| The Christian Medical Institute
of the Kasai was founded in 1954 by the American Presbyterian
Congo Mission "for the instruction of qualified medical and
dental personnel, to provide a higher level of medical care, and
to witness to the healing ministry of the Church." Located
in Tshikaji, ten miles from Kananga, the hub of central Congo,
it serves a population of a half million people. The institute
is a health-promoting and teaching complex consisting of the hospital
and clinics, a series of rural primary care centers, a school
for nurse practitioners, a school for medical laboratory technicians,
a child preventative medicine outreach program, a nutritional
rehabilitation unit, and a large urban ambulatory health center
including a dental clinic, family planning, and other health-related
activities.
Mission service is not new to Bill and Sue, as they served with
the Presbyterian Church for ten years in Pakistan at the United
Christian Hospital in Lahore. While Bill served in the hospital
and Sue volunteered in the hospital, taught English as a second
language to the student nurses, and was a substitute teacher at
Lahore American School, they also raised five children. The Sagers
left Pakistan in 1973 due to conflicts within and outside Pakistan
and returned to the United States. They settled in Ashland, Oregon,
where Bill and Sue have lived until moving to Quebec, Canada,
for French school before proceeding to the Congo. Bill had a private
practice in internal medicine. The Sager's son John, a doctor
starting in family practice, will work at the clinic from which
Bill retired. While in Ashland, Sue was a homemaker and volunteer
in the schools and community as well as a receptionist at the
medical clinic and volunteer English as a second language teacher.
She took postgraduate courses from Southern Oregon College in
Ashland. For the past fifteen years Sue taught English as a second
language at Rogue Community College in Medford, Oregon, teaching
at three levels to immigrants, refugees, and students.
Bill and Sue both received their BAs from Ohio Wesleyan University
in Delaware, Ohio, and Bill earned his doctorate in medicine from
Northwestern Medical School in Chicago, Illinois. He did his internship
at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and his residency in internal
medicine at the Evanston Hospital Association. At the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Bill was a fellow in gastroenterology
and assistant to the director of the Clinical Research Unit of
the University Hospital. In preparation for the work in Congo,
Bill recently completed a diploma course of intensive training
in tropical medicine and hygiene at Tulane University in New Orleans,
Louisiana. Since returning from Pakistan in 1973, Bill has been
active in the Medical Benevolence Foundation, a validated mission
support group of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Over the past twenty-five years Bill and Sue have been involved
in short-term mission to various parts of the world such as Indonesia,
Thailand, Mexico, Bolivia, and Pakistan. For the past five years,
the Sagers have spent three-month (and several nine-month) sabbaticals
in Pakistan with Bill teaching at Memorial Christian Hospital
in Sialkot, Pakistan, and Sue teaching English as a second language.
Bill and Sue have been active members of First Presbyterian Church
in Ashland and are both ordained elders. Sue is an ordained deacon
as well. They have five adult children: two daughters—an
architect and a geologist—and three sons—two doctors
and a contractor—and nine grandchildren.
Birthdays:
Bill - June 16
Sue - December 2
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