Karr, Ruth Nattasha
Ruth Nattasha Karr is an international Global Mission Fellow with the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, engaged in a two-year term of service.
The Global Mission Fellows program takes young adults ages 20-30 out of their home environments and places them in new contexts for mission experience and service. The program has a strong emphasis on faith and justice. Global Mission Fellows become active parts of their new local communities. They connect the church in mission across cultural and geographical boundaries. They grow in personal and social holiness and become strong young leaders working to build just communities in a peaceful world.
Ruth is a member of Duazon United Methodist Church, Margibi County, part of the Liberia Annual Conference.
Nursing is Ruth’s chosen vocation. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing at Adventist University of West Africa, Scheiffelin, Liberia. She worked as a health practitioner at Absolute Health Care Center, Duazon, and volunteered at the Bishop Judith Craig Children’s Village in Monrovia.
Ruth especially wants to help children and youth who have health issues.
“My passion,” she explained, “started when I was growing up, between 10 and 24 years old. I was raised at an orphanage (Bishop Judith Craig Children’s Village), where I experienced the plight of children and young adults. [We] faced a lot of challenges when sickness struck.”
With 60 to 80 children, it was difficult for the orphanage administration to attend to them when they were ill. “It was worse if many of us got sick at the same time,” Ruth said. “Examples included ringworm, finger infection, epilepsy, malaria and menstrual infections. Seeing all those challenges, I decided to study nursing to help care for children and young adults, anywhere an opportunity arises.”
She is enthusiastic about joining Global Mission Fellows.
“This program,” Ruth explained, “would help me to understand global challenges faced by children and youth outside my home context. I would learn how such challenges are tackled. In addition, this program would help me to learn how to engage, connect and grow in a new community and beyond.
“In engaging, I would be in a position to interact with a specified age group: learn from them, their life experiences, how they solve problems,” she said. “I would learn how to initiate conversations with people from other cultures, boosting my interpersonal and leadership skills.”