Published in the Fall 2017 issue of Westwind Magazine in November 2017
When Elena Rohm enrolled at Walla Walla University in 2010, she already had a career plan in mind. “I never went to nursing school to work in a hospital setting,” Rohm said. “My goal in going to school was always to meet the needs of the underserved population, particularly overseas.” But helping displaced Iraqis in areas devastated by ISIS? That’s something she couldn’t anticipate.
Rohm’s mission work has already brought her to nine foreign countries across five continents. The Oregon native’s latest trip took her to northern Iraq, where ADRA and Adventist Help are building an emergency medical care hospital to serve the 100,000-plus internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the region.
She lived in Erbil, Iraq, for two and a half weeks last June and July, traveling an hour to the Hasansham U2 Camp each day to help construct the hospital and treat patients from each of the five local IDP camps. “These were people fleeing from Sinjar or Mosul or a lot of the ISIS-held territories,” Rohm said.
Her daily commute to the hospital site showed evidence of a war-torn region. “We would have to go around a bridge every single day because ISIS had blown up that bridge six months before we were there,” she recalled. Despite the damage, Rohm felt safe alongside her team of over a dozen volunteers.
It wasn’t until she spent a few days at a trauma stabilization point in Mosul that safety became a concern. “You could hear gunfire and bombs going off and see the smoke in the distance,” Rohm said. Only about 2 kilometers from the action, the trauma stabilization point workers acted as a first response for several injured soldiers and citizens who wouldn’t have made it to one of the distant hospitals in time.
Rohm knew what kind of injuries to expect when she signed up to help in Iraq—anybody who watches the news knows it’s an ugly situation—but she had no idea how much of an impact the experience would have on her. “When we think of people from Third World countries, we think they’re so different. But the people are the same as us,” she said. “They have goals and desires just like we do.”
After meeting people whose lives were abruptly interrupted by war, she learned that only months earlier, their lives weren’t far from her own. “The only difference between me and these people is that I was lucky enough to be born into a place where I don’t have to worry about this,” Rohm said. “It really stood out to me more than any other trip.”
Rohm returned to her current Oklahoma home in July, where she faced a tough decision: What comes next? Rohm toyed with the idea of revisiting school to become a nurse practitioner, but she’s in a prime position to travel and there’s no age limit on a degree. “School will always be there,” she said. “I don’t know that these opportunities will always be presented the same way that I could fulfill them right now.”
Few people exchange luxury for discomfort—and fewer people do it willingly—but when Rohm marched across Centennial Green in 2013 and took her diploma, she knew her dream was far from conventional. Nobody can predict what part of the world will need help next, but one thing’s for sure: When an opportunity to help comes knocking, Rohm will open the door with a suitcase by her side and a passport in hand.