FOCUS ON ... LIBERIA
JOhNNASON DAvID THE son of a Methodist father and Jehovah’s Witness mother, Johnnason David became spiritually confused and neglected the Church for many years. But since he took up an opportunity in 2006 to become a physician assistant for The Salvation Army he has renewed his vision to serve God, particularly through the medical work of the Liberia Command. While still training to qualify as a doctor, Johnnason works at his brother’s medical clinic, attends the Army’s static William Booth Clinic – located on the William Booth Compound in Paynesville – and supervises a clinic at the Army’s Len Millar School. He also travels with the Army’s medical mobile clinic twice a month on its day trips to two locations that would otherwise have no medical service. On top of all this, Johnnason attends command headquarters on a weekly basis to provide a drop-in surgery for officers and staff. The days spent with the mobile clinic are long and challenging. ‘We see around 100 patients each time we visit,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes the number has been 200 and we work into the night using the headlights of the jeep to make sure everyone is seen.’ The five staff on the team work non-stop, not only providing medicines and undertaking minor surgical procedures but also distributing food to pregnant women and those with young children. ‘A few weeks ago we were given a baby who was severely malnourished,’ says Johnnason. ‘The mother had died in childbirth and the baby was not being fed. So we arranged for some baby formula milk powder and other items to be taken to the family. The next time we went we were pleased to see that the baby was looking much more healthy.’ Why does he support the Army’s medical work in this way? ‘It’s the appreciation,’ he says. ‘One day I attended a woman giving birth, and she said “thanks a lot”. I see the appreciation of those we treat and I can see hope open in them.’
Right and below: Johnnason David and patients
Above: no walls necessary for this hall!
Booth Compound in Paynesville, has also become more financially viable. Outreach initiatives, particularly aimed at unchurched children in urban communities, are proving to be effective. Other project work has sought to target points of need at rural corps (churches) and outposts throughout the country. Here buildings – although in context with others within their communities – are frequently as primitive as one could imagine: mud walls, branch roof trusses and thatch roofs. Corrugated steel roof sheets are a luxury. And yet it is in these out-of-city locations that the future growth of the Army must be based if the initial momentum is to be maintained. In Monrovia – as in most of the cities – there seems to be a church on almost every corner; in the interior, rural communities are crying out for support and encouragement. But being appointed to remote locations is a challenge to newly commissioned officers. They can find themselves many hours from cities by inadequate road, accommodated in primitive, traditional buildings. There is often no cell-phone service and they are frequently having to cope without safe drinking water or toilet facilities. These pioneering officers are commonly the only ones in their congregation who receive a cash income. They may also be among the few in their congregations able to read or write. But it is to such communities that the Army needs to reach out – today and in the future. Liberia’s Salvation Army officers have a huge job ahead – to teach, to train and to enable. For unless the church can make a practical as well as a spiritual difference in the lives of people in Liberia the world could all-too-soon again be seeing evidence within this fragile nation of man’s ability to wreak incalculable misery and injustice on his fellow countrymen. Major Charles Swansbury is General Secretary of The Salvation Army’s Liberia Command
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