about our parish or of general interest that you think others would like to hear? For story ideas, contact Jeff Rholl, jeff@stjoan.com.

Helping
to Find Closure to Life
.....Half Way
Around the World

St. Joan Parishioner,
Dr. Gene Ott,
Is Creating A Hospice in South Africa.

People don’t walk into church with their resumes, they shouldn’t. But when the community gathers, sometimes we are standing and sitting with people whose work life or stories can help us better understand some part of the Gospel directive to care for one another. This is a St. Joan of Arc story about a person - a doctor, and his plan to help create a hospice in Guguletu, South Africa.

THE GATHERING OF RESOURCES

Dr. Gene Ott(right) with author
Five trips have been made to South Africa by St. Joan of Arc parishioners, Dr. Gene Ott was the first medical doctor who agreed to go to South Africa. Like others who have gone to that part of that world, he got hooked. He is now the Co-Chairperson for the Zwane HIV/AIDS Program. Gene shares this responsibility with Ms. Zethu Xapile, a chief professional nurse and facility manager for the Brown’s Farm Clinic in South Africa. These two are part of a twelve-person team that is somewhat unique. Six members are South Africans and six are Minnesotans. Three of these six are from St. Joan of Arc, it is our version of collaborative ministry. Our primary goal is to create a hospice program in Guguletu where one in four is suffering with AIDS, a disease that has attacked people in their prime and the very young, a disease that is creating an army of orphans. Our other goal is to create a hostel type safe place for volunteers to live in the township. The AIDS pandemic is bringing offers for help from around the world, but there is no place to house these medical volunteers.

Mary Lou and Gene Ott(right) with the 2001 delegation
Just a year ago, Gene and Mary Lou Ott, Cyril and Pam Paul, myself and three others spent two weeks in South Africa. When Reverend Spiwo Xapile, senior pastor of the J. L. Zwane Memorial Church came with his wife Zethu to Minnesota in search of help, he asked Dr. Gene Ott, Dr. Jim White and myself to see if we could arrange for black South African doctors to come to Minnesota to observe medical practices here. Spiwo believed they were too isolated from what was happening elsewhere to fight this disease. In April 2001, two doctors and a nurse came to the Twin Cities and were hosted by St. Joan parishioners, Mary Lou and Gene Ott, Mary and Jim White and Beth and Chuck MacDonald. At the end of their ten-day stay, a meeting was held with Spiwo Xapile present. It was decided by the South Africans and the Minnesotans, that a partnership would be necessary to create a hospice program and a bunk house location for volunteers, The program would be called the Zwane HIV/AIDS Program, a volunteer Minnesota South African Community Health Initiative. It was called ‘Zwane’ to link it to the J. L. Zwane Centre that the townspeople recognized as a place to go for help. Gene Ott agreed to be the American co-chairperson of the program.

A PRACTICAL MAN, ON A MUCH NEEDED PILGRIMAGE

At seventy-three, Gene Ott is dragging his distinguished medical career into his future to create a hospice for dying South Africans, a third-world away. That fact alone is remarkable but Gene is also Director of Medical Affairs for the St. Mary’s Health Clinics. Those are the free clinics for the uninsured that the Sisters of St. Joseph started. Before retiring from Hennepin County Medical Center where he was staff physician, he practiced family medicine for twenty-two years in Edina. Mentioning that he is also the father of ten grown children and married forty-seven years, does raise a few eyebrows. If you say, Gene Ott is determined to go to his cabin in Wisconsin, spend time on his pontoon and take the dock in and out as the season decrees, you would fallen into a stereotype that would not ring true in this instance. What you have in Gene Ott is a man who has decided to stretch with his years.

Volunteering in South Africa is not his first venture into third world countries, this is a man whose world view has been expanded more than most. Ten years ago at the invitation of a friend, he went to Haiti to work with the sick. Later when time would permit, he went to Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba(once with Dr. Patch Adams), and in 2001 he and Mary Lou were both in Iraq and South Africa. Gene says poverty and sickness wherever you go has the tragic sameness to it, but each country has it’s own unique problems. South Africa’s black population is victimized by its two tiered medical system. South Africa has a world renowned medical system for the white population or those who can afford it, and a very primitive medical system for the blacks who are 80% of the South African population. Those of us who have traveled to South Africa have seen the thrown together clinic areas that try to see 250-300 people a day. Added to the weak infrastructure of the medical services to the black community is the lack of trained black doctors and nurses. The doctors we work with are in heavy debt to their government for their medical training and may never get out of their own poverty.

USING LIFETIME SKILLS TO BE IN THE PRESENT NEED

Gene’s latter working years were in geriatric medicine and he understands one of the key issues the South Africans are facing, how to minister to people who are dying. “Carrying for the dying person is just as important as attempting to care for the living. If we can’t do anything, or have no more to offer medically to people, it does not mean we shouldn’t do something. We can make the dying person as comfortable as possible. We can help them die with dignity.” When the South African doctors visited Minnesota, they toured two of our hospices. They were overwhelmed by the facilities and programs that have been put in place. They can barely create a decent location in their townships for their very sick. In addition to a space issue, they have an up-hill battle to teach families how to care for their dying. Education is sparse in the townships, so superstition and fear gets in the way of helping the very sick. Not enough food and space for someone ill is a compounding issue. The South African doctors have asked to create a hospice space, and to outfit it with beds, supplies and medicines. Our first assignment was to help raise about $40,000 from our families and friends and other funding sources.

“No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. there is too much work to do.” - Dorothy Day

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS........

On October 20th, Dr. Gene Ott and myself will leave again for South Africa. This time in the company of seven members of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul.

The Presbyterians asked for assistance in their exploratory visit into the pandemic. People always ask about why the South Africa government doesn’t do more. South Africa, like many third world countries is cash poor. Right now any help the blacks of South Africa are receiving, is coming from non-profit or church groups. Gene Ott and I have been in meetings with the Presbyterian group on several occasions. One thing we tell them to do is to listen to the South Africans. Find out what they really want and need. Gene Ott has said in collaboration with Spiwo Xapile that we Americans tend to think we know the answers and have all the solutions. We don’t, and we can only help if we sit in full partnership with the South Africans. Gene Ott and the Minnesotans of this project were approached because the South Africans wanted a partnership of co-equals. We have worked for almost three years to build this relationship of trust, and Gene Ott with a lot of help from his friends is going to create a hospice with the South African doctors and nurses. Gene says that he thinks it is important to do what you can to make life easier for others. Sometimes because of your friendships, that work may take you half way around the world.
Chuck MacDonald is on the St. Joan of Arc Parish Council. He is the Project Coordinator for the South African Hospice program. He is currently a member of the Shannon Leadership Institute. Chuck can be reached at chuckmacdonald@attbi.com.

“Lord, show me heaven after my pain.” But as many Africans wonder whether, instead, God is punishing them with the greatest plague of modern times: AIDS. Every four seconds HIV infects someone new here, in almost every house. These people are victims of a virus that flourishes among the poor who can’t afford expensive foreign drugs and of African governments who have failed to tackle or even acknowledge the epidemic.
- CBS New Correspondent - Elizabeth Palmer

Other Features