From the oncological paediatric ward 2007 to the Covid-intensive 2021
22nd October 2007. After 26 months of building the missionary hospital Diospi Suyana opens its doors. 10,000km away on the oncological paediatric ward of Münster’s Universitätsklinik Katharina Klassen is fighting for her life. The ten-year-old has unclear findings in her head, her liver and in her lungs. There is a high chance that she has cancer and it can go either way. Katharina sees the suffering of the other children around her. She feels so incredibly weak. Her mother sits at her bedside crying. “Must I die now?” This question plagues the girl for weeks. While in Curahuasi, Peru the first 5,000 patients are treated the girl spends the autumn of 2007 in a special clinic in Germany. Months that can hardly be topped when it comes to drama, worry and tension. But then everything turns for the better. The medical staff find the reason for her illness: she has contracted bartonella, a disease that animals can transmit to humans and that causes a whole range of different symptoms. It is named after the Peruvian microbiologist Alberto Leonardo Barton (1870-1950).
One operation and a strict treatment with antibiotics finally relieves the girl from her suffering. “When I grow up, I want to be a doctor!” Katharina never forgot the decision she took back then! Nine years later she starts studying human medicine at Hannover University.
In 2016 an acquaintance gives the young student the book “I have seen God” and not long afterwards she has also read the sequel “God has seen us” cover to cover. “This is sheer unbelievable”, muses the future doctor, “I simply have to see Diospi Suyana for myself!”
In 2017 she and a good friend drive one hour to Oldenburg where Dr John is giving a presentation about Diospi Suyana in a local church. The doctor from Peru does not talk, he bubbles over. It seems as if it is the first time ever that he is giving this talk and simply does not know how to contain his enthusiasm. After the talk Katharina has a brief chat with the missionary doctor. “What are the conditions to work as an intern at Diospi Suyana?” – Dr John give a short, succinct answer: “You have to have passed a Spanish language course B1, otherwise you cannot come!” – Katharina registers for a Spanish course in October 2019 alongside her medical degree and within two years she has made the leap from nothing to B1.
On 14th October 2021 she wants to fly to Peru to do her six week internship at the Hospital Diospi Suyana. But she still has to make a difficult visit. In the first week of October she is standing at her granny’s intensive care bed. The lifeless body on the white sheets means so much to her. The 82-year-old is wired up with tubes and infusions. What the monitors on the wall show does not bode well: no doubt and no hope. Granny will not survive her Covid-infection. On 9th October the EKG shows a zero-line. A marriage that lasted decades has come to an end. Her grandfather who also was diagnosed with Covid overcomes his lung infection and leaves the clinic as a widower.
Wednesday morning 27th October in an Andean mountain valley at an altitude of 2,650m. With the founder of the missionary hospital Dr Martina John Katharina steps into the Covid-intensive care unit. The man lying in the bed in front of her is hanging between life and death. Katharina’s thoughts whizz back 3.5 weeks: “Granny did not make it,” she thinks as tears well up in her eyes.
Late that evening a phone call from Lima: “Katharina, did your studies shatter your faith in God?” “No, absolutely not,” she replies with a firm conviction. “I learnt what a complex thing the human body actually is and without God’s creative power none of us would be here. Then she adds two sentences that come straight from her heart: “People who trust in God die differently. I saw that in Granny!”
“Katharina, one final question: do you believe in life after death?” The student’s answer comes immediately: “Definitely. And until I die God is the orientation for my life. He points me in the right direction and makes my feet secure!”
Katharina Klassen will do a second internship in a missionary hospital in India in February 2022. She is toying with the idea of becoming a missionary surgeon. Who would doubt Katharina’s earnestness? The red line is crystal clear. From the oncological paediatric ward in Münster to Diospi Suyana intensive care unit 14 years later: God himself led her through it all. /KDJ (Picture caption: intern Katharina Klassen next to a Quechua Indian yesterday morning in the ambulance).
If you yearn for the hope that drives Katharina, then listen to this song:
