Read letters from Mike and Nancy Haninger
January 22, 2010
June 16, 2009
May 4, 2009
March 30, 2009
February 2009
Mike and Nancy Haninger
Mike and Nancy ended mission service with the PC(USA) in 2010.
Mike and Nancy were appointed in June 2000 and assigned to Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai (IMCK) and the Good Shepherd Hospital in Tshikaji. They serve in partnership with the Presbyterian Church of the Congo.
The IMCK is a multiservice health complex located in Tshikaji, nine miles from Kananga, the hub of central Congo. Founded in 1954 by the American Presbyterian Congo Mission, the facilities and services include a 160-bed reference and teaching hospital, schools of nursing and laboratory technology, a clinical teaching program for medical school students, a residency program in family medicine and a range of community health programs.
Mike’s primary role as a physician is educating nursing students, medical students and family practice medical residents with emphasis on reducing maternal and newborn injury and death including the prevention and repair of obstetric fistulas. He also participates in supervision, direct patient care and public health in the health zone of Tshikaji.
Nancy does direct patient care and educates village health workers. She supervises a regional nutrition rehabilitation center for severely malnourished children and is involved with several community-based integrated health and development projects. One of the projects promotes the use of the highly nutritious leaves of the moringa tree to combat malnutrition. Another does literacy and development training for women.
Nancy also works with a support program for widows, orphans and handicapped persons who have no social support outside of the church. “The indigents in our village total 175,” writes nancy, “and are in pretty desperate situations — many very elderly and infirm. The core activities of this project are visits to the homebound, distribution of monthly rations, health care at the village health center, tuition and school uniform assistance and household repairs.”
Nancy is also involved with a project known as the “Field Project,” which is run by a volunteer agronomist. Its aim is to to increase understanding of nutrition and improve cultivation techniques among the participants. There are 15 to 20 people working on small plots of land (four acres or less) that are made available by village chiefs. On these demonstration plots, the participants gain experience in cultivation strategies while at the same time adding to the family’s food.
Mike and Nancy have worked in the medical field in the United States for more than 20 years, sharing a long-term goal of serving God in mission work once their four children were grown. For six years, they worked as part-time medical volunteers at a free women’s health clinic at Faith Mission, a homeless shelter in Columbus, Ohio.
Nancy has an R.N. degree from Mt Carmel Hospital School of Nursing and a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Otterbein College of Westerville, Ohio. She has a certification in nurse-midwifery from the Institute of Midwifery, Women, and Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a master’s in Midwifery from Philadelphia University. She has worked as a psychiatric nurse, as a perinatal nurse and as the program director of the Central Ohio Lung Association.
Mike has a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, and an M.D. from Ohio State University College of Medicine. He did his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Riverside Methodist Hospital and St Ann’s Hospital.
The Haningers are members of Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio. They have four adult children, Lisa, Kevin, Ben and Kyle.
Birthdays:
Nancy - July 8
Mike- August 16
