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Life Church supports both local and international missions.  In addition Life has played a role in sending several people in to the mission field as full time missionaries.  Below are some of the individuals and organizations we partner with around the world.

Missionaries from Life Church:

Organizations and missionaries we support and work with:

Below we will post an update from one of our missionaries to give you an idea of the work and impact they are having.  Here is a recent update from Dr. Jessican Ankney.  To read more and see Gilbert's picture go here.

It’s 5AM.  I’ve been awake since 3, with sleep eluding me for the 2ndnight in a row.  I have finally given in and decided to get out of bed and do something productive since I don’t think I will be able to fall back asleep.  The children at the hospital are on my mind, so let me tell you about one of them.

Gilbert–3 years old, weighing in at 6.2 kg (13.6 pounds).  When I admitted him to the hospital a few weeks ago, I couldn’t believe how thin and skeletal he was.  I was so angry that anyone would let him get that way.  Over the next a couple of days, his story unfolded (at least the story as told by the father and paternal grandmother).  I never met Gilbert’s mother.

Apparently, Gilbert’s mother found out that she was HIV positive during her pregnancy with Gilbert.  She was presumably too afraid or ashamed to tell anyone, so she did not get HIV treatment for herself or HIV preventative medicine for her child.  She and Gilbert’s father were no longer together, as is the case far too often here.  She had been raising Gilbert, until a couple of weeks before he arrived at the hospital.  She dropped this thin, weak, sick boy off at the road that leads to the compound where the father lives.  Someone recognized the child and brought him to the father.  The mother “fled” to  Congo, which is really only a few kilometers away.  Maybe the mother was starting to get really sick herself with untreated HIV; maybe she didn’t know what else to do to help her child and was ashamed that the child was so sick; or maybe there was a new man in her life, and Gilbert was an inconvenience.

Mostly, it was Gilbert’s grandmother who stayed in the hospital and cared for Gilbert these past few weeks.  He was so weak.  I never saw him walk or even stand.  He had spunk, though.  He was quite stubborn about taking the F100 (UNICEF formula for treating malnutrition) and the many pills for his various illnesses, including HIV.  At least after the first week in the hospital (and me giving him candy everyday) he stopped crying at the mere sight of me.  He would feistily snatch the piece of candy out of my hand each day.  I gave him a matchbox car as a little gift, which is pretty measly compensation for needing to spend a few weeks in the hospital, being horribly sick, and recently abandoned by his mother.  I saw him hold the car, but he was always too weak and sick to actually play with it.

His chronic diarrhea resolved, but his fever and cough failed to respond to our best antibiotics.  He also wasn’t gaining much weight.  We made a presumptive diagnosis of TB (tuberculosis) and got him started on TB medication. We don’t actually have a good way to test for TB here.  We don’t have any PPD serum for doing a TB skin test.  Gilbert wasn’t coughing up any sputum, so we couldn’t look for TB bacteria in sputum, and the closest functioning X-ray machine is a 3 hour drive away.

I saw Gilbert on Christmas day.  Though I didn’t round at the hospital that day, I just went for a little while to pass out Christmas gifts on the pediatric ward–rice, beans, and small toys.  Gilbert readily grabbed the yellow foam smiley face ball out of my hand.  The nurse at the hospital called me early the following morning to tell me that Gilbert had just died.

His death was not surprising, as his illness was so advanced.  However, I was still hoping that the HIV and TB medicines would “kick in,” and that Gilbert would at least get a chance at a healthier life.  Instead, he was released from the shackles of pain and illness in this life and transferred from the arms of his earthly father, whom he barely knew, into the loving arms of his Heavenly Father, Who knit little Gilbert together in his mother’s womb, and Who will love him perfectly for all eternity.