EBOLA FREE!
I’ve been meaning to document some of the key events of the
last 19 months before my memory fades, so … here goes!
It seems like only yesterday that Justin Duren, team leader,
and the rest of the MO/TX/UK team were here in May of 2014! Ebola was still far
removed with only a few confirmed cases on the eastern most border. With the
team’s departure, Justin stayed awaiting the arrival of his wife and kiddos,
and he continued with Tom on construction at Hosetta and Auntie Margaret’s for
another 5 weeks. At some point in there they got the sturdy tarp roof on
Margaret’s home as a side project.
It was June 5, 2014 when our mission’s pastor called to say
that our church could not officially sanction a team because of Ebola, and he
knew that at least 7 of the 10 people set to arrive the next week had decided
it would be best if they not come. We
truly did understand completely.
Our missionary friend Chuck Luke left Sierra Leone on June
18th for the last time, the TX team of 3 left 2 days later, and then the Durens
hopped a plane on the 25th. I believe from that moment, and until July of this
year, we have felt like we were living a dream. I don’t even have words to
express it properly.
We watched God perform a miracle on July 3, 2014 as the US
Embassy granted VISAs for John and Mariama’s adoptions on the first
appointment, but at the same time, we were learning that Bo’s court hearing
would not happen because the judges were scrambling to get out of the country
because of Ebola. Bo’s adoption came to a complete standstill.
Chris and Brenna Stull quickly got tickets to come for John
and Mariama. What a blessing to see them united after 18 months of aggressively
pursuing the adoptions!
On July 25th, it was confirmed that Ebola had entered
Freetown. Missionary friends were hastening to get tickets, and Tom and I were
thinking through every option as to whether we would stay, or how on earth we
would run ministry from stateside. We knew we had enough funds in Sierra Leone
to keep people fed until January 10, 2015.
We watched numbers of Ebola cases climb daily as we
prepared, with broken hearts, to board a plane ourselves on August 13th. We
couldn’t afford to tell people when we were traveling because the last thing we
needed was an eager reporter waiting at the airport in Dallas for a news scoop.
We chose to seclude for 21 days, and we were so glad we did. It was clear that
some people were uncomfortable to be around us even after the 3 weeks were
over. We understood.
We definitely had wonderful times with family and friends in
Sept-Oct, but by November, as if our hearts were not already breaking, we lost our
dear friend Donald Conteh to a freak accident in SL just days after Eddie of St
George Refuge died of Malaria.
Our own kids were watching us hurt, and began to realize
that as much as they would love for us to stay in the USA until Ebola was
history, they determined that they would not stand in our way if we decided to
come HOME! We met with our lead pastor, shared our hearts, and with his full
blessing, we began to pray seriously for the opportunity to return.
Late November and December were a blur. We actually tried to
move our tickets to mid-Dec, but not only were there no seats due to reduced
flights, we were in jeopardy of losing the return dates we had if we did not
confirm the tickets asap, so at the very time when new cases of Ebola in Sierra
Leone were soaring at 80 – 100 per day, we locked in our flights for January
10, 2015. Some were probably saying we
were crazy, our kids never said a word, and we sensed a complete PEACE in our
decision.
With the decision to return, we also talked through detailed
boundaries to keep ourselves as safe as possible. We set up a bleach hand
washing station at the gate, adopted the no-touching rule, confined ourselves
to the compound with few exceptions, and hunkered down. Almost immediately
after our arrival, there was an unexpected surge in new cases. It continued,
and peaked in March. It was almost impossible to get into the city. There were
check-points everywhere, sirens in all directions, and it was nothing to see
dead bodies in body bags being loaded into burial trucks by men in protective
gear. We finally began to experience a turning point in late March when the
government declared a “stay-at-home-weekend” for 4 days with teams going
door-to-door looking for people with visible symptoms.
For me personally, once my mother fell in late February, and
went into significant decline, I was on the phone almost daily with my kids as
they made decisions for her care and transition into the nursing home. Praise
God for my kiddos! We decided that the most productive time for me to travel to
TX would be mid-April when I could deal with mom’s house and belongings during
the first 21 days as I semi-secluded, but that I needed to allow enough time to
settle her affairs as best as possible rather than leave a mountain of
responsibility on my kid’s shoulders. This meant decisions for Bo’s schooling
since the government here forced the reopening amid much public opposition, but
thankfully he was accepted at DELE, the best place academically and the safest
school we know of. He was actually testing to be admitted as Abraham and Tom
were driving me to the airport. Tom gets
an A+ for handling every detail to get him started, and for taking care of the
administration and accounting of ministry with me talking him through it over
the phone for 10 weeks.
From the time we returned in January, Tom’s desire was to
keep his crew working. They had truly suffered while we were away with no work
and no pay. At the same time, he knew he was not willing to send them out to
Hosetta or Margaret’s knowing the risks of Ebola. Areas just across the road
from Margaret were quarantined off and on as deaths occurred, and communities
surrounding Hosetta were a hot bed of cases. Tom was able to have the guys work
on some long-overdue projects inside our compound, and even when they started
to prepare the roof structure for Margaret’s toilet in July, as much
pre-assembly as possible was done inside our compound and then transported once
they started to work onsite in August.
Basically, Tom and the crew lost ONE YEAR of work on the toilet system
and Hosetta.
FACEBOOK can be very deceiving, not to mention the approach
I so often take, “Give others the sunshine. Tell Jesus the rest!” I can imagine
that from the time we returned to SL in January, we’ve given the appearance
that there has been a flurry of activity here, and that we’ve been out and
about in ministry. That’s simply not the case. I would say that we finally
began to relax in August. This was not based on fear, we were just trying to be
smart and safe.
The 3 West African countries have had combined totals of
over 28,000 cases of Ebola with over 11,000 dead. We already lose thousands each year to
preventable diseases, and now the numbers are off the charts indefinitely as
these countries struggle to get clinics up and running again. I remember in
August when the news went out internationally that the first woman survivor of
Ebola had given birth. I wonder how many people know that the baby died 2 weeks
later of an unexplained high fever.
Survivors here are experiencing all sorts of complications: loss of
vision, loss of hearing, aching in joints, searing headaches and there seems to
be the possibility of the virus hiding in the body for up to 9 months. We may
NEVER be completely free of Ebola, just as in The Congo and Uganda.
So many things come to mind about the USA’s response to
Ebola. PANIC! Outrage! It was hard to watch it unfold while we were there. Sad
really. We saw anger that Kent Brantly (our partners Gabe & Sada had served
alongside him in medical missions) and others would be flown there for
treatment and risk American lives. Of course, the 2 nurses in Dallas. But I
wonder how many know that there have actually been NINE Americans to contract
Ebola? All survived, thankfully. It was like once the big news died down, it
was forgotten. I actually spoke with
victim #9 just a short time before he tested positive here. He was looking forward to a break from work
and we were planning to spend time with him since he is a
friend-of-a-friend. I can’t imagine what
he went through! Weeks on a ventilator, a slow recovery, and still suffering
from side effects. There’s so much I could say, but praise the Lord for people
like him who were willing to come to these countries to serve. Where might we be today if not for those
willing to risk their own lives?
Well, I could keep typing forever, and certainly there are a
million details that could be filled in above.
I do trust that our friends and family have an idea of the
scope of all that we have dealt with here in Sierra Leone, and that folks will
continue to lift us up in prayer as we press forward! We are so ready for a new
year and all that God has in store for 2016!
We love you all so much!
