SNOHOMISH — Dr. Carl Luther is a man on a mission. Literally.
Luther, a 47-year-old board- certified family physician from Snohomish, has been practicing medicine for more than 20 years and is the on-board physician for the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship in the Mercy Ships fleet.
Mercy Ships is a faith-based medical missions organization located near Tyler, Texas. Mercy Ships provides more than $670 million in services across the globe to the Third World and developing countries.
But what makes a hometown doctor from Snohomish leave his familiar and comfortable environs to visit troubled and beleaguered areas such as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Liberia?
Faith.
“I’ve been involved in charitable outreaches with faith-based organizations for some time,” Luther said. “You get a vision for the needs of these developing nations, and it gets in your blood when you see what these people need as far as medical care.”
As a medical student at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Mo., Luther received a scholarship to do a Third World outreach in 1985.
“My first outreach was to Honduras. I really saw what I was learning in medical school, and where it was needed most,” Luther said.
That spiritual desire for service and good works followed him through his career as a physician with the U.S. Army and as a flight surgeon, making time to take regular mission trips.
That passion eventually led him to take a huge leap of faith, to walk off the beaten path and go where his faith and expertise was needed most.
While at the Snohomish Family Medical Center, the clinic had a program that granted their physicians a yearlong sabbatical. Luther took the opportunity to work with the Mercy Ships organization.
“When my year was up I returned to work and, to say the least, I was ruined for the ordinary,” Luther said.
Luther left the practice in October 2006 to join Mercy Ships on a full-time basis and has been in 70 different nations and sailed into 550 different ports around the globe.
The latest mission took him to the Republic of Liberia, a small country in west Africa that has been shattered by civil war, strife and hunger.
When the aptly named Africa Mercy arrived in Liberia, Luther was stunned by the medical needs.
“The sheer need, working from sunup to sundown. The need was unending,” Luther said. “But it wasn’t just the medical care, but also the spiritual care that we could give them, to speak into their lives.”
In Liberia, even the most basic medical needs are overlooked or not addressed. To remove a growth in someone’s mouth would be a simple procedure in the U.S. In Liberia, the growth could enlarge over the years until it suffocates the patient.
Luther recalled a 10-year-old Liberian boy with a cleft lip who had been orphaned after his mother had died from disease. People with that facial deformity are usually despised in the superstitious Liberian culture, and often remain outcasts.
He was found by a crew member in an orphanage, then brought back to the ship where he was treated. Now the boy looks like a normal child.
These are just some of the needs that Luther and the medical team aboard the Africa Mercy deal with.
“In Liberia a benign tumor can grow up to 7 pounds. We have the ability to remove these tumors and other things. Things that people in their village believe make them demon possessed, making them shunned,” Luther said. “Because of these simple surgeries, we are able to restore them in their community.”
To date, Mercy Ships have provided 32,500 of these surgeries throughout the world.
Luther expects to be aboard the Africa Mercy soon as the ship and crew return to West Africa. Luther is naturally enthusiastic about the need to help elsewhere in the world.
“I would recommend it to anyone, the need is there,” Luther said. “As the saying goes, the fields are ripe with harvest but the harvesters are few.”
Reporter Justin Arnold: 425-339-3432 or jarnold@heraldnet.com.
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