Profile: Elma Jocson
Elma Jocson gave up a lucrative surgical practice to serve at Tansen Mission Hospital.
"The biggest reward in serving God in Nepal is a closer walk with God."
 Elma Jocson’s mother was a “Bible woman.” When her daughter asked for advice on what she should do in life, Mom knew best.
“Why don't you choose from one of the ministries of Jesus: teaching, preaching and healing?” she recalls her mother saying. Ultimately she chose healing, and is the senior surgeon at Tansen Mission Hospital in the Palpa District of Nepal. Tansen is a 131-bed rural hospital. Missionaries like Elma, with specialized training, work in the hospital.
Elma's scope includes obstetrics/gynecology as well as some orthopedics. She is head of the hospital's burn unit, and serves as the Foreign Medical Student Coordinator.
 Elma grew up in a United Methodist Christian home in the Philippines where her sister and parents still live.
“I am the only one who went away,” she says.
She grew up attending Marikina United Methodist Church, Manila, Philippines and she considers the people there her second family. “I was at that church as a child and until the moment I left the Philippines," she says.
Elma was commissioned as a United Methodist Board of Global Ministries missionary in April 2001. Mineral (Va.) United Methodist Church is Elma’s covenant church.
 On one particularly challenging day, Elma had to perform neurological surgery without the benefit of a CT scan.
“I never did any brain surgery without CT scan before,” she says. “As I was scrubbing I was really praying, ‘Oh, I hope my covenant churches are praying for me right now,’” she says.
Elma says she cannot openly talk to people about her faith. “We are not allowed to tell anyone about our faith,” she says.
Little by little she is gaining the confidence to ask her friends “Would you like to know about my God?”
“My faith is the only thing that sustains me here, because it is so hard to live here even though this is an Asian country and a Third World country like my country, the Philippines,” she says.
“I am convinced that the biggest reward in serving God in Nepal is a closer walk with God.”
“People will judge me by the way I present myself,” she says. “And my God will be judged by the way I present myself. So it's a big challenge. So even though I'm so tired and I have a bad day, I still need to smile and just, you know, look happy.”
Friends tell her she is doing a great service because she could have a lucrative surgical practice in the Philippines.
“I am convinced that the biggest reward in serving God in Nepal is a closer walk with God.”
The following people contributed to this Profile:
Audio story by Mike Hickcox; print story by Kathy Gilbert; video courtesy of Here I Am Lord: Missionaries of the United Methodist Church.
UMC.org Profiles are produced by Pam Price, 615-742-5405.
elma's spiritual gifts
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Healing
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Exhortation
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Leadership
Learn more about your spiritual gifts
elma's recommended resources
The Navigators Discipleship Bible Study Series
Becoming a Woman of Excellence by Cynthia Heald
Women of the Bible by Ann Spangler
My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
Discipleship Journal
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