The meaning of Mercy: From Nigeria to America, a woman gives hope for life

Known for her caring for the poor and the vulnerable, Dr. Mercy Obeime touches lives from Indianapolis to her native Nigeria.

By John Shaughnessy

The blue-on-white china cup on Dr. Mercy Obeime’s desk helps remind her of the different ways that people view the meaning of their life.

Obeime received the china cup during a visit she made to a woman in her 70s who is dying of cancer. The woman wanted the medical director of St. Francis Hospice in Indianapolis to have the cup as a way “to remember her, to remember that our lives had crossed.”

“A year ago, she was told she had six months to live,” Obeime says. “She’s lived longer than she expected, and she thanks God for the extra time. She’s been getting worse lately. She talks about how wonderful her life has been, and she’s looking forward to a peaceful rest.”

Not everyone is at peace when they know they will die soon, says Obeime, pronounced “Oh-bay-mee.”

“It’s a time when people think about the meaning of their lives,” she says. “That’s a very big and universal question that people ask. The answer to that question often determines the process of how a person dies. The people who feel they have accomplished their goals and led the life that they’ve wanted to live are more at peace, and their families are at peace, too. The people who are confused about that are usually the ones who have a difficult time working through that process.”

At 43, Obeime knows how hard it is for someone to find the meaning of their life. After years of struggling with that concern, the member of St. Luke’s Parish in Indianapolis believes she’s finally headed in the direction she was meant to follow.

As the medical director of St. Francis Hospice, she tries to help people have as dignified and as peaceful a death as possible. As the medical director of St. Francis Neighborhood Health Center, she works tirelessly to serve the poor and people who are uninsured and underinsured.

She also founded the Mercy Foundation “to celebrate life as a precious gift of God, prevent premature deaths in vulnerable populations and to restore hope in people” in her native Nigeria, a country struggling with poverty and disease.

In recent years, her foundation has organized mission trips to Nigeria, delivering more than $1 million worth of medical supplies to help families touched by the AIDS pandemic and other health crises in that African country.

For Obeime, it’s all part of a remarkable faith journey that began when she left home at age 11, a point in her life that left her lonely and crying.

The oldest of 10 children, she was identified in her childhood as someone who could make the most of an advanced education at a boarding school in Nigeria that drew students from different villages, cities and countries. She remembers her father taking her to the school—and leaving. She recalls how scared she was to be away from her family, and how she soon learned how poor her small village of Uromi was.

The experience planted the seed that she never wanted to live in poverty again. By 16, she decided to become a doctor.

“I thought as a doctor, you wouldn’t be wealthy but you’d be comfortable and you’d be taking care of people or helping them through difficult times,” she recalls.

She graduated from medical school in 1988, but her plans for the future were turned upside down on Christmas Day in 1987 in the village where her family lived. A young doctor from the United States, who had grown up in the same village, returned to visit his family that Christmas. He saw her, they talked and their relationship began. Soon, Christopher Obeime asked her to marry him and move to Indianapolis, where he lived.

“My mother wrote a letter to St. Matthew’s where he went to church,” Mercy Obeime recalls with a laugh. “She wanted to know about him and whether the priest would approve of him and whether he went to church.”

When they were married in 1989, she came to Indianapolis and faced another

turning point.

“I thought I’m leaving all this poverty and craziness behind and coming to America,” she says. “One thing that bothered me was the fact that some people came to America from Nigeria and never reunited with their family. They come here and lead a decent life, yet it’s not enough to do anything for those at home to transform their lives. Before I left home, I met with my family and promised I would stay close to them.”

It was hard, especially as she attended the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis from 1991 to 1993. It was also a time when their first child, Ivie, was born.

“I did my family medicine residency at Wishard Hospital,” she says. “All of a

sudden, I’m seeing there is this degree of poverty in this country. The good part was when I got people to a social worker, the social worker got them help. If they didn’t have food at home, we’d get them food. If they needed electricity, they got electricity.”

By 1996, she had job offers from most of the hospitals in Indianapolis but she wanted to work with the poor. St. Francis gave her that opportunity at a then-new clinic for the uninsured and the underinsured. She tapped into the network of resources she had at Wishard, combining the elements of medicine and social work for her patients, hoping to build their trust.

‘One of my very first patients was this woman who was scared of people and crowds,” she recalls. “She lived with her brother who was blind and a sister who

wasn’t much more functional than her. She would only come out of the house to see me and her hairdresser. I put her on medicine and she was better. As the clinic grew, we were able to take care of her needs.”

In the years that followed, Obeime learned how poor the woman was and the even worse condition of the home where she lived. She continued caring for the woman as she developed diabetes and heart disease. She helped her apply for Medicaid and Medicare. She and her staff even helped clean the home where the woman lived with her siblings. Obeime continued being there for the woman until she died.

“These people lived five minutes from downtown,” she says. “How can we as a community let people live like that and die like that every day? What are we doing about it?”

Obeime gave her own answer to that question through her caring. She used the same approach when she turned her efforts to her family still living in Nigeria.

She brought her parents to America. She also brought most of her siblings to this country, helping uphold her parents’ dream to provide an education for all their children. One of her siblings is now a nurse, another is a pharmacist, one works in a medical supply office and another works with people who have special care needs. One of her siblings is studying to become a doctor. Another one is training to be a nurse.

Obeime thought she had fulfilled her goals and dreams, especially after she gave birth to two more children, Jeme and Jalu.

“By 2000, everything is great,” she says. “I can get anything for anyone who comes to my clinic. I have taken care of my family, too. I tell myself I am done. I can start living. I was feeling good.”

Then she returned to Nigeria in 2001, believing it would be one of her last visits to her village and her homeland. She stopped by a clinic where one of her former medical professors worked, never sensing that her life would change again.

Obeime was at the clinic when a man rushed in carrying his wife, who was deathly sick. The husband desperately explained that he had been running around all day, trying to get medical supplies that he was told would help his wife. But he didn’t have enough money and he couldn’t get the supplies. Obeime tried to help the woman, but it was too late.

“I come out and I’m trying to tell my professor what happened,” she recalls. “The man starts screaming and cursing at God. I say to myself, ‘I wish I could have helped.’ He goes back to pick her up and he’s crying. A 5-year-old boy is by her. He doesn’t know she’s dead. He’s holding on to the clothes of his mother and he’s saying, ‘Mom, I’ve been telling you all day, I’m dying of hunger.’ ”

Obeime pauses. When she continues, she says, “My son was about 5 years old then. I thought that could be me if I still lived there.”

Obeime gave the man money to bury his wife and feed his son.

“He goes and kneels down and thanks God for the money,” she recalls. “It shows how hopelessness can make people act in a totally different way from who they are. He can bury his wife. He can feed his son. At that point, it was time for me to go.”

Returning to Indianapolis, Obeime knew the family she had to care for in Nigeria was bigger than her parents and her siblings. In 2003, on her 40th birthday, she started the Mercy Foundation, dedicating her organization to bringing hope, mission trips and medical supplies to the people of her homeland.

After all the twists and turns in her life, she had come full circle.

“She has a sense of purpose,” says Cynde Barnes of Indianapolis, a friend who went on a mission trip with Obeime. “She says she doesn’t have a grand plan. She acts out of a sense of faith and divine guidance. She says she always ends up where she’s supposed to be.”

Her faith has led to the meaning in her life, Obeime says.

“My faith is everything,” she says. “I think we’re in this world for a reason, and we’re supposed to use our gifts for that reason. When you see there’s a need that has to be met, you have to meet the need. I’ve been blessed. To show my thanks to God, I want to do my best for the people who need it most.” †