Dr. Birch and Peggy Rambo: A Lifetime of Service
Dr. Victor Birch Rambo and Margaret Gordon “Peggy” Rambo were both the children of missionaries. Birch was born in 1926, in Bilaspur, India. His parents were medical missionaries serving Christ ministering to the curable blind. Birch graduated from Kodaikanal School in India in 1943, and served in the U.S. Navy 1944 – 1946. After attending Bethany College and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, he married Peggy Gordon in 1952.
Peggy had spent her childhood years in Pakistan, where her parents were missionaries. Peggy graduated from Muskingum College in Ohio in 1948, and received M.N.and R.N. degrees from Case Western Reserve University in 1951.
After Birch completed his surgical training, while Peggy taught in the Nursing School of the University of Pennsylvania, they were disappointed not to be able to go as missionaries to India. Birch’s single kidney was considered disqualifying by some mission agencies, and India was not accepting expatriate doctors in the mid-1950s. Anxious to go where the need was greatest, they moved to Banner Elk, North Carolina, to serve as home missionaries in a mountain hospital.
In Banner Elk, they attended a Presbyterian Church and, in 1964, they were accepted as missionaries to the Republic of Congo. They moved there with their three kids and, for almost three decades, Birch served as a missionary surgeon and Peggy worked as a nurse, midwife, plumber, carpenter, electrician, logistics supervisor, guest house manager, and mom…..whatever needed doing, she was willing and able to take on: a truly multi-talented lady!
First at the remote hospital in Bulape and later at Good Shepherd Hospital in Tshikaji, with the Christian Medical Institute of Kasai (IMCK), they served God and the people of Congo, later Zaire, until 1992. Dr. Richard Brown, another missionary colleague of the Rambos, recalls some of his experiences with Birch:
“In my early days at Bulape, I was schooled by Bob Douglas on how to do some basic surgical operations such as inguinal hernias, and Cesarean sections. Actually, this was quite enough surgery for me, since my medical training taught me just about everything except surgery. Yet, when Bob Douglas retired, surgery – the whole load – fell into my lap. What to do? Ah, Rambo was the answer!
We discussed the days of the month that he would fly up to Bulape. I made a list of cases, the most difficult that I could find, and saved them just for Dr. Rambo. He never failed. How could he? He first learned surgery in India where his father was chief surgeon in a huge mission hospital. Then he took a fine surgical residency at an outstanding Philadelphia hospital. Unfortunately, while Birch operated, I was visiting our three village clinics by small plane. Sadly, I missed Birch’s teaching me to do some important surgical operations at Bulape. And yet, I can still hear the small Cessna coming to our landing strip with Birch aboard. It was a special sound of a special time bringing life and healing to the folks there.”
Birch never lost sight of the dire need for medical expertise in central Africa. After training in eye surgery with his father, each furlough found Birch working and studying a new specialty: plastic surgery, cancer care, and orthopedics were among the areas he brought back to Africa from time in the States.
Both Birch and Peggy spoke at many churches and medical meetings, for both the PC(USA) board of missions, and the Medical Benevolence Foundation, raising awareness and support for the medical work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 1991, a few months before their planned retirement, political unrest forced them to leave Tshikaji suddenly. They retired to Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Birch made several short mission trips to hospitals in Africa.
Peggy was incapacitated by strokes in the early 2000s, and Birch continued to care for her with the professional help of the Village in Summerville, where they had moved in 2000. She went to be with the Lord in 2014, Birch in 2019.
