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Our Church's BOLD INITIATIVE...
Steve and Svea Merry, Rob McBane, Chris Moir, and John Steer visited Guinea where they witnessed first hand the needs, met with the Minister of Health of Guinea, the Deans of the School of Medicine, some local Guinean physicians, a hospital administrator, our missionaries in Kankan, and visited the building site in Mamou of the Compassion Evangelical Hospital of which you will hear more during Global Impact Week. Steve is uniquely qualified for not only informing us about the enormous needs in French West Africa and Guinea in particular, but has participated first hand in meeting those needs through medical care and evangelism in the missions hospitals at which he has served. Steve is on the board of Compassion Evangelical Hospital, a U.S.-based 501c3 organization started by his brother in-law, Dwight Slater, MD, a Family Physician who directed the work at the Baptist Mission Hospital in northern Ivory Coast for 17 years prior to beginning this new ministry to reach the millions of medically underserved and spiritually-unreached Muslim people groups of northern Guinea including our adopted people, the 3 million Maninka of NE Guinea.
It is our desire at Autumn Ridge to find more effective ways to reach the people groups in Guinea spiritually as well as provide whole person care meeting their medical needs. Many from our congregation have sensed God calling them to minister to the “least of these.” We have been given an open door to reach a whole nation for Christ, by assisting in the health care infrastructure development of the nation. Guinea is a land of dire medical need surrounded by the most impoverished nations in the world with health statistics that speak of unimaginable suffering.
Compassion Evangelical Hospital - Update
Compassion Evangelical Hospital – Giving the best medical and surgical care possible according to the means that God provides, with compassion, and to share the gospel of Christ clearly with everyone who comes.
On January 30, 2010 Autumn Ridge Church voted to fund the Surgical Building for Compassion Evangelical Hospital in Mamou, Guinea, West Africa. During the nine months since this vote the hospital staff have joyfully watched God bring life to that vision and step of faith.
In March the construction crew was busy forming bricks in preparation for the foundation and walls. Although disappointed by an interruption in the plan to send medical and construction teams out from the USA in the Spring, the work continued. God supplied a Guinean construction team and in May this construction team began in full force.
The foundation was laid in June and by July the completion of the outside walls brought excitement to the staff in Guinea as well as those watching the progress through pictures.
Dwight Slater and Ulli Jonen were able to spend a couple of weeks in Guinea in August and September bringing back encouraging news of staff unity and progress on the surgical building. They watched the roof go up during their stay and took part in the prayer walk with the staff throughout the property and buildings of CEH.
Plans are now coming together for the electrical and plumbing to be installed. With the structure of the building nearing completion, focus on equipping this building for use is at center stage. A surgical equipment and supply container is being put together for shipment shortly. Once the surgical and recovery rooms are equipped, the patients at CEH will have additional services available to them that the medical team is trained for and are ready to perform.
The full value and vision of the mission statement will be felt when surgical care is available. We continue to pray for the completion of this building and the patients that will receive additional medical care. And we praise God and thank the faithful servants at Autumn Ridge Church for the life giving gift of the Compassion Evangelical Hospital Surgical Building.
The NEED
Guinea has profound Spiritual needs
- 1% of the population of Guinea are evangelical Christians
- There are 41 tribal groups in Guinea
- The Malinke and the Puehl:
2 Ethnic groups in the north
70% of the Guinean population
99.999% Muslim. Most towns and villages have no known Christians.
Guinea has profound medical needs
- 1 in 10 children die by age 1
- 1 in 6 die by age 5
- 1 in 60 pregnancies end in maternal death
- Most people in rural areas have NO access to health care
Dr. Bob Stanhope gives us a brief tour of the new surgical wing just prior to performing the first surgery in the hospital. Compassion Evangelical Hospital (CEH) is one of our Bold Initiatives.