Welcoming faces. Photo: Katherine Niles

Katherine Niles recently visited Bulape, a Presbyterian mission station with a hospital in the epidemic area, while en route to the Presbyterian mission hospital in Luebo. On behalf of Interchurch Medical Assistance World Health (IMAWH), Niles is helping to coordinate logistic support for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) team that is setting up a diagnostic laboratory for the Ebola epidemic at the Presbyterian mission hospital in Luebo.

There is a popular expression in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that says, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."   In the Kasai, around the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic, this still rings too true.  

I accompanied the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flight yesterday to Bulape, an isolated Presbyterian mission station in the heart of the DRC. We carried a load of personal protection suits, soap, bleach and other supplies for the hospital staff there to cope with a potentially large number of Ebola patients. 

In some ways, it felt like a part of the world that time forgot. Our landing on the little-used grass airstrip startled a group of sheep grazing placidly.  Instead of darting right or left as our pilot Garth Pederson brought the plane to a stop, they ran in terror ahead of the plane.  Predictably, hundreds of enthusiastic, chattering and curious children scampered from everywhere to press in around us, eager for a hello and a handshake, but a couple men with bamboo poles kept them at bay so they couldn't and wouldn't touch us. 

There were changes. The smiles of the children and their chants of “mundele” held warm familiarity, but the warm, hardy handshake greeting so characteristic of the hospitable spirit of the people of DRC is now avoided in this area where people are rubbing shoulders with Ebola.  Instead, folks offer symbols of greetings: a nod, a bent elbow, a bow — poignant reminders of the changes imposed by recent events.  

Katherine and the doctors in Bulape

Dr. Joseph, medical director of the Bulape health zone, and Dr. Patrick, medical director of the Bulape hospital, came on foot to greet us and receive the freight.  In addition to the delivery of supplies, my mission was to cast a glance at the house that serves the Bulape hospital and church as a guesthouse.  While Garth unloaded our cargo for transport to the hospital, Dr. Joseph and Dr. Patrick accompanied me to the guesthouse.  In the path, local government and territory officials waylaid us to greet me (with a nod), to inquire about my mission and to press me for promises of benefits for them personally. Some things stay exactly the same.

Further down the path, we passed a two-room cement block house with a clutch of people seated in the sparse shade provided by the overhanging tin roof.  Dr. Joseph slowed our pace, noting that we should first greet these people.  It would help them.  We offered a bow. 

Mr. Kwete's family. Photo: Katherine Niles

The expressionless eyes of the two women gripped me, and I choked on my greeting.  These were Mabinghi and Mayinda, the widows of Mr. Kwete, a man who died of Ebola at the Bulape Hospital five days ago, along with Mayinda's son and Mr. Kwete’s kid brother. All had intimate contact with Mr. Kwete during his illness. They've been brought to Bulape from their village 12 miles away, and this house has been prepared for them to wait. 

To wait for what?  They have no symptoms of illness yet, but the course of the Ebola virus infection is well documented and unforgiving.  Almost 80 percent of people who get Ebola die.  So these women are waiting, and Mayinda's small son squirms in her lap.  Dr. Joseph introduced me to the hospital chaplain who is standing there and who visits this home regularly. Both assure the women of the prayers of many. I can't dismiss a deep feeling of despair.  While things change, much remains the same.

Fortunately, Bulape is one of the health zones covered by the Interchurch Medical Assistance and the Protestant Church of Congo (IMA/ECC) AXxes Health Project. Project AXxes is a three-year program designed to deliver basic medical services in the eastern areas of the Congo.  In their isolation, Mabinghi, Mayinda and other Bulape residents will need the extra help that Project AXxes will provide as they are being visited by Ebola. Maybe more help will be needed, and that’s why we walked through the guesthouse to size up its potential.

The time we could spend on the ground in Bulape passed quickly. The encouragement and hope brought, even by a bowed greeting and a shipment of needed supplies, is real. The gratitude expressed by those in the thick of the situation is heart-felt and genuine.  As Doctors Joseph and Patrick walked me back to the airstrip, Dr. Joseph gestured widely in the direction of the hospital and said, "To face all this, we also need grace."  We said goodbye, and I looked down over Bulape as we circled out. 

Grace, freely given, freely received — not subject to MAF plane weight limitations, but dispensed by a Heavenly Father who watched His only Son die, because He so loved the world. Grace, available in overwhelming measure to those who ask for it.  Mayinda, her child, Dr. Joseph and the faithful at Bulape need grace. Although in an isolated corner of DRC, they are not beyond its reach.