Missionary to Gaza recalls serving in the Baptist Hospital

Jolyne Wallace was 38 in 1974, when her name first appeared in the Baptist Standard. She was named along with special project physician Clarence Jernigan and his wife as Southern Baptist missionaries to Gaza Baptist Hospital.

Wallace, the first X-ray technologist appointed by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board, was heading to Gaza Baptist Hospital to serve refugees living in extreme poverty through training, improving X-ray technology and usage, and discipling new believers.

While medical doctors serving with the FMB had many options of where they would serve, few opportunities were available to X-ray technologists, Wallace noted. Gaza was the only hospital looking for her skillset when she was approved to serve.

But the need there was great, as Wallace soon would learn.

She said before arriving in Gaza, she lacked knowledge of the region or the circumstances there. She gained understanding about the longstanding conflict in the region through eight years of living and serving in Gaza.

But, Wallace pointed out, “people here [in the United States] need to know the situation in Gaza better.”

It’s important to know more about situations not just in Gaza, but any foreign field, she said. Wallace pointed out missionaries can offer valuable knowledge about the regions where they serve, when they share in churches about the mission work they are doing.

Much to learn

When she arrived in Gaza, Wallace said she was struck by the extreme poverty experienced by its residents.

“I had no preconceived ideas when I went there, but it was a pretty poor situation,” she said.

Driven out of family lands with the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, the majority of the people Gaza Baptist Hospital served lived in refugee camps, which were “hardly fit for human occupation,” she observed.

During her service in Gaza, the region was under Israeli occupation, creating dis-ease for the civilians, whatever their ethnic or religious identities.

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers patrolled the area around the hospital, refugee camps and airport. “Which I’m sure was traumatic for the children” to not be able to move about freely, she observed.

While the Israeli military wasn’t supposed to be on private property, Wallace recalled a specific incident where things got a little heated between her and a trooper who was not abiding by this order.

She said she doesn’t remember too many instances where she felt especially threatened. Hamas did not yet exist. Her American look and her gender meant that when she was stopped by Israeli guards, she generally was considered harmless and allowed through.

But at the airport, “we almost always had to undress,” [in submitting to searches]. When they entered the airport they had to stop and leave their driver’s license, she explained.

One time she did not stop her car driving, when the guard initially waved her through. But when he saw her Gaza license plate, the guard yelled, “Rega! Rega!”

“I didn’t know what it meant,” she said. “But I knew he had a gun, so I backed up.”

That incident turned out OK, Wallace said, but the prejudice she witnessed with her.

She noted, “It’s just a situation that a lot of people here don’t understand, and I wouldn’t expect them to. I didn’t know either until I got there.”

Working at Gaza Baptist Hospital was “like working in a hospital anywhere,” Wallace said. She was responsible for leading the X-ray department, staffing and ensuring optimum quality X-rays were provided.

“Bad practices had been the norm,” Wallace explained, so she had to retrain staff to utilize the equipment they had more effectively and consistently.

Wallace started a school to train young people in X-ray technology. Most of the staff she trained were from the refugee camps. Few lived in private homes.

Meaningful opportunities

Providing these young people with skills to help them find gainful employment was one of the most meaningful things she did there, Wallace said.

Opportunities to work were limited by ongoing conflict and restrictions implemented during Isreal’s occupation. Whereas Gaza residents had been able to travel into Israel for work in the past, they were not able to during the eight years Wallace lived in Gaza. Unemployment was high then, and remains so today, she noted.

Since individuals in the Gaza Strip struggled to make ends meet, there was great demand for the training she offered at Gaza Baptist Hospital.

Many people applied each year hoping to get a spot in her classes, she noted.

Hanna Massad, who served as a Baptist pastor in Gaza and now leads Christian Mission to Gaza from his home in Connecticut, has described the difficulties faced by Christians in Gaza through the years.

Massad grew up in the refugee camps and worked as an assistant in the laboratory with Wallace as a young man, before he felt called to be a pastor and came to the United States to study, she noted.

The hospital, now known as Al-Ahli Hospital, was founded in 1882 by the Church Mission Society of the Church of England.

It was managed by SBC Foreign Mission Board missionaries from 1954 to 1982. In January of 1982, financial concerns saw the hospital transfer ownership back to Church Mission Society of the Church of England, Wallace said.

She didn’t return to Gaza Baptist Hospital after her furlough in 1983, due to reports of layoffs after the management transfer and because her mother’s health was failing.

The hospital—which was struck several times during the conflict which began with Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—currently is operated by the Episcopal Church.

It sustained a direct hit on Oct. 17, 2023, that killed almost 500 staff, patients and displaced individuals who were sheltering there. Yet, Amos Trust reports, “it continues to open everyday,” seeing 700 patients daily.

Wallace said she would go back and serve again, if she could.

Her faith grew there, through Bible study, prayer and the support of the church, as it has continued to grow throughout her life.

Wallace said she would advise missionaries today to “stay open to new ideas that don’t compromise your convictions,” and “if God is calling, don’t let being a woman deter that call.”

An estimated 800 to 1,000 Christians are said to be remaining in Gaza, down from 3,000 counted in 2007, Al-Jazeera reported in a 2023 article.

Few Baptists were left in Gaza, even before the war.

Editor’s note: The article was edited for clarification after it initially was posted and to correct a date and an identifier.