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Physician's assistant will join mission in Dominican Republic


06/23/04
By Michele D. Manigault
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The next few months are expected to be a busy time for physician's assistant Janet McCabe of Arbutus, who expects to spend the next year of her life working in the Dominican Republic for free.

In September, McCabe will take a leave of absence from work, pack up her household and kids and move thousands of miles away in order to work with people who don't have access to healthcare.

Her days will be spent working in mobile clinics set up by a husband-and-wife team of missionaries, who founded the nonprofit agency, Island Impact. In between the mission work, she will squeeze in time to homeschool her kids.

"I'm excited," said McCabe, who has sole custody of her daughters, *******le, 14 and Rachel, 12.

It's something the divorced mom has dreamed of doing for nearly two decades.

Now she is getting the chance.

While friends, co-workers and fellow churchgoers use words like "amazing" and "committed" to describe her one-year adventure, at least one of her daughters has described the venture as "retarded"

"They are really reluctant to talk about this," said McCabe, who said her daughters declined to be interviewed for this story.

With one just about to start high school and the other looking forward to middle school and fun with friends, McCabe has her daughters preparing to spend a year in a foreign country, where Spanish is the dominant language.

While *******le has taken two years of Spanish at Arbutus Middle, Rachel won't start formal study of the language until she returns to the United States in 2005.

On a recent Thursday evening, when her daughters were out at a church youth group activity, McCabe talked about her reasons for making the trip.

"I always knew I wanted to work in foreign places with the poor," said McCabe, from the dining room of the Victorian home she bought and rehabbed several years ago. "I've always had a strong urge to do something like this."

Her daughters will come around said McCabe.

"I've seen this reaction before," she said. "When we've taken other trips, they haven't wanted to go, but once we get there they love it and don't want to come home."

She said the family made its first trip to the Dominican Republic in 2002, when they traveled to visit a young girl they sponsor through a group that runs schools and clinics in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"We fell in love with the place and the people," McCabe said. "We had to go back. It felt like home."

On a second visit a year later, McCabe and her daughters visited the country with a team of 11 volunteers from her church, Lansdowne Worship Center.

"It was exactly what we thought it would be," said McCabe, who has albums, full of pictures of smiling churchgoers running medical clinics and teaching Bible classes for children. Her daughters are featuerd in a number of the those photos.

"It's amazing work," McCabe said.

Her friend Tina Montogmery agreed.

Last year, Montogomery, 50, took her 16-year-old son Craig on McCabe's mission trip. She is also giving serious consideration to making an additional trip during McCabe's stay.

"It's a wonderful thing to do," Montogomery said. "You come away from it with a sense of doing something worthwhile. Every teenager should have that experience. It made us thankful for what we have."

She said that McCabe and her children are well prepared for the adventures to come.

"They are a committed family," Montogomery said. "They are going to have to definitely learn how to live with a lot less money, but they have had a taste of that kind of lifestyle."

As a modern-day missionary, McCabe is responsible for raising enough funds to pay for rent, food and expenses for herself and her children. She is even charged with bringing along medical supplies to care for the sick.

"It's definitely a leap of faith," McCabe said of her trip. "Everything depends on what we raise through donations."

She estimates that $25,000 will cover the costs of airline tickets, lodging, medical supplies and transportation for the next year.

McCabe has gotten donations from a number of sources, including fellow employees at St. Agnes Healthcare, where she works and her church, which is helping with administrative details. Donations are tax-deductible.

McCabe said that while some parts of the Dominican Republic resemble third world countries or developing nations, other parts are comfortable and have electricity and running water.

"I thought this would be the perfect place to take my children," McCabe said. "I'll be close enough to do the kind of work I want to do and my children will be safe.

"I gave up my dreams of doing this years ago, because of relationships, marriage and kids, but now I have to do this," said McCabe. "For me not to do this, I would have to let something die inside. I can't continue to give up my dreams to satisfy other people."

For details or to make donations, call 410-247-0418

E-mail Michele D. Maniault@patuxent.com.



'I always knew I wanted to work in foreign places with the poor.'

Janet McCabe, Arbutus

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