Global Health Fellows 2019-2020
Kyra Sarazen and Logan Schulz, our new Global Health Fellows, have arrived in Haiti for their year of service at St. Joseph Clinic. They have been busy learning more about the Clinic and the programs they’ll be involved with and are getting to know Thomassique and its residents. They were welcomed to Haiti by this beautiful rainbow that appeared just as they were walking behind the Clinic grounds! We welcome Kyra and Logan and look forward to working with them in the coming year.
We thank our outgoing fellows, Anael Rizzo, Jason Piersaint and Ruth Dunn, for their service year at St. Joseph Clinic. We are grateful for all that they have done and the impact that they have made on the lives of the people served by the Clinic.
Aid to Liberia
Our volunteers helped to load a container of medical supplies and clothing being sent to Liberia in coordination with the Association of Bong Miners. The group is helping to restore the Bong Mine Hospital which is in Bong Mine County, Liberia. Many of the hospitals, schools, homes, and historic landmarks in these communities were severely damaged or destroyed during the Liberian Civil War in 1996.
ECHO
One of our community partners is an organization in Springfield, Virginia called ECHO-Ecumenical Community Helping Others. ECHO’s members are religious congregations in the Burke and Springfield areas of Fairfax County. Currently, 26 congregations appoint members to ECHO’s board and support its work with donations and the service of nearly 400 volunteers. Medical Missionaries is grateful to receive donations of medical supplies and clothing twice a month from ECHO. Our volunteers process the donations, and we distribute them as part of our Appalachia Project as well as our disaster and international aid efforts.
Boulou
We learned this month of the passing of a long-time friend of St. Joseph Clinic, Boulou, who lived in the village of Dahlegrand. Boulou was a great help in building the Clinic in 2006. He was highly respected as one of the best “trench diggers,” a skill that was important for burying the pipes that run from building to building on the Clinic campus. Boulou was always ready to pitch in and help the Clinic staff, especially when visiting medical teams arrived at the Clinic from the US.
