The final team member leapt into the battered, old van and slammed the door shut. Flushes and breathless, he looked as if he had been running for his life. He had!

We had just completed a clinic session in Cite Solcil, perhaps the worst slum in the Western Hemisphere. Approximately 100,000 persons are crammed together in conditions of unbelievable poverty. Thousands of makeshift one room shacks two or three feet apart stretch as far as the eye can see. Raw sewage runs through ditches separating the buildings.

Into this area we came, a dozen (three of the team members had not yet arrived) American missionaries, ready to serve, seeking to show God's love by offering medical help where the needs were great and the resources almost nonexistent. We quickly set up work stations; two nurses took blood pressures; three did patient consultants; two helped out licensed pharmacist set out medications, one screened for xerophthalmia, two went up to the second floor ( where there was adequate light) to check eyes and dispense glasses, and one floated.

Over one hundred patients watched us expectantly. Most id the time they patiently awaited their turn. This does not mean they sat quietly. There was always a fair amount of noise and turmoil with people going from pews to consultation tables or to the pharmacist's table or simply roaming around. To an orderly American mins, it was a bit overwhelming.

Hour after hour we worked dispensing medicines to the sick. We had brought a large quantity of pharmaceutical supplies with us, as we know how to great the need always is. We encountered the usual cases of coughs, colds, hypertension, anemia, malnutrition, malaria, intestinal diseases, parasites and xerophtalmia.

Unfortunately, during our stay in Haiti, we saw case after case of xerophtalmia, the leading cause of blindness in Third World countries. It is caused be a severe Vitamin A deficiency and is pronounced in areas where there is widespread malnutrition.

The Community of Caring is collaborating with Sight & Life, an organization headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It is committed to the eradication of xerophtalmia worldwide.

We had been working steadily for several hours. The crowd of patients was finally diminishing, although there were still about thirty waiting to be seen. We were working rapidly because we knew that we had to leave before dark. Cite Solcil is very dangerous these days, so dangerous, in fact that the minister who built the church, who has accompanied us on other trips, stated that he could not go with us this time because a group there had said that they would kill him. In spite of this, we felt that we, the team should go. Few venture into Cite Solcil, if we did not go to help, who would?

Suddenly a hush fell over the waiting room. It was a negative, uneasy hush as if in expectation of something bad. A half-dozen, tough-looking young men had entered and had pushed their way through to the front of the consultation line. An American minister who was with us started to approach them and tell then to go sit down. I stopped him because I felt that was what they were waiting for; if he had touched them, they would have turned on him fighting and then there would have been a free for all with many hurt of dead. Some of the team quickly packed, others dispensed vitamins, others started loading the van. Someone went upstairs on the roof to get the workers there. We worked rapidly, efficiently and in an orderly manner with no outward show of fear. I could sense the tension of the situation, however, and am sure that we made our escape with only about a 10 second window of safety. We were giving vitamins to everyone. We even gave some to those who were threatening us. I believe that this God-directed spontaneous act of kindness to our enemies, who would harm us, confused them and gave us the opportunity to escape.

Outwardly, we were calm and smiling as we bade them all farewell. We were not at all offensive in word of action and gave the thugs no excuse to attack us. Actually we were giving our remaining candy to the children while we were climbing into the van. How could they rob and murder people who were talking and laughing with their brothers, sisters and cousins and giving them candy? This was not a thought-out strategy but rather a God-directed action.

We praise God for His protection and His deliverance. Other groups have been robbed and beaten. But for God's grace, we also would have been seriously injured or even killed. We later found out that some of them had guns. Our own lives, or those of our patients, could have been lost. Nothing happened, however, and we left Cite Solcil alive with hearts full of gratitude and with the knowledge that many had been helped and had been shown the love of God through or simple deeds of loving kindness. God in His great mercy and faithfulness had protected us. Truly, God is good.

So another Mission of Mercy is ended. Will we go again? Yes, a year from now, if it is the will of God. In the meantime we shall pray for out Haitian brothers and sisters and ask God to cause the tiny seeds of love, which we planted to grow and to be fruitful.

LIBERIA

The Kenneyds arrived in January 1956 and went to the Tugbakch Mission Station to work with Missionary Barber. With them were their two children, Charles and Mary Ann. The Kennedys were the first family sent out to the foreign mission work by the Church of God In Christ. Because of their educational background and experience, the Kennedys were able to greatly enhance the services offered at the mission station. Both taught in the mission school: Mother Kennedy also started providing medical services. Elder Kennedy worked with the four ordained elders there and started them serving Holy Communion.

After almost a year at Tugbakeh, On December 4,1957, the young family moved deep into the interior, to the old Wissikeh Mission Station, far away from "civilization". This was "high bush" or jungle country, totally inaccessible by motor vehicle. To reach Wissikech, one had to walk or be carried in a hammock. This is still true today.

When the Kennedys arrived at the abandoned mission station, they found the former missionary home completely uninhabitable. The roof was gone, the floor, doors and windows were rotted out. Trees grew thirty feet high within the moss-covered block walls. One lone mud house was there for the native pastor and his wife. The Kennedys, their two children and the six pioneer students with whom they would start the mission all stayed in the tiny building with the pastor and his wife until a simple mission house could be built.

During their seven-year tenure in Liberia the Kennedys founded the only Church of God In Christ high school in Liberia as well as an elementary school, a Bible School and a clinic which furnished the only medical care in a nine hundred square mile area. Elder Kennedy went throughout nearby villages freeing people from the bondage of Satan and witchcraft, boldly confronting witch doctors, baptizing some three hundred persons and ordaining elders as he had been given authority to do. Two more also established several additional elementary schools and clinics in surrounding villages and trained many local mission people as ministers, teachers and medical workers. In 1954, they returned to the United States and Wissikeh was once again without a resident missionary.

THE WAR YEARS

From 1990 though 2003, Liberia was held in the grip of a terrible civil war, the first country had ever known. It raged throughout the entire county with at least part of the war years because of the fighting, Holy Temple church of God in Christ was bombed and completely ruined. This was the only C.O.G.I.C Church in the Northwest to suffer severe damage. In the Southwest, the town of Blonikeh where Mother White began to work was burned to the ground. Nothing remains of the former missions, both UPC and C.O.G.I.C. Tugbakah Mission and Monalu Mission sustained substantial damage but the mission can be, and are in the process of being, rebuilt. Wissikeh Mission, because of its being so remote and hard to reach, sustained no real damage to the buildings although the people suffered terribly from marauding soldiers, hunger and illness.

During all the war years, the Kennedys continued their Missions of mercy, short-term mission trips, jointly sponsored by the community of Caring and the church of God In Christ. God kept them safe although they risked their lives numerous times, going behind rebel lines when necessary, in order to reach the Church of God In Christ mission stations with food and medicines. These activities were designed to bring humanitarian (as well as spiritual) aid to the suffering thousands, Usually five to eight highly skilled persons went on these Missions of Mercy, taking in badly needed medical supplies, food and money and preaching the Gospel. Approximately $250,000 worth of supplies were taken in during those terrible years. At the height of the war, 1,100 starving persons were fed daily under the auspices of the Community of Caring and the Bethel Temple Church of God in Christ (Elder S. Tosha Browne, pastor). The United Nations helped in this program. Bishop Nyemah and the church of God in Christ Youth On A Mission directed by Dr. June Rivers rebuilt the mother church, Holy Temple in Monrovia.

THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The Church of God In Christ was started in eastern part of the country (then known as Zaire) in Lubumbashi following a revival by Bishop Maimela from Botswana. Bishop Mayuke started with his won family in the 1970's. He now has 115 churches in an area of about 250,000 square miles. An able staff assists him.

The Department of Women is under the leadership of Jurisdictional Supervisor, Mother Mary Beth Kennedy. Her assistant is Mother Godalieve Mayuke. The various bands and auxiliaries are in place. The Women's Department is very active throughout the region for the destitute children who are suffering and dying. By God's grace, two Church of God In Christ orphanages in the D. R. Congo have been completed and are now in use. Praise God!!! Elder Havious Green of Detroit provided most of the funds of BOTH orphanages.

The Church of God In Christ Orphanage in Lubumbashi in the southeastern part of the county is the first official Church Of God In Christ Orphanage built on the continent of Africa. Constructed largely though the efforts of Elder Havious Green and the Antioch Church Of God In Christ in Detroit, Michigan. The solidly built orphanage now houses seventy-nine children. Almost all of those children were orphaned because of the war, AIDS, malaria or other tropical maladies. They are so pitiful, terribly thin and malnourished, many ill from various diseases. Some of them have watched their parents die and arc suffering severe emotional problems. Praise God, they are finding food, health treatment, education and God's love and grace in their new home in the Lubumbashi orphanage.

Because of the civil war, which is currently raging, work in the western part of the country has been severely curtailed. Elder and Mother Kennedy traveled to the western area, however, and have worked in the capitol city area of Kinshasa, where poverty and malnutrition are rampant. Many children are living in the streets and field like animals, eating garbage, rats, worms and anything else to try to keep themselves alive.

A second orphanage has been built for these wretched, homeless, abandoned children, God loves them and Jesus died for them. They were extremely malnourished and actually dying of starvation. Many lives had been saved through the feeding program, which was already underway and still continues. Even though the orphanage is now functioning, there are many more needy children than the orphanage can serve. These children receive food (usually only a bowl of cornmeal mush and a few vegetables) two or three times a week. It is barely enough to keep them alive but they are very grateful. The director of the center and the fledgling Church Of God In Christ at Famalu Area, Kinshasa is Brother Fabrice Malundama Mbumba. Primary school classes are given although as yet there is no school building. A rudimentary medical center is also in place. Please help us build our schools at bother the orphanage complexes. We would like to get them completed during 2004. We know that we can with God's help - - - - and YOURS.

Most of the Congolese live in crowded conditions of almost unbelievable poverty and squalor. If families eat one meal a day, they consider themselves fortunate. Many eat only town of three meals a week. Nor are their meals nutritious and representative of all the major food groups.

Usually the meal consists of nshema, which is a stiff cornmeal mush and few vegetables cooked in a stew. Rarely is there meat or fish. There is simply no money for a more nutritious diet.

This is particularly sad because the climate permits a year-around-growing season. Fresh fruits and vegetables abound: oranges, bananas, plantains, papaya, mangoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, onions, various types of leafy greens, etc. The problem is that everything is very expensive, priced well beyond what a typical family can afford.

Most people do not have jobs. Many of those who do work for the mines. The laborers who work for the copper mines earn form $10 to $20 per month. A person earning $15/month might buy a 100 lb. Stack of cornmeal (white cornmeal, lacking in nutrition - no yellow available on the market) and a few bunches of greens, which could feed his family of 10 or 12 one meal every other day for a month. That amount of money ($15) could also buy 10 lbs. Of rice, 10 dried fish, 2 avocados, 8 bananas, 2 bunches of greens, 1 bunch of onions: for one good nutritious meal that would feed his family for one day. Needless to say; millions eat the cheap but filing cornmeal mush and don't even get that on a daily basis.

We screened 65 children while in Kinshasa. Of that group, 35 showed signs of xerophtbalmia. A truly astonishing 53%. The disease was evident in various stages: conjunctival xcrosis, foamy Bitot's spots, cheesy bitot's spots and advanced conjunctival xerosis. As 1 examined each child, my own eyes began to blur wither tears. Most of them also showed signs of kwashiorkor or marasmus; they were slowly starving to death. Some looked like little skeletons covered with a bit of wrinkled skin. Ribs and collarbones protruded; shoulder blades dug into my hands as I drew the little ones to me so that I could examine them more closely. My heart was breaking as I realized that although they might began it, many of them would never live to complete a full course of treatment.

In Lubumbashi, the situation was not quite so bad with the children seen. Malnutrition, although in evidence, had not reached the stage of semi-starvation. Vitamin A capsules were administered for prevention.
In general, I fell that we can say that the situation the Democratic Republic of Congo is critical. The fact that the war is still raging is certain areas, thus disturbing natural food production and displacing families is definitely an extremely negative factor. So also is the fact that many parents are dying from AIDS, leaving orphans to fend for themselves. We saw children of 7 or 8 carrying younger children of 2 or 3 on their backs or feeding them at the center. We saw at least one funeral every day while we were in Lubumbashi. The crude wooden casket was balanced on a bicycle or borne by hand by relatives and friends who walked behind a leader carrying a simple cross, singing as they accompanied the body of their beloved.

What can be done to help? The problems are many and complex. Almost anything will hardly be more than a Band-Aid on the graping wound of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation rich in natural wealth (minerals and timber) yet with a population, which is possibly the poorest on the great continent of Africa.

Still we must try. We cannot fold our hands, shrug our shoulders and let millions of children suffer and die. We must get additional teams to go in for short-term mission work, even though it is very difficult to the country and almost impossible to travel within it. The teams must administer the Vitamin A Capsules for prevention and treatment of xerophtbalmia thus saying the sight of millions who would be otherwise doomed to a life of blindness. We must do all that we can do and God will bless our efforts.