Meet the Bylers
Posted on July 27, 2011
Sanyati Baptist Hospital in Sanyati, Zimbabwe, was founded in the 1950s, and over the decades has been home to dozens of missionaries serving as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and teachers. Now numbers have dwindled and only one missionary family remains – Dr. Mark and Angie Byler and their son Luke, 14.
In the late 1980s Dr. Byler started volunteering as short-term relief for missionary doctors heading to the United States for furlough. In 2003, when the Bylers learned all of Sanyati’s doctors would be retiring or leaving the field, they decided to move to Sanyati permanently. Since 2004 they have served at Sanyati Baptist Hospital as long-term volunteers funded through donations from family and friends.
What is your lifestyle like in Sanyati?
ANGIE: In some ways it’s very busy, but it’s a different busy than what my lifestyle in the States would be like. … People had told us before that it just takes longer to live in Africa. And until you come and experience that you don’t understand what that means. But just to make breakfast, make a meal, clean up from a meal [is time-consuming]; we’re often without power, we’re often without electricity, and then off and on we’re without water. … The closest grocery store is about an hour and a half away. So you just have to become very resourceful and utilize what is there, and invent new recipes.
What is it like to operate a hospital in such a challenging area?
ANGIE: The challenges of having no electricity (or electricity that is shut off very frequently) and lack of water makes running a hospital very difficult. … Mark will schedule people to have [elective] surgery, and we will turn them away, because, “Sorry, this week we don’t have any [sterilized] instruments because we had no electricity and water — try next week,” and they’ll come again the next week. … Plus … there isn’t water to do the linens, to clean the sheets and the stuff from the beds. And even simple water for the patients to bathe. They are encouraged to bring their own water and their own candle, so that they have those resources when they’re in the hospital. (Editor’s note: A solar panel system being installed by “extreme makeover” teams will provide more consistent electricity for the hospital. Learn more at www.sanyatimakeover.com.)
MARK: Supplies are always an issue. We’re always short of little things you take for granted anywhere else, like gloves, just disposable rubber gloves. Which that’s almost a universal precaution anymore, and so we use lots of them. … To keep the supplies available of things like that [is a challenge].
With all these challenges, how does the hospital continue to function and take care of people?
MARK: There are some Italian Baptists that actually help support the hospital with some funding every year for the last five or six years. BGR (Baptist Global Response) has done a tremendous amount – I’ve been able to purchase drugs for the hospital three years in a row because of funding from BGR. … Samaritan’s Purse has sent us two containers within the last three years. … And then the government does pay the salaries of the employees, which for the vast majority of mission hospitals … is the biggest expense.
ANGIE: It’s not functioning at its ultimate level, it’s not functioning where it used to function, but it still functions. I think … the lifestyle here, and especially in the rural area in Zimbabwe, [is] people just kind of accept that they don’t have stuff. They don’t like it, it’s not good, unfortunately some people will die as a result of not having the resources, but they still tend to look at it as that’s a part of life.
What would happen in this community if the hospital wasn’t here?
MARK: A lot just wouldn’t get health care because they couldn’t afford to go far for health care, and they’re like 60 miles from the [next] nearest hospital. So a lot of people would have to travel a lot further. I think a lot more mothers would die in the area, a lot of babies would die in the area.
ANGIE: Many people would die that didn’t need to die. Many people would suffer more greatly than needed to suffer if the hospital wasn’t here. … And not only that, the community would suffer because it’s a great employer of people. And so there are many people who are able to live here, who are able to send their children to school, because they have a job at the hospital.
Even though the hospital does charge fees, do the patients always pay?
MARK: No, [but] we don’t turn anybody away. If it comes down to they don’t have money to pay, we still see them. Sometimes we get paid in goats, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cows.
How have you seen lives being transformed spiritually?
MARK: I see the spiritual growth in some of the nurses. My dream would be to make the hospital a discipleship training center … which I don’t think we’re presently at. I’ve had some thoughts about how to do it but I am so busy just doing medical [that] we really need help in getting that started. …. The nursing school is a wonderful area because they’re … here for 18 months. So I think we could have some sort of plan … [to] have some discipleship training during the 18 months that they’re here.
Dr. Byler serves both as an administrator and the hospital’s only doctor. What is that like for your family?
ANGIE: My husband is constantly at the hospital. Currently he’s the only physician there, so he’s on call 24/7. And oftentimes they come and they knock at our window. So my friends say he’s not on call, he’s on knock, because we don’t have a phone! So they just come and they wake him at any hour of the night, and he goes in.
Dr. Byler, do you ever feel like you can totally relax?
MARK: Um, very seldom. Yes and no. I mean, Saturday afternoons and Sunday afternoons are usually fairly quiet — although things can happen — but they’re fairly quiet. And I can usually relax those times. Or we just get away … we can’t live out here 24/7 and never go away, never rest.
ANGIE: Sometimes I’m very grateful I’m not the doctor because when they knock on the window and he has to go in I can just roll over and go back to sleep. But he gets very tired. And, I’ll just be honest, it can be very frustrating at times, because I don’t have him. Because when he’s gone he’s gone, and when he’s here he’s so tired or he’s busy doing administrative work, that I still don’t have him. So it’s very difficult. We have to literally just leave. There’s no such thing as a day off, so we have to leave the area in order to get a break. And that’s very difficult to do; he feels very responsible leaving the people with no physician. So it can be very trying, and very tiring at times. And I think also for him, not having a colleague even to talk to or to share some of the issues with, make it even more of a challenge.
What are some of your biggest triumphs or rewards?
MARK, laughing: Off the cuff, I just want to say, “We’ve made it so far.” Except for about a year and a half we’ve been basically alone out here for the last six and a half years, and that we’ve survived that. I would only credit that to God’s grace, letting us survive out here being the only missionaries, and keeping the hospital going.
ANGIE: It’s just a sense of knowing that you’re where God wants you to be. … Even though our life would be more comfortable, easier in a sense of conveniences, if we didn’t come back, I think it would be much more difficult because we know in our hearts this is where we’re supposed to be. So you can have all the convenience in the world, but if you didn’t have the peace of God knowing that you’re where you feel like He wants you at work, then it doesn’t matter. All those conveniences aren’t worth it.
What has God taught you as you’ve served here?
MARK: That He’s faithful. We have needed a lot but it’s always come through. … We’ve been able to keep functioning, and that’s been the big worry – just trying to keep functioning. And it’s been through donations of people coming in at the right time, donations coming at the right time, supplies coming at the right time.
ANGIE: In 2004, when we first arrived to stay for a long trip, as opposed to our shorter five month trips, I felt like Mark’s role was very well defined. He was a doctor in the hospital. … The first time I’d come out I was a nurse in the hospital; I thought, “Okay, I’m doing something of worth, of value.” And now I needed to stay home; our son was seven, I needed to home school — there were no other options. And it was difficult that I needed to stay in the house and do those things. And I really struggled personally with, “Is this what I’m here for? Lord, why am I here? … I feel like I’m not doing anything that‘s of value.” … And He spoke to me very clearly through a worship song … [that] says, “Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that You’re my God.” And He said, “That’s why you’re here. You are here to worship Me. You are here to bow down. You are here to say that I’m your God. It doesn’t matter what your role is, what your task looks like, but that’s why you’re here.” And so I constantly am reminded of that, that whether I’m homeschooling, whether I’m just picking somebody up and driving them to the hospital, whether I’m sweeping the porch or leading a kids’ Bible study or walking through the hospital handing out a coloring book; it doesn’t matter what my task is, the reason I’m here is to worship and to proclaim that He is God. It’s not always the easiest thing to do, and I don’t always do it well, but I know that that’s why we are here.
If you or someone you know is interested in serving alongside the Bylers at Sanyati Baptist Hospital, contact IMB at going.imb.org or 1-800-999-3113. To find out how your church or group can assist with the Sanyati Makeover project, which is providing much-needed renovations to hospital facilities, visit www.sanyatimakeover.com.
Based in Africa, Melanie Clinton is a writer and editor for IMB.
2 Responses to “Meet the Bylers”
Leave a Comment
Related Sites
Follow Us Online!
Great story of God using one family to make a huge difference in so many lives. Praying for the extreme make-over! You have done the “before” story; hopefully we will all be amazed by God’s plan for the “after” story!
I hope to see you all in April. I’m 77 and am coming with the SBC.