Missionary McConnachie dies in South Africa

from Blue Ridge Now

By Scott Parrott and Bill Moss
Times-News Staff Writers

Dr. Christopher McConnachie, an orthopedic surgeon who left a comfortable practice in Hendersonville to serve the poorest of the poor in South Africa, died last Tuesday in the region he served. He was 70.

McConnachie and his wife, Jenny, helped establish Hendersonville-based African Medical Mission, which helped bring much-needed medical care to people in a poverty-stricken region of South Africa.

"I just think that after being over there he somehow felt what we had was so great and what they had was so little that he felt he could make a difference," said Frank Byrd, who serves on the board of African Medical Mission. "He and Jenny were idealists in the best sense of the word. They wanted to make a difference and they truly have.

"Diagnosed with leukemia in early 2006, McConnachie was a compassionate fighter who worked throughout his illness. Chemotherapy for McConnachie's acute myeloid leukemia had compromised his immune system, and he was unable to fight off an infection.

He died on Nov. 27 in Mthatha, South Africa, where a funeral will be held Wednesday. A memorial to celebrate McConnachie's life will be held in Hendersonville next spring.

McConnachie lived in many places over the years, but he considered Africa home, friends and family say. He will be buried in the grounds of Bedford Hospital, where he worked 24 years.

Couple met in London

Born April 25, 1937, in Stirling, Scotland, McConnachie attended medical school at London's University College Hospital. He met Jennifer Farrow, a nurse, while both worked at hospitals in London. The couple married June 6, 1964.

The newlyweds moved to Redvers, Canada, for 18 months while Chris McConnachie worked as a general practitioner, Jenny McConnachie as a registered nurse. In 1969, they went to South Africa and worked at Saint Barnabas Mission Hospital. In that setting they first felt the call to serve in the Third World, family and friends said.

After a year, they moved to Winston-Salem so McConnachie could complete his orthopedic residency. They then moved to Hendersonville, where McConnachie founded Hendersonville Orthopedic Associates in 1973. In 1981, he helped start African Medical Mission to improve medical services and support in the Transkei region of South Africa. Two years later, Chris and Jenny McConnachie and their five children moved to Mthatha.

McConnachie performed orthopedic surgeries and treated conditions such as tuberculosis of the spine, polio, congenital defects and illnesses virtually unknown today in North America or Europe. He was the only board-certified orthopedist in the Transkei and sometimes performed as many as 10 surgeries in one day. He also visited outlying hospitals, regularly treating more than 150 outpatients in a week.

Supported by Hendersonville

Since the 1980s, the Hendersonville community and the couple's home church, St. James Episcopal, have supported the McConnachies' mission. The Walk for Africa raised more than $10,000 a year. Donations from other churches and grants also sustained the work.

"Dr. McConnachie spent maybe 10 or 12 years here in Hendersonville, but this community continued to support his work in South Africa, and I know that the generosity of this community helped him to do what he loved to do, which is the work he did in South Africa," said son-in-law Dan Kealy, a guidance counselor at Hendersonville High School.

Jenny McConnachie is expected to continue her work with the Itipini clinic and preschool, which provides health care, preschool and food "for the poorest of the poor," said Byrd, the AMM board member and St. James parishioner.

Maureen Linneman, an African Medical Mission board member, described McConnachie as "strong, determined, helpful, very self-giving, humorous, brilliant, and a wonderful practitioner.""He had a big heart," she said.

"He and his wife always had a real feeling for what they saw in Africa, a real compassion," Linneman said. "They talked about the huge need in the Third World, and they talked about how they just really felt a call to go there.

"McConnachie's work in South Africa went beyond mending broken bones.When the community had water problems, Linneman said, "Chris would see something like that and raise funds to build a water supply, a water tank. There was no way rural people could be X-rayed, so he developed a mobile X-ray van."

"He was the kind of person that when he saw a need, he would develop a way to serve the need," she said.

Episcopal missionaries

The McConnachies became missionaries of the Episcopal Church in 1987, serving in the Transkei, Diocese of Umtata, Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

"I have always regarded Chris McConnachie as a heroic figure," said Canon Margaret Larom, director of Anglican and Global Relations. "Calm, gentle, and wise, with that craggy face and marvelous smile, he had a humility that was disarming.

"McConnachie was the winner of the 2002 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Humanitarian Award. In 2006, he and Jenny were named "Officers of the Order of the British Empire" in recognition of their long and valuable service in Africa.

The nominations process included letters of recommendation, one of which came from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The couple traveled to England to accept the award from Prince Charles.

"Helen Keller once said, 'The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched, they must be felt with the heart.' The life and ministry of Dr. Christopher McConnachie was a constant reflection of the love of God, which shone out through his work as a surgeon and his personality as a loving and caring child of God. He will be missed by all who had the privilege to meet him," said the Rev. David Copley, the Episcopal Church's mission personnel officer.

McConnachie is survived by his wife, seven children and 14 grandchildren.

Mary Brennan of Episcopal Life Online contributed to this report.