A memorial service is to be held in Nantou County’s Puli Township (埔里) on Thursday for Norwegian missionary Bjarne Gislefoss, who passed away in Norway last month at the age of 99.
Gislefoss moved to Taiwan in 1952 to work for the Norwegian Mission Alliance and in 1963 cofounded Puli Christian Hospital with his wife, Alfhild Gislefoss. The couple ran the hospital until they returned to Norway in 2006.
Bjarne Gislefoss passed away on Dec. 16 in a retirement home in the southern town of Mandal, Norwegian journalist Geir Fotland said.
Photo courtesy of National Chi Nan University
The hospital said that a memorial service would be held at its church on the seventh floor, adding that a posthumous presidential citation would be awarded to the missionary.
Bjarne Gislefoss had learned to speak the native languages of many of the hospital’s patients and despite having the Mandarin name Hsu Ping-nuo (徐賓諾), people knew him as their “Norwegian grandfather.”
Bjarne Gislefoss and his wife were the first foreigners in the region to be granted permanent residency.
During the early years of the hospital, they introduced many medical innovations to the largely impoverished area.
At the time, Bjarne Gislefoss said that receiving permanent residency was “the most valuable gift that I and my wife have received in Taiwan.”
In September last year, a delegation from National Chi Nan University traveled to Norway to award the missionary a honorary doctorate in a ceremony presided over by Mandal Deputy Mayor Svein Jarle Haugland.
The event was livestreamed on the Internet, and many Puli residents reportedly watched it.
“Norway is my native country, but my real home is in Taiwan,” Bjarne Gislefoss told the event.
Before moving to Taiwan, he heard about Formosa and its indigenous people, which motivated him to take the arduous sailing trip there, he said.
He first worked at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei, but after hearing that Puli had no hospital, he started collecting donations to start what was to become Puli Christian Hospital, he said.
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