This newsletter is very different from our usual monthly mailouts in which we only report testimonies from our mission trips. We’ll tell you up from that this letter is an appeal for your financial support for a special project that Teach All Nations has underway in the nation of Liberia. We have been building a hospital in the remote village of Quessemba which is miles away from the nearest clinic over very rough roads which are impassable during the rainy season and torturous during the rest of the year.
Today, we invite you to visit Liberia with us and meet some of the roughly twenty-five hundred people who desperately need a clinic in their community. Ma Tukor says that her brother died last year while being rushed on a motorbike to the distant hospital. Saah Wenda was treated for a stoke in the hospital in Voinjama but finds it a physical and financial challenge to make regular trips there for checkups and medications. She says that other villagers have turned to witchdoctors rather than making trips to the hospital. Sobondo Kpana Kollie is a widow after her husband fell from a palm tree (one of the main sources of income in the village is palm oil) and there was no emergency transportation to get him to the hospital. Mary and Dawolo Korha have lost two babies because there was no nearby medical facility – one with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and the other while being rushed on a motorbike to the hospital after developing complications. Mamai Momolu I sought herbalist/witchdoctor treatment but it did not help. Now, I get myself monitored and treatment at the hospital. The costs of doing so in Voinjama is burdensome. Ma Sangay – in her early 90s – and other elderly villagers – including one lady who is reportedly 121 years old – are simply too frail to make the journey to the hospital when they need treatment.
After sending an assessor to Liberia to visit the clinic, Project C.U.R.E. has pledged to totally equip the facility with a full shipping container of materials valued at nearly half a million dollars. We need to raise about thirteen thousand dollars more to get the container to Liberia and about ten thousand dollars more to put the finishing touches on the building. Since the rainy season is just beginning, we are trying to finalize the funding for the clinic this month so the container can be shipped in time to arrive when the roads are passable.
Will you make a special offering this month – perhaps the equivalent of your last doctor’s bill – to help us complete this project. Please mark you check “Liberia” if you use the enclosed envelope. If you wish to donate through our website (www.teachallnationsmission.com),
Thank you so much for your prayerful consideration.
Click Here to Read Testimonies
Madam Tukor B. Jallah
My Testimony:
My name is Ma Tukor, I am a citizen of Quessemba and I have lived in Quessemba all my life, except when I had to flee to neighboring Guinea to seek refuge during the era of our civil war. I am one of the elderly women of Quessemba and also one of the elders of the Quessemba Free Pentecostal Church. About 4 days ago, one of my children brought me from Quessemba to Voinjama so that I can get urgent medical care, because I’ve been sick for a while. I am still in Voinjama and getting treatment, as this photo that was just taken at the hospital shows. After getting some blood works done at Tellewoyan Hospital, I got diagnosed with typhoid, malaria, low blood pressure, and infection. Had our clinic been completed and open, I, like others of our village, would have been tested and treated right in the village for these conditions rather than being brought way to Voinjama, which costs us even more money. The clinic in Quessemba will be a great relief and lifesaver for us and all our surrounding neighbors. I can sincerely say that we have lost so many lives, including pregnant women having either miscarriages or stillbirths, due to the difficulty in accessing healthcare services when needed in a timely manner. I lost my own brother, Nenon Bawah, last year after suddenly falling off and he passed before being rushed to Voinjama on a bike to get medical attention.
Mr. Saah Wenda
My Testimony:
My name is Mr. Saah Wenda. I am a former Town Chief of Quessemba who served for years. By profession, I am a Professional Carpenter. I was the lead carpenter of the Quessemba Clinic project, just as I was during the construction of our village school, until I was suddenly knocked down with a stroke sometime last year, which is a result of high pressure that I never knew I suffer from. I am gradually improving in getting both my right hand and right foot active again. But I regularly must come to Voinjama for continuous checkups and medications. As of the writing of this testimony, I am in Voinjama right now for treatment. It is an expensive process for me and my family. We all are hoping and looking forward to the Quessemba Community Clinic being completed and open to the public. The lack of health care facility in our place to adequately serve us is leading to either the increasing loss of lives or cause of people living with debilitating conditions. Though due to my old age I could no longer climb to roof a building, I have had young people as apprentices. Unfortunately, my condition now cannot allow me to be with them. In recent time, as an elder in the town, I have witnessed young ladies losing their pregnancies and others losing their lives. I can emphatically say that the lack of our clinic not be ready causes some of our village people to seek the attention of witchdoctors for treatments. I’m a witness. Even me, when my condition first started, my family took me to a witchdoctor before later turning to the hospital in Voinjama.
Mrs. Sobondo Kpana Kollie
My Testimony:
This is Mrs. Sobondo Kpana Kollie. Everyone calls her “Grandma” or “Oldma”. Her husband has since passed way back in the 1980s. He fell from a palm tree and there was no means to provide emergency medical care to him or even rush him to Voinjama. Back then there was no road at all and there was certainly no motorbike around, as we have today. By her own claim, supported by some family members, she is about 121 years old now but there is no document to support that. Grandma complains about everything but she cannot get the kind of medical attention that she really needs. Due to her old age it is very difficult to commute with her to Voinjama, especially using motorbike. Sometimes, I’m told, she would turn to herbalists for poor health conditions she may experience. If that doesn’t work, as usual, then from time to time, her children and grandchildren would either get a nurse to check her and give prescriptions or they go to Voinjama, get to a pharmacy, explain her condition, and then get some over-the-counter medications or some ”special prescriptions” for her. The last time I (James Korha) interacted with her, she was complaining of pain in her joints and bones, particularly her legs, and having difficulties walking. She’s in a debilitative state. In the photo above, I’m giving her a solar flashlight that was given to me by a friend (now deceased) to distribute on the village dwellers that most needed it. It was only 25 pieces of those, so I targeted the elderly, pastors, school teachers, and health workers.
Mary and Husband Dawolo Korha
Testimony
I am Mary Korha and my husband is Dawolo Korha. Sadly, in 2022 we lost our baby in stillbirth in the village, as the result of the umbilical cord that was wrapped around his neck. In 2023, similar thing happened to us again but, this time around, the baby came through and lived for about a little over a week, after much labor struggles. Strangely, from the time the baby was born up to the time we lost him, he neither cried nor made any verbal sounds. By the time he took sick and we tried rushing him on bike to the hospital in Voinjama, he passed while on our way and he was declared dead on arrival when we got to the hospital. We’re a very young couple, and how we wish those unfortunate events never happened to us. If the clinic in Quessemba was ready to serve us, most likely, we wouldn’t have lost any of our babies. As Christians, our hope and trust is only in the Lord. We can get prayer at the church and if a real medical facility is available to us we would access it, but we will not visit a witchdoctor or herbalist. Apart from us, other couples, like us, in the village also experienced similar fate – they lost their babies or pregnancies, respectively.
Mrs. Mamai Momolu
Testimony
My name is Mamai Momolu, a daughter also of Quessemba village. I have been diagnosed at the hospital in Voinjama with high pressure and there has been instances when I also fell off. I sought herbalist/witchdoctor treatment but it did not help. Now, I get myself monitored and treatment at the hospital, while adhering to all the advice from the Medical Doctor. The costs of doing so in Voinjama is burdensome, as compared to getting care in the village, if our clinic was finished and equipped to served. My husband is an Educator with the public school system, and we also engage into farming activities. Our wish is to have the clinic open in Quessemba to serve us and our close neighbors.
Mrs. Sangay Mary Korha
Testimony
This is Mother Sangay Korha, commonly called Ma Sangay. She’s in her early 90s. Her husband (my dad) has long passed away in March 1996 due to protracted illness. She is a devout Christian mother. In October 2022, we nearly lost her in Quessemba village. I was in the capital when I received a phone call that Ma Sangay was seriously sick, talking incoherently, unable to stand or sit, and gradually passing out. She was too weak and helpless to get her on a bike and transport her to a hospital in Voinjama. The people were perplexed. There was no health worker around to attend to her. Our village people were crying over her, seeing that she was dying. Upon receiving that news, I immediately contacted the nurse by phone in Voinjama to go and urgently attend to her while we found means to get her to the hospital in Voinjama. We contacted the Tellewoyan Hospital ambulance service in Voinjama about my mother’s condition, asking them to go and get her but they refused to do so. So, the nurse rushed there on a bike, checked her and realized that she had some high fever. He gave her some meds and put her on drips. It helped her to somewhat stabilize. As she stabilized, I also contacted a brother of mine in Voinjama to rush to the village with a vehicle and get our mother to the hospital. He did so and in a matter of hours, Ma Sangay was admitted to Tellewoyan Hospital. After getting some blood works done on her, she was diagnosed with severe malaria and began treatment right away. In short, my mother survived that near-death incident. She’s alive today. She complains much about pain in her legs, mainly in the bones and joints. We would have lost my mother to malaria, which can be cured or prevented, had we not taken the extraordinary steps to get her immediate medical attention. The clinic in Quessemba will make an immense difference and bring our people much needed relief. We need it to save lives, either by early prevention or by treating existing conditions. In this photo, she had just come from church service on a Sunday in the village.
Mother Janette Tukor
Testimony
Mother Janette is a devout mother in the Quessemba Free Pentecostal Church. Sometime last year, she was sick and prior to it being serious, she was taken on bike to the Free Pentecostal Hospital in Voinjama. After running some tests, she got diagnosed of hypertension and she was admitted in the hospital for a few days, as seen in this photo taken of her at the hospital sometime last year. She recovered and went back to the village. However, after some months, she fell sick again and this time family members decided to take her to Guinea to seek medical attention. Since then, she is still in Guinea, in the capital Conakry, where family members have advised her to stay and rest for some time.