We received the sad news earlier this week of the death of Kari Egge, who worked several years for Catholic Relief Services and who remained part of the CRS family. She had many friends and colleagues at CRS who are mourning her loss, and who are praying for her husband, Graham, and her two children, Dylan and Isabelle. Here is an excerpt from her obituary in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
International relief worker Kari Egge trained hundreds of emergency responders in more than 20 countries throughout her career.
Egge played a key role in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption in Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002, drought in southern Africa and 2004′s tsunami in Indonesia.
So it’s fitting that after she died last weekend, friends from around the world decided one funeral service – set for 11 a.m. today at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi – wouldn’t be enough.
Another service will be held Sunday morning at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok. Friends are asked to bring food that Egge would have liked as a donation for the monks. Other gatherings are being held in Nairobi, Kenya, and Washington, D.C., said her husband, Graham Eastmond. The couple met in Ethiopia in 1996.
“It’s testament to Kari’s character that she could maintain lasting friendships all around the world,” Eastmond said. “She was truly loved everywhere she went.”
Egge, 45, died Saturday from cancer at her house in Stillwater. She was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in 2005 – the year her daughter, Isabelle, was born.
Egge, who worked for Catholic Relief Services, was a trailblazer for mothers working in humanitarian aid, friends said. Egge and Eastmond lived in Kenya after son Dylan was born in 2003.
“She took Dylan to Ethiopia, she took him to Switzerland, she took him to meetings in Washington, D.C.,” Eastmond said. “She showed other women that you could be a mother and be a humanitarian aid worker.”
The family moved to Bangkok, Thailand, in 2006, after Egge got a job working as the health adviser for the tsunami relief effort for the American Red Cross. Egge oversaw operations in Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Tanzania, “anywhere that was affected by the tsunami of 2004,” Eastmond said.
The family lived in Bangkok for four years before returning to Minnesota so Egge could undergo medical treatment. “One of the saddest things about her condition was that it ripped the work that she loved so much away from her,” Eastmond said.
