Ebola, Empathy, and Equipping

Tonight (August 4, 2014) the lead story on NBC World News was about how the deadly Ebola virus is sweeping through much of West Africa. At the present time, there is no cure for it. The primary focus was on Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician volunteering in Liberia with an excellent Christian organization called Samaritan’s Purse. He got Ebola while helping patients. Mrs. Nancy Writbol is another American volunteer, serving with a top-rated Christian group called SIM, who got it there. He was evacuated from Liberia to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on a special jet that arrived today for the best possible treatment, and she will be following him there soon.

The news story showed how Dr. Brantly’s church people are praying for him and other Ebola victims. I consider prayer as being empathy taken to the next level and offer my prayers along with many other people.

As you read this blog, you may wonder why I put the word equipping after Ebola and empathy. The answer goes to the purpose of my website: to gather and disseminate information to help in the most materially impoverished places on the planet.

Unlike Dr. Brantly, I have no medical expertise. However, I can try to help people who do (or do not) by providing material about finding ways to volunteer medical and non-medical skills, find medical supplies, and various other subjects on my website. Perhaps you could call that a form of equipping. Hopefully you could be an equipper in some manner — including time and finances. At least, you can get information and pray.

Let’s all pray for the people who have Ebola — as well as many other challenges across the world and right outside our doors.