Baptist leaders in West Africa have called for prayer and are taking precautionary measures to protect their constituencies and communities from the Ebola outbreak that is affecting Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
The Baptist World Alliance sent an initial sum of $5,000 to Sierra Leone to assist in a public education campaign about the disease.
Samuel Conteh, coordinator of social ministries for the Baptist Convention of Sierra Leone, said a Baptist Ebola Task Force has been formed “to coordinate the sensitization of Ebola outbreak in its various churches and other public places” and that “churches are being gradually provided with sanitization plastic buckets with chlorine tablets.”
‘Better enlightened’
The education efforts have borne fruit, Conteh said. “The response is good. People have become better enlightened on the basic preventive measures against the disease.”
He indicated that church activities have been negatively affected by the outbreak. “Church attendances are dwindling. Baptist activities are being slowed down, particularly in [the] epicenters. The traditional embracing and handshake among members after church service have disappeared.”
The Liberia Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention (LBMEC) called “on our brothers and sisters with great urgency to pray for West Africa, especially Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.”
LBMEC declared, “We have encouraged our local Baptist churches, pastors and its leadership around Liberia through a massive electronic text messaging to commit to all the preventive practices that have been advanced by the health experts as well as the Government of Liberia on this deadly disease.”
At least one Liberian Baptist, a nurse, died after she attended to an infected patient who succumbed to the disease.
“We pause to remember the compassionate, committed service of Sister Alice M. Paasewe, who was on active duty as a nurse at the Phebe Referral Hospital in central Liberia,” LBMEC said. Paasewe, a Baptist church deacon, died shortly after her diagnosis. “Sister Paasewe was a vibrant member of her church and a strong leader in the Woman’s Missionary Union of our convention,” the LBMEC said.
(BWA)
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