Local couple make public service, Baha’i faith a life priority

Fort Wayne News Sentinel They work in Central America to promote social services from a grassroots level.
By K. E. Casey
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For a former Fort Wayne couple, faith and work are one in the same.

Dr. Barry Smith and Marilyn VanHoozen Smith, both 57, have worked in Central America for the past 30 years as an expression of their Baha’i conviction for public service.

The Smiths are back in America for a five-week “home leave” to reconnect with family and friends before returning to their work in Nicaragua.

Working abroad “was always something I’ve wanted to do,” Barry said. Growing up a Methodist, he remembered hearing stories in church from returning missionaries.

“It excited my imagination,” he said.

Barry converted to the Baha’i religion when he was a freshman in college. A neighbor had invited him to a “fireside,” an informal meeting and discussion group about the faith. He found the religion, which encourages volunteering and public service, appealed to his spirituality.

Barry met Marilyn VanHoozen when they were seniors in high school, graduating in 1966. He went to North Side, and she attended Elmhurst; they met through a cousin of Marilyn’s, who was a classmate of Barry.

They married when Barry was a sophomore in medical school at Indiana University in Indianapolis with two marriage ceremonies: one Baha’i at the Fort Wayne Women’s Club, and one in a Methodist church because Marilyn had not yet converted to the Baha’i faith.

Marilyn held firm she would not convert unless “it is something I want,” she said, although she eventually converted to Baha’i.

The couple found a chance to go abroad upon Barry’s graduation from medical school. Barry owed service to the government, which helped pay for part of his education. He had a choice of working in 26 cities, only one of which was outside the United States, in Puerto Rico. He chose Puerto Rico and began his international career working in a U.S. Outpatient Public Health Clinic.

Barry then went back to school at the University of Michigan, where he earned a master’s degree in public health. After completing the degree, he found a job with the United States Agency for International Development as “the liaison between the USAID and the Ministry of Health of Honduras,” he said.

While Barry stayed busy with his work, Marilyn was pioneering as well. When the Smiths lived in Honduras, Marilyn started the first Montessori preschool in Tegucigalpa, the capital. She graduated from Ball State with a degree in journalism education and had taught for two years at Homestead High School.

But after working at international development on a large scale as part of USAID, “we wanted to try our own hand at doing it,” Barry said, “development at the ‘grass roots level.’” They asked their three girls, aged 7, 9 and 11 at the time, if they were willing to make the commitment to living in remote conditions. The girls agreed, and from their comfortable living in Tegucigalpa, the family moved to a remote part of the country, miles from any modern conventions.

With no roads or telephones, the Smiths and an Iranian doctor and his wife established a small hospital in the village of Palacios for the Bayan Association, a non-governmental organization focused on development.

They had a small staff, no telephone and only solar panels for electricity. Barry recalled that at night, his dogs barking “always meant emergencies.”

The Smiths lived in Palacios for about nine years, during which Barry traveled throughout South America. After the first seven years, the girls attended boarding school and came home during school breaks.

Today, he works with Management Sciences for Health, in Managua, Nicaragua, where he is part of a project to “improve efficiency and transparency” of the Nicaraguan government in areas of education, health care and family welfare, Barry said. These social services have a “tremendous impact” in a society where 50 percent of the population lives on less that $2 a day.

He said his staff is a group of motivated individuals.

“They’re not just working for a paycheck,” Barry said. “It’s very inspiring.”

And just when Barry had finally found an office job with less time spent traveling, Marilyn’s career path took a new turn. She was appointed to the Continental Board of Counselors for the Baha’i of the Americas, where she works with “the development of an institute project and curriculum” for discussing aspects of faith and religion, she said.

“This is happening all over the world,” Barry said, which encourages discussion on such issues as religion and morality.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/15072797.htm
Indiana, USA

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