Numbers Do Not Tell The Full Story...

Sierra Leone Supporters.

Numbers do not tell the full story of the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center but here are a few to illustrate the hard work of this team that so many of you are supporting with your prayers and finances. 

There are 68 paid staff. There have been 148 babies born since opening in February 2015. There have been no material deaths but unfortunately three newborns have died. Since the surgery center opened in March 2016, there have been 123 hernia repairs completed. There are 16,335 individual patients and 27,692 total patient visits since opening last year. A total of 1,485 patients have been seen in the mobile clinic outreach to the five surrounding villages since restarting in October 2015.

Below are a few pictures of our staff and health center in operation.  

Vaccine Coordinator with the working vaccine refrigerator

Waiting Area

Our Pharmacy Team

Inpatient Pre and Post Operation Suite

Thank you for all your prayers and financial support. It IS making a big difference and saving lives every day at the health center. To learn more or to make a donation, please click here.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you from the Global Health Outreach Team at Jericho Road.

First c-section at AMMCHC was a success!

On Thursday, May 5th in the early morning hours in Sierra Leone, the first c-section was successfully completed at the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center. This literally is a dream come true for Phebian Abdulai, the RN in charge of the project. Her vision was to start a health center in her home country of Sierra Leone and to specifically help with maternal-child health needs. With the donation of surgical instruments, a skillfully trained surgical team, the addition of a well-trained doctor and God's faithfulness, her vision has become a reality.

The reality is that many women and children die due to poor access of prenatal care and c-sections if they are needed. There is only one hospital in the Kono district serving 500,000 people that performs this type of surgery and often times the hospital is not staffed and the doctor is unavailable. Since we now have the capability to perform c-sections at our health center, we are stepping in and filling a huge gap in maternal-child health. We are grateful to God for His blessing on our project and to all who've helped along the way. This has taken hundreds of people who have a heart to serve the least of these in our world.

Mother and Baby are doing fine!

Reason to celebrate

This past February 2016, Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC), completed its one year anniversary of being open for patient care. During that time there have been 61 deliveries, 1,325 pregnant woman visits, 15,051 out patient visits, and 170 surgical cases! Our medical team of over 50 local people continue to provide quality health care to the Koidu community.

This past weekend a celebration took place that included two days of festivities. The first day was a day of games such as a 5K race through Koidu streets, tug of war, and soccer. The participants were from AMMCHC as well as from Wellbody / PIH. The competition was friendly yet fierce. The soccer game drew a crowd of over 1000 people!

The second day was a day of formalities. The health center was decorated and over 300 people were in attendance. Paul Violanti, FNP and the Global Health Outreach Director from Buffalo spoke on how Phebian, RN is a medical missionary sent to heal the sick and preach the Gospel just like Jesus did during his ministry. The key note speaker was the Providential Minister who spoke about Phebian's victory over the Vice President 's attacks that had occurred over a year ago with his help. He mentioned that she didn't retaliate but fought with a "stethoscope and Jesus". The day concluded with a good meal. It was quite the celebration and a good time was had by all!

We are celebrating with Phebian and the staff of AMMCHC as they continue  to persevere against all odds of providing quality health care in the name of Jesus to those in Koidu Town, Kono District. We are hopeful in the year ahead that the fruits of our labor will continue to be multiplied and harvested. We are truly grateful!

New Vaccine Program Has Started!

We are thrilled to announce the new vaccine program that has started last week at Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center! This program is in partnership with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health. In Sierra Leone, children under 5 years old receive free vaccines. Ministry Health Officers ride around on mopeds from village to village in order to deliver or even administer vaccines to these children. However, the reality is that more often then not the vaccines run out or are not kept at the proper temperature and so they go bad. At AMMCHC, we wanted to offer a solution to this problem for our young patients.

In order to make this program a success, we needed a solar powered refrigerator. A few months back we completed a fundraising campaign to gather funds for this much needed piece of equipment. Last month, it made it across the ocean to our health center and was installed with its very own solar panel for power. There is a picture below of the vaccine refrigerators solar panel sitting on top of the roof.

Umaru Conteh, also pictured below with the vaccine refrigerator, has agreed to lead this vaccine program. He is one of the faithful nursing aids that has been working with us over the past year. In order to qualify for this job, he underwent quite a few weeks of training by the District Health Medical Team. We are receiving all the vaccines free of charge through the District Health Medical Team!

We are excited to launch this much needed initiative!

Umaru, the vaccine program coordinator, with our solar powered refrigerator 

Vaccine Refrigerator Solar Panel

Recognition of our Kono Team

We are pleased to have received this Certificate of Appreciation Award presented by the District Ebola Response Centre and the District Health Management Team in Sierra Leone. It was awarded to our Kono Team for being a support and partner in the fight against Ebola. It was awarded on November 6, 2015 and signed by the District Coordinator, the World Health Organization and the District Medical Officer. It is an honor to work in partnership with the these organizations and we look forward to continuing our work together for the health of Sierra Leone. We congratulate our Kono Team for their good and hard work!

25 days of Giving

Dear Readers,

Last week, Jericho Road launched a 25 days of giving campaign for our Global Health Outreach program in Sierra Leone. We are hoping to raise 10K for a clean water business project. This business venture will not only further the sustainability of Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center, but will also provide clean drinking water for the Kono community.

Please click here to learn more about this project and to give online.

Thank you and Happy Holidays.

The Global Health Outreach Team.

AMMCHC

The Work Continues

Dear readers,

The Jericho Road team has returned safely from a three week medical mission trip to Sierra Leone working in the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC). It was a blessed and productive time. We were able to provide maternal health training, nursing care training, and other basic training to the motivated AMMCHC staff. They are already doing great work there, seeing around 80 patient's per day. 

We also helped restart the village outreach to three of our target villages. The villages we visited were Tombodu, Kangama, and Tefaya. The need for basic medical care in these rural places in Kono is great. This was the first time we visited the villages in over a year due to the Ebola crisis. The roads were tough and the days were long but we knew it was where God wanted us. 

Despite what the people of Sierra Leone have been through over the past year, they were welcoming and friendly. They received our help with open arms and embraced us as one of them. We went with the mindset to serve in any way possible (and we did) but we also were served by them. Our purpose was to teach but they taught us as well. We gave them our best and they didn't hold back in giving to us. It was seamless and pure the way we all worked together. This reminded us about the beauty of the body of Christ working together to serve, edify and give to one another. 

There is a lot that needs to be done still in regards to teaching and training. We are committed to investing in the staff at AMMCHC and to bringing the best medical care possible to this area of Sierra Leone. In doing so, we are providing hope and being the hands and feet of Jesus where it is needed most.

Thank you for reading.

The Global Health Team

The AMMCHC Staff

Outside Patient Waiting Area

The Jericho Road Team

The Need Grows

In August we completed our 7th month of operation at Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center (AMMCHC). There is a dedicated medical team working very hard to provide medical care for the Kono district community in Sierra Leone. Word continues to spread about the quality of care provided at the health center and so more and more people are traveling from all over Kono to receive medical help. This says a lot about the compassionate and competent staff that is working to provide this type of care.

The month of August was very busy as 1,480 patient's were seen for various general illnesses ranging from chronic to acute conditions. A total of 34 patient's received a hernia repair operation at the local Koidu Government Hospital and underwent post-operative care at AMMCHC. There are 23 people on the hernia repair waiting list. There were five successful deliveries in the maternity ward at AMMCHC. Two were healthy baby boys and 3 were healthy baby girls. We are grateful.

There is a team of six people going over from Jericho Road in October to help see patients, train staff, network, and provide encouragement to the local medical team. The collaboration continues to deepen and thrive as we work together to be the hands and feet of Jesus to that community. If you would like to support us financially in order to help offset some of the cost, please go to our website and give towards: Sierra Leone Oct Trip (other box). All donations will receive a tax receipt.

Please join us in praying for a medical doctor to join AMMCHC, the protection and success of the team going in October, strength for the local medical team as they work, and for the country of Sierra Leone especially the Kono district to be healthy and whole.

Vaccine Fridge and Other News

We were able to secure funding for a much needed vaccination refrigerator for Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center. Thank you to all who gave in this way! Having this refrigerator will literally help us save lives in Kono.

The Sierra Leone Ministry of Health does distribute and administer vaccinations to children however keeping the vaccines cold so they don't expire or go bad is a constant challenge. Getting out to the rural areas of Sierra Leone like the Kono district is also a challenge and a barrier to health. Now that we have a way to keep the vaccines cold, we will be able to keep a stock at our medical center and administer them to our pediatric patients. Diseases like measles and polio take lives (often young ones) all to often in a place like Sierra Leone due to poor sanitation and a lack of health services. Vaccines do keep children and communities healthy so we are very grateful to have this opportunity at our medical center.

In other news, we've purchased our second vehicle with a recent grant that we received. This vehicle will help us restart our village outreach to five surrounding villages. This outreach had been put on hold due to the Ebola crisis and we've been eager to restart this for the past two months. The village outreach is essentially going into each village and holding a day long medical clinic once a month. In addition, we meet with village leaders in order to help gain a better understanding about the health and non-health needs of each village. We are also looking to train a few community health workers in each village so that they can attend to the medical needs of their fellow villagers in our absence as well as be the medical liaisons for their village and our medical center in Kono.

AMMCHC Solar Powered Vaccine Fridge

Dear supporters,

We are looking to purchase a solar powered vaccine fridge so that we can start vaccinating at our medical clinic. We are in need of $5000 to purchase this type of fridge. Please go to this link to help us raise the funds needed to purchase this much needed piece of equipment.

Thank you and God Bless,

The Global Health Outreach Committee

Ebola Orphan Program

The Sierra Leone Alliance Ebola Orphan Program has helped a total of 644 children across Sierra Leone get back into school!

Schools were closed for the better part of a year as the country of Sierra Leone fought to end the Ebola crisis. The reason for this closure was to prevent the spread of Ebola since children travel to school on foot and are often in over crowded classrooms. In May of 2015, schools reopened as the Ebola crisis simmered down and each week there was a decrease in the number of new cases.

Children orphaned due to Ebola are in a difficult spot because not only do they have the distinction as being orphaned due to Ebola but they are taken in by extended family members who often are barely getting by. These children are especially vulnerable because they would be the first to be denied the opportunity for schooling or would be forced to work instead of attending school or worse.

Jericho Road has helped 116 children in the Kono district spanning across five Chiefdom's. The beneficiaries of this program were 90 primary aged children, 17 junior secondary students, 3 senior secondary students, and six high grade students. The program assisted with school uniforms including socks and shoes, exercise books, pens, pencils, mathematical sets, school bags, dried vegetable food, used clothing, and financial support to high grade students.

Two young children in their school uniforms

Program Beneficiaries raising their hands proudly

Please keep the people of Sierra Leone in your prayers as the country still needs them. There is a lot of post-Ebola work to be done and in three districts new cases of Ebola are still popping up. Jericho Road is still raising money for our work in Sierra Leone. If you feel led to give, please click here to give via our website. Thank you.

The Food Program Transition

In June, the Sierra Leone Alliance Food Program transitioned into an Ebola Orphan Program that is now helping Ebola Orphans get back into school. With the Ebola outbreak nearing an end and with schools reopening for children, this transition seemed appropriate. Often times children are not able to attend school because they can not afford to pay the school fees or buy a school uniform. This problem is worse with orphans especially those whose parent's died during the Ebola outbreak. Below is a written picture of what this program is doing in Kono and the impact it is making. It is written by one of our staff RN's leading Clinical Operations at Adama Martha Memorial Health Center.

Today I had the privilege of going out with our field workers as they distributed school packages, and food items to children who were orphaned as a results of the current Ebola outbreak. Initially I couldn't help but smile as I played with and joked with the kids in front of me. My sobering moment came a few minutes later as it suddenly hit me that each of these children had been orphaned only within the last 6-9 months.

Many of us worry about the future of these kids. The realities of poverty are such that these children are prime candidates for exploitation. Most are currently being cared for by extended family members, but the reality is these kids are the most likely to be pulled from school and be forced to work for their host families or worse. Over the coming months our field workers are tasked with the job of continued follow up of these children ensuring that they stay in school and ensuring that they have the supplies they need to succeed. 

Sierra Leoneans enjoy speeches, formality, and celebrations. Our field workers worked hard to make sure that this happened today. A large sound system was rented, dignitaries were invited, a program was outlined, and speeches were planned. Right before the program started I was approached and asked to give the keynote address. Thankfully, I had five minutes to prepare. 

In my speech, I attempted to encouraged those present that there were people that they had never met who were praying for them on the other side of the world. That these people loved them and considered them to be their brothers and sisters. I shared that these people were motivated by the love of Jesus and that the school supplies and food items were merely a token of that love.

As we were packing up to leave a small commotion occurred and a few tears were shed as a few Ebola orphans came forward hoping for a package, but whose names hadn't been included on the list. Our field workers had spent a lot of time prior to the event tracing names and identifying the gift recipients. Thankfully we had extra packages that can be distributed on the next trip. Unfortunately such incidents of discovering previously undocumented orphans clearly illustrate that the true scope of the problem is very difficult to gauge.

We loaded our sound system back into the truck, and as we were pulling out a young boy approached the sound man begging him to return and play music as soon as Ebola is declared over. Part ways home as we passed through a small village, a young girl who couldn't have been more than 3 years of age came running towards the truck screaming with excitement. My friends in the truck quickly explained that the sight of the sound system had set her off. For the past year, or in reality a third of this young girls life, gatherings and loud music have essentially been illegal.

I pray that Ebola ends soon. There are far too many people with the dance still stuck inside. One day soon I hope and pray that the entire country can truly celebrate, and that the tears can somehow turn to dancing. In the meantime though we're thankful for our alliance partners and the smaller celebrations made possible by their support for those most tragically affected by this horrible disease.

Karlin.

Preparing to load the truck with backpacks filled with school supplies

EBV Orphans and recipients of the backpacks

Hernia Patients and Ultrasound

Currently, we have two medical providers from Jericho Road Community Health Center in Sierra Leone helping to provide medical care at our newly opened health center. The Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center has been open for over four months providing much needed primary and urgent health care to the Kono District of Sierra Leone. It's been a busy four months as our Sierra Leone based team has been seeing over 100 patients per day, including delivering a few babies and restarting the hernia repair program.

Our two medical providers on the ground there now are in awe of the work being done and have jumped right in to help. Rebecca Beardsley, a Family Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Midwife, has been helping primarily with prenatal / OB care and sonogram training. She's leaving behind a 'step-by-step OB Ultrasound Manual' for dating and fetal heart rate that she developed. Paul Violanti, a Family and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, has been helping the CHO's see patients with all sorts of medical conditions. He observes that our health clinic has already become a 'fixture in the health delivery system in the Kono District.' What we have been able to accomplish there is truly remarkable.

Below is one of Rebecca's emails that she wrote on June 6, 2015.

The day began at the clinic with starting IV's on patients going for hernia surgeries at the government hospital later today. I started 2 IV's this morning on patients about to go for hernia surgery. Both were young men who had hernias most likely from due to hard manual labor and heavy lifting constantly. One of the 5 patients was a small child. All 5 patients go for hernia repair surgery today and then return for post op care at our clinic.

Paul and Karlin starting an IV on the youngest hernia patient

After the morning meeting with singing, prayer, and a message on how our thoughts/perspective affect our actions: the 2 CHO's performed 2 circumcisions (one on a newborn and one on a child about 4 years old). There was more assessing of how things are going and what is needed.

I rode on our ambulance with a hernia patient to the government hospital. When you get to the hospital, everyone has to get out of the ambulance and wash hands with chlorine solution and get temperature taken due to Ebola precautions. We dropped one patient off and picked up the other to go back to clinic for monitoring. 

Using our ambulance to transport patients

The Operating Room at Koidu Government Hospital

Upon returning to the clinic there were 2 pregnant patients waiting for Ultrasound. Phebian and Michael (CHO) went in with me to learn how to date a pregnancy. We had one 21 weeker and one 29 weeker. I am still learning as I am teaching so it is challenging for all of us but we are making progress.

Later in the day, Paul and I had some time with the 2 CHO's, Michael and Augustine, as well as the Nurse Fatmate, and the Pharmacist Pastor Samuel. We reviewed Helping Babies Breath/basic resusitation of a newborn baby. They did some hands on training with the ambu bag and bulb syringe and we talked through different scenarios. Then Paul taught on some different diseases and the use of different antibiotics. We also had some good discussion on how things are here in Sierra Leone versus the States.

The hernia patients will stay here tonight and for about 5 days for recovery/antibiotics and to ensure no complications before they can go home. No patients tomorrow, but I'm sure there will be much to do. 

Much Love from Sierra Leone,

Rebecca.

Thank you for your prayers and support of our medical mission project!

Exciting Week At AMMCHC!

This past week was an exciting week for AMMCHC in Sierra Leone. The health center has been in operation for 11 weeks now. Here are some of the highlights:

- There were 364 outpatients registered in 5 and a half days.

- There are 2,200 total people registered in the database.

- There were two deliveries by the Maternity Team and three elective circumcisions by the CHO's.

- The hernia repair project has restarted with it's first patients: 3 adults and 1 child.

- Our neighbors at the blind school enjoyed some rice donated from the SLA Food Program.

- Christopher was hired to help with administrative duties.

Blind School Children

Karlin, RN with the new administrative assistant, Christopher

Hernia Repair Program Restarted

Hernia's are a common occurrence among men, women, and children in the Kono district of Sierra Leone. They often cause people to miss work and school. Before Ebola, we were able to assist with over 100 hernia repairs offering assistance in transportation, medication, hospital fees, and recovery. We had to put this program on hold for the past year as Ebola spread throughout Sierra Leone. Now that the Ebola crisis is coming to an end and there have been 0 Ebola cases in our district for over 70 days, we've decided to restart our hernia repair program.

Our medical outreach to the 5 villages surrounding our medical clinic is where we are primarily targeting this program. The need is great due to the mining and farming that is done in Kono. Here are some pictures of our most recent hernia patients awaiting their surgeries in our inpatient wing of the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center. Just $75 can assist in one hernia repair. Click here to give.

One More Year!

Dear Supporters,

The 3rd Annual Sierra Leone Gala was a huge success! We had over 440 people in attendance and raised over $140,000 to help fund the Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center for one more year. 

We are incredibly thankful to everyone who came out to hear about and support our mission in Sierra Leone. It's very fulfilling to see people take a genuine interest in our mission and to come to our gala fundraiser. God stirred in peoples hearts to give of their finances which is such a blessing to this mission! Without the money, we would not be able to continue our work in Sierra Leone. Thank you!

Kuddos to the Sierra Leone Gala Committee who really went above and beyond themselves to make this a fun, meaningful, and successful event. It takes a dedicated team to pull something likes this off. We had a wonderful crew of volunteers who helped the night of the event as well which helped in the events success. You are all appreciated!

Overall, we are pleased with the outcome and know that God will continue to provide us with what we need, when we need it. Without faith, works are nothing and so we thank God for allowing us the faith to continue on with this mission.

We are still collecting donations, so if you haven't given and would like to, please click here. Also, we have the video presentation of our operational medical clinic that debuted at the gala fundraiser. This video is courtesy of Hans Glick, a photo journalist, who went to Sierra Leone in February of 2015 with one of our medical teams. We are grateful for his hard work and dedication to this mission!

Words can not express our gratitude to all the faith and financial supporters.

Thank you and God Bless.

Global Health Outreach

Time To Celebrate

The time to formally celebrate all that God has provided for the medical mission in Sierra Leone is almost here. On Friday, April 17, 2015, Jericho Road will be hosting the third annual Sierra Leone Gala. This Gala will be unique in that it will be a celebration of the opening and operation of the Adama Martha Memorial Health Center.

If you are unable to attend but would like to make a monetary donation, please do so by clicking here. We are continuing to expand our team in Sierra Leone and so your donation will help support them. Your prayers are also greatly appreciated as we provide holistic healthcare and show the love of Jesus to one of the most needy and health deprived areas of the world.

Phebian, RN in the front office of the health center

One of our two CHO's taking a BP on a patient

Pharmacy team stocking medications

Check out our gala video preview!

This year at the "Her Vision, Our Mission" gala, we will be presenting a short documentary video on our now operational health center in Sierra Leone. Today, we released a short teaser! Check it out below.

If you haven't purchased your tickets yet, you may still do so here.  We look forward to seeing you there! 

Join us for the 3rd Annual Sierra Leone Gala on April 17, 2015!!

Dear Supporters,

The Health Center in Sierra Leone has been open for over a month and is seeing between 40-50 patients per day! 

Sierra Leone Health Care Team Photo

Please join us for the 3rd Annual Sierra Leone Gala on Friday, April 17 at The Adams Mark Hotel. It is because of your ongoing support that will make our clinic in Sierra Leone sustainable.

There will be a gift basket raffle, photo booth, food, music, presentation, and an original, never-seen-before video presentation that will 'take you to our health center in Sierra Leone.'

Tickets are on sale on our website at Jericho until April 7th. The cost is $500 per table of 8 OR $75 per person. Go online and order today!


Thank you,
Global Health Outreach

Another Healthy Baby is Born

The Adama Martha Memorial Community Health Center has been doing great work since opening last month. They have averaged 40-50 patients per day and the team is working very well together. The nurse midwife delivered a healthy baby girl this morning. Please see this picture below of the maternity team, healthy mom and baby.