Nurse from Columbia serving at Catholic mission in Gabon

We all need to put off our old selves and put on the new. I hope that winds up being the most profound thing about this trip, and that I’ll see others the way God sees them.”

Gemma Saathoff

SCROLL THE ARROWS to see more photos.

A previous missionary gave Gemma Saathoff some useful advice.

“Get used to being dirty.”

Kind of like being a nurse, which she’s already good at.

“But it’s also a lot like what Pope Francis said of ‘smelling like the sheep,’” said Miss Saathoff, a Columbia native and member of St. Joseph Parish in Westphalia, who recently began a six-month intensive service opportunity at a Catholic mission in the African nation of Gabon.

“That approach allows you to teach and preach and be with the people and adapt yourself to them and to their lifestyle, while at the same time proclaiming the universal truth of the Gospel,” she stated.

Miss Saathoff left for France Sept. 10 to become more proficient in the French language before heading to Gabon with a group of fellow missionaries in October.

“This was pretty much an answer to prayer,” she said.

She had been looking for a mission opportunity since shortly after becoming a nurse about three years ago, “and I kept not finding one that was a good fit ... or the time wasn’t right.”

She was at a church event at St. Francis de Sales Oratory in St. Louis and crossed paths with a woman who had served at the mission in Gabon.

“She and I met by divine providence and talked for about an hour,” Miss Saathoff recalled.

“She told me about her time at the mission and how amazingly incredible it was and the impact she was able to make while she was there.

“It sounded like a beautiful experience and a wonderful opportunity to be a missionary,” said Miss Saathoff.

Located on west-central Africa’s Atlantic coast, Gabon is home to about 2.4 million people.

“The mission is in a community called Mouila, in the jungle,” Miss Saathoff noted.

The city has about 20,000 residents.

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a Catholic apostolic society of priests who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, established the Mouila mission as a hub of ministry in Gabon.

The mission no longer serves as a headquarters for the society, but was restored in 2012 as an active oasis of Catholic life.

This “pearl of faith in the middle of the African jungle” includes a church, a school, a medical clinic, a small bakery and a school library.

Miss Saathoff raised money to help improve the library’s collection of books.

“I’m hoping to work some here as a nurse, because that’s an important part of who I am,” she said.

“But I’m also hoping to do whatever other work they need me to do — like helping teach English at the school, maybe also helping with their choir, helping with their meals, and doing whatever else I can,” she said.

Body and soul

Miss Saathoff knew almost no French when she contacted the priest in Mouila last year.

She heard back from him early in 2024, “and everything started falling into place.”

Miss Saathoff grew up in Columbia, was homeschooled, and then went to Our Lady of Lourdes Interparish School, then to Hickman High School.

She and her mother travel to St. Joseph Church in Westphalia each Sunday for the Traditional Latin Mass.

Miss Saathoff went to work at a local hospital after completing her nursing studies.

“I loved the aspect of caring for people and being in that intimate setting with others and not only helping with their physical needs, but also their spiritual needs,” she said. “Loving them and serving them in that intimate setting, when they’re the most vulnerable, when they’re sick.

“But I also found that at the bedside, it’s so difficult in a modern hospital setting to prioritize the patient and to serve without constraint,” she said. “I wanted to serve in the context of my faith.

“Being a missionary appealed to me,” she stated, “being free from that hospital constraint, free of those boundaries.

“I want to use my nursing skills, caring for people, but in a setting where I can be free about sharing the faith and bringing God’s love to others,” she said.

A little way

While in France, Miss Saathoff cultivated deeper devotion to several French saints, including St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who happens to be a patron saint of missionaries.

“I’ve always loved Thérèse,” Miss Saathoff noted. “She’s been such a powerful intercessor for me, and I’m asking her to continue doing that.”

Miss Saathoff has been appealing to God to maintain her health and safety in a country where outside visitors have been known to contract malaria and other serious illnesses.

“All of this has really helped me grow in trust and in giving it all to God,” said Miss Saathoff. “I’ve taken provisions for myself like insurance and medicine that I need, but completely giving the rest to God and praying that his will will be done, and trusting that he will take care of me.”

Rock and fortress

At Mass in Westphalia the Sunday before Miss Saathoff departed for mission, Father Dylan Schrader, pastor of St. Joseph Parish and of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Folk, prayed a special missionary blessing of the Church over her.

“It was so beautiful,” she recalled.

She’s been bracing herself for some eloquent lessons in detachment.

“Here in the U.S., we’re not used to certain levels of discomfort that people are used to in some other countries,” she noted.

She’s also been preparing for what she believes will be inevitable spiritual battles.

“The best way to do that is by taking care of yourself physically and spiritually,” she stated. “Really working on the prayer life, the interior life — I think that’s really the most important thing — to take on extra spiritual protection, especially through prayer and the Sacraments.

“You’re fortifying yourself with God’s grace and protection,” she said. “You also need to go into it with humility, knowing that we all still have so much to learn, so much growth to be done.”

She’s preparing to weather “all kinds of little humiliations” — “whether it’s a language barrier or things being so different from back home, all kinds of frustrations, preparing myself to be in very defeated situations.”

She sees these things as opportunities to trust God even more.

“To know God will be there and we’ll be able to bring good out of those seemingly defeated or seemingly hopeless situations,” she said.

Through a dark valley

In her time as a nurse — the first year of which she worked in a cancer ward — Miss Saathoff has become acquainted with suffering and death.

“There’s really no way to prepare yourself to help people through that,” she noted. “You almost have to just go through it first.”

It never gets easier, but experience has shown her how to handle it better and know what to say to grieving loved ones.

Toward that end, she’s confident that this mission experience will change her forever.

“I want to come home with a more sensitive heart to the sufferings of others,” she stated. “To have a deeper understanding and willingness to put myself aside as much as possible.”

She said she needs to continue dying to herself as much as she can.

“We all need to put off our old selves and put on the new,” she said. “I hope that winds up being the most profound thing about this trip, and that I’ll see others the way God sees them.

“That’s something we all need to do,” she said. “To really have that eternal perspective, that eternal point of looking at each and every person as much I can as God sees them, and seeing Christ in them.”

Solemn beauty

Miss Saathoff has taken as her new motto a quote from St. Francis de Sales: “Cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet.”

She sees the mission in Mouila as a living testament to how the solemnity of prayer and worship draw people to sacrifice significantly in order to share the truth and proclaim the Good News to every corner of the world.

She is quick to thank all the people who are supporting her in this mission through their giving and their prayers.

“I am so very grateful, and I will be praying for them,” she said.

For herself, she asked for prayers for courage and perseverance.

“And for wisdom and fortitude for everyone else who’s there, as well, for prudence with how we navigate the roles, the tasks, how we evangelize to each person there, so we can meet every need as individuals and as a group.”

She also requests intercession for deliverance from physical and spiritual dangers, as well as for the hearts of the people she meets to be “really, really open to the truth and seeking God and joining the one true, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church.”

She noted that the charism of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest emphasizes beauty and reverence in the Liturgy in order to bring souls to God.

“Since we are incarnational beings — body and soul composites — we benefit from the elevation of the senses through rich artwork, solemn rubrics and transcendent music,” she stated.

“So, I pray that seeing the beauty and goodness of it all in this little mission, the people may be drawn closer to God, that it may bear spiritual fruit,” she said.