Higher education
Thanks to the gener- osity of ELCA congre- gations and members, Nathalie Fida Lassang can meet her goal of serving the Evangeli- cal Lutheran Church in Cameroon as a physi- cian. “I will someday be able to bless others just as I have been blessed with the gift of my education,” she wrote in her scholar- ship application.
A
divinely orchestrated concert of giv- ers made education possible for one young Lutheran from Cameroon. Through their generosity, Nathalie Fida Lassang is studying medicine.
The future doctor received a full ELCA international scholarship to attend the Ross University School of Medicine on Dominica, a Caribbean island. The only condition: she must return to work in her community of Ngoundéré, Cameroon. Fida Lassang didn’t think twice. Time and time again she has witnessed God working through people, carrying her toward her calling.
Medical needs
In Ngoundéré, contracting malaria, typhoid or cholera is a regular occurrence. As a result, Fida Lassang and her family members spent a lot of time at the hospital built by ELCA missionaries. She remembers two instances where her mother was miraculously healed: after childbirth complications and when she pricked herself with a needle from an HIV-positive patient while studying nurs- ing (she didn’t test positive).
A community calling
SHELDON GREEN/CONCORDIA COLLEGE
From Concordia College to medical school, thanks to her church and the ELCA
By Danielle Hance Hance is a writer at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn. 40 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
“My faith played a big role,” said Fida Lassang. “I trusted God that things would work out.”
When she was 15, her youngest brother crawled into a bucket of scalding bath- water and suffered terrible burns. Fida Lassang brought him to the hospital and was the only person he would let hold him. She would go on to become the health prefect in her boarding school, accompanying ill students to the hospital and acting as their nurse.
“There have always been incidents that
drew me toward medicine and drew me toward God,” she said.
ELCA congregations helped
Education was the only obstacle standing in Fida Lassang’s way. Even with an acceptance letter and a gen- erous financial aid package, her family couldn’t afford to send her to college. “I knew I could never study in the U.S.,” she said. “It was something I never dreamed of doing.”
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