In Loving Memory

I hesitated to write about this lady. But she was wonderful--and her story, what little I know of it, deserves to be made known. Her name was Mariama, she had a gorgeous smile and loved others. One day, about a month ago now, Carrie and I were walking back to our housing compound from spending some time in the Lunsar market (buying some vegetables, cloth, and cooked eggs), when we heard our names being called. We looked to the left and saw our friend Mariama, one of our national workers, sitting on the porch. She invited us over and introduced us to her small children who were busy playing with their cousins. The one was about six years old and the other about six months old. We talked to Mariama for a little while then continued on our walk.

The same day I began to get sick, Mariama was also sick. Her story and mine are similiar yet have drastically different outcomes. We both started to feel ill and we reported it. We both sought treatment. Right now, in Sierra Leone, we initially test you for malaria and Ebola. Mariama and I tested negative for both. But Mariama continued to worsen...and we began to suspect something else, something almost as sinister as Ebola and far more common to West Africa. Mariama was tested for Lassa Fever, which is a hemorrhagic (bleeding) fever that is often fatal. The difference between it and Ebola, however, is there is a drug we can use to treat it--as long as it is caught in time and you are in a place where the drug is on hand. We sent Mariama to Kenema, one of the few places in the country that currently has the capability to treat Lassa Fever. She responded to treatment and began to improve. But then Sunday, two days after I was released from Kerrytown, we received the news you never want to hear. Although Mariama had initially shown signs of improvement; she was gone. Her six-year-old and six-month-old had lost their mother. Is their father in the picture? I don't know. It isn't atypical for the father to be completely absent. Carrie and I did not meet him the day we met Mariama's sweet children.

Pray for those tiny babes, friends. Pray for the children who are losing their parents to Ebola and Lassa Fever. There are so many more orphans now in West Africa. Please, do not forget them.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27