I rode my bicycle through Makeni town to visit a family which has three children that Africa Surgery is helping with schooling, thanks to three different sponsors. The family lacks the support of a man, and the mother tries to raise her girls through her efforts as a baker and market seller. Her youngest daughter, Beatrice, age six, is deaf. Arriving at the house I was offered a chair. Once seated, I was informed that the mother, Maferie, was at the Holy Spirit Hospital, where I had just been working all day, and that she was there caring for one of her daughters, Aminata, who had undergone an emergency appendectomy about one week before.
Every year I provide the hospital with a list of Africa Surgery-sponsored students, who are to be treated at our expense, should they arrive at the hospital in need of help. I was very pleased to see that the plan is working well, as it did in this case.
Tom Johnson
Dec. 1, 2013