Religion

By PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

Leaving Liberia and bound for Benin, Africa, to the east, the $70 million hospital ship Africa Mercy sails today with new records set for services rendered, said Don Stephens, founder and president of Mercy Ships. Lessons learned during two 10-month "field services" of the 499-foot vessel in Monrovia, capital of the West African nation, will maximize the medical mission's effect in Benin in 2009, he said.

Mercy Ships will arrive in Benin after a six-week routine maintenance, and full of confidence.

"Benin's time has come," said Stephens on Tuesday at the Garden Valley headquarters of Mercy Ships. "We're arriving there at a time when the nation has qualified for Millennium funding, which means the United States and other nations will help build ports and develop an airport. I have no questions about the political stability of the nation. President Yayi Boni was educated in Europe and worked in the banking and financial-planning industry. Benin has an independent judiciary and it's ideally located (for access) to surrounding nations."

The mission of the charity to provide free world-class medical services to the "forgotten poor" has been improved by its two 10-month terms of service in Liberia, Stephens said.

"We provide sustainable, durable development through preventative training and curative medical procedures, and we're improving on that daily," he said. "When we arrived in Liberia, there were four dentists for a population for 4 million people. We started a training school to address the ongoing needs. We helped restore the (war-ravaged) John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia, the country's major hospital, to a working facility. When we sail, they will have two full wings of 120 hospital beds and a fully renovated surgical operating theater on the top floor from what was just a building full of bullet holes and ruined."

The scars of war were attended to, he said.

"We've completely addressed the medical backlog from Liberia's 15-year civil war," said Stephens. "It's been 100-percent addressed. Through the partnering efforts of Mercy Ships teams and board members, we trained 123 biomedical engineers and trained and certified every anesthesiologist in the nation.

"Water and sanitation projects ashore we facilitated helped cut down communicable and killing diseases. We've been teaching primary health care, neonatal, ante-natal and training the trainers. HIV education and prevention programs are all an important part of what we do," he said.

From lessons learned in Liberia, Mercy Ship will cut back its level -- not its quality -- of involvement, said Stephens. Every project in Benin that Mercy Ships undertakes in 2009 has been devised with an "exit" strategy.

"We're stopping the land-based hospitals and clinics work where we have an ongoing responsibility," said Stephens. "We don't want to own them. We do look for other NGOs in-country and internationally to partner with. Our specialty is operating a hospital ship."

That's not to say service will be stopped.

"We have a very strong work ethic at Mercy Ships," he said. "Yes, we've had to make cuts, but what we want to say with this -- the ship sails on. Our cuts will not affect the service of the ship."

Put another way, Stephens said, "Where we work in Africa, (people) have no Washington to go to for a bailout. We become their great hope. And Jesus told us to remember the poor. He calls us as believers to focus on the poor. That's how we worship Jesus, by doing what he did, when he was here."

ALL SMILES: Founder of Mercy Ships Don Stephens, left, indicates he is pleased with the performance of the Africa Mercy after 20 months docked in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa. The hospital ship leaves today for Benin, east of Liberia, around the horn of Africa. The ship will undergo routine maintenance before reaching Benin in January.
(Staff Photo By Tom Turner)