Operation Classroom/Operation Doctor takes on health care

Bob Coolman and Dr. Marke walk the new construction site.

      Bob Coolman traveled to Sierra Leone and Liberia in April and has gotten well acquainted with all facets of Operation Classroom/Operation Doctor.   Here is the first of several posts relating to this trip and the vision/reality of Operation Classroom today.   As Bob (one of our very own) prepares to take the helm of Operation Classroom, Valparaiso 1st will surely strenghten their ties to the work that has been going on in the area for 25 years. 

     A new Women’s and Children’s Unit is under construction at the Kissy UMC Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone – a  48 bed OB/GYN/PED facility that will enhance Kissy UMC’s mission to improve the health of children and women in this terribly poor West African Country.   The health statistics of the past are sure to change with the addition of this facility and improved medical services to the people of Sierra Leone.

      While the construction of this nearly $1,000,000 facility is being funded by grants from USAID and UMCOR, it simply would not have happened without all of the time, money, and effort expended by folks from Valparaiso 1st and a few other Indiana UM churches.   Bob and Carol Stoner have led numerous teams over the past several years and will be returning again in November 2012.  Team members   from our church/community worked side by side with  local workers to  make it possible to reallocate space which would allow for the construction of the unit.   Oh how lives have been changed because we've taken seriously Jesus' teachings.  Strangely while hoping to make a difference in the life of others, our lives get turned upside down.  Thank you God for these lessons in humility.