Miles In Missions

The world was awakened to Ebola several weeks ago when our fellow SIM friend Nancy Writebol and SP worker Kent Brantley contracted this horrific disease. It seemed like anything I read on Facebook was about Ebola. Since then we were relieved to hear that all our SIM friends that were living in Liberia, are back in the U.S. and doing well.

I am sure you have heard that Ebola is in Nigeria now. Currently there is 19 cases and 7 deaths. Lagos and Port Harcourt are currently the two effected cities. Both of these cities are about as far away from Egbe, as Louisville, Ky is from Charlotte NC. Due to the distance one would think the likelihood of it coming to Egbe is very small. However, when the first case was reported I gripped my chair and my mind started racing. What if it spreads? Can it come to Egbe? Will people hear about our fancy new hospital and think the Western doctor can cure Ebola?  What can we do and how can we control it?

Well you cannot do anything but prepare for it and you definitely cannot control it, you can only contain it. This statement is not something that comes easily acceptable to me and my Western mind. My whole life I have planned, studied, prepared, and controlled everything…or so I thought. Now I am faced with something so much bigger than my mind can even grasp. The funniest thing is if you talk to anyone in the Egbe community, they are not worried or anxious. Their response is that Ebola will not come to Egbe. They say it with such faith and belief it will make you tremble! “Ebola will not come to Egbe!”

I don’t know what God has planned, but what I do know is what he promises. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

As our medical team creates an isolation ward, security is tightening, pre screening of patients is starting and we have ceased all visits to the wards by non-essential personal. While all of these pre cautions are being implemented and the local churches are praying for this hospital at 4:30am every morning, I find peace in my time here in Egbe. Everyday I wake up in the freedom to know that he has got my family in the palm of his hand. He has us right were he wants us.

I am so proud of the team of professionals I serve with. I have watched our Medical Director, head Family Physician, Samaritans Purse Project Leader and my husband spend hours on meetings, calls back to the states, intense research and collaboration and then implementation of new policies and procedures. This disease is foreign to everyone here but “Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14).

For more information on the Ebola Crisis visit http://www.simusa.org/ebolacrisis