A letter from Mike and Nancy Haninger in Congo
May 4, 2009
Dear Friends,
Toward the end of 2008 and beginning of this year, we were pleased to be in the States visiting many of you and interpreting the work of the church in Congo. During those visits, we gave mission presentations in which we identified four primary areas of our ministry: education, evangelism, development and health. These ministries are not distinct and separate, but integrated and overlapping.
Mike Haninger (lower left) giving ultrasound training to four young Congolese doctors.
On returning to Congo in February, we started in education and health with training workshops to young Congolese physicians in ultrasound. One workshop was held in the capital city of Kinshasa and another in a large city in southeast Congo, Lubumbashi. Both are cities with access to the outside world. Kinshasa is served by an ocean port and Lubumbashi is only about 60 miles from the border with Zambia and is served both by rail from South Africa and by truck traffic from Zambia.
The difference between those cities and where we live near the city of Kananga is dramatic. Now that the train has ceased to function, Kananga is served only by air. The world’s current economic crisis hits the poorest countries the hardest. International assistance has dried up. Great plans to improve the transportation network are on hold, and even what was operating poorly, the train, no longer operates in this province. The economic isolation will soon impact our area even harder, as the only source of electricity for the city of Kananga (1 million people) is a large diesel generator, and the only practical way to get fuel to the city is by train. The city will soon go dark, including the large outpatient clinic that Good Shepherd Hospital operates in Kananga and the hospitals and other health clinics in the city.
Some work will go on, but since so many things depend upon electricity, including communications (cell phone towers are run by diesel generators at each tower), the result will be that more children will die. Without refrigeration, vaccines will go bad and there will be no way to distribute those that don’t require refrigeration. The price of medicines will go up, as the only way in and out will be by air — and even that will be problematic because, without fuel, how do you get to and from the airport? These are the tragic results of the greed of a few.
In February and March, we were blessed to be able to distribute to physicians and health facilities several small portable ultrasound units based on an ultrasound probe that connects by USB to a portable computer. We also distributed excellent French ultrasound manuals produced by the World Health Organization. These materials were provided by project AXxes, a Congolese health and development project funded by USAID. Our role was to provide four-day intensive training workshops to Congolese physicians, including lectures and practical sessions in the basics of ultrasound. You ultrasound technicians and physicians who do ultrasound will understand how little training this is. We described the physics, the proper use of the controls of the apparatus, the basics of sectional anatomy, and how all of this translates into images. In each area, we discussed how ultrasound could be used to make a difference in saving lives. In obstetrics, for example, identifying placenta previa (where the placenta is attached to the uterine wall close to or covering the cervix) can save the lives of many mothers and babies. This experience was a joy for us in that we were able to spend some time with several young physicians who are directors of their hospitals, providing them with a more sophisticated means to protect and save lives.
In April, the Haningers gave a week-long conference in Kananga to 32 community leaders to help them identify the community’s needs and then find solutions to those needs.
In April, we were in Kananga helping to facilitate a communitywide health and development seminar sponsored by PC(USA) and the Congo Presbyterian Church, with help from ASADECO, a Christian-based development NGO based in Kinshasa. During the one-week conference, 32 local church, school and community leaders were trained to become “community health evangelists” and community trainers. ASADECO’s approach is based on Biblical lessons interwoven with basic community development theory. New trainers are taught strategies that assist communities to identify their most pressing problems and prayerfully provide local community solutions to these problems, thus reducing chronic dependency on outside aide. Today, the workshop participants are already implementing these development strategies in six Kananga communities, looking for local solutions to serious problems, including poverty, malnutrition, crime, erosion and the increasing presence of orphan street-children gangs.
Mission Challenge
This fall, forty mission personnel will be visiting hundreds of congregations across the United States to tell how God is at work around the world. The event is called World Mission Challenge, a reprise of a similar event in 2007. It’ll be held September 25 – October 18, 2009. Learn more at the Mission Challenge Web site or call Ellen Dozier at (888) 728-7228, x5916.
World Mission Challenge will conclude with World Mission Celebration, a large gathering for Presbyterians who care deeply about mission. The event will be held October 22–24 in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the adjoining Duke Energy Center. Learn more at the Mission Celebration Web site or call Lis Valle at (888) 728-7228 x5279.
Thank you and God bless you all for your faithful support of God’s mission in the Congo.
Mike and Nancy
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 39
