Former Peach hospital boss will serve in South Sudan
FORT VALLEY -- Nancy Peed is moving to South Sudan.
The former administrator/CEO of the Medical Center of Peach County, Navicent Health, hopes to be on the ground and active in Yei, South Sudan, by January. She's going as a missionary and will be working alongside health care professionals.
"I have an idea of what I'm called to do, but I know God will bring about things I haven't even thought about," she said. "I plan to work with leadership of the Yei Civil Hospital as well as medical professionals and medical missionaries already there. That will involve helping with health education, screenings and treatment in Yei and surrounding villages and helping hospital personnel."
Peed said she's helping with hands-on care for men, women and children in southern South Sudan, not far from the country's borders with Uganda and Chad.
She said Yei Civil Hospital leadership has asked for help with staff leadership training and in developing and learning how to carry out a strategic plan.
In each arena, Peed's life experience will benefit the medically struggling people of South Sudan and the small, developing hospital there -- a hospital that, according to reports by South Sudanese radio station 98.6-FM, ran out of medicine for a while this time last year.
And, according to those who know her, Peed's character and love for God and for people will serve equally well.
"I'd describe Nancy as totally dedicated to our hospital, even to the point of letting aspects of her own life go," said Peach County resident Thomas Green, who practices law in Macon and is chairman of the board of Peach County hospital.
"I mean that in the most positive way. The hospital has really struggled at times during her career here and she didn't seek raises and gave up lots of benefits she could have gotten elsewhere -- like a good retirement. My biggest fear was someone would come take her away from us."
WOMAN FOR THE JOB
Peed worked at the hospital for 19 years, about one-third of its 60-year existence. She resigned in 2015, but was still there to witness the hospital relocate from its aging Fort Valley facility to a new 25-private-room patient care facility near Interstate 75. And she left only after she helped bring about a partnership with Navicent Health of Macon that enabled the new facility and put the hospital on a solid footing.
Though many wanted a new hospital, Green credits Peed with coming up with the strategy to accomplish it and to reach out to Navicent Health to form the mutually beneficial partnership.
Further describing Peed, he called her a determined person who doesn't give up and said she was a faithful person with a strong Christian faith undergirding all she does.
If Green and the hospital is losing Peed, on the receiving end is the Mission Society, the small Norcross missions agency she's associating with. Representatives there hold their newfound friend in equally high esteem.
"Despite her experience in leadership as a successful hospital CEO, Nancy came to us as a humble learner," said Richard Coleman, of Mission Society. "People who come as learners make the best missionaries. They ask good questions, bond with the culture and don't come across as trying to control everything. Nancy's teachability and willingness to try new things stuck out, and despite her success she's not a know-it-all who needs to prove herself. I truly believe the Holy Spirit used the gift of faith through Nancy's life in the past and I don't say that lightly. She's depended on the Lord in more than one David vs. Goliath challenge and seen him do more than she could ask or imagine."
PAYING THE WAY
In addition to helping provide channels for Peed to serve in South Sudan, the Mission Society facilitates support-raising efforts to fund her four-year or longer commitment. Contributions can be made at www.themissionsociety.org/give by using her name. Peed is speaking at churches and for groups to raise both prayer and financial support.
Plus, friends are helping. Friends like those at Fort Valley United Methodist Church, who are organizing a giant yard sale for Peed 8 a.m.-3 p.m. April 23 in the church's fellowship hall, 301 W. Church St.
Items are being accepted for sale and can be dropped off 2-6 p.m. April 21, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 22. Judy Adams, at 478-825-5255, and Sandra Haga, at 478-825-5161, are heading the sale.
Organizers say it's not just to help Peed but part of the daunting task of helping people in South Sudan, a nation that gained its independence only two years ago after decades of war, peril and struggles, and is now ranked among the most medically needy nations in the world. Some rank its maternal mortality rate the highest in the world.
But if anything, Peed is daunted only by glowing comments about her and the possibility that some may misinterpret her sense that she could be the answer to someone's prayers in South Sudan.
"What I feel is that while I'm over here praying for God to reveal his purpose for me there have been people there praying for someone to help them," she said. "It's not like I'm some great answer to prayer or anything -- far from it. But God is great and it's amazing and humbling to see how he can merge things together and answer all our prayers. That's powerful. It's humbling to think someone like me can be a part of God's plan, but I know I've seen him do miracles here and I believe he'll do miracles there."
Peed sees the miraculous in the venture overall. She said while she hadn't mentioned her growing thoughts of becoming a missionary to anyone, a perfectly phrased question from her friend Helen Rhea Stumbo drew out her thoughts on the matter and led to her connecting with the Mission Society. That led to two brief trips to South Sudan in the past year and the certainty it's where she should be.
"I'd been thinking about missions since 2011 but didn't tell anyone," she said. "When the new hospital was opened in 2013 I began feeling like my mission here was complete. When I landed on the dirt runway in Yei, I just knew God was saying, 'This is the place.' But I have so much to learn. I feel like I'm starting all over and I can't do it on my own. But I guess that's a good place to be with God."
She said she knows South Sudan is a dangerous place in a dangerous word.
"God has just given me such a great peace about where I'm going," she said. "We know what's going on in that part of the world but I have such a peace. I know that's part of God's gift to me. He's given me great joy, passion and a real peace about going."
Peed said she sees no contradiction in going from being "the boss" to being a servant of Christ in Africa.
"Mostly it's all the same," she said. "Being the boss is being a servant. A good boss is there to serve people they lead and not to think so much of themselves."
This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 10:07 PM with the headline "Former Peach hospital boss will serve in South Sudan ."