A Truly Magnificent Sierra Leonian Storm 10/17/14

This evening I am sitting on Phebian's porch, resting all alone after a hot muggy day. I'm now experiencing a true rainstorm unlike anything you will ever see in Buffalo. The rain is pounding on the tin roof and pouring down in sheets. The lightening is exploding across the sky like a giant fireworks display. It is truly magnificent. The last time I witnessed such a storm was growing up as a kid in Belize.

This week I have hear many people express that Ebola will go away after the dry season comes. Dry season is not here tonight but may it come soon.

This morning Dr. Dan Kelly and the Wellbody team visited our clinic. We spent close to two hours walking around the property and discussing ways to partner and do primary care safely. Dan was impressed with our facility and with our plans. I think they are truly excited to work with us because the need is great in Kono. We will definitely share the ambulance (it is still on the 'water') and they will provide us with ongoing technical assistance so we do this clinic right. We will look for additional ways to partner in the future.

Partners in Health is taking on a significant role in fighting Ebola in the Kono district as well as in other districts. They are committing to at least a 3 year presence here and in Liberia. PIG has a list of 900 American doctors and nurses who have volunteered to come to both places to help fight Ebola. Though none are here yet, it is encouraging to know that help is coming and that the generosity of the American spirit is still alive. I am very hopeful we will be able to partner directly with them during this crisis.

I am hearing some good news and bad news about Ebola this week from experts here. The good news is that the new case loads in the hardest hit areas of Kenema and Kalihuhn are decreasing and in Kono the case load is relatively stable. The bad news is that the western districts including Freetown are being hit hard. Since they have a dense population, this is worth some concern and more prayer. No one expects Ebola to go away in the next year but I do think we are more optimistic about containing it. Life in Sierra Leone will go on and for those of us who want to invest in this amazing country, need to do so fully.

One of my goals for this trip was to do an assessment of how the five villages we are working in are surviving this crisis. We decided to visit one of them and have chosen Tefeya because that village has always been the village with the most medical need. Pastor Joshua, Phebian, and I traveled 1.5 hours to this remove village over some of the worse roads you can imagine and through some of the most lush tropical rain forest left in West Africa. We met with the 2 pastors and the community health worker who works with us. They have not had any Ebola cases to this point in time. There have been only 2 documented cases in the 5 villages that we partner with. Primary medical care is almost non existent. Phebian is working on a plan to have a volunteer community health worker from each of our 5 villages come to our health clinic in Koidu once every 2 months to pick up a 2 month supply of BP medications for each person on our list.

While we could not provide medical care today, our presence was a real encouragement that they have not been forgotten during this crisis and we were able to pray with them prior to leaving. Keep the people of Tefeya in your prayers tonight.

Our team is healthy and doing well. Please continue to keep this trip and our SL mission in your prayers. I trust all is well at Jericho Road in my absence. Thanks to all who are covering for me and working harder while I am away.

Myron.

Side view of our medical clinic

New Sierra Leone Alliance Food Program for Contacts of Ebola Victims!

We've raised enough money for an ambulance and for a 40 foot crate filled with personal protective equipment as well as other medical supplies. Thank you for helping us! The ambulance is sitting in the port waiting to be cleared and unloaded. The crate will be leaving Buffalo in the next 2 weeks and will make it to Sierra Leone after 2 months.

Since our medical director's recent trip to Sierra Leone, we've identified another need that we are raising money for in order to tangibly help during this crisis. The need is for food. We are partnering with the Sierra Leone Alliance of WNY in order to bring much needed food to the 6 districts that the Alliance works in. 

Often times contacts of Ebola infected individuals are quarantined for 3 weeks in which gathering food and water becomes a challenge. Sometimes these individuals are quarantined 2-3 times due to their recurrent contacts with Ebola infected family or household members. As a result, the temptation to escape quarantine in order to search for food and water becomes a reality thus putting other community members at risk. By providing food and water to quarantined individuals, the Ebola cycle is ended and the community is kept safe. Our goal is to raise $210,000 in order to help provide food during this crisis over a 12 month time period. We do have in country partners that will distribute the food and who have been sharing stories of thankfulness for helping their people during this hard time.

Please consider making a one time donation on our website here and select the Sierra Leone Alliance Food Program.

Courage 10/16/14

There are only 3 doctors working in the entire district of Kono with a population of 540,000. To put this in perspective, when I left Buffalo last week there were 6 doctor's, 9 NP's just at Jericho Road, and well over 1,000 doctors in Buffalo. This evening Phenian and I met with the two doctors who staff the Koidu Government Hospital. Dr. Marsh in the medical director of the hospital and Dr. Sheku is the main surgeon. We also met with the district surveillance officer/epidemiologist who tracks all Ebola cases and their contacts in Kono. we visited these men in their homes, not the hospital. These brave and courageous men are putting their lives on the line daily.

Kono has had 34 documented cases of Ebola since May. When a person is suspected of Ebola, they are triaged to a holding center, blood is taken and they are held there until the blood test results come back. Results take up to 48 hours. In the past, if a test is positive, the patient was transferred 2 hours away to the Ebola Treatment Center in Kenema. But since this center is usually full, the Koidu Hospital has converted one of its main wards into a treatment center. There is no medication for Ebola but they use antibiotics for secondary infections, oral rehydration therapy for those who can drink, IV fluids for those who are too weak to drink. There are presently 3 positive cases. One is a 12 year old boy who has been there for 5 weeks. So far only 3 people have survived. Everyone else has died.

Dr. Marsh told me that 28 of his 71 nurses at the hospital volunteered to serve on the Ebola ward. These brave nurses put on PPE and care for these sick patients. They have done intensive training and so far none of his team has gotten infected with Ebola. One can only imagine how devastating it would be to lose a doctor or a nurse in such a resource poor community.

They told us that the biggest need they have right now is PPE. They presently use about 25 suits per day. Tomorrow, Phebian and I will deliver several truck loads of medical supplies from our clinic including 500 of our PPE kits to the hospital in an effort to help. We did not actually go into the hospital. Since we are filling a container with medical supplies, we thought it appropriate to share with those on the front lines. Filling up the container will make a huge difference.

Tomorrow, we hope to meet with the third doctor in Kono, Dr. Dibba who is the Wellbody staff Physician as well as Dr. Kelly who is the founding Physician of Wellbody. We know that we have to work together in this time of crisis. Phebian and I can learn much from our Wellbody and Koidu Hospital friends who are presently providing primary medical care in an Ebola zone and are doing it safely by following very strict triage protocols and stringent clinic wide infection control practices. That they are doing it gives me the confidence that we can also do it. God knows that our clinic is desperately needed.

Two breakthroughs to pray for that would be life saving for the courageous health care workers in this Ebola crisis. One is the development of an accurate rapid test for Ebola that would give results immediately. The second is the development of a safe and effect vaccines against this horrible virus. On my flight here, I was sitting next to some CDC doctors who told me that the rapid test may be weeks away and the vaccine should be here by late January. I told this to Dr. Sheku this evening and he looked at me and said quietly, "but what about October, November, December? How will we survive until them?" So, please pray for these breakthroughs to happen quickly.

Keep the courageous health care workers of Sierra Lone in your prayers. Working in an incredibly under resourced system and now faced with Ebola. They are an inspiration to me. When I think about what they are doing, I know that I can never complain again about the minor inconveniences we face daily at Jericho Road.

Phebian, Pastor Joshua and our team are well. Today we cleaned out the storage facility moving everything to the clinic. The 4 consultation rooms now each have an exam table. Our furnishings are sparse but it is looking like a real clinic. There are a lot of smiles going around. By the way, it is easy to move heavy exam tables because there are many hands willing to help. The solar panels are being installed tomorrow by World Hope.

I am grateful for this opportunity to be here and thankful for so many of you who have given in some way to make this clinic a reality. God has been faithful.

Please continue to pray for and to sacrificially support this work.

Myron.

Buffalo News Article: Dr. Glick's Visit to Sierra Leone.

Dr. Glick made it back from Sierra Leone safely. Please check out this article in the Buffalo News as he speaks about his trip, Ebola, and his monitoring protocol.

Buffalo News Article: Dr. Glick's Visit to Sierra Leone

Also, please check back as we are positing daily writings with pictures of his 10 day experience in Sierra Leone.

The Container 10/15/14

In 2011, some well meaning folks from Texas visited Kono, made some connections, and proceeded to partner with a Sierra Leonian Pastor and a Teacher in order to build a church, school, and medical clinic here. As part of that project they filled a 20 foot container with medical supplies and it arrived in 2012. Unfortunately, conflict came and the project never was completed. The container remained here full. Somehow, Phebian developed a relationship with the folks from the USA who had sent the container and when they heard about the clinic, they donated the contents of the container to us. Phebian packed all the contents into a large room where they remained until today.

My entire day was spent sorting through every box. What an experience! I think a conservative estimate of the retail value of the contents would be somewhere between $500,$1,000,000. We sorted them into 4 categories.

1. Usable items for our clinic: gloves, gowns, suture material, sharps containers, splints, casting materials, syringes, IV tubing and fluids.
2. Donate to the Koidu Government Hospital: surgical supplies, gloves, orthopedic supplies.
3. Take to Freetown to see if a specialty hospital could use them: chest tube kits, intubation supplies, various catheters.
4. Throw away because no on in Sierra Leone will ever use: PICC lines, Swan-Ganze catheters, cardiac stents and balloon devices, arterial lines.

I estimate that 1/3 of the containers contents will be actually usable by the Sierra Leonian Health System.

Living here with Phebian's family has given me a clearer picture of her life. Ever day from morning to night people come by to see her. Politicians, radio reporters (we were interviewed yesterday), constructions workers, family, hungry children and sometimes people with medical need (she's not providing medical care now). She always handles these people with grace and compassion. This morning I noted that even 4 dogs were lying outside her steps and she even fed them. All of you should be proud of her and keep her in your prayers.

I am healthy. I am running every morning with Pastor Joshua at 6:30. There is no running water here so I'm learning to scoop up the cold water and take a bath. I am reading more. Life seems to slow down here.

I do terribly miss Joyce, the kids, and my Jericho Road family. Although I love being here, I am also counting down the days to come home. Thank you for standing with us here in Sierra Leone. My encouragement to all of us is to put the science "facts" and our faith in an Almighty God before fear.

Myron.

P.S. World Hope has arrived and will be installing the solar electrical system. Our clinic will soon have lights!

Our mission house and medical clinic

Hope 10/14/14

Recently, I wrote something from Jeremiah 32 and would like to share it again because it captures my heart tonight for this place.

In Sierra Leone tonight, just like in Jerusalem of Jeremiah's time, things do not look good. Hope is in short supply.

But Jeremiah 32 has a powerful answer to those of us who are now discouraged. In this story, God sends a releative to the imprisoned prophet with an improbably request, "Buy land of your uncle." This was a crazy request because Jeremiah was in jail, broke, and the land in question was presently under control of the invading Babylonians. God knew this land would be burned, devastated, and destroyed for generations. And yet, Jeremiah was asked to buy it!

He did buy it. He took the deed for the land and placed it in a clay jar to save it for later and he proclaimed that someday God would restore the land to his people. The singular and preposterous act brought hope against all odds.

Back to Sierra Leone. I believe that Phebian's courageous decision to stay in Sierra Leone and the completion of the medical clinic stands as a mighty symbol to the people of Kono and to all of us that there is still hope. Hope that this Ebola crisis will also pass and confirmation to the people of Kono that God has not forgotten them. Phebian, like the biblical Jeremiah, is saying that against all odds, that the land will be restored, Ebola will be conquered, and our clinic will someday bring healing to the people.

So I challenge each of us to pray as the prophet Jeremiah did and apply his prayer to the situation in Sierra Leone.

"Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. NOTHING IS TOO HARD FOR YOU."

Even Ebola.

Thanks to all of you for your faithful prayers.

Myron.

The New Normal 10/13/14

200 miles.
9 hours.
8 temperature checks at Ebola prevention checkpoints.
Many miles of unbelievably bad roads.
Beautiful post rainy season foliage and landscapes.

Finally arrived this evening safely in Koidu where I will be staying the next week with Phebian's family.

After spending just 24 hours here, it is clear that much has changed and yet this is still Sierra Leone. Ordinary people are still finding a way to live their lives even though they are in the middle of this Ebola crisis. Markets are open, farmers are in the fields and the roads are still shared by swarms of motorcycles, cars, transport vans (puda pudas), and large cargo trucks. People are still friendly.

But the lives of ordinary Sierra Leonians have definitely changed. There is a new normal. The only person I hugged or shook hands with is Phebian. Everyone seems to avoid physical contact. There is a nationwide curfew for motorcycles at 7pm and people at 10pm. Only two people are allowed on a motorcycle (as compared to 3-5 previously). All public schools are closed. Public gatherings are generally discouraged although people still allowed to attend churches and mosques. Soccer has been banished at all levels. The price of food has dramatically increased and many more children are going to bed hungry. Hospitals and clinics are not performing any elective surgeries such as hernias. In general people are avoiding the hospitals unless severely sick. And the temperature check points are frequent. One does not want to have a fever under any circumstances right now in this country. Burial of a loved one now needs to wait until the body has been checked and found negative for Ebola.

It is clearly evident that Sierra Leone is taking the crisis seriously. I pray that these measures make a different. The most important factors to controlling this horrible disease is to have the entire population stop touching sick people with Ebola and to stop touching their dead bodies. In addition, there is a desperate need for Ebola treatment centers and for a safe way to provide primary medical care. People are not only dying from Ebola. They are dying of hypertensive strokes and postpartum hemorrhages because they are afraid to go to the clinics, and of diseases like malaria and typhoid because there is no one to help them.

May God bring an end to this crisis.

Thank you for your continued prayers for this trip, Phebian, Pastor Joshua and for the people of West Africa who are suffering so much tonight.

Myron